Capital Newyork reporting:
A magazine for the haves, and the have-lots.
Now the 160-year-old news agency is putting out a magazine of its own where it can showcase this growing collection of print refugees.
The debut issue of Reuters, a slick and stocky standalone title with a cover that looks a bit like it could share shelf space with a hip comic novel, landed on our desk Wednesday afternoon.
A more official unveiling will be rolled out later this month in Davos, Switzerland, when the World Economic Forum meets there. (The forum also provides the magazine its organizing theme.)
Reuters is not alone in shaking up its old-school wire-service mien. In addition to acquiring Businessweek in late 2009, Bloomberg has broadened its bench by building up a massive opinion operation. And even the staid Associated Press is making moves to distinguish itself; managing editor Mike Oreskes recently informed writers that the the A.P. is "going to be pushing hard on journalism with voice, with context, with more interpretation."
But Reuters has gone farther than both in its quest for broader consumer appeal. (It even has a Tumblr!)
The magazine is the latest example of this transformation.
At 64 pages, Reuters
has all the meat of a mainstream news magazine and none of the filler.
(There are no ads, unless you count a few stray promotional placements
for the company itself, which merged with Canadian information-services
giant The Thomson Corporation in 2008.) The artistic side was helmed by
veteran design duo Robert Priest and Grace Lee, both of whom had a hand
in Condé Nast's ill-fated business title, Portfolio —once employer to at least four Reuters contributors (including Impoco himself), by our count.
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