The Business of News: Dancing With Whom Exactly?

[dewline]

I think we have a problem here with this deal.

I'm annoyed that I missed or forgot to notice the implications of it for the better part of a year. Because Thomson Reuters owns the Globe and Mail as well, I think I'm going to have to stop buying that newspaper, regardless of what I think of the people working there. Am I wrong to believe that a realistic prospect?

Comments

[jsburbidge]

My understanding is that TGAM is a subsidiary of the Woodbridge Company, which is entirely separate from Thomson Reuters. Back in the day (when I worked for part of the Thomson group which eventually became the Thomson part of Thomson Reuters) the Globe and Mail holdings by the family were separated very thoroughly from the rest of the Thomson family holdings and that seems to continue today. (I later worked for Reuters before the union of the two companies.)

Thomson Reuters is a mix of financial data, professional and educational publishing, and the news component from Reuters (which was about 25 percent of the company before the merger, although the best known part).

There is very, very little connection between the Reuters News business (which is where that story fits in) and the Globe other than that the Globe uses Reuters newsfeed much as they use AP.

[dewline]

...right. I need to look at that more closely, then?

And I just did:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woodbridge_Company

https://web.archive.org/web/20200522224801/http://fileshare.gcs.thomsonreuters.com/digital/annual-report-2015/downloads/annual-report-2015-thomson-reuters.pdf/

*winces with concern*

[frandroid]

It's not like TASS is buying TR, or vice-versa? TASS is just joining a Reuters-run marketplace, probably because no one "here" would buy anything from TASS if it tried to sell it on its own, but people might buy some of its content that's featured in a Reuters marketplace?

[dewline]

I think the concern here is that TASS - in an effort to further Putinist influence operations abroad - might find ways of "steering" Reuters editorial policy despite being nominally a distribution customer of Reuters.