Briefing Notes: Reuters

Speaker

Mark Bendeich, Global Managing Editor, Politics, Economics and World News

Mark.bendeich@thomsonreuters.com

Key contacts

Regional editors

Europe – Rachel Armstrong Rachel.Armstrong@thomsonreuters.com
Middle East & North Africa – Samia Nakhoul samia.nakhoul@thomsonreuters.com
Sub-Saharan Africa – Alex Zavis Alexandra.Zavis@thomsonreuters.com
East Asia – Kim So Young soyoung.kim@thomsonreuters.com
South Asia – Sanjeev Miglani sanjeev.miglani@thomsonreuters.com
USA/Canada – Kieran Murray kieran.murray@thomsonreuters.com
LatAm – Christian Plumb Christian.Plumb@thomsonreuters.com

Others

Global video editor tom.platt@thomsonreuters.com

Data editor janet.roberts@thomsonreuters.com

Investigations editor mike.williams@thomsonreuters.com

Climate change editor katy.daigle@thomsonreuters.com

There are also editors covering transport, energy, markets, greenwashing

Overview

Mark gave us an overview of Reuters. There are three separate arms to the business although much overlap between them:

• Breaking news
• Financial news
• TV/video

Although the organisation is best known for its breaking news, the financial news part of the business generates half the income. It is the biggest news organisation in the world with a staff of 2,200 reporters and many stringers. In some countries there will be a well staffed bureau; in others just a stringer.

They cannot cover every event in the world so they have some priority areas:

• Climate change
• US democracy
• US-China relations
• Russia/Ukraine

Breaking news

Their aim is to be first with the news so speed is very important – and accuracy. They will never sacrifice accuracy for speed. They pride themselves on their reputation for being fast and trustworthy.

Mark is one of the two people running the newsgathering operation. He talks regularly to the regional editors – they should be the first port of call for us when pitching story ideas or responding to events.

Alternatively, if you know a reporter, pitch to him/her. There is no central news desk or forward planning desk. Everything is managed from the regional hubs. They have two major strategic centres in Bangalore and Gdansk where they are following a range of sources – social media, company statements etc to spot breaking stories ahead of anyone else.

They supply breaking news to all their clients – agency media, broadcasters, newspapers, online organisations. Clients can see what Reuters are filing on a story in real time. Because of their commitment to impartiality they do not run opinion pieces nor do they allow their journalists to voice opinions on social media.

Financial news

This is not just business or stock market news – it’s any news that may be relevant to the finance sector. If there is a bomb in Istanbul they want to know about it because it affects the prices of stocks and shares in that country. As soon as they get information from Reuters, they start trading on that, so 100% reliability is essential.

Video/TV

This side of the business is growing. At the moment, it is mainly raw footage of news events. But they will do cut stories too. Mark encouraged us to share exclusive video with Reuters, especially if we are somewhere that there are no journalists on the ground. There is major demand for video content from their clients.

Website

The Reuters.com site is growing and their goal is to build this up as a major news source. It will be behind a paywall so this will give them another revenue stream.

Investigative journalism

This is an important part of the business. They want to break stories that will have a major impact.

Pitching

Mark suggests pitching to the regional or subject editors. If you are planning to comment on an event coming up then let them know in advance and they can send a video team to record your contribution.

Mark values his relationship with NGOs and sees them as a valuable source of information, particularly in Africa and the Middle East.

If you are responding to an event – for example a cut to aid budgets – then they want to know the real world consequences rather than just a piece of rhetoric.

They are not keen on running stories on international days – these have now become devalued. If you pitch to an editor and don’t get a response or want advice then email Mark direct.

MG, 16.11.22