Romenesko Misc.
The Financial Times has been hiring the Wall Street Journal’s Americans, and the WSJ has been hiring the FT’s Europeans. First, the FT hired Peter Spiegel away from the WSJ’s DC bureau. Then the Journal hired (fifth item) Jean Eaglesham from the FT’s NY bureau. FT replaced Eaglesham with Kara Scannell, from the WSJ’s DC bureau. And, most recently, Francesco Guerrera was poached by the WSJ from the FT’s NY bureau. FT editor Lionel Barber‘s memo is after the jump.
From: [FT Editor] Lionel Barber
To:
Date: 12/06/2011 16:04
Subject: Editorial update
Themes of the Week: Greek default fears mount; Opec meeting breaks up in discord; Cameron stages tactical retreat on NHS reform; BMW and Nissan invest millions in a resurgent British car industry; and a tweeting New York Congressman is caught with his pants down.
Prize watch: We had an excellent showing at the Society of Publishers in Asia Awards. David Pilling and Geoff Dyer won for their trenchant columns on the internal and external challenges facing China. FT Chinese also won in the opinion category. James Fontanella-Khan and Joe Leahy won an honourable mention for their ground-breaking multimedia project, “Mumbai: Living the Dream”. Star of the evening was Amy Kazmin, our Delhi correspondent. She came away with three of the FT’s six prizes for her reporting, more than anybody else in the room. Congrats all round. Our showing reinforces the FT’s editorial lead in Asia.
War for talent watch: Our print and online rivals are hiring (and poaching), particularly in the commentary category and in the US market. Increasingly, our competition is coming as much from Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the British press. Media convergence on multiple platforms means we have to work even harder to distinguish FT content through the highest quality and relevance.
Competition watch 2: Everyone should read media coverage of the FT’s new web application and the subsequent statement by Apple. While the matter remains open to negotiation, our decision to launch a web-based version of our mobile app underlines our position as a pioneering publisher determined to protect our intellectual property and our relationship with our customers.
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