At the best of times, journalists tend to change jobs fairly regularly. But we’ve seen a jaw-dropping number of media moves in recent months.
This could be because there’s a new kid in town, or at least a revamped one. Euronews has appointed former PaRR editor and bureau chief Jeremy Fleming Jones as editor in chief to set up a multimedia service in Brussels.
So far, he is making inroads on rival media outlets and even consultancies. He has lured Jack Schickler as senior financial services reporter from Coindesk and before that MLex, Gerardo Fortuna from Euractiv to cover health and food, FTI Consulting’s Cynthia Kroet – an MLex and POLITICO alum – to take on tech, and Robert Hodgson from ENDS as senior energy and environment correspondent, supported by Marta Pacheco from ZN and previously Parliament Magazine. Euronews has yet to announce its competition correspondent and is looking for a junior technology reporter.
But nearly a decade since its launch in Brussels, the POLITICO Europe juggernaut led by editor in chief Jamil Anderlini, the Financial Times’ former Asia editor and my compatriot, is seemingly unstoppable. Already dominating Brussels, it is big in London, growing in Paris and now present in Germany.
POLITICO Europe just hired Kathryn Carlson and Koen Verhelst from MLex in the Brussels finance and trade beats respectively. It has, however, lost financial correspondent Paolo Tamma to the Financial Times and trade reporter Sarah Anne Aarup to the European Commission as a policy officer. And a onetime POLITICO editor, Andrew Gray, is now European affairs editor at Reuters.
After two decades, Euractiv environment editor Frédéric Simon has moved to more specialist pastures in a senior role at Carbon Pulse, which has also hired Sara Stefanini, formerly of POLITICO Europe. Euractiv technology editor Luca Bertuzzi, who did such ace reporting on the Artificial Intelligence Act, is leaving for a so-far-undisclosed destination. Transport editor Sean Caroll Goulding is also moving on to become cities and buildings editor at Foresight Media, where former energy and environment colleague Kira Taylor is freelancing as a podcast editor.
Euractiv has struck back, hiring Thomas Moller-Nielsen from the Brussels Times as economics editor and Angelo di Mambo from ANSA as agrifood editor.
Jean Comte, formerly at Contexte, is now financial services correspondent at MLex, which will shortly unveil the name of its new technology hire.
Bloomberg’s Jillian Deutsch has gone to London to cover telecom and chip companies, leaving a gap which they’re looking to fill in Brussels.
Outside Brussels, but he’s such a legend that we just have to note that the Economist’s Berlin-based Ludwig Siegele has changed roles to become senior editor, AI initiatives.
To retain their talent, media outlets are also promoting their journalists. Joanna Sopinska is now chief trade correspondent at MLex, while Bjarke Smith-Meyer has become senior finance correspondent at POLITICO.
You can bet that this won’t be the end of the media musical chairs!
This article has been initially published on January 15 and updated on February 6.
Victoria Main, Chief Business Development Officer