Thomson Reuters Fires 140 Journalists

News and information company Thomson Reuters has confirmed that it is cutting 140 journalist jobs by the end of the year.

Thomson Reuters Fires 140 Journalists - Photo

In an internal email to staff, the editor-in-chief of Reuters News, David Schlesinger, said having looked into areas of “natural overlap and duplication in coverage” between Thomson and Reuters the newly merged company had decided more than half of the cuts would be in Europe.

“After looking at both the unique content that each news operation produces as well as news that is duplicated, I believe that the combined size of the new Reuters News at the end of the year should be around 2,500 – significantly more than the 2,380 the old Reuters editorial ended 2007 with,” he told staff in the memo, seen by MediaGuardian.co.uk.

“Unfortunately, the overlap we’ve found and our need to run the operation efficiently means that we will have to eliminate around 140 jobs worldwide by the end of the year,” he added.

“More than half the cuts will occur in Europe, the area of most duplication; the rest will be scattered. Thomson Financial News will be totally absorbed into Reuters News by end of 2008, and sooner if possible.

Mergers are usually bad business for employees, heads usually roll.

source: Thomson Reuters axes 140 journalist jobs [guardian uk]

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