CNN beefs up European newsgathering

NEWS CNN's London bureau will become an integrated newsgathering and production centre, and CNN will add two European bureaux to their 15 existing sites in the EMEA region. Worldwide funding for breaking news coverage will be doubled. Hong Kong will become a regional news hub, at the centre of Asian coverage. Last week, CNN announced that 20 new staff will be added in London to support an increase in business programming, including two business TV slots and related multimedia content on CNN.com. The move follows comments made to silicon.com by Chris Cramer, president of CNN Interactive News Networks, at the launch of CNN.com Europe in September last year. Cramer said: "It is no longer tenable to do a single global interactive service, a single global news site," he said. "What we are doing [is producing] a personalised, customised, focused news service. [We are producing] an international news service seen through regional eyes." In other restructuring moves announced today, CNN will also add a 24-hour newsgathering "super desk" and an investigative unit at the company's Atlanta headquarters. CNN's inhouse wire service, wires.CNN, will be tasked with writing copy directly for the company's websites. In the US, the outlook is not so rosy. CNN announced 400 job cuts, equivalent to 10 per cent of its workforce. One third will go in the interactive unit, including CNN.com and financial news site CNNfn.com. One third will go in programme making, and a further third in unspecified other categories. A spokesman refused to say whether sacked staff stateside will be considered for the European positions.