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AFP reorganises its Paris newsroom into specialised hubs

The aim of this reform is to modernise the agency's structures to better reflect its editorial strategy and to strengthen its coverage of priority themes, foremost among them the future of the planet and the digital world.

The Planet hub brings together some 20 text and image journalists specialising in climate change and the environment, energy, industry, transport and agriculture. 

This Paris-based unit is in permanent contact with the entire AFP network, both in France and abroad, in order to cover these subjects as closely as possible to the field, to propose regular in-depth packages, to investigate how climate change is driving the transformation of the global economy, to train the network's journalists in covering these topics, and to maximise the impact of AFP’s coverage.

The ambition is the same for coverage of the digital world, including its rapid evolution and its profound impact on people's lives around the planet. The Digital/Culture hub will bring together some 20 journalists specialising in the tech and digital giants, media and social networks, content production and cultural issues.

AFP is also placing the image at the centre of its reorganised newsroom structure. The agency’s photo, video and graphics teams will be fully integrated with their text colleagues in the newly renovated headquarters building at Place de la Bourse in Paris. 

The agency has also created a large hub devoted to social issues that includes specialists in health, women, youth, education and migration.

More than 150 journalists will work in the eight new hubs: Planet, Digital/Culture, Macro/Business, Society/Social, Politics, Investigations, Territories and International.

“This reorganisation reflects our changing editorial priorities that increasingly focus on issues that affect everyone on the planet – the digital transformation of society and the far reaching implications of climate change”,

said Phil Chetwynd, AFP's Global News Director.

"The new structure will allow our specialist journalists in Paris to share their expertise, ideas and sources with their colleagues throughout AFP’s international bureau network”.

The heads of the agency’s photo, video and graphics production recently became integrated into the reorganised global news management, which is now fully multimedia.

Find out more: here.