No sooner was the ink dry on the last Brussels media moves piece than the merry-go-round started again. So it’s time for a mini update.
Just as Javier Espinoza, fresh from the Financial Times, was taking up his bold new role as Europe executive editor at The Capitol Forum, across at MLex senior correspondent Natalie McNelis was handing in her notice to become Brussels bureau chief at rival antitrust outfit PaRR from March 3.
In a sign of the ferocity of the competition for competition reporters, The Capitol Forum will lose senior editor Jacob Parry to POLITICO which recently lost Edith Hancock to Dow Jones. Ellen O’Regan has made the jump from the Brussels Times, a fresh source of talent, to POLITICO to cover data protection and privacy.
Euronews financial services correspondent Jack Schickler was unable to resist the temptation of a brand-new role at Contexte to set up the French outlet’s anglophone service. In an interesting move, Italian digital publisher Citynews has launched BruxellesToday, a French-language local news service. And we have yet to see whether Semafor still plans to venture into the Brussels market with a regular newsletter.
Euractiv has just signed on Claudie Moreau as tech correspondent from a consultancy role at Hanover Communications. She joins Anupriya Datta, Jacob Wulff Wold and acting tech editor Chris Powers, all also recent recruits to journalism.
The battle for talent is not just confined to Brussels. Senior UK correspondent Jakub Krupa at MLex has joined The Guardian as Europe live blogger. Stefano Porciello is leaving MLex in Brussels to cover energy for Euractiv in Paris. And Melissa Heikkilä, former POLITICO tech correspondent in Brussels, has left MIT Technology Review to join the FT as AI correspondent in London on January 27
Where will all this job-hopping end? Do these new entrants mean readers and journalists will be the richer? Only time will tell.
Victoria Main, Chief Business Dvpt Officer & Media Strategist