January 29, 2008

Reuters and FT sign up exec newshounds at Davos forum

Reuters and the Financial Times have both recruited some of the delegates at the World Economic Forum in Davos to become mobile bloggers as part of their coverage of the event.

Tom Glocer, Reuters CEO, and Martin Sorrell, CEO of advertising firm WPP, are among those who have been given Nokia N82 phones by Reuters, which will allow them to upload text, photos and videos directly to reuters.com.

Reuters is also producing a daily, live television programme called Davos Today, aired in hotel rooms of delegates and online.

The programme was aired daily at 7am from Wednesday this week , and is designed to give the assembled CEOs, world leaders and media executives an alternative platform to address the conference, and set the agenda.

‘It’s interesting because the audience are some of the most influential people on the planet, and they’re our target audience,’said Mike Lawrence, Reuters’s global head of text, who is running the project.

Lawrence, previously a broadcast journalist, has nine journalists, a technical crew of 11, and a three-camera studio at his disposal for the show, which transmits via a hired outside broadcast van. The team will work with Reuters’ squad of reporters and analysts who are covering the event for the agency’s newswire and website.

Lawrence said the project was ‘unique’for an event of this kind, and had been given the sort of resources normally reserved for international sports events or national elections.

The Financial Times won sponsorship which is believed to be worth £250,000 for its coverage of Davos – via a deal with wind-power company Vestas.

The FT was planning to produce two 16-page special reports from Davos, and to broadcast video and audio coverage via the dedicated www.ft.com/davos channel.

The FT also recruited guest delegate bloggers including Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEO of Infosys; Stephen Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia; and Douglas Alexander, UK minister for international development.