London, Oct 08: Reuters Group PLC, pushing ahead with an editorial shake up designed to cut costs at the electronic information group, today confirmed the departure of its top news editor and several senior managers. Reuters said that Stephen Jukes, global head of news, was standing down and up to 20 more senior news editors and managers would leave the company as part of its 440 million pound "fast forward" cost-cutting programme.
Susan Allsopp, a spokeswoman for Reuters, said the company is planning to streamline its management structure under a merged news and data services operation.
Reuters said the overhaul would not lead to any reduction in news-gathering and reporting from its 2,400 editorial staff worldwide. Allsopp said the ``very small'' number of redundancies would come at management level and represent around one percent of current staffing levels. Bureau Report