Reuters
Tips for running a successful news agency
Wednesday 12 January 2011
David Schlesinger's ● Tips for running a successful news agency are a really good leadership philosophy. I've worked for 11 CEOs in the three companies where I was head of PR, and only the very best where able to articulate how they saw their jobs. This makes me want to know more, under each heading. How, for example, would David outline the standards and ethics he sees as vital?
Bjorn Edlund
Bjorn Edlund
Killed correspondents
Monday 10 January 2011
To the names read out during the service in St Bride's [● Reuters people most numerous in roll of slain journalists] should be added correspondent ● Najmul Hasan (Indian) killed by a landmine in Iran and photographer ● Willie Vicoy (Philippino) killed in a militia attack in the Philippines. Let us not forget them. Let us also never forget that no story is worth the loss of a life. The loss of a journalist's life is not a sacrifice in any sense. It is a waste and is in no manner the slightest cause for celebration. To have lost more journalists than any other organisation is not glorious. It is rather a matter of shame and sadness.
Michael Reupke
Michael Reupke
Bruce Cobb
Saturday 27 November 2010
About two years ago, I was having a pint outside my local, the Waterman's Arms, in Water Lane, Richmond upon Thames, with a friend of mine, Peter, a producer from the BBC.
A young man walked by, and it turned out he knew Peter. They both lived nearby.
The chap's name was Mike.
When we got to talking, somehow, surprise surprise, journalism came up.
I said I used to work for Reuters.
Hey, my dad worked for Reuters, said Mike.
He told me his name was Mike Cobb.
I said ... "Hey, I used to work with a guy called Bruce Cobb. Any relation?
"Bruce was my dad."
Turns out Mike was the son of Bruce Cobb, to whom I was very close in the baronial years.
I swear to God: I kissed that kid Mike – he must have been in his 50s – and I literally wept, because I knew his dad had passed on.
Bruce Cobb was a massive friend of mine, one of the finest subs and human beings I ever met.
Around the year of nineteen hundred and eighty-two, I was asked by the Baron to go to Bahrain ( I know where it is now – I wasn't so sure then) to set up a new Middle East desk. My buddy Barry Simpson had already gone out there and told me it was all good – sun, boats, jeeps, no tax and apparently the Baron would pay us ... well, let me just say a preferential rate as far as the local currency was concerned.
I think the deal was Barry would do the business stuff and I would do the war stuff.
And thus it was.
However, up showed a guy called Bruce Cobb. His job? To keep Simpson and me in line. To correct the f-ups we produced on a daily basis – to ensure that Reuters copy was spot-on.
Bruce Cobb was not only one of the finest editors I've ever worked with, but a delightful friend, and I shall never forget him.
That's why I wept when I met his son outside my local pub around two years ago.
Thereafter, Mike and I did not get close, although he lived perhaps 30 yards from where I do.
He was found dead in his flat there last week. I do not know the reason for his death, and, if I did, I would never mention it here.
To all of you who remember Bruce, or may even be related, my condolences.
Phil Davison
A young man walked by, and it turned out he knew Peter. They both lived nearby.
The chap's name was Mike.
When we got to talking, somehow, surprise surprise, journalism came up.
I said I used to work for Reuters.
Hey, my dad worked for Reuters, said Mike.
He told me his name was Mike Cobb.
I said ... "Hey, I used to work with a guy called Bruce Cobb. Any relation?
"Bruce was my dad."
Turns out Mike was the son of Bruce Cobb, to whom I was very close in the baronial years.
I swear to God: I kissed that kid Mike – he must have been in his 50s – and I literally wept, because I knew his dad had passed on.
Bruce Cobb was a massive friend of mine, one of the finest subs and human beings I ever met.
Around the year of nineteen hundred and eighty-two, I was asked by the Baron to go to Bahrain ( I know where it is now – I wasn't so sure then) to set up a new Middle East desk. My buddy Barry Simpson had already gone out there and told me it was all good – sun, boats, jeeps, no tax and apparently the Baron would pay us ... well, let me just say a preferential rate as far as the local currency was concerned.
I think the deal was Barry would do the business stuff and I would do the war stuff.
And thus it was.
However, up showed a guy called Bruce Cobb. His job? To keep Simpson and me in line. To correct the f-ups we produced on a daily basis – to ensure that Reuters copy was spot-on.
Bruce Cobb was not only one of the finest editors I've ever worked with, but a delightful friend, and I shall never forget him.
That's why I wept when I met his son outside my local pub around two years ago.
Thereafter, Mike and I did not get close, although he lived perhaps 30 yards from where I do.
He was found dead in his flat there last week. I do not know the reason for his death, and, if I did, I would never mention it here.
To all of you who remember Bruce, or may even be related, my condolences.
Phil Davison
Facts and comment
Wednesday 27 October 2010
“Reuters says” is exactly where an agency wants to be. This means hiring columnists with care. But running from this is bad business, and would give the forces who will just twist something else to manipulate a story what amounts to a heckler's veto. There are spades out there and refusing to acknowledge any of them just makes one look silly these days, not professional. And I will even go one further: context in news stories which doesn't paint a clear picture of the players' motives is also weak. The market understands what's going on. It's good to acknowledge the elephant in the story.
John C Abell
John C Abell
Facts and comment
Wednesday 27 October 2010
Bjorn [Edlund] refers to my days at UPI in the 70s and even then we wrote clearly flagged commentary and analysis pieces (never did write for Reuters), so this is nothing new. And of course journalists have their own opinions and try as we might to be objective every story is really subjective – what you choose as the main subject of the lead, for instance. But my main point is that agencies have to understand it doesn't matter what flagging you do on stories to show they are commentary and not news; at the end of the day one reader is going to say to someone "Reuters says" and the differentiating between commentary and news is gone. The company may think it has done all it can to divide hard news from commentary with all of the flagging etc, but the real bottom line is that it all gets translated out there as "Reuters says..." If that's ok for the brand then fine, but if not ...
Phil Stone
Phil Stone
Facts and comment
Monday 25 October 2010
I agree more with John Abell. My beef is not with commentary or any new-fangled interaction with news users, but watering down the craft of journalism. Reporting is a profession. And as with any lawyer, chartered accountant or doctor worth consulting, reading my news I'd like to know I'm getting a professional product elaborated with due care in accordance with established best practice. If on top of the news file there are news analyses and personal columns, great. Clearly flagged as analysis and commentary. But Breakingviews is, as far as I can see, merely market froth whipped to momentary steady state, a souffle of rumours with deal-making as the egg white. It reeks of mentality of investment bankers, who know the price of everything but the value of nothing. Fine, as long as this is clearly flagged. Reporters have had opinions as long as doctors, lawyers and chartered accountants have. But, just like these professionals, they learn to use their professional tools and the skills of their craft to achieve outcomes that pass muster, whatever their views or the views of their "users" – because the thing they have in common is a shared understanding of news as a fair account of what has occurred.
Bjorn Edlund
Bjorn Edlund
Facts and comment
Sunday 24 October 2010
Anyone who thinks that reporters don't have opinions is a fool. Including a news agency's clients. But this isn't about having an opinion and writing a column. It's about having a vested, material interest in the subject of your reporting and/or commentary. That is wrong on the merits – and has nothing to do with whether Reuters should not have columnists. Of course it should. Of course it must. The market demands it. In half a generation at most the demand for transparency will make it impossible for journalists to continue to conceal for whom they vote in elections and which management teams they think stink. The markets will be better for it, because they always swim in transparency and sink in concealment, be it contrived for misplaced convenience or malicious.
John C Abell
John C Abell
Facts and comment
Friday 22 October 2010
Phil Stone, who as UPI bureau chief in the Nordics hired me in 1977 for my first real job in journalism, takes up a key issue [● Do we want commentary from our news agencies?]. In its extension, news becomes of no value if it is not processed using strict quality criteria – without integrity, even facts are suspect. As Google and other aggregators already devalue good reporting and news itself, I think forgetting the basics would do indelible harm to Reuters. Hats off for dealing with the offending columnist swiftly. And hats off to David Schlesinger for trying to keep Reuters ahead of the game – including interaction in chat rooms. But my question for David would be, what is value if not the integrity of your business, news?
Bjorn Edlund
Bjorn Edlund
Secrets of Berlin
Tuesday 14 September 2010
Re: James Forrester's otherwise excellent piece on Peter Millar and the latter's "blonde" East Berlin cleaner [● Peter Millar spills the beans on secrets of Berlin].
Peter, I don't know whether this will come to you as a relief or a disappointment. She wasn't a real blonde ...
Phil Davison
Reuter correspondent, East Berlin, 1976 (and never head of ITN – at least not so far)
Peter, I don't know whether this will come to you as a relief or a disappointment. She wasn't a real blonde ...
Phil Davison
Reuter correspondent, East Berlin, 1976 (and never head of ITN – at least not so far)
85 Fleet Street
Wednesday 16 June 2010
Michael Fathers
Punch, Or, the London Charivari, to give its full original title, was published from 1841 until 2002 with a hiatus from 1992 to 1996.
From 1843 to 1900 the Punch office was in a single-storey building at 85 Fleet Street, in the heart of London's blossoming journalistic empire. Here its writers and artists often composed their material, surrounded by the workplaces of the very professionals whose writings and deeds fuelled Punch's columns – the myriad newspaper offices on Fleet Street, the Middle and Inner Temples, the Apothecaries Hall, and the Royal College of Surgeons. From the windows of their office, Punch's early contributors watched the Lord Mayor's Show and other spectacles that took place on one of London's busiest thoroughfares, and then turned these displays into cartoons and commentaries. Many of these journalists learnt their trade in, or followed the examples of, the new cheap illustrated periodicals of the 1820s and 1830s which owed their success to their ability to re-present in comic form the funerals of monarchs, the processions of priests, stage dramas, displays of exotic species, exhibitions of new machines, illustrated scientific discourses, and a plethora of other sensations which drew the same London crowds who bought cheap periodicals.
Punch Tavern, 99 Fleet Street, was originally the Crown and Sugar Loaf but was renamed in the late 1840s because of its association with Punch magazine whose journalists frequented the pub. It was rebuilt in 1894-5. The Crown and Sugar Loaf has been restored as a separate pub in part of the original premises and is the venue of meetings of the ● Short Lunch Club.
● SOURCE Punch and comic journalism in mid-Victorian Britain by Richard Noakes | Punch Tavern
Memories of Saigon
Monday 14 June 2010
I was in Saigon off and on between 1962 and 1965, flying in from my Bangkok base to help Nick Turner in times of crisis and to stand in whenever he was off base. At the Reuter office in the Vietnam Press complex on Hong Thap Tu Street our Vietnamese reporter Pham Xuan An held court, chatting to a steady stream of visitors, many of them peasant women in conical hats. He introduced them to me as relatives, friends or friends of friends. Now that I know An was a Viet Cong intelligence colonel, I realise that many of these callers must have been Viet Cong couriers.
My last assignment to Saigon was in 1965, after Nick had resigned and An had left Reuters to join Time magazine. It was a hectic few months. The intensive US bombing of North Vietnam started and the first American, Australian and South Korean combat troops landed. There was talk of China entering the war. I was glad to hand over the bureau to the new Reuters Correspondent, Rennie Airth. In London I was asked by an editorial executive if the increased US and allied military commitment meant the war would end soon. It was budget time and Head Office planners were trying to decide how much to spend on Vietnam. Remembering what An had told me just before I left Saigon, I said that the Viet Cong would regard the heavier US involvement as a sign of growing US impatience and that if they persevered victory would be theirs. The Vietnam war lasted another 10 years and scores of Reuters journalists passed through the doors of the Saigon bureau, including two who did not return. Our Saigon office manager Pham Ngoc Dinh visited London years later. He told me An had helped him get an exit visa to emigrate to Australia.
Ernesto Mendoza
My last assignment to Saigon was in 1965, after Nick had resigned and An had left Reuters to join Time magazine. It was a hectic few months. The intensive US bombing of North Vietnam started and the first American, Australian and South Korean combat troops landed. There was talk of China entering the war. I was glad to hand over the bureau to the new Reuters Correspondent, Rennie Airth. In London I was asked by an editorial executive if the increased US and allied military commitment meant the war would end soon. It was budget time and Head Office planners were trying to decide how much to spend on Vietnam. Remembering what An had told me just before I left Saigon, I said that the Viet Cong would regard the heavier US involvement as a sign of growing US impatience and that if they persevered victory would be theirs. The Vietnam war lasted another 10 years and scores of Reuters journalists passed through the doors of the Saigon bureau, including two who did not return. Our Saigon office manager Pham Ngoc Dinh visited London years later. He told me An had helped him get an exit visa to emigrate to Australia.
Ernesto Mendoza
Memories of Saigon
Saturday 05 June 2010
I was interested in Jim Pringle's surmise that as bureau chief in Saigon 1962-64 I had probably made the inspired decision to move the Reuters' office to 15 Han Thuyen, from where it had a ringside view of the Tet offensive attack on the US embassy and, later, the North Vietnamese tank entry into the presidential palace in 1975. Steve Somerville has since set the record straight – it was not my decision, as I was no longer bureau chief. Coverage of the Vietnam war will long continue to be a topic of research, so even such apparently mundane details can be of interest.
When I arrived in Saigon in May 1962 and took over the bureau from Peter Smark, the Reuters office was a partitioned-off section of an old French villa on Hong Thap Tu (Red Cross) Street, one of two adjacent villas serving as the HQ of the national news agency Vietnam Press, just across the road from the presidential palace. Reuters had a contract with VNP and part of the deal was our occupancy of a small area of their premises. But in 1963 that arrangement had to end.
When the battle of Ap Bac occurred in January 1963, the first major military setback of the war for government forces, I reported things the presidential palace did not like. I had driven in Reuters’ Hillman Minx to the scene of the battle while it was taking place 30 miles south of Saigon, then driven back to Saigon late in the evening and filed, and then returned to the scene next morning and helped load dozens of Vietnamese army dead from the paddy fields onto armoured personnel carriers. It was the beginning of real tensions between the regime and the major news wires including Reuters.
A little later, in May 1963, the "Buddhist crisis" broke out, and my reporting – with invaluable input from my Vietnamese assistant Pham Xuan An whom we now know to have been the intelligence chief for the Viet Cong – was necessarily unfavourable to the regime. I was soon told VNP could no longer house the Reuters bureau. (I should make clear that Pham Xuan An at no stage ever tried to give Reuters’ coverage a pro-communist bias. He was just so incredibly well informed that we knew when we were being lied to by the Saigon government and the Americans.)
Having become unwelcome in VNP's premises, I searched and found quarters in Rue Catinat (Tu Do), the most central and fashionable street in Saigon. It was an ideal location, with room for the NY Times and others also to set up desks, and I moved my personal living quarters in as well, to be on hand 24/7.
I resigned from Reuters in September 1964 after being refused a request not only for additional staff as the war was getting bigger but also for an RTT communications link to make me competitive with AP and UPI. On my resignation becoming effective in December 1964, I became a Saigon-based free-lancer, and discovered only later that the office had been moved to Han Thuyen by my successors.
There's a funny personal footnote to all this. I continued to use the services of Reuters' wonderful office manager, Pham Ngoc Dinh, to handle immigration and travel matters for me, so I occasionally had reason to visit the office on Han Thuyen. In January 1968, on the eve of the Tet offensive, I had to leave Saigon and return home to NZ for health reasons. When I called in to pick up my passport from Dinh, he gave me a tipoff that Tet was not going to be peaceful. I knew he could only have got that information from Pham Xuan An, who by that time had moved to Time Magazine, but was also the principal planner of the offensive for the communists. But that is by the bye.
During my absence from Saigon I continued writing about Vietnam, and wished I had kept personal copies of my dispatches during my time with Reuters as a resource for research and memoir-writing. When I returned to Saigon some months later, I planned to seek possession if possible of the office file copies of my old dispatches. I wandered up to the Reuters office on Han Thuyen on the morning after my arrival in Saigon and saw Dinh standing on the sidewalk with a pile of cartons. "Hi Dinh", I said, "what's all this?". "Oh sir", he replied, "it's all your old dispatches. No room for them in the office, so we're sending them to the tip". How's that for serendipity? I grabbed those boxes of files, had them shipped out courtesy of RNZAF, and treasure them to this day.
Nick Turner
London Central Desk 1958-61, Saigon bureau chief 1962-64
When I arrived in Saigon in May 1962 and took over the bureau from Peter Smark, the Reuters office was a partitioned-off section of an old French villa on Hong Thap Tu (Red Cross) Street, one of two adjacent villas serving as the HQ of the national news agency Vietnam Press, just across the road from the presidential palace. Reuters had a contract with VNP and part of the deal was our occupancy of a small area of their premises. But in 1963 that arrangement had to end.
When the battle of Ap Bac occurred in January 1963, the first major military setback of the war for government forces, I reported things the presidential palace did not like. I had driven in Reuters’ Hillman Minx to the scene of the battle while it was taking place 30 miles south of Saigon, then driven back to Saigon late in the evening and filed, and then returned to the scene next morning and helped load dozens of Vietnamese army dead from the paddy fields onto armoured personnel carriers. It was the beginning of real tensions between the regime and the major news wires including Reuters.
A little later, in May 1963, the "Buddhist crisis" broke out, and my reporting – with invaluable input from my Vietnamese assistant Pham Xuan An whom we now know to have been the intelligence chief for the Viet Cong – was necessarily unfavourable to the regime. I was soon told VNP could no longer house the Reuters bureau. (I should make clear that Pham Xuan An at no stage ever tried to give Reuters’ coverage a pro-communist bias. He was just so incredibly well informed that we knew when we were being lied to by the Saigon government and the Americans.)
Having become unwelcome in VNP's premises, I searched and found quarters in Rue Catinat (Tu Do), the most central and fashionable street in Saigon. It was an ideal location, with room for the NY Times and others also to set up desks, and I moved my personal living quarters in as well, to be on hand 24/7.
I resigned from Reuters in September 1964 after being refused a request not only for additional staff as the war was getting bigger but also for an RTT communications link to make me competitive with AP and UPI. On my resignation becoming effective in December 1964, I became a Saigon-based free-lancer, and discovered only later that the office had been moved to Han Thuyen by my successors.
There's a funny personal footnote to all this. I continued to use the services of Reuters' wonderful office manager, Pham Ngoc Dinh, to handle immigration and travel matters for me, so I occasionally had reason to visit the office on Han Thuyen. In January 1968, on the eve of the Tet offensive, I had to leave Saigon and return home to NZ for health reasons. When I called in to pick up my passport from Dinh, he gave me a tipoff that Tet was not going to be peaceful. I knew he could only have got that information from Pham Xuan An, who by that time had moved to Time Magazine, but was also the principal planner of the offensive for the communists. But that is by the bye.
During my absence from Saigon I continued writing about Vietnam, and wished I had kept personal copies of my dispatches during my time with Reuters as a resource for research and memoir-writing. When I returned to Saigon some months later, I planned to seek possession if possible of the office file copies of my old dispatches. I wandered up to the Reuters office on Han Thuyen on the morning after my arrival in Saigon and saw Dinh standing on the sidewalk with a pile of cartons. "Hi Dinh", I said, "what's all this?". "Oh sir", he replied, "it's all your old dispatches. No room for them in the office, so we're sending them to the tip". How's that for serendipity? I grabbed those boxes of files, had them shipped out courtesy of RNZAF, and treasure them to this day.
Nick Turner
London Central Desk 1958-61, Saigon bureau chief 1962-64
Pensioners' lunch
Wednesday 02 June 2010
The Digger and others speak very eloquently for those of us who have been denied the chance to meet up every two years at the pensioners' lunch to renew acquaintances with former colleagues, who, though not necessarily close friends, shared a common goal in maintaining Reuters' high standards in the business of news.
Tom Glocer's "reluctant" decision to axe the lunch won't cut any ice with the cynical of us who scoff at the "can't afford it" line. What about cutting back on some first class air travel for the Thomson Reuters hierarchy?
Lawrie Morrison
Tom Glocer's "reluctant" decision to axe the lunch won't cut any ice with the cynical of us who scoff at the "can't afford it" line. What about cutting back on some first class air travel for the Thomson Reuters hierarchy?
Lawrie Morrison
Reuters connections
Tuesday 25 May 2010
The family tree of Mrs Samantha Cameron, wife of the new British prime minister David Cameron, has thrown up a surprising historical connection with Reuters that may be of interest to some readers of your respected website.
Her great grandmother was the well-known author Enid Bagnold (1889-1981, Lady Jones, wife of Sir Roderick Jones (1877-1962), the controversial chairman, part proprietor, general manager and managing director of Reuters between 1902 and 1941. Their son Timothy Angus Jones and his wife Pandora Clifford were Samantha Cameron's grandparents.
The authorised biography of Enid Bagnold was written by Anne Sebba, former Reuter correspondent (published 1986). A partial family tree was published in the Weekend magazine of the Daily Mail of 1 May 2010 p14.
Manfred Pagel
● Anne Sebba’s books
Her great grandmother was the well-known author Enid Bagnold (1889-1981, Lady Jones, wife of Sir Roderick Jones (1877-1962), the controversial chairman, part proprietor, general manager and managing director of Reuters between 1902 and 1941. Their son Timothy Angus Jones and his wife Pandora Clifford were Samantha Cameron's grandparents.
The authorised biography of Enid Bagnold was written by Anne Sebba, former Reuter correspondent (published 1986). A partial family tree was published in the Weekend magazine of the Daily Mail of 1 May 2010 p14.
Manfred Pagel
● Anne Sebba’s books
Pensioners and former employees
Thursday 20 May 2010
Has Thomson Reuters abandoned their pensioners and former employees?
They would claim not, however recent actions do paint a different picture. Most people are aware of the reneging of the previous policy to pay annual discretionary cost of living increases to UK pensioners. Although not formally written down, it was a previous custom and practice which every UK pensioner was aware of and was reassured by. However in 2003 Reuters decided to change this as a way of saving money. Pensioners now see the real value of their pensions dropping year-on-year as a result.
A few years ago Reuters started a group named the Reuters Alumni Network. At the first meeting Tom Glocer stated that the purpose of the group was to provide a forum for former Reuters employees to keep in touch and to be kept up to date with some of the latest Reuters strategy. Three or four meetings were held in London with guest speakers but the forum now seems to have been quietly dropped without any notification to the Alumni members.
It was also a tradition for Reuters to host an annual pensioners’ lunch in London. Some years ago this was changed to a two-yearly event to reduce costs. However the lunch that was due to be held this year (usually in May) hasn’t happened and it now appears that the lunch has also been quietly abandoned.
What should pensioners and former employees make of such decisions and the way they were implemented? From my perspective I think the saddest aspect of the above is that Thomson Reuters management do not feel any need to contact pensioners and former employees to advise them of these decisions. It seems such decisions are taken behind closed doors and those directly affected only find out when they ask direct questions to TR. I do think this displays a lack of courage by those in charge. Of course, there are times when such decisions may be justified and necessary, but please do the decent thing and have the courtesy to advise those impacted in an open and honest way. After all, we are real people who put a huge amount into our working life to help make Reuters become a great company with great values. Or so we thought at the time – things do now seem to have changed for the worse.
Nick Farrow
They would claim not, however recent actions do paint a different picture. Most people are aware of the reneging of the previous policy to pay annual discretionary cost of living increases to UK pensioners. Although not formally written down, it was a previous custom and practice which every UK pensioner was aware of and was reassured by. However in 2003 Reuters decided to change this as a way of saving money. Pensioners now see the real value of their pensions dropping year-on-year as a result.
A few years ago Reuters started a group named the Reuters Alumni Network. At the first meeting Tom Glocer stated that the purpose of the group was to provide a forum for former Reuters employees to keep in touch and to be kept up to date with some of the latest Reuters strategy. Three or four meetings were held in London with guest speakers but the forum now seems to have been quietly dropped without any notification to the Alumni members.
It was also a tradition for Reuters to host an annual pensioners’ lunch in London. Some years ago this was changed to a two-yearly event to reduce costs. However the lunch that was due to be held this year (usually in May) hasn’t happened and it now appears that the lunch has also been quietly abandoned.
What should pensioners and former employees make of such decisions and the way they were implemented? From my perspective I think the saddest aspect of the above is that Thomson Reuters management do not feel any need to contact pensioners and former employees to advise them of these decisions. It seems such decisions are taken behind closed doors and those directly affected only find out when they ask direct questions to TR. I do think this displays a lack of courage by those in charge. Of course, there are times when such decisions may be justified and necessary, but please do the decent thing and have the courtesy to advise those impacted in an open and honest way. After all, we are real people who put a huge amount into our working life to help make Reuters become a great company with great values. Or so we thought at the time – things do now seem to have changed for the worse.
Nick Farrow
Pensioners' lunch
Friday 14 May 2010
"We are undiminished. This decision is tawdry, little and mean spirited in the extreme." [● No more pensioners’ lunches - Tom Glocer].
Good on ya, Digger, and Michael and Howard too. The recent displays of top-level contempt for Reuters traditional values were appalling, if not completely unexpected. The family news agency may have had its failings, but we were all hugely proud to belong.
Long may the Short Lunch Club and the Paris Dinosaurs thrive. They defend the values that matter.
Roger Crabb
Good on ya, Digger, and Michael and Howard too. The recent displays of top-level contempt for Reuters traditional values were appalling, if not completely unexpected. The family news agency may have had its failings, but we were all hugely proud to belong.
Long may the Short Lunch Club and the Paris Dinosaurs thrive. They defend the values that matter.
Roger Crabb
Pensioners' lunch
Friday 14 May 2010
The couple of pensioners' lunches in London that I attended were indeed pleasant occasions and it is sad that the peanuts to which Michael Reupke eloquently referred are being withheld, or rather abruptly abolished [● No more pensioners’ lunches - Tom Glocer]. But surely the more important issue for most pensioners is not the lunch, but the pensions themselves. The lack of reasonable annual increases, more or less in line with inflation, for those who toiled over many years to transform the news agency which I joined half a century ago from an impoverished struggler into a company now able to pay its leaders millions each year is disgraceful. Yes, of course such increases would incur a modest dip into Thomson Reuters profits, especially now with the Pension Fund's income hard hit by external factors far beyond its control. But they are feasible if those now at the top would give due recognition to the very hard labour of those who made their current position possible. Or should we just resign ourselves to saying: "Why did we bother?"
Vergil Berger
Vergil Berger
Pensioners' lunch
Friday 14 May 2010
It hardly seems possible, but Tom Glocer’s behavior has become even more mind boggling. First, he expresses support for Goldman Sachs in a possible government fraud case, and then says Thomson Reuters can no longer afford the Pensioners’ Lunch [● No more pensioners’ lunches - Tom Glocer]. If I’m interpreting this correctly, he is essentially saying that the people who actually built the company’s stellar reputation are no longer worth the price of a meal, even if they are willing to pay most of the cost. It doesn’t speak much for his sense of values.
Howard Luxenberg
Howard Luxenberg
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
Pensioners’ lunch
Friday 14 May 2010
The style is becoming ever clearer. Salaries of millions are easily paid. The cost of a lunch, a handful of peanuts, is portrayed as too expensive [● No more pensioners’ lunches - Tom Glocer].
Perhaps I am just too old-fashioned and European. Some might even describe me by that most damning of epithets, liberal or, horror of horrors, even socialist.
Yet, like Simlizissimus wandering a world in turmoil, I sometimes wonder at what I see. Communism failed and crashed in the 1980s amid symphonies of triumphalism from the Capitalist world, yet it spawned more millionaires than ever before. Capitalism failed without as much fanfare over about the same period in 2000-2010, and is spawning an equal cloud of millionaires, who likewise did not earn what they received.
Please let's have a handful of peanuts for the faithful workers who created the wealth that morphed into Thomson Reuters.
Michael Reupke
Perhaps I am just too old-fashioned and European. Some might even describe me by that most damning of epithets, liberal or, horror of horrors, even socialist.
Yet, like Simlizissimus wandering a world in turmoil, I sometimes wonder at what I see. Communism failed and crashed in the 1980s amid symphonies of triumphalism from the Capitalist world, yet it spawned more millionaires than ever before. Capitalism failed without as much fanfare over about the same period in 2000-2010, and is spawning an equal cloud of millionaires, who likewise did not earn what they received.
Please let's have a handful of peanuts for the faithful workers who created the wealth that morphed into Thomson Reuters.
Michael Reupke
Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh
Wednesday 21 April 2010
Reuters journalists should thank Michael Reupke for justifiably taking the current editor-in-chief to task for a mealy-mouthed response to the video footage of the killing of Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh by US forces in Baghdad.
A robust public statement is not a matter of "sounding off" – as Tom Glocer calls it – but of holding the authorities in a democracy that purports to respect the work of journalists to account for their actions and, in this case, their unconscionable failure to follow through on their own commitments.
In August 2003, almost four years before Namir and Saeed were killed, Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana was shot dead in Iraq by US forces who said they mistook his camera for an RPG launcher. "We will do everything in our power to make sure things like this do not happen again," a US military spokesman, Lt. Col. Guy Shields, said at the time. In March 2004, after Reuters had pushed vigorously for a proper investigation of Mazen’s killing, a US military review exonerated the soldiers involved but made important recommendations to help make war zones less dangerous for journalists. One of the recommendations, which Reuters welcomed, was to "investigate better methods of identifying journalists in the theatre of war". It is questionable whether the US military ever did anything about its own recommendations, given that the helicopter crew who killed Namir and Saeed so readily concluded yet again that cameras were weapons.
Thomson Reuters needs to speak out before another journalist with a camera falls victim to the US military’s failure to take the steps it recommended in its own review into one of all too many needless killings. “Quiet engagement” without public accountability won’t work.
Paul Holmes
A robust public statement is not a matter of "sounding off" – as Tom Glocer calls it – but of holding the authorities in a democracy that purports to respect the work of journalists to account for their actions and, in this case, their unconscionable failure to follow through on their own commitments.
In August 2003, almost four years before Namir and Saeed were killed, Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana was shot dead in Iraq by US forces who said they mistook his camera for an RPG launcher. "We will do everything in our power to make sure things like this do not happen again," a US military spokesman, Lt. Col. Guy Shields, said at the time. In March 2004, after Reuters had pushed vigorously for a proper investigation of Mazen’s killing, a US military review exonerated the soldiers involved but made important recommendations to help make war zones less dangerous for journalists. One of the recommendations, which Reuters welcomed, was to "investigate better methods of identifying journalists in the theatre of war". It is questionable whether the US military ever did anything about its own recommendations, given that the helicopter crew who killed Namir and Saeed so readily concluded yet again that cameras were weapons.
Thomson Reuters needs to speak out before another journalist with a camera falls victim to the US military’s failure to take the steps it recommended in its own review into one of all too many needless killings. “Quiet engagement” without public accountability won’t work.
Paul Holmes
Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh
Wednesday 21 April 2010
Two small points in response to Hans Ouwerkerk's intervention. Firstly I am not English, secondly Hans should know me well enough to know that I am concerned not only for the welfare of journalists and that I would have made as much fuss for a technician, a salesman or an accountant. I was merely applying the conventional wisdom, reaffirmed many times when issues of murder by government forces, kidnap and unlawful detention have been discussed in the International Press Institute or the Inter-American Press Association which groups employers as well as editors. That wisdom says make a loud noise and keep the spotlight on the case, never let it off the front pages or out of sight until you have the desired result. An exception is if noise is likely to endanger the life of the victim further. If that has been the case I of course bow to Tom Glocer's and David Schlesinger’s knowledge of the situations. It is perhaps time I shut up. Let me cast one more small pebble: It is galling that the nation which purports to teach the world democracy, human rights, the rule of law and freedom, should so blatantly flout the principles it claims to uphold. Every American should be ashamed of the recent events on which we have touched in this column.
Michael Reupke
Michael Reupke
Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh
Tuesday 20 April 2010
Since 1984 Reuters PLC was motivated to provide shareholder value and not just governed by news or news people as Michael Reupke implies. It was then headed by a non journalist Australian CEO and an English Editor-in-Chief (Michael Reupke). Thereafter, by an English CEO and a Dutch Editor-in-Chief. Would any of these two preceding tandems have reacted differently? They probably might have, simply because they were different. Would their reactions have been "better" or "more appropriate"? We can only be left to speculate.
Hans Ouwerkerk
Hans Ouwerkerk
Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh
Monday 19 April 2010
I read with displeasure Michael Reupke's rebuke of the editor. David and I are pursuing a quiet yet we believe more effective engagement with the US authorities. Our goal is protecting our journalists – that is paramount. If I believed just sounding off could achieve that goal or bring Namir or Saeed back I would not hesitate.
Tom Glocer
Tom Glocer
Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh
Sunday 18 April 2010
I am told that many people have found Reuters response to the murder of two Reuters staff shown in the video recently released by the website WikiLeaks to have been surprisingly low key and are keen to understand what might have motivated such a response and why Reuters current statement is so inadequate. I cannot answer that, never having worked with Thomson Reuters, a very different company from Reuters, nor with the individuals at the head of Thomson Reuters. Much has changed since my day, one may have to look for the reasons there. The company is now largely owned by a Canadian shareholder whose heartbeat is seemingly governed by money, not by news nor news people. The CEO and the Editor-in-Chief are American, but I would not speculate how far that might motivate them to refrain from irritating the Washington regime. I could see no direct link. The CEO is a lawyer, not a journalist. The new company is headquartered in New York. I left it to my interlocutor to speculate herself. I could offer no insight, indeed I would like to know the answers myself.
Michael Reupke
Michael Reupke
Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh
Wednesday 07 April 2010
The flabby response to the shameful murder of photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and driver Saeed Chmagh by reckless US forces is not reassuring. What of their families? Why do we leave it to others to make the running? Is this a Thomson effect?
Michael Reupke (outraged and angry!)
Michael Reupke (outraged and angry!)
Future news network
Tuesday 16 March 2010
I see Zaid Rashdan’s point, but I'm not convinced. Here's why. Organisations should focus on what they're good at, and get good at other stuff they need to do to stay healthy and get even better at what they are good at. But there is a fine line. If organisations stray too far from their core they spread themselves thin, and often wither. Since the 1970s Reuters has built its non-news business on the back of its stellar journalistic reputation. But as a company, Reuters (or better its executives since the era of its stock market introduction) failed to realise that news gathering was the real strength – and that the new gizmos and transaction technologies and the deal-oriented info that flowed on these systems were a corollary, and not the strategic core – or unique selling proposition (USP), as management theory calls it. And after Reuters became a listed company, it has seemingly consistently failed to develop a strong strategy. A near-monopoly in the trading rooms, it was like a turtle on its back when Bloomberg showed up as competition in the non-news arena. Now follow the social networks. I can't see it helping much. I could see Thomson Reuters as a strong independent player, and thus indispensable partner to the companies building the social media world – but only if it doesn't dilute its offering: news content which is reported, edited and produced to the highest standards. Because that is becoming a real rarity.
Bjorn Edlund
Bjorn Edlund
Future news network
Monday 15 March 2010
I think this step [● Reuters media chief outlines vision for future news network] is inevitable; it’s a natural reaction to any traditional media, I am only surprised that it took so long. The emergence of virtual environments, like a second life, or a new awakening, in an extraordinary on-line world is around us, exploding in number of users, volume of content, and topics. The sheer amount of content available on the web in terms of news reports, pictures, videos and blogs has exploded. As Chris Ahearn said “Media is not a one-way street anymore” It has become a news source itself that cannot be ignored. No one company can do it alone.
Zaid Rashdan
Zaid Rashdan
Future news network
Sunday 14 March 2010
Project Apollo [● Reuters media chief outlines vision for future news network] sounds desperate, like so much talk about media these days. Content is just something to talk about in the new world, but unless content is generated, there is nothing to talk about. And the world's formerly greatest news agency needs, in my view, to find better ways to fight for the value of the news/content it produces. How content is tagged and clouded and shared many-to-many on social media platforms hardly seems like something Reuters should focus on. The agency went astray a long time ago, when it thought technology was its core rather than content.
Bjorn Edlund
Bjorn Edlund
