Brian Williams
The Wall Street Journal Lite
Friday 09 September 2011
Good Lord. Another Wall Street Journal reject from Rupert’s stable.
I rather think we can no longer refer to the Mother Ship as The Baron but instead we now seem to have become The Wall Street Journal Lite.
Brian Williams
nbnbn
I rather think we can no longer refer to the Mother Ship as The Baron but instead we now seem to have become The Wall Street Journal Lite.
Brian Williams
nbnbn
Sri Lanka
Friday 22 July 2011
What a joy to read the exchange between Feizal Samath and Brian Williams. It’s a reminder of the great bond of friendship and respect that existed – and one hopes still exists – between locally hired Reuters journalists and the colleagues who would travel in to join them in pursuit of the story. That bond always made Reuters a very special place to work. The resident local correspondents had and undoubtedly still have the tougher time in balancing the demands of the job against the obligations to family, and in facing despicable harassment and worse from various government goons, censors and thugs. Reuters could never be Reuters without people like Feizal and so many others who cover their countries for the world. May their integrity, dedication and sacrifice never be undervalued.
As an aside, I too had the distinct pleasure of staying at the Galle Face during a visit to Colombo in 2004 before the place got spruced up. The bacon and egg breakfasts were something else, as was my room, a suite so expansive that it exceeded the square footage of my Manhattan apartment. Not that anything in the room worked, or had done for the better part of half a century. That's what made it such a charming place, along with the view.
Paul Holmes
vbnbnbn
As an aside, I too had the distinct pleasure of staying at the Galle Face during a visit to Colombo in 2004 before the place got spruced up. The bacon and egg breakfasts were something else, as was my room, a suite so expansive that it exceeded the square footage of my Manhattan apartment. Not that anything in the room worked, or had done for the better part of half a century. That's what made it such a charming place, along with the view.
Paul Holmes
vbnbnbn
Sri Lanka
Thursday 21 July 2011
How great to hear from Feizal [Samath]. First Dalton [de Silva], then Dalton and Feizal, then Feizal were the best correspondents we (or any news organisation) ever had in Sri Lanka.
They owned the story and at the most difficult of times were always fair and impartial, always turning in pencil subbable copy. It was an ugly, ugly, ugly story to cover and when people ask me what is the worst thing I ever saw working for Reuters it was in Sri Lanka. I arrived at a village about 30 mins chopper ride from Colombo to see it still smoking and lined up beside an irrigation ditch were 42 bodies (men, women, children, babies, teenagers, elderly) and they had all been disembowelled and had their skulls split open. Pass the whisky.
I am shocked, but shocked I say, that a Reuters Correspondent, nay even a Bureau Chief, would fritter the night away with liquor. But then again if you’ve ever stayed at the Galle Face (when it really was the Galle Face) you’d know on a moonlit night there was nothing better to do than watch the sun come up from the Galle Face terrace.
It always bemused me why I was about the only foreign correspondent who stayed there while everyone else ran off to the Hilton etc at about 10 times the price. I would arrive, be escorted around the hotel suite/rooms picking out a sofa here, an armchair there, a vase here, a dining table there, a large cushion here which within half an hour would all be installed in my own personally designed suite. What a place it was. I guess one of my fondest (of many, many) memories of Reuters Asia was that I had the chance to stay in the Raffles and Galle Face before they became what they are now. They were faded glories by the time I checked in to them but they still left every other hotel I’ve ever stayed in around the world for dead.
While we are on reminiscences I guess you can’t talk about Sri Lanka without recalling one of the great Reuters chairmen state visit stories. I know there are a million of them.
Anyway, Sir Denis Hamilton (a real gentlemen) visited the Sri Lanka office in the company of some of our exalted Asia executives (or maybe even higher). After a splendid lunch Sir Denis and the group went back to the office and the spicy food got him so he had to rush to the “toilet”. The toilet was basically a bucket.
Being a good man, Sir Denis’ only instruction at the end of the visit was that a proper toilet should be installed and working within a week. There was even a rumour he insisted a photo should be sent to him assuring that it had been done.
Those were the days My Friend. You can keep your Pulitzer Prizes.
Brian Williams
vbnbnbn
They owned the story and at the most difficult of times were always fair and impartial, always turning in pencil subbable copy. It was an ugly, ugly, ugly story to cover and when people ask me what is the worst thing I ever saw working for Reuters it was in Sri Lanka. I arrived at a village about 30 mins chopper ride from Colombo to see it still smoking and lined up beside an irrigation ditch were 42 bodies (men, women, children, babies, teenagers, elderly) and they had all been disembowelled and had their skulls split open. Pass the whisky.
I am shocked, but shocked I say, that a Reuters Correspondent, nay even a Bureau Chief, would fritter the night away with liquor. But then again if you’ve ever stayed at the Galle Face (when it really was the Galle Face) you’d know on a moonlit night there was nothing better to do than watch the sun come up from the Galle Face terrace.
It always bemused me why I was about the only foreign correspondent who stayed there while everyone else ran off to the Hilton etc at about 10 times the price. I would arrive, be escorted around the hotel suite/rooms picking out a sofa here, an armchair there, a vase here, a dining table there, a large cushion here which within half an hour would all be installed in my own personally designed suite. What a place it was. I guess one of my fondest (of many, many) memories of Reuters Asia was that I had the chance to stay in the Raffles and Galle Face before they became what they are now. They were faded glories by the time I checked in to them but they still left every other hotel I’ve ever stayed in around the world for dead.
While we are on reminiscences I guess you can’t talk about Sri Lanka without recalling one of the great Reuters chairmen state visit stories. I know there are a million of them.
Anyway, Sir Denis Hamilton (a real gentlemen) visited the Sri Lanka office in the company of some of our exalted Asia executives (or maybe even higher). After a splendid lunch Sir Denis and the group went back to the office and the spicy food got him so he had to rush to the “toilet”. The toilet was basically a bucket.
Being a good man, Sir Denis’ only instruction at the end of the visit was that a proper toilet should be installed and working within a week. There was even a rumour he insisted a photo should be sent to him assuring that it had been done.
Those were the days My Friend. You can keep your Pulitzer Prizes.
Brian Williams
vbnbnbn
Sri Lanka
Thursday 21 July 2011
This morning (Sri Lanka time, 9:30 am) I stumbled on the Baron website and was amazed, enthused and delighted to read its contents and of people from the past, particularly Brian Williams – my favourite correspondent at Reuters.
Brian, for us in Sri Lanka, was an institution and here’s one interesting anecdote about the guy and his ability:
At a time when Brian was based in New Delhi as buro chief, he came to Colombo to report on the Sri Lankan conflict – like many others from Reuter buros overseas – and was a great asset, as always, to our coverage. This was around 1985-88 I believe. The Colombo buro was headed by Dalton de Silva, a veteran journalist who sadly passed away some years back after a battle with cancer.
One morning, Dalton told me to meet Brian at the Galle Face Hotel (where he was staying) to pass on an urgent message. Knocking at his room door, Brian comes out staggering with blood-red eyes saying “Hey, mate, what’s happening?” – typically Brian.
“Hey Brian, did you wake up with a drink,” I asked, laughing. “Oh, no mate, I have been drinking all night,” he laughed.
True to form and his ability, Brian turned up in the office by 8-9 am and churned out great copy for the morning AM SCHEDULE on the Sri Lanka situation. This is after returning to the hotel the previous night (late) after writing the late-nite piece. Being sozzy didn’t cloud his skills as a journalist honed probably during his Vietnam war reporting days.
It was a pleasure to work with Brian and learn from him.
Feizal Samath
Reuters Correspondent Colombo 1985-1997
vbnbnbn
Brian, for us in Sri Lanka, was an institution and here’s one interesting anecdote about the guy and his ability:
At a time when Brian was based in New Delhi as buro chief, he came to Colombo to report on the Sri Lankan conflict – like many others from Reuter buros overseas – and was a great asset, as always, to our coverage. This was around 1985-88 I believe. The Colombo buro was headed by Dalton de Silva, a veteran journalist who sadly passed away some years back after a battle with cancer.
One morning, Dalton told me to meet Brian at the Galle Face Hotel (where he was staying) to pass on an urgent message. Knocking at his room door, Brian comes out staggering with blood-red eyes saying “Hey, mate, what’s happening?” – typically Brian.
“Hey Brian, did you wake up with a drink,” I asked, laughing. “Oh, no mate, I have been drinking all night,” he laughed.
True to form and his ability, Brian turned up in the office by 8-9 am and churned out great copy for the morning AM SCHEDULE on the Sri Lanka situation. This is after returning to the hotel the previous night (late) after writing the late-nite piece. Being sozzy didn’t cloud his skills as a journalist honed probably during his Vietnam war reporting days.
It was a pleasure to work with Brian and learn from him.
Feizal Samath
Reuters Correspondent Colombo 1985-1997
vbnbnbn
Aubrey Higgs
Wednesday 03 November 2010
Higgy (though I don’t know if me or anyone else ever had the temerity to call him absolutely that to his face) is one of my earliest, most enduring and most endearing memories of Reuters.
I never met Aubrey until after my first posting which was also my first posting to Vietnam.
Arriving in London after Vietnam and determined to change my image to one of respectability (it never did work!!!) I was put on Sports Desk I guess to determine if I was really Nuts or just Nuts.
My Mother had polio as a child so I had grown up in a family where a physical disability was not a big deal and taken for granted. Higgy also had a crooked leg (it may even have been polio though I can’t remember now) so I, in a sense, bonded with him and immediately respected him.
His love was Wimbledon, and not just the tennis tournament. The suburb. So in my search for respectability my first flat, because he chose to live there, was also in Wimbledon. A splendid place with a rose garden where non-respectable things went on.
Other people have commented on how Aubrey taught them (and me) the value of accuracy and getting it “right”. How many times did I know I'd got it "Right" and Higgy picked something up.
But more than anything Aubrey also taught this Australian that underneath a white starched shirt and striped tie could be the most irreverent and free of spirits. He was way ahead of his time.
Brian Williams
I never met Aubrey until after my first posting which was also my first posting to Vietnam.
Arriving in London after Vietnam and determined to change my image to one of respectability (it never did work!!!) I was put on Sports Desk I guess to determine if I was really Nuts or just Nuts.
My Mother had polio as a child so I had grown up in a family where a physical disability was not a big deal and taken for granted. Higgy also had a crooked leg (it may even have been polio though I can’t remember now) so I, in a sense, bonded with him and immediately respected him.
His love was Wimbledon, and not just the tennis tournament. The suburb. So in my search for respectability my first flat, because he chose to live there, was also in Wimbledon. A splendid place with a rose garden where non-respectable things went on.
Other people have commented on how Aubrey taught them (and me) the value of accuracy and getting it “right”. How many times did I know I'd got it "Right" and Higgy picked something up.
But more than anything Aubrey also taught this Australian that underneath a white starched shirt and striped tie could be the most irreverent and free of spirits. He was way ahead of his time.
Brian Williams
Pensioners' lunch
Friday 14 May 2010
What a Truly, Truly Sad decision on the Pensioners’ Lunch and what a pathetic defence (“Reluctantly for me”) [● No more pensioners’ lunches - Tom Glocer]. For God’s sake, man, at least have the guts to say you went along with it.
Fine on the principal (or is it "ile" – need one of those unsung subs or telex people or news clerks or translators or secretaries or drivers or messengers or fixers or sweepers who always corrected my copy and I always looked forward to meeting at pensioner lunches) of not just London but why not have one for each region? Or just for Thomson and just for Reuters. Or Thomson Reuters. If you had 600 people in each of five regions at 100 euros a head the cost would be a total of 3 million euros. And I reckon most people would at least pay half of their way just to be in touch with Mates from long ago. So maximum cost 1.5 million euros. Frankly, I reckon everyone would pay the whole cost. I've never managed to have the pleasure of being at one of the pensioners’ lunches but it was one of those events out on the horizon where you hoped one day you might get there and pay respect to people you worked with. Why not even only have it very three years or five years or 10 years but keep the tradition unless you think the Tradition isn't worth honouring which is what this decision to bin it does? How Sad.
On a day when we're boasting analysts are saying a 52-week high, to announce this smacks so much of churlish retribution for criticism of the Goldman defence that it cannot be ignored. It also smacks of a deliberate effort to write "Reuters" out of "Thomson Reuters".
That ain't the Reuters way. That ain't the way we earned our reputation and respect. We've stood up to countries that bullied us and our people and I hope to God we stand up to one of our own who is now bullying us.
Thanks to Mary Norsworthy/Barry May/George Short/Steve Somerville/Bernard Edinger and countless others as well as we ourselves as pensioners we have our own lunch and our own communications network and our own Soul and Pride.
We are undiminished. This decision is tawdry, little and mean spirited in the extreme.
It must not stand or at least in the next company report be highlighted – "In a major cost saving measure Pensioners’ Lunch abolished."
Brian Williams
Fine on the principal (or is it "ile" – need one of those unsung subs or telex people or news clerks or translators or secretaries or drivers or messengers or fixers or sweepers who always corrected my copy and I always looked forward to meeting at pensioner lunches) of not just London but why not have one for each region? Or just for Thomson and just for Reuters. Or Thomson Reuters. If you had 600 people in each of five regions at 100 euros a head the cost would be a total of 3 million euros. And I reckon most people would at least pay half of their way just to be in touch with Mates from long ago. So maximum cost 1.5 million euros. Frankly, I reckon everyone would pay the whole cost. I've never managed to have the pleasure of being at one of the pensioners’ lunches but it was one of those events out on the horizon where you hoped one day you might get there and pay respect to people you worked with. Why not even only have it very three years or five years or 10 years but keep the tradition unless you think the Tradition isn't worth honouring which is what this decision to bin it does? How Sad.
On a day when we're boasting analysts are saying a 52-week high, to announce this smacks so much of churlish retribution for criticism of the Goldman defence that it cannot be ignored. It also smacks of a deliberate effort to write "Reuters" out of "Thomson Reuters".
That ain't the Reuters way. That ain't the way we earned our reputation and respect. We've stood up to countries that bullied us and our people and I hope to God we stand up to one of our own who is now bullying us.
Thanks to Mary Norsworthy/Barry May/George Short/Steve Somerville/Bernard Edinger and countless others as well as we ourselves as pensioners we have our own lunch and our own communications network and our own Soul and Pride.
We are undiminished. This decision is tawdry, little and mean spirited in the extreme.
It must not stand or at least in the next company report be highlighted – "In a major cost saving measure Pensioners’ Lunch abolished."
Brian Williams
David Nicholson
Monday 03 August 2009
Dave "Big Dave" Nicholson was a giant in stature and a Giant Rock of calmness and stability in the turbulence of our news.
Waves of cock ups and screw ups might sweep towards him during his decades as World Desk editor but Dave never lost his gentleness and belief in his correspondents. No point scoring or finger pointing for Dave. Just work out a way to get the story right and out and then have a laugh and move on to the next crisis.
Dave also had an uncanny skill to know when to add another hour or two to your fervently promised delivery time of a nightlead or daylead.
Maybe he could tell by the sound of your voice!!!
We won't see his like again – a great great pro and true decent Gentleman.
Digger (Brian Williams)
Waves of cock ups and screw ups might sweep towards him during his decades as World Desk editor but Dave never lost his gentleness and belief in his correspondents. No point scoring or finger pointing for Dave. Just work out a way to get the story right and out and then have a laugh and move on to the next crisis.
Dave also had an uncanny skill to know when to add another hour or two to your fervently promised delivery time of a nightlead or daylead.
Maybe he could tell by the sound of your voice!!!
We won't see his like again – a great great pro and true decent Gentleman.
Digger (Brian Williams)
Patrick Massey
Tuesday 17 March 2009
There are some people in your life who once you meet, and are aware of them – like a favoured beloved byline – you always turn to.
That was Patrick J Massey.
In my early early years – months – with Reuters, when I was struggling to work out what the hell was Reuters “style”, Pat was a beacon.
How could you write a lead para that was accurate, interpretative, colourful, sourced, knowledgeable, passionate, stylish and less than 30 words?
Just read Patrick J.
Maybe it is an apocryphal yarn but the greatest lead I have EVER EVER read – not just on Reuters – I credit to Pat for his story on the inaugural flight of Concorde.
“I flew through the sound barrier today and not a ripple crossed my Martini.”
I’m sure they are not the exact words Pat wrote, but my God the mood that the para evoked – the key to any great Reuters writing – has always stuck with me.
It didn’t have to be short like a Pat or Arthur Spiegelman or Jimmy Pringle or Ron Thomson.
It could be long like a Ronnie Batchelor or Nobby Clarke or Ronnie Farquhar who could write a four line intro and it seemed like a two line intro.
It was the words, the positioning, the mood, the control of their craft.
They were all just natural story tellers, whether in words on paper or in conversation, which in a funny way I think is how they wrote, short or long.
And, of course, they all had the humour and insights of kind and loving rascals – how else could they write so magically?
For just a year I worked directly with Pat on London Bureau and fortunately The Sarge, who has known a rascal or two in his time, was the Bureau Chief.
“Where is Mr Massey?” he would inquire.
In true young honest gullible innocence I would reply: “He’s around Allan ‘cos his glasses (always identifiable black rimmed) are on his desk.”
“So he’s at the Golf Club then,” Sarge would answer.
Years – decades – later when Pat had retired, had a pacemaker installed and came through Tokyo to see his son where I was then based I asked:
“So, Pat, what’s it like having a pacemaker?”
“Ah, it’s not a big deal,” he said.
“I just have to watch out when I walk past a refrigerator in case there’s electro-magnetism and I slam into it. It’s generally the fridge that’s out of cycle.”
I always have and always will read a Patrick Massey byline, in cycle or out of cycle.
Brian Williams
That was Patrick J Massey.
In my early early years – months – with Reuters, when I was struggling to work out what the hell was Reuters “style”, Pat was a beacon.
How could you write a lead para that was accurate, interpretative, colourful, sourced, knowledgeable, passionate, stylish and less than 30 words?
Just read Patrick J.
Maybe it is an apocryphal yarn but the greatest lead I have EVER EVER read – not just on Reuters – I credit to Pat for his story on the inaugural flight of Concorde.
“I flew through the sound barrier today and not a ripple crossed my Martini.”
I’m sure they are not the exact words Pat wrote, but my God the mood that the para evoked – the key to any great Reuters writing – has always stuck with me.
It didn’t have to be short like a Pat or Arthur Spiegelman or Jimmy Pringle or Ron Thomson.
It could be long like a Ronnie Batchelor or Nobby Clarke or Ronnie Farquhar who could write a four line intro and it seemed like a two line intro.
It was the words, the positioning, the mood, the control of their craft.
They were all just natural story tellers, whether in words on paper or in conversation, which in a funny way I think is how they wrote, short or long.
And, of course, they all had the humour and insights of kind and loving rascals – how else could they write so magically?
For just a year I worked directly with Pat on London Bureau and fortunately The Sarge, who has known a rascal or two in his time, was the Bureau Chief.
“Where is Mr Massey?” he would inquire.
In true young honest gullible innocence I would reply: “He’s around Allan ‘cos his glasses (always identifiable black rimmed) are on his desk.”
“So he’s at the Golf Club then,” Sarge would answer.
Years – decades – later when Pat had retired, had a pacemaker installed and came through Tokyo to see his son where I was then based I asked:
“So, Pat, what’s it like having a pacemaker?”
“Ah, it’s not a big deal,” he said.
“I just have to watch out when I walk past a refrigerator in case there’s electro-magnetism and I slam into it. It’s generally the fridge that’s out of cycle.”
I always have and always will read a Patrick Massey byline, in cycle or out of cycle.
Brian Williams
