Pros
A truly global company with excellent journalists, many of whom are truly authorities on the subjects they cover. The quality of the news is very high, but not complacent - the organisation has the self-awareness to be healthily self-critical. The journalists are very committed, simply because most of them could earn more elsewhere. So if they don't like it, they quit. Top management is generally open to innovative ideas about how to improve things, although bureaucracy can stifle efforts for change, just like anywhere. The culture is open and accepting of diversity. Mistakes tend to be dealt with in a sensible way: acknowledged and investigated enough to avoid repetition, but only punished if they are disastrous, repeated and stupid, or go against the code of conduct. The recent takeover of Reuters by Thomson has opened up huge opportunities for the business, but also for employees, since we now have a much wider range of job opportunities. It is also giving an fresh impetus to reform of the company, including a much-needed revamp of our products and our editorial systems and a clearing of the cobwebs elsewhere. There are also opportunities to live and work in places that other companies have hardly even heard of.
Cons
The products and salary packages are widely believed to be inferior to those of our main competitor, Bloomberg (although the seemingly rigid, dictatorial and New York-centred management style there holds little attraction for most of us). The legacy of the past mistakes at Reuters left CEO Tom Glocer with little choice but to cut costs. He rose to the challenge and wowed Wall Street with his ability to hack the flab. But the pressure on editorial budgets is still cruelly tight, while many of our colleagues on the sales side (and in management) seem to jet around the world unaware of any squeeze. And Glocer continues, in his new role as the boss of the merged entity, to splurge massive amounts of money on share buybacks. Meanwhile my desk phone works so badly that I am constantly having to pretend that it's a bad line and ask people to repeat themselves. In fact our technology is generally dreadful. Phones, computers, antiquated editorial systems, internal communications... We've been promised a revamp... right now it's just embarrassing.
