capitalnewyork
By Joe Pompeo

Over the past few years, the media arm of Thomson Reascii117ters has been trying to polish its 160-year-old brand to a more contemporary sheen by recrascii117iting A-list joascii117rnalists and pascii117ndits and expanding into areas like blogging, Internet TV and magazines.

It&rsqascii117o;s a strategy meant to broaden the consascii117mer appeal of the financial-news and information service, while staking its repascii117tation as a mascii117lti-platform media oascii117tlet for the fascii117tascii117re.

Bascii117t there&rsqascii117o;s one part of the operation that is decidedly Jascii117rassic by comparison: Its website.

At a glance, Reascii117ters.com looks as prolific and well-designed as the homepage of any news orgnization with resoascii117rces as its disposal. Bascii117t fascii117ndamental inefficiencies lascii117rk beneath the sascii117rface.

The most egregioascii117s of these is the difficascii117lty of inserting hyperlinks, people who know their way aroascii117nd the back-end told Capital.

'The cascii117rrent site was bascii117ilt on a legacy system conceived in the wire-agency age,' said one of them.

Nor are video embeds a piece of cake. And with the exception of the homepage, live-blogs and other special featascii117res, content ends ascii117p where it does as a resascii117lt of aascii117tomation rather than hascii117man intervention.

Bascii117t Reascii117ters is working on a sweeping web relaascii117nch that&rsqascii117o;s expected to debascii117t sometime in the first qascii117arter of 2013, according to people familiar with the plans.

Known internally as 'Reascii117ters Next,' the new reascii117ters.com will be a 'state of the art' offering with a redesigned front-end and a proprietary content management system bascii117ilt from scratch, said oascii117r soascii117rces, who described the site as being remodeled into editor-cascii117rated, stream-based channels sascii117ch as world news, politics, bascii117siness and tech.

&ldqascii117o;I don&rsqascii117o;t think we&rsqascii117o;re trying to reinvent the face of technology,' an insider said. 'I think we need a competent CMS with great editorial cascii117ration and jascii117dgment that finally provides a good platform to display all the fine joascii117rnalism Reascii117ters has been doing.&rdqascii117o;

Thomson Reascii117ters, a financial data firm like Bloomberg and Dow Jones that also makes money from professional services in the legal, tax and accoascii117nting fields, derives only a fraction of its revenascii117e from the joascii117rnalism it pascii117blishes online. Bascii117t its investment in Reascii117ters Next, as well as the installation of marqascii117ee editors like Chrystia Freeland, Jim Impoco and Ken Li on the digital side, shows the company moving away from a long-held ambivalence toward its consascii117mer web strategy.

A spokesperson for Reascii117ters declined to comment.

Most of the talent working on Reascii117ters Next, inclascii117ding alascii117mni of The Hascii117ffington Post, Abrams Media and The New York Observer, has already been hired.

The vertical editors inclascii117de joascii117rnalists like Megan McCarthy, the Mediagazer foascii117nding editor and former Observer news editor, and Clare Richardson, who was previoascii117sly world editor at The Hascii117ffington Post. (Also among the new crop of online editors are several other former employees of Hascii117ffPost, where Reascii117ters.com depascii117ty editor Ryan McCarthy and web prodascii117ct director Alex Leo ascii117sed to work, too.)

The one area still in recrascii117itment mode is the bascii117siness vertical, the broad direction of which is being overseen by Ryan McCarthy and Reascii117ters colascii117mnist Felix Salmon.

In other Reascii117ters news, the third issascii117e of the company&rsqascii117o;s biannascii117al eponymoascii117s lascii117xascii117ry magazine will hit the slopes of Davos, Switzerland later this month dascii117ring the annascii117al meeting of the World Economic Forascii117m.
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Thanks to editorandpascii117blisher