Reuters recruits 100 journalists

Reuters, the international news and financial information company, is in the process of hiring 100 journalists after three years of cost cutting and reorganisation.

While the new hirings will boost the ranks of Reuters journalists to 2,400 - who operate in 196 news bureaux in about 130 countries - this is still short of the 2,500 journalists who worked for Reuters in 2000.

"At a time when other media organisations shrink, we are expanding our global reach," said David Schlesinger, the global managing editor and head of editorial operations.

"First, we had to right our ship. Now the ship is righted, we can look to new markets."

The company is hiring 21 political and general news journalists across the world and 12 new editors for its global picture desk, which is now run from Singapore following a reorganisation.

Reuters is also hiring special journalists to write about religion, terrorism, health and entertainment.

The company, founded by Paul Julius Reuter in London in 1851 to transmit stock market data from London to Paris, is also expanding its presence in several US cities, including Cincinnati.

To cover its financial services business, the company will recruit business journalists to report on the US treasury, equities, commodities and the energy industry.

Additional journalists are being hired to cover China and India.

"This really is the China century," Mr Schlesinger said. "We will now have 160 to 170 journalists in greater China. When I was Beijing bureau chief in 1990s, we had four people in Beijing, four people in Hong Kong and three people in Taiwan."

The new staff will work across Reuters' operations, including its news wire service, new media activities and its financial services operations, which generate the bulk of its revenues.

In recent years, the company has expanded its online operations to make its stories more widely available to the general public in addition to Reuters' traditional clients - newspapers and other media groups.

The company is also expanding its coverage of sport, with three sport writers in the US and a sports writer in Beijing, as well as a sports editor in Singapore in preparation for the Beijing 2008 Olympics.

Reuters has made extensive preparations to cover the World Cup next month.

The company will have 56 photographers in place for the tournament, plus 11 from Action Images, the London-based sports picture agency Reuters bought in September.

Forty journalists writing in four languages, 10 video staff and Reuters' German bureaux will cover the sporting event.

Reuters has extensively reorganised its picture operations in time for the World Cup.

"Five minutes after the action has happened on the field, we will have the picture on our website for our clients," said Monique Villa, the managing director of Reuters Media, the division that covers picture operations and news wires.

Last month, Reuters released a first-quarter revenue statement that showed a 13% increase in turnover to £633m. Revenues rose by 4% (if currency fluctuations, disposals and acquisitions are excluded) beating analysts' forecasts of a 2.5% increase in organic turnover.

Ms Villa said Reuters Media's growth was approaching double digits this year.

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