Reuters To Cut Jobs Despite Budget Increase

The news agency’s budget will go up 1%, but that’s not enough to prevent some job losses.

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More layoffs are coming to Reuters, editor in chief Steve Adler said in a memo to staff today.

Adler said that the news organization's budget would be 1% larger in 2015, "It's not big enough, however, both to cover inflation and to fund the growth initiatives that are vital to our future success," Adler said.

Adler said that the tight budget will mean further reorganization of the newsroom. "Staff members in areas that we are reducing will find opportunities in services that we are launching or expanding," Adler said. "In some other instances, though, the moves will result in job cuts, a course of action that I know will be extremely difficult for those involved."

The memo did not specify the number of positions that will be eliminated. A Reuters spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

There will be a shift from Reuters Insider, which produces videos on finance and markets, to Reuters TV, a new mobile video service that will be launched next year. Reuters will also reduce staff in chatrooms that it had set up for financial industry professionals that were moderated by Reuters staff.

The third shift will be in reducing the number of regular opinion columns run in the online Reuters Opinion operation, Adler said, citing the lower traffic these pieces get. "We are most effective when we pair breaking news coverage with smart commentary on the same topic by someone with particular expertise or a provocative perspective," Adler said in the memo. "We are shifting resources from a fixed set of columns to news-pegged commentaries from a broad array of outside experts."

The Reuters Opinion operation was one of the signature efforts of Chrystia Freeland, who ran Reuters Digital before suddenly resigning in July of last year to run for parliament in Canada. By deemphasizing the columnists, Reuters' online operations are moving further away from Freeland's vision, which was never fully implemented.

Reuters' parent company, Thomson Reuters, said at the end of last month in its quarterly earnings release that the news division's revenues were $79 million, down 3% from the year before.

"It is always difficult to part with valued colleagues, and I wish all the best to those who will be leaving as a result of these moves," Adler wrote.

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