Colin McIntyre
Erdmute Greis-Behrendt
Thursday 01 September 2011
Erdmute’s death came much too soon as she would have been such a funny lady for years and years. I saw her whenever I travelled to Berlin, the last time a couple of years ago at a dinner with Annette von Broecker and Colin and Sigi McIntyre, among others. We also met with husband Thomas after the wall fell and gossiped about mutual acquaintances in the old DDR. And we shared a secret that kept us giggling for years. When I first arrived in Bonn 100 years ago, I was on an evening shift when some football story (soccer to me) arrived and was supposed to be translated into British English. As a Yank I barely knew the game, much less how to write about it. I would call Erdmute, send the German story to her and she would put it into English and send it back to me for filing. Then came “curling” – a game I had never heard of – and neither had she. Fortunately Colin arrived in time. I miss her wonderful, infectious laughter and her friendship.
Evelyn Leopold
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Evelyn Leopold
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Erdmute Greis-Behrendt
Thursday 18 August 2011
The photo of me with Erdmute was taken to celebrate the establishment in 1970 of the first direct phone connection between the East and West Berlin offices since the Berlin Wall went up in 1961. Until then communications between the two was only possible by telex. The direct line was put in a day after the East Berlin bureau carried an extensive report on an East German exposé of the Nazi past of a senior West German politician. The story was hardly new, but we milked it for all it was worth, mainly to support our demands for a direct phone link. The champagne in the picture was Crimean.
Colin McIntyre
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Ronald Farquhar
Friday 22 April 2011
Ronnie was, far and away, the best bureau chief I ever had. Although self-effacing himself, he inspired by example, doing the routine stuff as well as the big pieces, all with a meticulous eye for detail and balance. He was generous with praise if you did well, and never shouted at you if you didn't, though his face alone told you he was not entirely happy. Although he was good friends personally with several senior Reuters people, he was generally suspicious of management, making it quite clear that his heart lay with the pit-face workers. His reluctance to keep in touch with Head Office meant that he was often overlooked by them. During one of his rare visits to London it suddenly dawned on staff, pressed by the union, that he was at least two grades lower than he should have been, and was immediately upgraded by three. He kept his many talents hidden, including one for languages. I well remember an incident in Vienna when we could not get hold of the Belgrade bureau during a sudden banking crisis, Ronnie got on the phone to one of his old contacts and, in Serbo-Croat, a language he probably hadn't spoken for at least two decades, got the story. There won't be many more like him.
Colin McIntyre
Colin McIntyre
David Fox
Tuesday 19 April 2011
I was dismayed to learn of the disciplining of two experienced Reuters correspondents over remarks they made on a closed chat-line restricted to a couple of dozen colleagues, while covering a physically and emotionally draining event such as the Japanese tsunami and its nuclear aftermath, which seems to smack of US-style political correctness gone mad [● Reuters fires bureau chief over crude remark ● Reuters editor punished for chat room remark]. Whatever the two may have said, it seems inconceivable that this could add up to a sacking/official warning offence. Fox and Marshall have had their share of tough assignments. Marshall was bureau chief in Baghdad when it was at its most violent and dangerous. He was asked when he came out of Iraq by our chairman Niall FitzGerald why he was prepared to take such risks. He responded, “because it was for Reuters”. One doubts whether he would say that now. It is hard to know which is worse – the colleague(s) who shopped the two to management, or the managers who decided that it was a disciplinary matter. A sad day for the old firm.
Colin McIntyre
Colin McIntyre
David Mathew
Monday 22 September 2008
David Mathew was a good friend and among the very top tier of filing editors in Reuters. Even in retirement in Sarasota, Florida, he implacably tracked factual and grammatical errors in the local newspapers and TV. (Allan Barker summed up his abilities admirably, and I fully agree with Colin McIntyre on what David would have thought about today’s “karaoke filing”.)
David’s memory was unbelievable. We vividly remember him playing trivia (the Canadian version) when he was on a desk assignment in New York – and, of course, he knew all the answers, no matter how obscure.
I, for one, will miss our frequent phone and email exchanges, and occasional dinners, critiquing news reports and the increasing disregard of the need for strong and impartial reporting and editing.
His death was a real shock to us. My wife Barbara and I spent a couple of days with David and Hilda at their Palm Beach holiday retreat a few weeks ago and we had talked and exchanged emails since – the last occasion just a couple of days before he died.
He was in good spirits and there was no indication of any problems. His biggest concern was always and overwhelmingly Hilda’s health.
Friends and colleagues have paid wonderful tribute to David, and I echo their sentiments. We’ll miss him.
Brian Bain
David’s memory was unbelievable. We vividly remember him playing trivia (the Canadian version) when he was on a desk assignment in New York – and, of course, he knew all the answers, no matter how obscure.
I, for one, will miss our frequent phone and email exchanges, and occasional dinners, critiquing news reports and the increasing disregard of the need for strong and impartial reporting and editing.
His death was a real shock to us. My wife Barbara and I spent a couple of days with David and Hilda at their Palm Beach holiday retreat a few weeks ago and we had talked and exchanged emails since – the last occasion just a couple of days before he died.
He was in good spirits and there was no indication of any problems. His biggest concern was always and overwhelmingly Hilda’s health.
Friends and colleagues have paid wonderful tribute to David, and I echo their sentiments. We’ll miss him.
Brian Bain
David Mathew
Sunday 21 September 2008
Very sorry to hear about Dave, who seemed indestructible. I’m sure anyone else of our vintage would regard Dave as the ultimate filing editor, the keeper of the scrolls, who continued to have the highest standards on copy editing in the face of pressure to loosen up in the interests of economy, i.e. profit. It sometimes took time to get a story through Dave – but you knew it would be totally error-free by the time it hit the wires. In the end the company decided that some accuracy could suffer in the interests of speed. I can’t recall whether Dave was around to witness the introduction of “Karaoke Filing”, as described by Jim Flannery, when filing editors were banished, but he would have hated it.
He was a stalwart of the Reuters Golf Society, at his prime a prodigious hitter of the ball until age and ailments cramped his length.
As an Aussie, I will miss his no-nonsense Aussie approach to life.
Colin McIntyre
He was a stalwart of the Reuters Golf Society, at his prime a prodigious hitter of the ball until age and ailments cramped his length.
As an Aussie, I will miss his no-nonsense Aussie approach to life.
Colin McIntyre
