David Schlesinger
David Schlesinger, former editor-in-chief, quits
Thursday 09 February 2012
“It has been a great ride, firstly in editorial and latterly with a tremendous China team – wonderful people, great experiences, amazing stories,” Schlesinger said.
Schlesinger, 51, joined Reuters in 1987 as a correspondent in Hong Kong. From 1989 to 1995 he managed Reuters editorial operations in Taiwan, China, and the Greater China region. He was appointed editor-in-chief in January 2007 after a spell as global managing editor. He became chairman, Thomson Reuters China, in February 2011 when Stephen Adler was appointed editor-in-chief.
“I loved being editor-in-chief; I’ve had a blast being Chairman, China; I’m happy to be able to end it like this,” he said.
Major Reuters editorial shake-up to be unveiled
Friday 15 April 2011
The new editor-in-chief, Stephen Adler, is expected to announce the changes as soon as Monday. A former editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek magazine, now owned by Bloomberg, he replaced David Schlesinger as editor-in-chief in February. Adler said then he would spend the next 60 days evaluating news operations to determine what changes needed to be made to improve performance.
Talking Biz News, a website run by the Carolina Business News Initiative, said that according to three current employees, “those changes will largely focus on editing positions and are seen as Adler putting his stamp on the organisation”.
“When you look at the organisational chart, you see some editors with titles like managing editor of news research strategy for people you’ve never heard of and who are doing jobs similar to other positions at the company,” it quoted one editor as saying.
Talking Biz News said Adler has apparently been advised on the re-organisation by Stuart Karle, former general counsel for The Wall Street Journal.
It said one Reuters editor noted the company has three editor hierarchies – specialist editors such as those overseeing company coverage, stock market coverage, treasuries, commodities and other specialisations; bureau chiefs who oversee regional coverage; and a team of managing editors. There is also a group of editors called Top News. One of those levels is likely to be cut, said two staffers, with the reorganised editing team grouped under Top News editors.
Talking Biz News said the changes were foreshadowed in an e-mail sent to staff on Friday in which Amy Stevens, executive editor of the Thomson Reuters professional news operation, and Tiffany Wu, editor of company news in the Americas, referred to organisational and physical moves at Thomson Reuters’ headquarters in Times Square, New York.
Wong, one of the highest-ranking women in business journalism and the most prominent Asian woman in journalism, will formally leave the company at the end of May but is understood to have already gone. She deferred comment to Reuters PR staff but on her Facebook page wrote that, starting in June, she plans to begin work on a book about her great grandfather, a four-star general in Chiang Kai-shek’s army who was killed during the regime of Mao Tse-tung. A journalism graduate of New York University, she began her career at The Wall Street Journal in 1985 and joined Reuters in 1989, becoming managing editor and head of editorial operations in 2004 after a stint as global equities editor.
Adler spent 16 years at the Journal. He joined Reuters at the beginning of 2010 after Bloomberg acquired BusinessWeek.
● SOURCE Talking Biz News
Thomson Reuters names new editor-in-chief
Monday 07 February 2011
He is Stephen Adler, pictured, who joined the company a year ago from BusinessWeek where he was editor-in-chief. He left the magazine after it was purchased by Bloomberg. Adler replaces David Schlesinger who held the post since January 2007 and now returns to China to oversee group strategy in that country as chairman of Thomson Reuters China. The moves are effective immediately.
Chief executive Tom Glocer said the appointment of a relative outsider to the company’s top editorial job showed “not everything has to be invented here”.
Adler, 56, a former investigative editor at The Wall Street Journal and one-time editor of The American Lawyer, joined Thomson Reuters in January 2010 to set up dedicated news services for its legal, tax and accounting and healthcare and science divisions, fulfilling a goal set when Thomson acquired Reuters in April 2008. He is a graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Law School.
Glocer said Thomson Reuters’ fledgling professional news initiative, which employs 12 journalists, is “ready to be integrated into mother Reuters”.
Pointing to AOL’s acquisition of Huffington Post and The Daily Beast’s Newsweek deal, he added: “If you look at the outside world, there’s a need to accelerate change even in venerable and well-respected news organisations.”
“Journalistic excellence will continue to be our hallmark,” Adler said in a statement, “and our goal is to become a must-read among global professionals. To that end, we will continue to develop our extraordinary internal talent as well as hiring strategically from outside.”
He told the Financial Times his appointment to the new role of executive vice president of news for Thomson Reuters, reporting to the heads of both the markets and professional divisions, signalled a decision “to view Reuters News as an asset for the whole company”.
“There is going to be one news organisation to serve all the businesses,” Adler said. “The goal is to have a united news organisation.”
Glocer said: “My biggest hope and goal for him is we maximise the amount of time and resource that truly goes to journalistic excellence. Reuters developed its reputation when no one could do what we did. We should do that again.”
In a message to staff, Glocer said Adler would be a member of the executive committee and would report jointly to Devin Wenig and James Smith, chief executives of Thomson Reuters’ markets and professional divisions respectively. “This reporting relationship will help ensure that news will become a central asset for both divisions – the very heart of our company. Steve is the ideal choice to lead the next phase in the development of Reuters News as a core capability for Thomson Reuters.”
Schlesinger, 50, joined Reuters in 1987 as a correspondent in Hong Kong. He is a fluent Mandarin speaker and former head of Reuters’ editorial operations in China. “He’s far better known in China than I am,” Glocer said, adding that it would have taken him 20 years to build the same level of trust within a market where relationships matter were he just visiting twice a year from his New York head office.
Glocer said it was the perfect moment for Schlesinger to return to China in a senior strategic role to support the development of the group’s businesses in this key market. “David brings extraordinary passion and experience to this mission.”
He added: “Our news organisation is now poised to advance to new levels of excellence in an industry which is moving very fast. Please join me in thanking David for getting us here and supporting Steve as he takes us forward.”
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters | MarketWire
Thai forces may have killed Hiro Muramoto - investigators
Tuesday 16 November 2010
“Since there was possible involvement by government officers, we have to start from square one by letting police investigate further,” Tharit Pengdith, director general of the Department of Special Investigation, told a news conference.
Muramoto, 43, a Japanese journalist based in Tokyo, was killed by a high-velocity bullet that hit his chest while he was covering clashes between anti-government protesters and troops.
“I hope the investigation can be completed swiftly so that all who care deeply about Hiro Muramoto’s death can have clarity about what precisely happened, David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, said in a statement. “His family and colleagues need to know who was involved and what the circumstances were that led to this tragedy.”
Twenty-five people, mostly protesters, were killed and hundreds wounded on 10 April. Television footage showed Thai troops opening fire on protesters, while soldiers came under attack from grenades and black-clad gunmen moved among the demonstrators.
The DSI said Muramoto was among six people whose deaths will be further investigated because it was unclear if he was shot by security forces, protesters or unidentified “armed militants”.
A senior police official who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue told Reuters on Tuesday that Muramoto was likely caught in crossfire and there was a “high possibility” that he was shot by the security forces although the case remained inconclusive. “Given the line of fire and eyewitness accounts, there is a high possibility but this is in no way conclusive which is why we need further investigation,” the official said.
● SOURCE Reuters
New York Guild and Thomson Reuters to resume stalled contract talks
Tuesday 19 October 2010
Contract talks between Thomson Reuters and The Newspaper Guild of New York, stalled since January when the company declared an impasse, are to resume next month.
The union, which represents 420 reporters, editors and technical workers at Thomson Reuters, told company managers on Monday it would resume “on-the-record bargaining” for a new contract. It said this follows a recent exchange of correspondence with the company.
The previous contract expired in February 2009. In January 2010 Thomson Reuters declared an impasse in negotiations and imposed new work rules. The union said the new rules were aimed at eliminating the Guild as the employees' representative.
Guild president Bill O’Meara said recent events had changed the picture. Company managers had said they planned drastic changes in benefits, including spiking health care costs, switching vendors for dental, vision, prescription and other coverage and eliminating many of the funds now available in retirement savings accounts. “We felt these changes would hit members so hard that we had to at least try to do what we could to stop or mitigate them.”
O’Meara said he had asked editor-in-chief David Schlesinger, a member of Reuters’ management’s bargaining committee in 1998-2000, to join the talks when they resume on 4 November.
● SOURCE The Newspaper Guild of New York
The union, which represents 420 reporters, editors and technical workers at Thomson Reuters, told company managers on Monday it would resume “on-the-record bargaining” for a new contract. It said this follows a recent exchange of correspondence with the company.
The previous contract expired in February 2009. In January 2010 Thomson Reuters declared an impasse in negotiations and imposed new work rules. The union said the new rules were aimed at eliminating the Guild as the employees' representative.
Guild president Bill O’Meara said recent events had changed the picture. Company managers had said they planned drastic changes in benefits, including spiking health care costs, switching vendors for dental, vision, prescription and other coverage and eliminating many of the funds now available in retirement savings accounts. “We felt these changes would hit members so hard that we had to at least try to do what we could to stop or mitigate them.”
O’Meara said he had asked editor-in-chief David Schlesinger, a member of Reuters’ management’s bargaining committee in 1998-2000, to join the talks when they resume on 4 November.
● SOURCE The Newspaper Guild of New York
Reuters columnist quits after ‘multiple breaches’ of trading code
Monday 18 October 2010
Reuters did not identify any of the journalists involved but the Financial Times said Neil Collins, pictured, former City editor of The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Times and the London Evening Standard, had volunteered his resignation after realising he had breached the company’s rules guiding journalists’ conduct.
"While we have no evidence the journalist was abusing his position for financial gain, we take such breaches extremely seriously and that journalist resigned with immediate effect during our investigation," editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said in a note to staff on Monday.
He added that several other cases had come to light as a result of questioning Reuters Breakingviews staff where disclosures to readers or managers could or should have been made. Investigations continue.
“A fundamental foundation of our principles is that we avoid conflicts of interest in our reporting and that we are honest and transparent with our readers when those conflicts occur,” Schlesinger’s e-mail said, according to The Guardian.
Thomson Reuters’ ● code on disclosing financial conflicts forbids journalists from writing about shares they own unless they notify their interest to their manager and from dealing in shares about which they have written recently or intend to write in the near future.
Schlesinger said it was vital that everyone looked to their own market participation to be sure they complied with the spirit and the letter of the rules. “This is about our compact with our readers; it is about our individual reputations; and it is about ensuring that Reuters and Thomson Reuters live up to the standards set both by our long, proud history and our Trust Principles,” he added.
The FT said Thomson Reuters had identified 37 articles published between February 2009 and July 2010 in which columnists wrote about companies in which they held shares, and 16 articles in which journalists wrote about companies before or after trading in their shares.
Schlesinger said the columnist wrote commentary about companies in which he had a financial interest and made trades shortly afterwards. The code of conduct forbids journalists from writing about shares they own unless they notify their interest to their manager and from dealing in shares about which they have written recently or intend to write in the near future.
Breakingviews will be adding a disclaimer to all relevant archived columns to say whether the commentators held shares in the companies at the time and if they traded them shortly before or after publication. For example, on 25 May Collins wrote a column headed “Time for BP to share the pain”. According to the refiled version of the article, he owned shares in BP when he wrote the piece and bought shares shortly before and after.
The FT said that in an e-mail to Hugo Dixon, editor of Breakingviews, Collins said he had made no attempt to conceal his activities from his colleagues, and had voluntarily contacted Reuters as soon as he realised he might be in breach of the company’s rules.
“I am saddened and embarrassed by my breaches of the rules and hope that you will shortly be able to draw a line under this unfortunate episode,” he wrote.
Collins was hired by Reuters in the spring of 2009 to join its original commentary team. Thomson Reuters acquired Breakingviews for £12 million last December and the two teams were merged.
● SOURCE Reuters | Financial Times | The Guardian | Breakingviews | The New York Times
Reuters launches Insider - 'YouTube for traders'
Tuesday 11 May 2010
The service, two years in the making, is aimed at half a million financial subscribers who will pay up to $2,000 a month to receive a stream of 3,000 online news clips a week. It will be available on desktops, BlackBerries, iPhones and iPads, live or on-demand.
Thomson Reuters hopes Insider will shape the future of news. It is part of a $1 billion technology investment at the group, which wants to embed itself more firmly into customers’ daily work and differentiate itself further from Bloomberg and other competitors.
About 15 per cent of the content will come from Reuters’ own studios in Hong Kong, London and New York and desktop nodes while the rest will come from media outlets like CNBC, Sky and Forbes, along with content from analysts.
“The trend that we are seeing in professional information is not all that different than consumer media,” said Devin Wenig, chief executive for the markets division – essentially the old Reuters business plus Thomson Financial. “People are increasingly visual, and they expect to access information in that way. They want to be able to look at a chief executive and see the expression on the analyst’s face.”
The rise of the Internet means that traders today are more familiar with clicking their way through YouTube than memorising codes for using Reuters’ trading screens and information feeds. “You see very different behaviour from a 25-year-old just out of the London School of Economics to a 55-year-old who has been trading for the last 25 years,” said Wenig. “People who grew up with Google have totally different expectations of how to interact with information and media. We can’t ignore that.”
“What if this becomes the way people consume news?” Mike Stepanovich, managing editor of Insider, said. “What if all news providers decide to come together to share content and syndicate information?”
The idea is to harness Insider’s technology, which allows videos to be searched in real time, to create what he calls a marketplace for news. News organisations that signed up could submit video, pictures and text to the Reuters platform. They would not pay for the exposure, and Reuters would not pay them for their material.
Stepanovich agreed with The Times that “once someone aggregates lots of sources ... the value of having a global news organisation [such as Reuters] kind of goes away”. But he added: “If someone’s going to disrupt your business model, it had best be you. This is the future of the agency business.”
Financial customers are the priority for Insider but Stepanovich said a consumer-orientated product was being considered under which anyone could access searchable video content from a variety of publishers.
As part of the initiative, Reuters is sharing a suite of tools for desktop video production, "even if some of the footage that comes back looks like a hostage video," The New York Times said. It sounds wonderful, and probably will be one day, but the density and relevance of information still need work, The New York Times said. Thomson Reuters says it will iron out glitches as they occur. "It’s not exactly ‘Glee.’ It’s not even ‘Mad Money.’ But it beats downloading and reading the PDF of the latest media research report by a mile,” the newspaper said.
"The breadth and depth of Reuters global editorial coverage has allowed us the opportunity to create something truly unique," said David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief. "By leveraging our 2,800 journalists worldwide, Reuters Insider provides our clients with global financial market news and the credibility that accompanies local access and knowledge."
Reuters Insider is a key part of Thomson Reuters’ New Era, New Tools programme designed to address the challenges faced by the financial services community. It follows the recent launch of Elektron, a new high speed data distribution network, and will be fully integrated into Eikon, the company's next-generation information desktop offering due to launch later this year. Eikon aims to create a common platform for all of Thomson Reuters’ 200 financial products. It is likely to look and feel more like a conventional web portal and all the group’s 500,000 customers will be moved on to it, replacing 3000Xtra as the flagship product.
“We are not going to be the greatest technology company in the world and nor should we be,” said Wenig. “But technology is an enabler. We have to put money into it. We can’t just talk about it. I don’t want to turn us into a consumer company but you ignore at your peril what YouTube and Twitter have done to online behaviour.”
Wenig said in a launch message to staff: "As I've said before, we have started down the road of making a number of radical transformations – to our products, our platforms and how we run our business – that will make an enormous difference for our customers. Congratulations to everyone who made today's exciting next step possible."
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters | The Times | The New York Times | Financial Times | Fast Company | Market Watch | Thomson Reuters marketing VIDEO | Thomson Reuters VIDEO
CEO’s Goldman defence threatens Reuters objectivity - NY Guild
Wednesday 28 April 2010
“Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer shook our venerable media company’s hallowed commitment to objectivity last week when he devoted a blog post to a lengthy defense of besieged Goldman Sachs, a significant client accused by federal regulators of rigging a financial instrument to favor a big customer without informing other investors,” the Guild, which represents unionised employees, said.
The chief executive wrote on his ● personal blog: “Perhaps (Goldman) will eventually be found liable of these charges, although I rather doubt it.”
What’s wrong with the top officer of a global news and information company exercising his First Amendment rights in a public forum, the Guild asked.
“First of all, it tells Reuters reporters and editors who are covering the Goldman story that the boss is on Goldman’s side. In the newspaper business, press barons and their modern-day corporate successors regularly use the editorial pages to express their opinions about controversial issues. But they have firewalls between news and editorial sections that are widely accepted in the business, even if they’re not so well understood by the public.
“Not so at TR. Without those historic firewalls, the CEO’s publicly expressed opinion could easily be taken as guidance by the reporting staff on how to cover the Goldman story. Fortunately, U.S.-based reporters and editors working on the Goldman story are Guild-covered, which enables them to chase the story without fear of retribution. But for the unprotected frontline supervisors and middle managers who oversee and direct the Goldman coverage, there’s no telling whether the CEO’s latest blog will prompt them to order up certain stories just because they fit Glocer’s opinions.
“Then, there’s public perception. The 160-year reputation of Reuters news as objective and reliable through wars, financial upheavals and natural disasters is one of the reasons clients pay as much as they do for the service and one of the reasons journalists choose to work for Thomson Reuters. Having the CEO take public stands on controversial issues can do nothing but tarnish that hard-earned reputation – and that could threaten sales.”
Debby Zabarenko, Washington-based environment correspondent and head of the Guild unit at Thomson Reuters, said: “What happened to the prized principles of maintaining the appearance and the reality of objectivity? Our members and the company’s clients deserve nothing less.”
The Guild noted that the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles say, among other things, that “the integrity, independence and freedom from bias of Thomson Reuters shall at all times be fully preserved”. Does Glocer’s defence of Goldman Sachs violate the principles? Former editor-in-chief and general manager Michael Reupke seems to think so, the Guild said. It quoted ● Reupke’s letter to The Baron on Tuesday in which he said “It is quite outrageous … for any executive of Reuters, and now surely equally of Thomson Reuters, to express an opinion on the Goldman Sachs affair. Are the Trustees too sleepy to think of stepping in here? If this had happened in my day I doubt whether he could have survived in his job.”
Zabarenko said Glocer’s “extremely inappropriate” comments “could not only tarnish the company’s reputation but that of all Reuters journalists who work hard at being objective. He should disavow his comments immediately.”
The Guild urged Schlesinger to reconsider a union suggestion in February that he issue a statement to the staff and to the public asserting that it shall be the company's policy that no high-level Thomson Reuters executive, sales executive or any other non-editorial manager shall interfere with, or even inquire about, any news story or project that is in the works or being contemplated, and direct the Board of Trustees to appoint an independent ombudsman to act as an advocate for editorial within the organisation.
“By reporting directly to the Trustees, this Editorial advocate would be unfettered by the chains of command in the corporate structure and could credibly monitor, report on and advise on matters affecting editorial integrity,” it said.
● SOURCE The Newspaper Guild of New York
Reuters UK website gets 'gorgeous' new look
Friday 23 April 2010
Reuters is a news power house with 2,800 journalists in 190 different bureaus dedicated to being the indispensable news source, Schlesinger said in a welcome message.
"News has been in our blood for more than a century and a half, but we’ve always been restlessly innovating and always looking to the future.
“For Reuters.co.uk, the future is now…We want this to be the world’s best website covering business and finance news, analysis, and opinion. Full stop."
The redesign took more than a year to produce. "We’re proud of our new home, and hope you like it. And this is just the beginning. In the coming months, we will continue to roll out new features and functionality,” Schlesinger added.
● SOURCE Reuters
David Schlesinger: What I want from the Pentagon
Wednesday 21 April 2010
The editor-in-chief wrote in The Guardian about a growing furore over a recently leaked video of the deaths of Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh in Iraq three years ago. His article, published under the headline “War journalists have a right to safety”, follows in full:
When Wikileaks published the harrowing video of the deaths in Iraq of my colleagues Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his assistant and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, the world finally had the transparency it should have had about this tragedy.
It was impossible for me to watch and not feel outrage and great sorrow – but this is not about trying to tell anyone else what to feel. This is about trying to find out exactly what happened and how to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
What I want from the Pentagon – and from all militaries – is simple: Acknowledgment, transparency, accountability.
Acknowledgment means both understanding at headquarters and training in the field that journalists have a right to be on the battlefield, and not just those embedded with a military unit. A journalist’s mission is to provide understanding, provide context and provide the reporting that citizens deserve. That mission requires journalists cover the story from multiple angles, including ones that potentially put them in harm’s way. A war prosecuted in darkness is a war without accountability. The journalist’s role is vital for a democracy and it must be acknowledged.
Then, there must be acknowledgment that true journalists come in every race, both sexes and a multitude of nationalities. Within Reuters, our 2,800 journalists come from 80 different nationalities. They all have a right to safety.
As too many tragic deaths, including those of Namir and Saeed, have proven, soldiers in tense warfare repeatedly mistake cameras and tripods for weapons. They’re not. There must be a way of training soldiers to distinguish the forms. It is imperative to have the consciousness that the shape in the scope might not be a threat.
Transparency is vital. This is the honesty for all to learn lessons from what has transpired. Soon after the incident, Reuters editors were shown only one portion of the video. We immediately changed our operating procedures – the first portion of the video made clear that anyone walking with a group of armed people could be considered a target. We immediately made it a rule that our journalists could not even walk near armed groups.
However, we were not shown the second part of the video, where the helicopter fired on a van trying to evacuate the wounded. Had we seen it, we could have adjusted our procedures further.
Transparency saves lives.
We have been trying for more than two and a half years to get this video from the military through formal legal means without success and in fact have an appeal to their last denial of our request still pending; now it transpires that officials who repeatedly told us that what the video contained was important enough for security reasons to withhold it from us, made no efforts to secure it and weren’t even clear where it was. It took a whistleblower to make sure the world had the transparency it needed and deserved.
I want the Pentagon to join me in a search for thorough and complete transparency.
Finally there is accountability. There are rules of war as there are in peace. The lack of transparency has meant there’s been absence of accountability.
Let’s dig behind the video. Let’s fully understand the rules the military were operating under. Let’s have a complete picture of what was going through the fliers’ minds. Let’s hear the Pentagon explain its interpretation of the rules of engagement and the Geneva Convention and how the actions either did or did not accord with them in its view. And importantly, let’s keep in mind that while we focus on this particular tragedy, it is the rare circumstance that when a journalist is injured or killed in a conflict area, there is a video of the death, and even more rare as this case demonstrates, for the public to see such a video.
And then let’s have the debate. Seeing the hundreds of articles and thousands of comments in the wake of the video’s release, it’s clear that people on every side of the issue have strong feelings. Let’s have a debate based on fact and not on emotion.
Acceptance, transparency and accountability – these add up to true justice. And that, in the end, is what I am after. I want justice for the journalists who lost their lives.
Justice is not vengeance. Justice is about holding all to account to make sure that proper lessons are learned, that mistakes aren’t repeated and that tragedies don’t happen again.
● SOURCE The Guardian | Reuters Editors
Funeral of Hiroyuki Muramoto
Sunday 18 April 2010
"We never want such a tragedy to occur again," editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said at the service, pictured, adding that seven minutes of video recorded before Muramoto was shot in the chest on 10 April had shown his sense of mission.
In Facebook postings, Schlesinger said it was an extraordinary funeral – “the Reuters family was never more in evidence as friends and colleagues from around the world gathered with his family”. A wake on Saturday evening was “sad, dignified, special”, he said.
A compilation of news footage shot by Muramoto during his 15-year Reuters career was screened at the service.
● SOURCE MSN News/Agence France-Presse
Newsrooms fall silent in honour of slain cameraman
Monday 12 April 2010
Based in Tokyo, he had arrived in Thailand on Thursday. He was shot in the chest while covering clashes in the Thai capital between anti-government "red shirt" protesters and security forces. The bullet passed through him and exited his back. The picture shows him working on Saturday only hours before he was shot.
Muramoto, 43, had worked for Reuters since 1992, first as a freelance cameraman before becoming a full-time employee in 1995.
His wife Emiko and other family members arrived in Bangkok late on Sunday night and on Monday were taken to the hospital where Muramoto's body lies. A note written by her during the flight from Tokyo was read by a Reuters colleague on her behalf. It said: "It is a great shame that Muramoto could not come home with his usual smile. It happened all of a sudden, and I am at a loss as to what to do. In the eyes of our family, he was the best husband and father.”
Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger, in a message to staff, linked the death of Muramoto to the newly leaked video of the 2007 deaths of Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh in Iraq and said he was devastated.
Japan bureau chief Rodney Joyce told staff: "This is a time to support each other and grieve. Our thoughts are with Hiro and his family. Yes, there are many questions and efforts are being made to answer them. We will keep you informed as best we can."
Muramoto’s camera was returned to Reuters by the protesters. Seven minutes of footage shot by him show how a scrappy street protest turned lethal. The footage starts behind army lines, with soldiers framed by the Democracy Monument, scene of Bangkok's worst street violence in 1992 near the Phan Fah Bridge in the city's old quarter. Soldiers in full riot gear are standing with their rifles pointing in the air. There is the continuous sound of gunfire. One soldier glances at Muramoto twice in a nervous but non-threatening way. Then an explosion just yards in front of where Muramoto is standing sends at least four soldiers to the ground in a spray of sparks and smoke. Two get up and limp away. Another television cameraman runs frantically into Muramoto and past him. Soldiers carrying riot shields jostle into him as they, too, get away. Muramoto, walking slowly backwards, keeps filming.
The camera focuses on a soldier lying on the ground with a bloody wound to the neck. Colleagues undo his flak jacket. In the next frame, troops drag a soldier, obviously in pain, by the arms, his rifle scuffling along the road alongside him. Another motionless body is dragged away. The camera focuses on a trail of blood on the tarmac that shines in the street lights under the banners celebrating this week's Songkran festival, one of the happiest holidays in the Thai calendar. The soldiers retreat and suddenly the camera angle changes to show the red shirt ranks. Most are carrying sticks and some are wielding shields apparently taken from the soldiers. Many are waving, beckoning someone from behind the camera.
Some are frantically talking to soldiers, others are throwing objects in the air, one of which catches bunting overhead and falls harmlessly to the ground. No one in sight is paying any attention to the camera, which keeps rolling. But it is around this point, at an intersection, that TV footage from other sources show gunmen on the run, dressed not in red shirts or green army fatigues, but in black and dark civilian clothes.
The Thai government has talked of a "third force" involved in the protests and has promised to investigate the circumstances surrounding Muramoto's death.
Muramoto was active in charity projects and in 2008 and 2009 participated in an event that entails walking 100 kilometres of mountain trails in two days in areas surrounding Mount Fuji to raise money for impoverished communities in Africa. He had planned to return to Japan on 22 April to take part in this year's event due to begin the following day.
The entire Thomson Reuters group is to observe a minute's silence on Tuesday.
Schlesinger, in his e-mail, said Muramoto died for the story. "That is not a price we ever want to pay.
"There is no more important cause for us as a company and for us as professionals than journalistic safety.
"To have Hiro die just after we watched on the newly leaked video the 2007 deaths of our colleagues Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh is devastating to me; I’m sure most of you feel similar emotions.
"We know that covering the story forces us to rush towards danger when others rush away. We know that death can come from anywhere. We know how dangerous the places we cover are.
"Yet, we’re never prepared for the dreadful reality when a colleague loses his life. Nor should we be. Nor should we ever just accept it.
"If death is caused by military action, then we must work tirelessly to influence the generals and the civilians who command them to recognise the vital work journalists do, to provide full investigations and transparency whenever tragedies occur, and to enable true justice and accountability.
"If death occurs in the midst of chaotic rioting, then we must strive to review our procedures and training again to make sure we are doing absolutely everything we can to make the dangerous work safe.
"Our mission as journalists is to tell the story.
"Our mission as a company is to make sure our journalists can tell that story safely.
"This is a time of great sadness. But it is also a time of great resolve to redouble our efforts for journalist safety throughout the world."
● SOURCE Reuters | Global News Journal | David Schlesinger
Attack video painful to watch, Pentagon chief admits
Sunday 11 April 2010
Video showing US Army helicopters killing two Reuters news staff and 10 other people is painful to watch but a military investigation into the attack was very thorough, US defence secretary Robert Gates said on Sunday.
"It's unfortunate. It's clearly not helpful. But by the same token, I think – think it should not have any lasting consequences," Gates said. The US forces involved were in combat and were operating in split-second situations, he said in Washington on the ABC News television programme This Week.
The Reuters people killed in the 12 July 2007 attack were photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his assistant and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40.
The graphic helicopter gunsight video of the attack has been viewed around the world on the Internet since its release on Monday by WikiLeaks, a website which promotes leaks to fight government and corporate corruption. WikiLeaks said it obtained the encrypted video from military whistleblowers.
Some international law and human rights experts say the Apache helicopter crew may have acted illegally. Many have been shocked by the images and some of the fliers' comments on the video. Amnesty International called on Wednesday for an independent, thorough and impartial investigation into the incident.
"It's obviously a hard thing to see. It's painful to see, especially when you learn after the fact what was going on. But you – you talked about the fog of war. These people were operating in split-second situations," Gates said.
The US military said an investigation shortly after the incident found that US forces were unaware of the presence of news staff and thought they were engaging armed insurgents, mistaking a camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
"We've investigated it very thoroughly," Gates said. The military's central command said last week it had no plans to open a new investigation.
David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, said: "I urge the secretary of defence to meet with me to help ensure a tragedy like this never happens again. We need to have transparency, accountability and an acknowledgment of the vital role journalists play in telling the story of war."
● SOURCE Reuters
"It's unfortunate. It's clearly not helpful. But by the same token, I think – think it should not have any lasting consequences," Gates said. The US forces involved were in combat and were operating in split-second situations, he said in Washington on the ABC News television programme This Week.
The Reuters people killed in the 12 July 2007 attack were photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his assistant and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40.
The graphic helicopter gunsight video of the attack has been viewed around the world on the Internet since its release on Monday by WikiLeaks, a website which promotes leaks to fight government and corporate corruption. WikiLeaks said it obtained the encrypted video from military whistleblowers.
Some international law and human rights experts say the Apache helicopter crew may have acted illegally. Many have been shocked by the images and some of the fliers' comments on the video. Amnesty International called on Wednesday for an independent, thorough and impartial investigation into the incident.
"It's obviously a hard thing to see. It's painful to see, especially when you learn after the fact what was going on. But you – you talked about the fog of war. These people were operating in split-second situations," Gates said.
The US military said an investigation shortly after the incident found that US forces were unaware of the presence of news staff and thought they were engaging armed insurgents, mistaking a camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
"We've investigated it very thoroughly," Gates said. The military's central command said last week it had no plans to open a new investigation.
David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, said: "I urge the secretary of defence to meet with me to help ensure a tragedy like this never happens again. We need to have transparency, accountability and an acknowledgment of the vital role journalists play in telling the story of war."
● SOURCE Reuters
Reuters journalist killed in Bangkok street clashes
Saturday 10 April 2010
"I am dreadfully saddened to have lost our colleague Hiro Muramoto in the Bangkok clashes," said David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief.
"Journalism can be a terribly dangerous profession as those who try to tell the world the story thrust themselves in the centre of the action. The entire Reuters family will mourn this tragedy."
Tokyo-based Muramoto, 43, had been covering fighting between troops and protesters in the Rajdumnoen Road area where soldiers opened fire with rubber bullets and tear gas, as well as live rounds into the air, in Bangkok's worst political violence in 18 years.
He was shot in the chest and arrived at Klang Hospital without a pulse. The hospital's director, Dr Pichaya Nakwatchara, said the bullet had exited his back.
An army spokesman said protesters were armed with guns and had been throwing petrol bombs and grenades at troops.
At least 521 people, including 64 soldiers and police, were wounded in the fighting near the Phan Fah bridge and Rajdumnoen Road in Bangkok's old quarter, a protest base near government buildings and the regional UN headquarters.
Four civilians and four soldiers were killed, deputy governor of Bangkok Malinee Sukavrejworakit said.
After the shooting all Reuters staff covering the violence were taken off the streets pending a reassessment of the situation on the ground.
Muramoto, pictured, had worked for Reuters in Tokyo for more than 15 years. He was married with two children.
● SOURCE Reuters
No new probe into killing of Reuters news staff - US military
Wednesday 07 April 2010
The US military's Central Command said on Wednesday it has no current plans to reopen an investigation into a helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff.
The two Reuters staff killed in the 2007 attack were photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his assistant and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40.
The graphic helicopter gunsight video of the attack has been widely viewed around the world on the Internet since its release on Monday by the group WikiLeaks. The footage includes an audio track of the conversation between the helicopter crew. Many who have seen it have been shocked at the images and at some of the fliers' comments.
International law and human rights experts who have watched the leaked video – obtained from military whistleblowers – say the Apache helicopter crew in the footage may have acted illegally.
Two US military officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity that lawyers at Central Command have been reviewing the hitherto secret video, which was revealed on Monday by a group that promotes leaking to fight government and corporate corruption.
"We're looking at a reinvestigation because of a question of the rules of engagement. Were all the actions that are depicted on that video in parallel with the rules of engagement in effect at the time?" one of the officials said.
But Rear Admiral Hal Pittman, director of communications at Central Command, said in a statement to Reuters: "Central Command has no current plans to reinvestigate or review this combat action."
Other officials said Central Command was seeking to play down its role in determining whether to reopen the case because the unit involved was no longer based in Iraq, shifting the onus to Army and Pentagon leaders to make the decision.
Detailed rules of engagement are generally kept classified to avoid tipping off adversaries about tactics on the battlefield, Pentagon officials said.
David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, said: "I would welcome a thorough new investigation. Reuters from the start has called for transparency and an objective inquiry so that all can learn lessons from this tragedy."
The US military has said an investigation of the incident shortly after it occurred found that US forces were not aware of the presence of the news staffers and thought they were engaging armed insurgents, mistaking a camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
Human rights lawyers and other experts who have viewed the footage say they are concerned about how the helicopter fliers operated, particularly in opening fire on a van that arrived on the scene after the initial attack and whose occupants began trying to help the wounded.
Chris Cobb-Smith, a former British army officer who has conducted war zone investigations, said knowing what rules of engagement the pilots were operating under was critical to understanding whether they had acted appropriately.
But firing on those who came to help the wounded appeared to be a breach of the laws governing military conduct in war, he said. "That is the element that is blatant. That is against all humanitarian law and the rules of conflict – most definitely and without a doubt," he told Reuters.
Amnesty International called on Wednesday for an independent, thorough and impartial investigation into the incident.
● SOURCE Reuters
The two Reuters staff killed in the 2007 attack were photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his assistant and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40.
The graphic helicopter gunsight video of the attack has been widely viewed around the world on the Internet since its release on Monday by the group WikiLeaks. The footage includes an audio track of the conversation between the helicopter crew. Many who have seen it have been shocked at the images and at some of the fliers' comments.
International law and human rights experts who have watched the leaked video – obtained from military whistleblowers – say the Apache helicopter crew in the footage may have acted illegally.
Two US military officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity that lawyers at Central Command have been reviewing the hitherto secret video, which was revealed on Monday by a group that promotes leaking to fight government and corporate corruption.
"We're looking at a reinvestigation because of a question of the rules of engagement. Were all the actions that are depicted on that video in parallel with the rules of engagement in effect at the time?" one of the officials said.
But Rear Admiral Hal Pittman, director of communications at Central Command, said in a statement to Reuters: "Central Command has no current plans to reinvestigate or review this combat action."
Other officials said Central Command was seeking to play down its role in determining whether to reopen the case because the unit involved was no longer based in Iraq, shifting the onus to Army and Pentagon leaders to make the decision.
Detailed rules of engagement are generally kept classified to avoid tipping off adversaries about tactics on the battlefield, Pentagon officials said.
David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, said: "I would welcome a thorough new investigation. Reuters from the start has called for transparency and an objective inquiry so that all can learn lessons from this tragedy."
The US military has said an investigation of the incident shortly after it occurred found that US forces were not aware of the presence of the news staffers and thought they were engaging armed insurgents, mistaking a camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
Human rights lawyers and other experts who have viewed the footage say they are concerned about how the helicopter fliers operated, particularly in opening fire on a van that arrived on the scene after the initial attack and whose occupants began trying to help the wounded.
Chris Cobb-Smith, a former British army officer who has conducted war zone investigations, said knowing what rules of engagement the pilots were operating under was critical to understanding whether they had acted appropriately.
But firing on those who came to help the wounded appeared to be a breach of the laws governing military conduct in war, he said. "That is the element that is blatant. That is against all humanitarian law and the rules of conflict – most definitely and without a doubt," he told Reuters.
Amnesty International called on Wednesday for an independent, thorough and impartial investigation into the incident.
● SOURCE Reuters
Thomson Reuters seeks Pentagon meeting over slayings
Tuesday 06 April 2010
Namir Noor-Eldeen, photographer, and Saeed Chmagh, driver, died in a burst of cannon fire from a US Army Apache attack helicopter over Baghdad on 12 July 2007.
A classified military video recording of the killings as seen through the helicopter gunsight was released on Monday by the website WikiLeaks, which said it obtained the encrypted footage from military whistleblowers. The Pentagon confirmed its authenticity. WikiLeaks called it a case of “collateral murder”.
The video shows a US Army Apache repeatedly opening fire on a group of men that included Noor-Eldeen, 22, and Chmagh, 40, and then on a van that stopped to rescue one of the wounded men. None of the members of the group were taking hostile action, contrary to the US Defence Department’s initial cover story.
Schlesinger told staff there was no better evidence of the dangers each and every journalist in a war zone faces at any time.
"We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the men and women of Reuters news who put themselves on the front line to tell the story; we mourn and remember each of our colleagues who has died – our books of remembrance that we keep in our main offices are grim reminders of the sacrifices too many have made over the many decades and many conflicts."
It is impossible to watch and listen to the video dispassionately, Schlesinger said. "I struggle with my emotions the way I’m sure many of you struggle as well," he added.
"I believe that we as an organization and I as an individual must fight for journalists’ safety. I will continue to campaign for better training for the military – to help as much as possible to teach the difference in form between a camera and an rpg or between a tripod and a weapon. I will continue to press for thorough and objective investigations. I will continue to insist that governments the world over recognize the rights of journalists to do their jobs. I will continue to ensure that our rules and operating procedures are the safest in the industry.
"In this particular case, Tom Glocer and I want to meet with the Pentagon to press the need to learn lessons from this tragedy.
"These stories are not easy for us to report or to be involved in. They test our commitment to viewing events and actions objectively.
"What matters in the end is not how we as colleagues and friends feel; what matters is the wider public debate that our stories and this video provoke."
● Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh Memorial
● Staff tributes
● Namir Noor-Eldeen tribute | SLIDESHOW
Video released showing US Army's killing of Reuters news staff
Monday 05 April 2010
The classified military video depicting the killings on 12 July 2007 was released by the website WikiLeaks, which called it a case of “collateral murder”. It said it obtained the video as well as supporting documents from military whistleblowers.
Julian Assange, editor of WikiLeaks, unveiled the video at the National Press Club. He said the crew of the attack helicopter approached its job as if it were a video game, not something involving human lives. Their desire was simply to kill, he said. "Their desire was to get high scores on that computer game."
Video of the incident from two Apaches and photographs taken of the scene were shown to Reuters editors in Baghdad on 25 July 2007 in an off-the-record briefing. Reuters had been seeking release of the video, shot from a helicopter gun-sight, through the US Freedom of Information Act. After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own rules of engagement.
The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how two young children were wounded.
The video shows a US Army Apache repeatedly opening fire on a group of men that included photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, pictured, both Iraqi, and then on a van that stopped to rescue one of the wounded men. None of the members of the group were taking hostile action, contrary to the Pentagon's initial cover story. They were milling about on a street corner.
Crew members can be heard celebrating their kills. "Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards," says one crewman after multiple rounds of 30 mm cannon fire left nearly a dozen bodies in the street. A crewman begs for permission to open fire on the van and its occupants, even though it has done nothing but stop to help the wounded: "Come on, let us shoot!" Two crewmen share a laugh when a Bradley fighting vehicle runs over one of the corpses. And after soldiers on the ground find two small children shot and bleeding in the van, one crewman can be heard saying: "Well, it's their fault bringing their kids to a battle."
The New York Times reported the military's official cover story as follows:
The American military said in a statement late Thursday that 11 people had been killed: nine insurgents and two civilians. According to the statement, American troops were conducting a raid when they were hit by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The American troops called in reinforcements and attack helicopters. In the ensuing fight, the statement said, the two Reuters employees and nine insurgents were killed. "There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force," said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a spokesman for the multinational forces in Baghdad.
Reuters chief executive Tom Glocer said in a statement after the slayings: “Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh’s outstanding contribution to reporting on the unfolding events in Iraq has been vital. They stand alongside other colleagues in Reuters who have died doing a job that they believe in.”
David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, said in a statement today: “The deaths of Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh three years ago were tragic and emblematic of the extreme dangers that exist in covering war zones. We continue to work for journalist safety and call on all involved parties to recognise the important work that journalists do and the extreme danger that photographers and video journalists face in particular. The video released today via WikiLeaks is graphic evidence of the dangers involved in war journalism and the tragedies that can result."
● SOURCE Collateral Murder | Reuters | The New York Times
● Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh Memorial
Reuters’ social media rules stir online debate
Friday 12 March 2010
Reuters’ publication this week of new ● guidelines for social media like Facebook and Twitter in its ● Handbook of Journalism has attracted wide attention in the blogosphere.
The online magazine Salon said the guidelines suffer from many of the same problems as similar policies set last year by The New York Times and the The Washington Post.
“All of these flaws boil down to one thing: A desire to control something that fundamentally can’t be controlled, and a fear of what happens when that control is lost,” it said.
Reuters’ guidelines state: “The advent of social media does not change your relationship with the company that employs you — do not use social media to embarrass or disparage Thomson Reuters. Our company’s brands are important; so, too, is your personal brand. Think carefully about how what you do reflects upon you as a professional and upon us as an employer of professionals.”
Salon commented: “The overwhelming message is that, while social media is great and useful for many things (although none of those things are ever mentioned), it is a minefield of potential dangers and even a potential threat to the company’s traditional media business…
“Right at the end of the new policy, Reuters says something that cuts to the heart of all the difficulties with social media guidelines. The policy baldly states: ‘Don’t scoop the wire.’ So I mentioned on Twitter that Reuters’ own editor-in-chief, David Schlesinger, (pictured), did exactly that when he was tweeting from Davos last year and posting about a number of newsworthy events [● David Schlesinger: all a-twitter and scooping Reuters].
Schlesinger responded that “some stuff belongs on the wire first. some stuff belongs on tweets. some stuff you can’t always tell immediately.”
That phrase could just as easily be applied to all of the other potential negative outcomes that Reuters is trying to avoid with its policy, Salon said. Some things are bad to say on Twitter, and some things are not — and some stuff you can’t always tell immediately.
It added: “If you trust your writers and editors, whom you presumably hired and continue to employ because they are smart and capable, then let them use social media for what it was meant for: engaging with readers in as many ways as possible. Don’t get consumed with fear about a loss of control over them — embrace it.”
The blog Techdirt, in a commentary headed “Reuters Social Media Policy Gets It Half Right, Half Wrong”, said the rule that hard news content must be broken first via the wire doesn't really make much sense. “It also goes against what some at Reuters have successfully done. You can still ‘scoop the wire’ and then publish a full report on the wire. In fact, if you use Twitter correctly, you can build a lot more interest in the upcoming full story.
“While there are plenty of reasonable and useful suggestions in the Reuters social media policies, some of it seems to go against what Schlesinger said last year:
“‘The old means of control don't work.
“‘The old categories don't work.
“‘The old ways of thinking won't work.
“‘We all need to come to terms with that.
“‘Fundamentally, the old media won't control news dissemination in the future. And organisations can't control access using old forms of accreditation any more.’”
● SOURCE Salon | Techdirt
Reuters honours its journalists of the year
Friday 05 March 2010
Reuters has honoured its best journalists of 2009 in its annual Journalists of the Year awards.
Winners of 11 awards were honoured for their exceptional work at a ceremony in New York on Thursday attended by Thomson Reuters chairman David Thomson.
The news year demanded the best out of journalists and out of news organisations, editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said.
“I’m proud to say the 2,800 men and women of Reuters delivered. The world’s economies began a slow climb out from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression; the new administration in Washington faced tough new political realities; the war in Afghanistan escalated; and the debate over climate policy grew more heated. China flexed its economic and diplomatic muscles; the Gulf experienced the shuddering growing pains emerging economies can have; the competition for resources saw major players jockeying. Through all of this, our journalists were the eyes and ears of the world, doggedly and often bravely telling the globe’s stories.”
AWARDS
● PHOTO OF THE YEAR
Carlos Barria, photographer based in Miami, for his photograph of a US soldier taking a break during a night mission in the Pesh Valley in Afghanistan.
● EDITOR OF THE YEAR
Eric Burroughs, Asia financial markets editor based in Hong Kong, and Vidya Ranganathan, deputy Asia financial markets editor based in Singapore, for driving innovation and excellence and showing superb leadership in a year of focus on markets expertise.
● VIDEO JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR
Roystan Chan, video journalist based in Shanghai, for impeccable video storytelling in China.
● COMMENTARY & ANALYSIS JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR
John Kemp, commodities and energy columnist, for numerous agenda-setting commentary pieces.
● PHOTO JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR
Toby Melville, photographer based in London, for his photographs documenting daily life in the United Kingdom.
● REPORTER OF THE YEAR
Emma Graham-Harrison, correspondent based in Beijing, for consistently excellent reporting across asset classes.
● VIDEO STORY OF THE YEAR
Afghanistan team, for consistently delivery outstanding team coverage of Afghanistan news in trying circumstances.
● SCOOP OF THE YEAR
The US financial services team, for an exclusive with former Lehman CEO Richard Fuld.
● MULTIMEDIA STORYTELLING OF THE YEAR
Larry Downing, senior staff photographer at the White House, for his photo essay on Arlington National Cemetery's Section 60.
● STORY OF THE YEAR
Iran team coverage, for comprehensive coverage of a turbulent year in Iran.
● EDITOR’S CHOICE
Markets Buzz/The dealing room team, for pioneering new ways of storytelling.
“We talk a lot about ‘new ways of storytelling’,” Schlesinger said. “By bringing chat rooms to life and to the fore editorially, this group actually did it.
“Editorial innovation has a very simple definition: using new tools in new ways to make the traditional craft of journalism relevant to customers in a new age.
“The team we honour – represented by Stuart Brown, Eric Burroughs, Dayan Candappa, Andrew Goldner and Phil Smith – brought journalism into the chat room, brought community building and management into the tool kit of the journalist, and made the snap and crackle of instant messaging an arm of storytelling.
“By creating a chat room ethos where hundreds of clients could lurk and then participate with Reuters journalists, with each other and with invited guests, this team showed that valuable new content could be created at the intersection of journalists and customers, where one-way traditional information-giving met the two-way street of information-sharing.
“This team understood the value we could create by forging a community of professionals with shared interests, passions and spirit.
“From the first tentative instant messages flowing into what seemed a void, they've created a new form of Reuters journalism that is becoming vibrant, important, valuable and a marketplace of ideas.
“Because of the imagination and innovation of this group, the Reuters journalist of the future will be as at home in the chat room as she is in the press conference, as conversant in the style of instant messaging as he is in the style of an analysis – and both our journalism and our service to clients will be richer as a result.”
Footnote: The master of ceremonies at the awards pronounced the name of the agency “rooters”. Members of the audience quickly corrected the howler.
● CLICK the link below to read other comments by David Schlesinger on the award winners.
● SOURCE Reuters
Winners of 11 awards were honoured for their exceptional work at a ceremony in New York on Thursday attended by Thomson Reuters chairman David Thomson.
The news year demanded the best out of journalists and out of news organisations, editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said.
“I’m proud to say the 2,800 men and women of Reuters delivered. The world’s economies began a slow climb out from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression; the new administration in Washington faced tough new political realities; the war in Afghanistan escalated; and the debate over climate policy grew more heated. China flexed its economic and diplomatic muscles; the Gulf experienced the shuddering growing pains emerging economies can have; the competition for resources saw major players jockeying. Through all of this, our journalists were the eyes and ears of the world, doggedly and often bravely telling the globe’s stories.”
AWARDS
● PHOTO OF THE YEAR
Carlos Barria, photographer based in Miami, for his photograph of a US soldier taking a break during a night mission in the Pesh Valley in Afghanistan.
● EDITOR OF THE YEAR
Eric Burroughs, Asia financial markets editor based in Hong Kong, and Vidya Ranganathan, deputy Asia financial markets editor based in Singapore, for driving innovation and excellence and showing superb leadership in a year of focus on markets expertise.
● VIDEO JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR
Roystan Chan, video journalist based in Shanghai, for impeccable video storytelling in China.
● COMMENTARY & ANALYSIS JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR
John Kemp, commodities and energy columnist, for numerous agenda-setting commentary pieces.
● PHOTO JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR
Toby Melville, photographer based in London, for his photographs documenting daily life in the United Kingdom.
● REPORTER OF THE YEAR
Emma Graham-Harrison, correspondent based in Beijing, for consistently excellent reporting across asset classes.
● VIDEO STORY OF THE YEAR
Afghanistan team, for consistently delivery outstanding team coverage of Afghanistan news in trying circumstances.
● SCOOP OF THE YEAR
The US financial services team, for an exclusive with former Lehman CEO Richard Fuld.
● MULTIMEDIA STORYTELLING OF THE YEAR
Larry Downing, senior staff photographer at the White House, for his photo essay on Arlington National Cemetery's Section 60.
● STORY OF THE YEAR
Iran team coverage, for comprehensive coverage of a turbulent year in Iran.
● EDITOR’S CHOICE
Markets Buzz/The dealing room team, for pioneering new ways of storytelling.
“We talk a lot about ‘new ways of storytelling’,” Schlesinger said. “By bringing chat rooms to life and to the fore editorially, this group actually did it.
“Editorial innovation has a very simple definition: using new tools in new ways to make the traditional craft of journalism relevant to customers in a new age.
“The team we honour – represented by Stuart Brown, Eric Burroughs, Dayan Candappa, Andrew Goldner and Phil Smith – brought journalism into the chat room, brought community building and management into the tool kit of the journalist, and made the snap and crackle of instant messaging an arm of storytelling.
“By creating a chat room ethos where hundreds of clients could lurk and then participate with Reuters journalists, with each other and with invited guests, this team showed that valuable new content could be created at the intersection of journalists and customers, where one-way traditional information-giving met the two-way street of information-sharing.
“This team understood the value we could create by forging a community of professionals with shared interests, passions and spirit.
“From the first tentative instant messages flowing into what seemed a void, they've created a new form of Reuters journalism that is becoming vibrant, important, valuable and a marketplace of ideas.
“Because of the imagination and innovation of this group, the Reuters journalist of the future will be as at home in the chat room as she is in the press conference, as conversant in the style of instant messaging as he is in the style of an analysis – and both our journalism and our service to clients will be richer as a result.”
Footnote: The master of ceremonies at the awards pronounced the name of the agency “rooters”. Members of the audience quickly corrected the howler.
● CLICK the link below to read other comments by David Schlesinger on the award winners.
● SOURCE Reuters
US military frees Reuters photographer in Iraq after 17 months
Wednesday 10 February 2010
"How can I describe my feelings? This is like being born again," Jassam told Reuters by telephone as he was greeted emotionally by his family.
"I still cannot believe that my son is next to me," his mother, Fadhila Alwan, said. "Thanks be to God. I cannot speak. I will keep him in my arms for days but I will not be able to get enough of him."
US and Iraqi forces smashed in the doors to Jassam's house in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, in September 2008 and whisked him away. He spent time in a desert prison on the Iraq-Kuwait border, called Camp Bucca, and the smaller Camp Cropper detention centre near Baghdad airport.
The US military never said exactly why it detained him and locked him away for so long, saying the evidence against him was classified. Jassam worked for Reuters as a freelance TV cameraman and photographer. He was one of several Iraqi journalists working for foreign news organisations who have been detained by the US military since the 2003 US invasion. None has ever been charged, triggering criticism from international journalism rights groups.
"I am very pleased his long incarceration without charge is finally over," editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said. "I wish the process to release a man who had no specific accusations against him had been swifter."
The US military has asserted Jassam was a "security threat". The accusations had to do with "activities with insurgents," it said last year, without giving any specifics. The term insurgents generally refers to Sunni Islamist groups. Jassam is a Shi'ite Muslim. The Iraqi Central Criminal Court ruled that there was no case against Jassam.
A month before arresting him, US forces detained Reuters cameraman Ali Mashhadani and held him for three weeks without charge, the third time he was detained. Mashhadani was held for five months in 2005.
● SOURCE Reuters
News chief in Trust Principles pledge to staff after ‘minor uprising’
Friday 15 January 2010
Employees would be proud to hear how one of their executives handled hedge fund billionaire Steven Cohen, the New York Post reported on Friday.
“At least, that's how Devin Wenig, CEO of the markets division, is telling it,” it said. As head of markets, Wenig leads the group’s global financial services and media businesses. If they could see a transcript of his call with the founder of SAC Capital Advisors in December, staffers would be pleased, Wenig told staff during a conference call on Wednesday, the Post said.
“The comments come on the heels of a minor uprising at the news agency, after reporters discovered that editors killed a story looking into Cohen's trades after the hedge funder called Wenig to complain,” it said in a report under the headline “Reuters CEO defense killed Cohen story”.
Reporters Matthew Goldstein and Svea Herbst-Bayliss have been looking into allegations that Cohen engaged in insider trading in the 1980s. After Cohen's complaint, Wenig called editor-in-chief David Schlesinger and the story was subsequently killed.
Wenig assured staff he would never jeopardise the company’s 150-year history or the Trust Principles, under which Reuters acts at all times with integrity, independence and freedom from bias, the Post said.
“Wenig also defended Schlesinger, saying he has 30 years of unblemished record under his belt. The CEO explained that he receives similar complaints at least once a week and always refers them to Schlesinger or the appropriate editor.”
In a conference call a week earlier, staff questioned Schlesinger about the spiked story. US media blogs characterised the call as tense and said the editor-in-chief faced down a string of angry and confused journalists demanding to know precisely why their boss spiked it. The episode was said to have severely demoralised staff.
Schlesinger denounced “false blog stories” accusing Reuters of caving in to a wealthy hedge fund manager and berated staff for “running to a blog and spreading[ing] tittle-tattle” instead of raising concerns internally. “Keep it within editorial, and don’t go running to a blog,” he was quoted as saying.
A Schlesinger e-mail to staff that found its way to blogs referred to journalists’ concern over the reports and said: “…never doubt the commitment of this company and of me to our Trust principles and journalistic ethics”.
● SOURCE New York Post
● Reuters Trust Principles
Brouhaha in the blogosphere over spiked story
Friday 08 January 2010
The manager, Steven Cohen of SAC Capital Advisors, called Devin Wenig, CEO of the markets division that includes Reuters news agency, last month to complain about a story by reporters Matthew Goldstein and Svea Herbst-Bayliss who had been looking into allegations that Cohen engaged in insider trading in the 1980s.
The brouhaha has quickly been taken up in the blogosphere.
“Wenig passed Cohen's concerns onto Schlesinger, who put the kibosh on the story, raising question about what, precisely, the point of Reuters is if rich people can quash inconvenient stories with a phone call,” Manhattan media blog Gawker said.
Schlesinger said in a conference call with staff on Wednesday it was not a bad story and could have run. The call was tense, according to Gawker, which obtained a recording of it. Schlesinger faced down a string of angry and confused Reuters journalists demanding to know precisely why their boss spiked the story, it said.
During the conference call Schlesinger also fielded questions about contract negotiations with the Newspaper Guild of New York and the controversial redesign of the reuters.com website.
“To judge by the conference call, the Cohen episode has severely demoralized the wire service's staff, which was already preoccupied by bitter contract negotiations between its union members and management,” said another blog, Talking Biz News.
“Schlesinger acknowledged that Wenig had called him about the Cohen story, and that after reading it at Wenig's request, he told his deputy Jack Reerink that he had problems with it. But he denounced the ‘false blog stories’ accusing Reuters of caving to a wealthy hedge fund manager and insisted that his concerns had nothing to so with Cohen's complaint. And he lambasted his staffers for ‘running to a blog and spreading[ing] tittle-tattle’ … instead of raising concerns internally.
“Editors make judgments. You might not always agree with those judgments, and that’s fine,” Schlesinger said in the call. “If you disagree with those judgments, then come to me. Keep it within editorial, and don’t go running to a blog.”
At one point near the end of the call the editor-in-chief interrupted one staff member who said that his editorial judgment was on trial. ”My judgment is not on trial here,” he said, apologizing for losing his temper. “It was a question of judgment, and that judgment is not up for a vote or trial.”
Gawker reported: “When Reuters media reporter Robert MacMillan asked his boss what actually happened, and what was wrong with the story, Schlesinger immediately became testy, and bizarrely seemed to say that there wasn't anything wrong with it: ‘We're not going to do news editing by plebiscite...so I'm not going to go into the details of it. The story could have run. I mean, it was not a bad story. It could have run. But I had questions about it.’ Schlesinger said that the decision to kill it wasn't actually his — he raised his questions with Reerink, who made the ultimate decision: ‘I was actually in Tokyo. I said, look, it's up to you, I'm going to bed. He made a decision not to run it. That's it.’”
Schlesinger declined to explain his decision beyond saying “You obviously have a choice — you can either believe me or not. And if you don't believe me, fine. But I'm telling you that I was hired as an editor to make judgments. And I make those judgments free of pressure.”
Talking Biz News said Reerink, global company news editor, wrote a note to staff on Friday in which he mocked the blogs and said: “In the real world, we live by the trust principles. In the real world, we kick back stories for more reporting, balance or insight. In the real world, we don’t run every story just because we wrote it.
“Are we going to be right all the time? No. But we’ll try very hard. And we’ll learn from our mistakes. (and this was not a mistake, by the way).”
Talking Biz News published what it said was an e-mail sent by Schlesinger. It said: “There’s been blog chatter in the US this week that I spiked a story because Devin told me to after he got a call from the story’s putative subject. I know many of our journalists have been concerned by the reports and even wondered if they were true.
“Don’t believe them.
“We make decisions on stories for editorial and journalistic reasons only.
“Those decisions, by their nature, are judgement calls and you of course are always free to question the judgement or debate the issues. But never doubt the commitment of this company and of me to our Trust principles and journalistic ethics.
“In my three years as Editor-in-Chief (and in the three years before that when I was running editorial operations), neither Tom [Glocer, chief executive] nor Devin has ever asked me to kill a story or to run a story. I would have objected loudly if they had.”
● SOURCE Gawker | Talking Biz News | The Business Insider
Reuters website unveils bold new look to mixed reception
Friday 04 December 2009
For Reuters.com, the future is now, said David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief. “We want this to be the world’s best website covering business and finance news, analysis, and opinion. Full stop.”
In addition to a bolder logo – a red background replaces the washed-out grey look - the new website presents a less-cluttered home page and a slimmed-down toolbar offering a choice of News & Markets, Sectors & Industry and Analysis & Opinion, with a long list of topic sections under each. The site looks leaner, cleaner, brighter and more inviting.
“This site is for you; we want it to be your ticket to a wealth of news, information, and analysis presented in a cutting-edge format, including text, video, pictures, graphics, user interaction, and personalization features (try the new toolbar at the bottom of every page),” Schlesinger said.
But many respondents to Schlesinger’s message damned the facelift and some said they would be looking elsewhere for their news.
Schlesinger responded: “Wow - it’s great to read the passion of some of these comments, even when they hate what we’re doing! I feel really gratified that people take Reuters so seriously and are moved to write when we make changes.
“To those who love the new site – thanks, and we promise to continue to make it better and easier to use. And from the editorial side, we promise to continue to improve the multimedia content to make this a compelling experience.
“To those who hate the new site – thanks to you, too. I understand that your views are motivated by your loyalty to the old design and for how it served you. I can simply promise you that we’ll work to make this new design live up to its potential. I would urge you to experience with what we’ve got – I personally find the pop out market displays and the pop down menus, all filled with information, to be pretty exciting and useful.”
Alisa Bowen, Thomson Reuters’ head of consumer publishing, said: “We’ve only been in consumer publishing for the past six years, and the old version of the site reflected that. The new site reflects all the assets that were brought together with Thomson’s acquisition of Reuters in the spring of ‘08. We regard this as more than just a facelift.”
Redesigned websites in the UK, India, Japan and China as well as 13 additional local language markets will follow next year.
● SOURCE Reuters | David Schlesinger
Thomson Reuters hires former BusinessWeek editor-in-chief
Wednesday 02 December 2009
Former BusinessWeek editor-in-chief Stephen Adler will join Thomson Reuters as editorial director of the professional division, the company said on Wednesday.
Adler, who left BusinessWeek after McGraw-Hill said it would sell the struggling magazine to Bloomberg, will design and edit news and editorial content for the Thomson Reuters division that serves legal, healthcare, science, tax and accounting professionals.
He will report to Jim Smith, who runs the professional division, and will work with David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, who said Adler's background "is perfect for helping us create news packages that are relevant to the customers (that) the businesses within Professional serve”.
Adler became BusinessWeek's editor-in-chief in 2005. Previously he worked for 16 years at The Wall Street Journal, including posts as legal editor, investigative editor and deputy managing editor, and edited The American Lawyer magazine.
"This is an incredible opportunity with a company that's leading the way into the future of business information and media," Adler said. "I have long respected the market-leading Professional businesses and world-class Reuters news team and look forward to working with both."
Adler is among the highest-profile departures from BusinessWeek, which shed many journalists and columnists after Bloomberg said it would buy the magazine. Bloomberg completed its purchase on Tuesday.
● SOURCE Reuters
Adler, who left BusinessWeek after McGraw-Hill said it would sell the struggling magazine to Bloomberg, will design and edit news and editorial content for the Thomson Reuters division that serves legal, healthcare, science, tax and accounting professionals.
He will report to Jim Smith, who runs the professional division, and will work with David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, who said Adler's background "is perfect for helping us create news packages that are relevant to the customers (that) the businesses within Professional serve”.
Adler became BusinessWeek's editor-in-chief in 2005. Previously he worked for 16 years at The Wall Street Journal, including posts as legal editor, investigative editor and deputy managing editor, and edited The American Lawyer magazine.
"This is an incredible opportunity with a company that's leading the way into the future of business information and media," Adler said. "I have long respected the market-leading Professional businesses and world-class Reuters news team and look forward to working with both."
Adler is among the highest-profile departures from BusinessWeek, which shed many journalists and columnists after Bloomberg said it would buy the magazine. Bloomberg completed its purchase on Tuesday.
● SOURCE Reuters
Thomson Reuters completes acquisition of Breakingviews
Tuesday 01 December 2009
Thomson Reuters said on Tuesday it had completed its acquisition of Breakingviews, a leading provider of online financial insight, positioning the newly combined commentary organisation as the global leader in point-of-view journalism for financial markets.
The output of the combined team of Reuters’ original commentary writers and the Breakingviews people will be known as Reuters Breakingviews to make a clear distinction between the news service and commentary offerings.
"A fundamental plank of our Editorial strategy for making Reuters the indispensable news service for the 21st century is to expand our traditional fact-based news coverage to also offer agenda-setting point-of-view journalism. I am confident we will build upon reputation and expertise from both Reuters and Breakingviews and leverage the expertise of the combined organization," said David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief.
The Reuters Breakingviews attribution will designate the commentary and opinion of the named authors, while Reuters will designate the expert sourced news and analysis that has moved markets and provided insight for more than 150 years.
Reuters Breakingviews has about 30 columnists based in London, New York, Hong Kong, Paris, Washington, Moscow and Madrid, with immediate plans for expanded coverage in the Gulf, Japan, Germany and India.
The newly combined service is available on all Thomson Reuters desktops with selected commentaries appearing on reuters.com. Reuters Breakingviews also reaches a broader audience of nearly 4.5 million investors and opinion formers via daily columns in many of the world's most influential newspapers, including The New York Times, Le Monde, The Daily Telegraph and the International Herald Tribune.
Hugo Dixon, editor, Reuters Breakingviews, who will be running the combined commentary team, said: "The enlarged team will have global reach, allowing us to react more rapidly to breaking news and cover more stories. We will also now be able to reach hundreds of thousands more influential readers through Thomson Reuters desktops."
Breakingviews was founded in 1999 to provide online financial commentary aimed at a professional audience. It is one of a handful of journalism websites to have successfully introduced a subscription model. The company also has a thriving syndication business.
● SOURCE Marketwire
The output of the combined team of Reuters’ original commentary writers and the Breakingviews people will be known as Reuters Breakingviews to make a clear distinction between the news service and commentary offerings.
"A fundamental plank of our Editorial strategy for making Reuters the indispensable news service for the 21st century is to expand our traditional fact-based news coverage to also offer agenda-setting point-of-view journalism. I am confident we will build upon reputation and expertise from both Reuters and Breakingviews and leverage the expertise of the combined organization," said David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief.
The Reuters Breakingviews attribution will designate the commentary and opinion of the named authors, while Reuters will designate the expert sourced news and analysis that has moved markets and provided insight for more than 150 years.
Reuters Breakingviews has about 30 columnists based in London, New York, Hong Kong, Paris, Washington, Moscow and Madrid, with immediate plans for expanded coverage in the Gulf, Japan, Germany and India.
The newly combined service is available on all Thomson Reuters desktops with selected commentaries appearing on reuters.com. Reuters Breakingviews also reaches a broader audience of nearly 4.5 million investors and opinion formers via daily columns in many of the world's most influential newspapers, including The New York Times, Le Monde, The Daily Telegraph and the International Herald Tribune.
Hugo Dixon, editor, Reuters Breakingviews, who will be running the combined commentary team, said: "The enlarged team will have global reach, allowing us to react more rapidly to breaking news and cover more stories. We will also now be able to reach hundreds of thousands more influential readers through Thomson Reuters desktops."
Breakingviews was founded in 1999 to provide online financial commentary aimed at a professional audience. It is one of a handful of journalism websites to have successfully introduced a subscription model. The company also has a thriving syndication business.
● SOURCE Marketwire
Thomson Reuters buys Breakingviews to boost comment
Wednesday 14 October 2009
The website will be incorporated into the Thomson Reuters feed for users of its teminals under the brand Reuters Breakingviews. It will also continue to supply commentary for newspapers such as The New York Times.
Thomson Reuters refused to disclose the purchase price but reports put it at around £13 million, giving its founder and largest shareholder, journalist Hugo Dixon, £2.6 million.
Dixon will run the enlarged service, which will operate separately from Reuters' news reports. He is bringing over 20 journalists and taking over the existing Reuters Comment operation. Thomson Reuters said it is talking to Jonathan Ford, Dixon’s former business partner who was hired last year to start the Reuters commentary service, about taking on other roles at Thomson Reuters.
The Breakingviews board has recommended that shareholders in the privately held company accept the offer, Thomson Reuters said, adding that the transaction should close within eight weeks.
The decision to buy Breakingviews pushes Reuters News further into the world of commenting on business and financial news, Reuters’ own report on the purchase said.
The separate stand-alone branding will allow Reuters to continue to ensure that there remains a clear distinction between its news service and commentary offering. "Breakingviews will continue to represent the commentary and opinion of the author, while Reuters reporting will continue to represent the traditional sourced news and analysis that has been its staple for more than 150 years," a Thomson Reuters press release said.
Reuters decided to buy Breakingviews even after starting its own service because the deal was at an attractive price and will accelerate the company's push into commentary, editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said.
He told the Financial Times that the new Reuters Breakingviews would combine the team built by Dixon since he founded the site in 1999 with Reuters’ similar-sized commentary team launched less than a year ago.
“Departures and reassignments” would lead to a combined team of “30-ish”, he said, without giving details of where cuts might fall. The combined service would continue with hiring plans in the Gulf, India and other parts of Asia, he added.
Reuters could have achieved its goals to expand in commentary “given enough time”, he said, but the acquisition allowed it to “short-circuit” the process.
“This is not a deal where we were buying revenue. This is a deal where we were buying [a] brand and people and capability,” he said. “My big worry has always been the commoditisation of factual news. There are many ways you can do to mitigate against that but [one is that] subscribers want facts and they want ideas.”
Dixon said the deal demonstrated “that high-quality financial commentary is extremely valuable.” It “should enhance the product as we’ll be plugged into a much bigger journalistic enterprise,” he said.
● SOURCE Reuters | Financial Times | The Times | Thomson Reuters
● Breakingviews
Important lessons learned from financial turmoil - David Schlesinger
Friday 09 October 2009
“One lesson was that our standards needed to be constantly examined and sometimes strengthened. Another is that transparency is rewarded by trust.”
The media industry was in its own crisis at the same time as it was reporting on the financial downturn, Schlesinger said in a speech.
“Our sources and our readers were in crisis, too, and this meant that our stories were watched extremely carefully and people were quick to complain about anything they didn’t like.
“I am proud that most of our reporting was excellent, but those times when we didn’t get it right it was vital to correct our errors swiftly and publicly.
“Maintaining our trust with our audience is fundamental to our mission as a news service. Reporting truthfully, reporting accurately, correcting errors, obeying our standards are all vital and can’t be compromised, especially not in the heat of a major and complex story.”
This year Reuters put its entire 500+ page ● Handbook of Journalism free online for anyone and everyone to read and comment on.
“We welcome that scrutiny from around the world. Where our standards are good and we live up to them, we want the attendant praise. Where we need to improve, or where we fail to live up to our ideals, we want the criticism. That should be the attitude that we in the media should strive for.”
Schlesinger was speaking at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on transparency and the role of media in China. The occasion was a World Media Summit hosted by Chinese news agency Xinhua.
The increasing internationalisation of financial markets has at least two dimensions relevant to financial information in China, he said. First, Chinese markets participants and investors need to be efficiently informed about foreign markets, while second, their non-Chinese counterparts overseas need to be efficiently informed about China. Mutual benefit and success depend upon this reciprocal relationship.
“I believe journalism at its best is a mirror, exposing back to society a true and brutally honest picture of what is going on,” Schlesinger said.
“When we fail at that, when our picture is not clear or at all distorted, we deserve to be criticised. We must strive to be that perfect mirror. But for societies and economies to truly work, to be effective and to be healthy, they need to look into that mirror unflinchingly and honestly.
“That is where the virtue of transparency comes in. That is why companies and government departments and government officials need to be ready to be open. That is why they need to take interviews and to reveal figures. That is why the instinct for secrecy needs to be resisted. That is why all involved need to help the media help society, by accepting that while openness, transparency and accountability may lead to momentary discomfort and sometimes embarrassment, they are ultimately worthwhile and, in fact, are a precondition to a truly healthy, stable and successful system.
“Similarly, a commitment to these practices is also a precondition for China’s development of healthy, sound and internationally competitive financial markets that protect domestic investors and encourage foreign investors to place their capital.”
Schlesinger, a former bureau chief in Beijing (1991-1994), added: “As Chinese financial journalism professionalises further, I look forward to mutually beneficial competition. I also look forward to Chinese nationals having full careers within foreign media organisations in China. My fervent wish is that one day soon Reuters financial news editor in China will be a Chinese national – one step on that person’s path to be global editor-in-chief!”
● SOURCE Reuters
● Reuters Handbook of Journalism
Media must find own path to prosperity – David Schlesinger
Tuesday 08 September 2009
Forget old media and new media: each media organisation must find its own path to prosperity by engaging with its audience, using technology effectively and keeping its reporting relevant, editor-in-chief David Schlesinger says.
"We need to stop thinking about a division between new media and traditional media," he told the Chinese news agency Xinhua in an interview ahead of the world media summit to be held in Beijing on 7-10 October.
Schlesinger said media organisations that consider themselves "traditional" face significant changes in their business models and in the reading or viewing habits of their audience.
Therefore, all media organisations – if they are to survive and prosper – must use good journalism, technology and new techniques to engage with their audience and stay relevant.
Asked about the challenges Reuters is facing, Schlesinger said the financial crisis has been a dominant factor this year.
"It has been an important and exciting story to cover, and it has also affected all of our clients, whether they are in financial services, in the media or individual consumers," he added.
Reuters, the first foreign news agency to operate in China after the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, has 24 correspondents stationed in the country with a much larger local support team working on the ground.
Schlesinger first visited China in 1979. He joined Reuters as a correspondent in Hong Kong in 1987. From 1989 to 1995 he managed editorial operations in Taiwan, China and the Greater China region.
● SOURCE Xinhua
"We need to stop thinking about a division between new media and traditional media," he told the Chinese news agency Xinhua in an interview ahead of the world media summit to be held in Beijing on 7-10 October.
Schlesinger said media organisations that consider themselves "traditional" face significant changes in their business models and in the reading or viewing habits of their audience.
Therefore, all media organisations – if they are to survive and prosper – must use good journalism, technology and new techniques to engage with their audience and stay relevant.
Asked about the challenges Reuters is facing, Schlesinger said the financial crisis has been a dominant factor this year.
"It has been an important and exciting story to cover, and it has also affected all of our clients, whether they are in financial services, in the media or individual consumers," he added.
Reuters, the first foreign news agency to operate in China after the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, has 24 correspondents stationed in the country with a much larger local support team working on the ground.
Schlesinger first visited China in 1979. He joined Reuters as a correspondent in Hong Kong in 1987. From 1989 to 1995 he managed editorial operations in Taiwan, China and the Greater China region.
● SOURCE Xinhua
Ibrahim Jassam: one year without justice
Wednesday 02 September 2009
Neither Jassam and his family nor Reuters, which employed him as a freelance TV cameraman and photographer, have been told exactly why he has been detained by US military forces in Iraq.
Jassam's mother, Fadhila Alwan, said: "We asked his lawyer, we asked military officers, we've asked all the officials we meet, but not one of them knew why he's been in jail for a whole year."
The evidence against him is classified, but the accusations have to do with "activities with insurgents", said Lt. Col. Pat Johnson, a spokeswoman for the US military in Iraq, Reuters reported from Baghdad. The term "insurgents" in Iraq generally refers to Sunni Islamist groups, like al Qaeda. Jassam is a Shi'ite Muslim.
"In a year of trying to get specifics, we've heard only vague and undefined accusations – to me this is unacceptable," said David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief.
"It is only right and fair that any specific accusation against a journalist should be aired publicly and dealt with fairly and swiftly, with the journalist having the right to defend himself properly."
Jassam, who is being held in a prison camp built in the desert on the Iraq-Kuwait border, will eventually be released.
Under a US-Iraqi security pact, called a Status of Forces Agreement, the US military must hand over the thousands of Iraqis it still has in its custody as Iraq gradually regains its sovereignty more than six years after the US-led invasion.
Those facing Iraqi charges will be tried; the rest freed.
The Iraqi Central Criminal Court ruled last November there was no case against Jassam. But the US military says it considers Jassam a security threat to Iraq. It says that under the security agreement it is entitled to hold Jassam as long as possible.
"Though we appreciate the decision of the Central Criminal Court of Iraq in the Ibrahim Jassam case, their decision does not negate the intelligence information that currently lists him as a threat to Iraqi security and stability," Johnson said.
Reuters argues the US army is misinterpreting its remit.
"Ibrahim Jassam has never been charged by the US military or the Iraqi authorities, and has never had a single piece of evidence or even a specific allegation of wrongdoing presented to him," said Thomson Reuters deputy general counsel Thomas Kim.
"We believe this is not consistent with the spirit behind either the Status of Forces Agreement ... or the Rule of Law." The US military detained many Iraqi journalists during the sectarian slaughter and insurgency unleashed by the 2003 invasion. None have been known to have been charged.
Journalists rights groups say US forces may be misinterpreting legitimate journalistic activities in war zones. Taking pictures of Shi'ite militiamen battling US troops, for example, might look like enemy propaganda to a US soldier.
"The year-long detention of Ibrahim Jassam without charge or due process is not only unjust it also undermines the ability of the US government to effectively advocate for press freedom around the world," said Joel Simon of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
The US military said it expected all high security threat detainees to go before an Iraqi judge starting in December 2009. The intelligence information against Jassam will be aired then.
● SOURCE Reuters
David Schlesinger joins debate over links to Reuters stories
Friday 07 August 2009
Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger has weighed in on a public debate over links to Reuters stories on the Internet. His take: it’s about being part of the conversation, adding to the debate rather than just playing postman and passing on others’ views, adding value, and getting rewarded for adding value.
“As head of a journalistic army of 2,700 professionals I obviously have an intense vested interest in ensuring that their work is valuable to readers and valued by them,” Schlesinger said in a Reuters blog posting.
“Part of that involves ensuring that they are in the centre of the action and that they fill their reports with their expertise and experience. Part of that involves ensuring that they are part of the debate, that their reports inform the debate and that the debate, in turn, informs their future reporting.
“Our standards on sourcing have always emphasized the importance of giving proper credit, even when quoting from competitors. And, of course, we expect the same in return.”
Schlesinger said that in the writing Reuters does specifically for the web “we’re as open to outbound linking as we are to the inbound”. But much of its other writing does not currently use outbound links “because of the particular ecosystem of our professional products, for which a lot of it is specifically written.” But he is sure that will change over time.
“The real danger in not being extremely open to linking, it seems to me, is that by moving yourself out of the mainstream debate you risk irrelevancy.
The fact that today the crediting can be done with a hyperlink is to me intellectually no different than the use of an academic footnote or a traditional journalistic “…according to XYZ in an interview”. It’s just better, because it’s fast, direct and creates an instant chain of knowledge.
“What’s more interesting to me is what one does with the link, not the link itself.
Schlesinger added: “I have a passing interest in the link or retweet that simply passes a nugget along.
“I have a bit more interest when the linker or retweeter extracts real gold that was hidden in the original and gives it more prominence.
“I have a lot more interest when the link or retweet uses the original as a jumping off point for argument, debate, or development.
“That’s when it gets interesting.”
● SOURCE Reuters
“As head of a journalistic army of 2,700 professionals I obviously have an intense vested interest in ensuring that their work is valuable to readers and valued by them,” Schlesinger said in a Reuters blog posting.
“Part of that involves ensuring that they are in the centre of the action and that they fill their reports with their expertise and experience. Part of that involves ensuring that they are part of the debate, that their reports inform the debate and that the debate, in turn, informs their future reporting.
“Our standards on sourcing have always emphasized the importance of giving proper credit, even when quoting from competitors. And, of course, we expect the same in return.”
Schlesinger said that in the writing Reuters does specifically for the web “we’re as open to outbound linking as we are to the inbound”. But much of its other writing does not currently use outbound links “because of the particular ecosystem of our professional products, for which a lot of it is specifically written.” But he is sure that will change over time.
“The real danger in not being extremely open to linking, it seems to me, is that by moving yourself out of the mainstream debate you risk irrelevancy.
The fact that today the crediting can be done with a hyperlink is to me intellectually no different than the use of an academic footnote or a traditional journalistic “…according to XYZ in an interview”. It’s just better, because it’s fast, direct and creates an instant chain of knowledge.
“What’s more interesting to me is what one does with the link, not the link itself.
Schlesinger added: “I have a passing interest in the link or retweet that simply passes a nugget along.
“I have a bit more interest when the linker or retweeter extracts real gold that was hidden in the original and gives it more prominence.
“I have a lot more interest when the link or retweet uses the original as a jumping off point for argument, debate, or development.
“That’s when it gets interesting.”
● SOURCE Reuters
Reuters trustees to continue after de-listing
Wednesday 22 July 2009
Directors of Reuters Founders Share Company take a vigorous and active interest in Thomson Reuters and in editorial and will continue after the company ends its listing on the London Stock Exchange, editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said on Wednesday.
Concern had been raised that the Founders Share directors, known as trustees, would lose their power.
“There is a very interesting and immensely important statement in the management information circular about the changing share structure of Thomson Reuters,” Michael Reupke, former editor-in-chief and general manager, said.
“That statement is: ‘Thomson Reuters will seek to redeem and cancel the Reuters Founders share in the capital of Thomson Reuters PLC.’ That share is the only tool the directors of the Founders Share Company, whom we used to refer to as the trustees, have to do anything whatever,” he wrote in a letter to The Baron.
“I hope I can set a predecessor's mind at ease,” Schlesinger responded. “When Thomson Reuters was created, it was created as a dual listed company. Thomson Reuters Corp is domiciled in Toronto and Thomson Reuters PLC has been in London. There has been one Reuters Founders Share in each of the two companies. Obviously if one of the two companies in the dual structure goes away so too will its founders share, but the other remains. I can assure all that from my perspective as Editor-in-Chief, the current Reuters Founders Share Company directors take a vigorous and active interest in the company and in editorial. That interest and engagement has, if anything, increased in the months before and after the consummation of the deal, particularly if I compare it to, say, a decade earlier.”
Shareholder meetings on unifying Thomson Reuters’ dual-listed company structure are scheduled to take place in Toronto and London on 7 August.
CEO Tom Glocer said last month the company’s decision to end its stock exchange listing in London and on NASDAQ in New York would not affect the operations, customers, strategy or financial position of the business.
“Unification would benefit shareholders by creating a single deep, global pool of liquidity and a simpler, more transparent capital structure,” he told staff.
“Our shares are currently listed on four different stock exchanges [London, New York, NASDAQ and Toronto], which has fragmented the trading in our shares and deterred certain large global investors from buying our shares. Unification would also reduce costs and complexity across the company.
“Our commitment to customers, employees and other stakeholders in London, the United Kingdom and Europe is unchanged by where we list our shares. London is a vital global capital for the markets we serve and home to more than 5,000 of our employees.
“The Founders Share Company has indicated it will support unification as this will in no way diminish our adherence to the Reuters Trust Principles.”
Concern had been raised that the Founders Share directors, known as trustees, would lose their power.
“There is a very interesting and immensely important statement in the management information circular about the changing share structure of Thomson Reuters,” Michael Reupke, former editor-in-chief and general manager, said.
“That statement is: ‘Thomson Reuters will seek to redeem and cancel the Reuters Founders share in the capital of Thomson Reuters PLC.’ That share is the only tool the directors of the Founders Share Company, whom we used to refer to as the trustees, have to do anything whatever,” he wrote in a letter to The Baron.
“I hope I can set a predecessor's mind at ease,” Schlesinger responded. “When Thomson Reuters was created, it was created as a dual listed company. Thomson Reuters Corp is domiciled in Toronto and Thomson Reuters PLC has been in London. There has been one Reuters Founders Share in each of the two companies. Obviously if one of the two companies in the dual structure goes away so too will its founders share, but the other remains. I can assure all that from my perspective as Editor-in-Chief, the current Reuters Founders Share Company directors take a vigorous and active interest in the company and in editorial. That interest and engagement has, if anything, increased in the months before and after the consummation of the deal, particularly if I compare it to, say, a decade earlier.”
Shareholder meetings on unifying Thomson Reuters’ dual-listed company structure are scheduled to take place in Toronto and London on 7 August.
CEO Tom Glocer said last month the company’s decision to end its stock exchange listing in London and on NASDAQ in New York would not affect the operations, customers, strategy or financial position of the business.
“Unification would benefit shareholders by creating a single deep, global pool of liquidity and a simpler, more transparent capital structure,” he told staff.
“Our shares are currently listed on four different stock exchanges [London, New York, NASDAQ and Toronto], which has fragmented the trading in our shares and deterred certain large global investors from buying our shares. Unification would also reduce costs and complexity across the company.
“Our commitment to customers, employees and other stakeholders in London, the United Kingdom and Europe is unchanged by where we list our shares. London is a vital global capital for the markets we serve and home to more than 5,000 of our employees.
“The Founders Share Company has indicated it will support unification as this will in no way diminish our adherence to the Reuters Trust Principles.”
Reuters Iraq war documentary nominated for Emmy
Wednesday 15 July 2009
A Reuters documentary on Iraq has been nominated for “a well-deserved Emmy”, editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said on Wednesday.
“It's already a winner in my book,” he said in a message on the micro-blogging site Twitter.
Bearing Witness: Five Years of the Iraq War, features graphic still and video images and interviews with journalists Ceerwan Aziz, Alastair Macdonald, Andrew Marshall, Samia Nakhoul, Khaled Ramahi, Goran Tomasevic and Dean Yates.
It has already won numerous prizes including Best Multimedia at the 2008 Online News Association and New York Photo Awards. In June it was awarded the Italian Illaria Alpi Prize for Best International Report. The €2,500 prize was donated to the Rory Peck Trust which supports the families of freelance journalists killed on assignment.
Others among six Emmy finalists are The New York Times, Toronto Globe and Mail and The Washington Post. The winner will be announced at the 30th annual awards ceremony of the US National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in New York on 21 September.
The Academy presented a Lifetime Achievement Award for Business and Financial Reporting to Schlesinger in December.
● CLICK to view Bearing Witness: Five Years of the Iraq War | VIDEO
“It's already a winner in my book,” he said in a message on the micro-blogging site Twitter.
Bearing Witness: Five Years of the Iraq War, features graphic still and video images and interviews with journalists Ceerwan Aziz, Alastair Macdonald, Andrew Marshall, Samia Nakhoul, Khaled Ramahi, Goran Tomasevic and Dean Yates.
It has already won numerous prizes including Best Multimedia at the 2008 Online News Association and New York Photo Awards. In June it was awarded the Italian Illaria Alpi Prize for Best International Report. The €2,500 prize was donated to the Rory Peck Trust which supports the families of freelance journalists killed on assignment.
Others among six Emmy finalists are The New York Times, Toronto Globe and Mail and The Washington Post. The winner will be announced at the 30th annual awards ceremony of the US National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in New York on 21 September.
The Academy presented a Lifetime Achievement Award for Business and Financial Reporting to Schlesinger in December.
● CLICK to view Bearing Witness: Five Years of the Iraq War | VIDEO
Reuters' complete Handbook of Journalism goes online
Thursday 09 July 2009
“The handbook is the guidance Reuters journalists live by — and we’re proud of it,” wrote Dean Wright, global editor, ethics, innovation and news standards (pictured).
“Until now, it hasn’t been freely available to the public. In the early 1990s, a printed handbook was published and in 2006 the Reuters Foundation published a relatively short PDF online that gave some basic guidance to reporters. But it’s only now that we’re putting the full handbook online.”
Wright said the handbook is being made available to everyone for a number of reasons. Among them:
● Transparency: At a time when trust is an endangered commodity in the financial and media worlds, it’s important that news consumers see the guidelines our journalists follow.
● Service: As we’ve seen over the past decade, the barriers to publishing have dropped so that anyone with an idea and a computer can be a publisher. But it’s also become clear that publishers have a varying standard of truth, fairness and style. Our handbook is a good place for budding journalists to begin.
● Geography: Reuters serves a global audience and the handbook recognises the cultural and political differences that our journalists face in reporting for the world. This is a handbook not just for English-language journalists in the United Kingdom or the United States, but for wherever English is used.
In the contest between UK and US English, “We take a global approach to the spelling of many words. Often, it’s the United States against the world.”
The sports section of the handbook offers a list of cliches to avoid and advice on “good, bad”: “For financial and commodity markets good news and bad news depends on who you are and what your position is in the market. Avoid them.”
One of the most controversial entries is that of “terrorism.” It reads, in part: “We may refer without attribution to terrorism and counter-terrorism in general but do not refer to specific events as terrorism. Nor do we use the adjective word terrorist without attribution to qualify specific individuals, groups or events. … Report the subjects of news stories objectively, their actions, identity and background. Aim for a dispassionate use of language so that individuals, organisations and governments can make their own judgment on the basis of facts. Seek to use more specific terms like “bomber” or “bombing”, “hijacker” or “hijacking”, “attacker” or “attacks”, “gunman” or “gunmen” etc.”
This policy has been passionately debated inside and outside Reuters, Wright said. As the handbook says, “we aim for dispassionate language” so that our customers can “make their own judgment on the basis of facts.”
Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger puts it this way: “Over the years we have been criticised for this policy on numerous occasions, when people or governments wanted us to label an incident ourselves rather than quote their views. Criticism of our policy was especially fierce when the United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. Reuters made the decision not to describe the attackers as terrorists, because we thought a label would not add to our vivid description of the thousands of deaths and the destruction of the iconic twin towers of the World Trade Center. In the years since, as the world has witnessed numerous other attacks, we’ve chosen to continue that policy of sticking with the facts and letting our readers make up their own minds based on our reporting and the evidence we present them.”
Wright added: “It’s important to point out that the handbook is a living document, one that preserves rules that have guided Reuters journalists through a century and half but also one that may change when the times change. It’s also important to note that the handbook is produced by humans who aren’t infallible — and it’s used by humans who aren’t infallible, so sometimes we make mistakes. I’m sure you’ll let us know when we do, but we’re usually harder on ourselves than anyone else is.”
● SOURCE Reuters | Handbook of Journalism
David Schlesinger on journalism in the age of Twitter
Wednesday 24 June 2009
In the future, old media won’t control news dissemination. Newspapers, magazines and news services won’t die. But they must change.
The only way for news organisations like Reuters to survive is to embrace the change and embrace the new. “Longing for the ways of the past will not work.”
Schlesinger was speaking to the International Olympics Committee Press Commission on Tuesday. His speech was posted on the Reuters Editors’ blog (click on the link below to read the full text).
“I spend my days at Reuters preaching the multimedia gospel to my 2,700 journalists,” he said.
“I want people to think holistically. I need them to. More and more, we’re issuing a multimedia report to multimedia-savvy consumers who no longer make a distinction between information they receive from text and information they receive from images. They demand words and pictures to be blended because… well, because that’s the way the world is! That’s the way the internet is. That’s the way schools work. That’s the way businesses work.
“So that’s my gospel – to bring multimedia to life at Reuters.”
In the face of “citizen journalism” using new social media tools, “what can we do to survive, or more fundamentally, to stay relevant?
“I think the only path is to embrace the change and embrace the new. Longing for the ways of the past will not work,” Schlesinger said.
“We in the traditional media and you in the IOC must concentrate our efforts on defining and developing that which really adds value.
“That means understanding what really can be exclusive and what really is insightful. It means truly exploiting real expertise.”
It means using all the multimedia tools available and all the smart multimedia journalists to provide a package so much stronger than any one individual strand, Schlesinger said.
It means working with the mobile phone and digital camera and social media-enabled public and not against them.
While old distinctions and old definitions are falling, “Our goal has to be to preserve the institutions and not the rules or definitions.
“And the way to do that is to evolve and morph and develop faster than the changes all around us.”
● SOURCE Reuters
Reuters active on case of Ibrahim Jassam - David Schlesinger
Thursday 28 May 2009
Progress has indeed been unsatisfactory, Schlesinger said in a message to The Baron in response to a posting by former editor-in-chief Brian Horton (● Click Mail).
“Your readers can be assured we are working actively on this – in Iraq, in Washington and through the Committee to Protect Journalists (where I am a board member),” Schlesinger said.
“My position has been consistent throughout: if there is a charge against or suspicion about any of our journalists, let it be aired publicly. If there is a charge, let the journalist defend his name with the aid of counsel and in an open, fair tribunal. If there is a suspicion about his actions, let us know what it is: we will happily explain why our journalists rush to the scene of conflict instead of away and why they, and we, put such a premium on speed of response.
“We have no interest in harbouring a proven evil-doer on our staff. But I will not tolerate or accept innuendo or vague, unspecified charges against a journalist who has never done anything to cause us to question his probity.”
The Los Angeles Times reported last week that Jassam, 31, is close to breaking point. His brother Walid visited him recently in Camp Bucca, the desolate, tented US prison camp in the desert in southern Iraq, it said.
"He used to be handsome, but now he's pale and he's tired," said Walid, who says his brother had no ties to insurgents. "Every now and then while we were talking, he would start crying. He was begging me: 'Please do something to get me out of here. I don't know what is the charge against me.'
"I told him we already tried everything."
Jassam was seized by American and Iraqi troops at his family home in the town of Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, on 2 September 2008. They confiscated his computer hard drive and cameras and led him away handcuffed and blindfolded.
The U.S. military rejected an Iraqi Central Criminal Court order on 30 November to release him for lack of evidence, saying he is a “high security threat”. No evidence has been presented.
Detained Reuters cameraman 'close to breaking point'
Sunday 24 May 2009
Jassam's brother Walid visited him recently in Camp Bucca, the desolate, tented US prison camp in the desert in southern Iraq, it said.
"He used to be handsome, but now he's pale and he's tired," said Walid, who says his brother had no ties to insurgents. "Every now and then while we were talking, he would start crying. He was begging me: 'Please do something to get me out of here. I don't know what is the charge against me.'
"I told him we already tried everything."
Jassam, 31, was detained by American and Iraqi troops at his family home in the town of Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, on 2 September 2008. They confiscated his computer hard drive and cameras and led him away handcuffed and blindfolded.
The US military rejected an Iraqi Central Criminal Court order on 30 November to release him for lack of evidence, saying he is a “high security threat”. No evidence has been presented.
Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger has expressed disappointment over Jassam's detention and said there is no evidence against him.
Jassam is the only Iraqi journalist still in US custody. He is the last to be detained under wartime rules that predated a US-Iraqi security agreement signed in December. Under the new accord, US forces must obtain a warrant before they can arrest an Iraqi citizen.
The decision to release him or transfer him to the Iraqi legal system will be made by the Iraqi government. The only timetable for that is by the end of the year, a US military spokesman said.
● SOURCE Los Angeles Times
Twitter for newsgathering? Reuters makes news
Thursday 19 March 2009
Reuters is driving the debate about the use of the fast-growing micro-blogging Internet service Twitter in journalism.
A recent NewsMaker meeting at the London office with Hector Sants, chief executive of the UK's Financial Services Authority, was opened up to all-comers via Twitter and attracted the interest of CNN which sent a crew to tape Reuters’ social media team in action at the event. CNN broadcast a report on its International Correspondents show.
Twitter enables the broadcast of SMS-length (maximum 140 characters) texts. President Obama is the world’s most prominent “tweeter”.
“What caught the CNN crew’s imagination was our use of Twitter to create a live channel from Reuters readers to our NewsMaker,” Mark Jones, community editor, wrote in a Reuters blog.
“Ahead of time we had publicised the fact that Hector Sants was coming in and had agreed to take readers’ questions. We asked readers to add a question to our blog comments or to go onto Twitter and to use the askfsa tag.
“As word got around about what we were doing dozens of Twitter users started sending in comments and questions. My role was to monitor them (most came in during the event) and to pick out the most interesting ones to put to Sants.
“CNN wanted to know where was the journalism in that. Answer: same as ever — filtering large amounts of information for the nuggets (there were more than 200 questions and comments) and trying to pull together any themes.”
A non-scientific CNN poll on the question: should journalists use Twitter as a newsgathering tool has found opinion is running in favour.
Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger started the Twitter debate in January over his own twitterings from the World Economic Forum. He even scooped his own team of correspondents covering the annual meeting in Davos.
● CLICK to read Mark Jones’s blog posting on twittering.
● CLICK to read about David Schlesinger’s blog posting on twittering.
A recent NewsMaker meeting at the London office with Hector Sants, chief executive of the UK's Financial Services Authority, was opened up to all-comers via Twitter and attracted the interest of CNN which sent a crew to tape Reuters’ social media team in action at the event. CNN broadcast a report on its International Correspondents show.
Twitter enables the broadcast of SMS-length (maximum 140 characters) texts. President Obama is the world’s most prominent “tweeter”.
“What caught the CNN crew’s imagination was our use of Twitter to create a live channel from Reuters readers to our NewsMaker,” Mark Jones, community editor, wrote in a Reuters blog.
“Ahead of time we had publicised the fact that Hector Sants was coming in and had agreed to take readers’ questions. We asked readers to add a question to our blog comments or to go onto Twitter and to use the askfsa tag.
“As word got around about what we were doing dozens of Twitter users started sending in comments and questions. My role was to monitor them (most came in during the event) and to pick out the most interesting ones to put to Sants.
“CNN wanted to know where was the journalism in that. Answer: same as ever — filtering large amounts of information for the nuggets (there were more than 200 questions and comments) and trying to pull together any themes.”
A non-scientific CNN poll on the question: should journalists use Twitter as a newsgathering tool has found opinion is running in favour.
Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger started the Twitter debate in January over his own twitterings from the World Economic Forum. He even scooped his own team of correspondents covering the annual meeting in Davos.
● CLICK to read Mark Jones’s blog posting on twittering.
● CLICK to read about David Schlesinger’s blog posting on twittering.
Reuters revamps websites to improve global crisis cover
Tuesday 10 March 2009
Reuters is changing its websites to improve coverage of the global economic crisis.
Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger, in a blog posting aimed at visitors to the sites, says the crisis is the biggest story in modern times “and a record audience is turning to Reuters for information you can trust”.
“I share with you some changes we’ve brought to Reuters.com and Reuters.co.uk to help you understand the financial turmoil and benefit from the expertise of our 2,550 journalists around the globe,” Schlesinger says.
“You’ll notice more headlines from our financial correspondents and more video interviews with business newsmakers. We’ve added a new Economy section, increased our coverage of regulation and will soon relaunch our small business and environment pages.
“Our Great Debate section has added more financial commentary from our growing team of Reuters columnists, with technology expert Eric Auchard among the writers joining James Saft, John Kemp and Bernd Debusmann. We also offer more graphics for better insight into the financial markets. And we continue to add specialist blogs, with Hedge Hub providing a place for readers to discuss the hedge fund industry with journalists such as Laurence Fletcher.
“Of course, we know you rely on us for news of the political and cultural trends that influence our personal and professional worlds. You’ll find full coverage of the new U.S. administration on our Barack Obama: First 100 Days page, while pages ranging from Afghanistan to Wine can be found in our Topics section. Our India edition has a page dedicated to the national elections there. Bureaus in China, Japan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories have blogs to share their insights and we offer more video from our entertainment reporters. China and Japan have added native language blogs on their local editions.”
Schlesinger promises many more changes throughout 2009 that will help visitors to navigate “the unrivaled breadth and depth of Thomson Reuters news and data”.
● SOURCE Reuters
Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger, in a blog posting aimed at visitors to the sites, says the crisis is the biggest story in modern times “and a record audience is turning to Reuters for information you can trust”.
“I share with you some changes we’ve brought to Reuters.com and Reuters.co.uk to help you understand the financial turmoil and benefit from the expertise of our 2,550 journalists around the globe,” Schlesinger says.
“You’ll notice more headlines from our financial correspondents and more video interviews with business newsmakers. We’ve added a new Economy section, increased our coverage of regulation and will soon relaunch our small business and environment pages.
“Our Great Debate section has added more financial commentary from our growing team of Reuters columnists, with technology expert Eric Auchard among the writers joining James Saft, John Kemp and Bernd Debusmann. We also offer more graphics for better insight into the financial markets. And we continue to add specialist blogs, with Hedge Hub providing a place for readers to discuss the hedge fund industry with journalists such as Laurence Fletcher.
“Of course, we know you rely on us for news of the political and cultural trends that influence our personal and professional worlds. You’ll find full coverage of the new U.S. administration on our Barack Obama: First 100 Days page, while pages ranging from Afghanistan to Wine can be found in our Topics section. Our India edition has a page dedicated to the national elections there. Bureaus in China, Japan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories have blogs to share their insights and we offer more video from our entertainment reporters. China and Japan have added native language blogs on their local editions.”
Schlesinger promises many more changes throughout 2009 that will help visitors to navigate “the unrivaled breadth and depth of Thomson Reuters news and data”.
● SOURCE Reuters
Thomson Reuters to launch video news service in June
Tuesday 03 March 2009
Thomson Reuters Corp will launch a video news service in June for financial professionals who use its terminals, part of a $1 billion plan to appeal to a new generation of customers.
The service, called Reuters Insider, will provide live and searchable financial markets coverage, analysis and breaking news.
It will not run all day, will not rely on advertising and will be largely unavailable to the public. Clients, however, will be able to access it around the clock. Paying customers will be able to access on-demand news segments in the same way people watch video clips on YouTube. They will be able to select videos on channels grouped by category, such as foreign exchange, equities or political news.
The project is part of a $1 billion programme to update the company's products and infrastructure to make them more appealing to financial professionals accustomed to using the Internet to get information.
Thomson Reuters has been testing the service since last October, and is launching it during a time of uncertainty for media outlets.
Many newspapers, TV stations and news outlets are losing advertising revenue as people get more news online, often for free. Some news and information companies may be forced out of business. Others are trying to figure out how to get people to pay for their news.
Investing during the global economic downturn, which has led to layoffs in the financial industry, is what the company must do to keep performing well, said Devin Wenig, markets division chief executive.
Reuters journalists are contributing to the programming, and Thomson Reuters is recruiting about 120 people to run it from multi-media studios in New York, London and Hong Kong. It hopes clients such as banks and investment companies will also supply video and create their own channels.
The new service is designed to give financial professionals news they can use to make trades and other business decisions, but does not replace news articles, Wenig said.
"To me, this is just Reuters News 2.0," he said. Targeting a narrowly defined, paying audience works better for the company, Wenig said. "This isn't infotainment."
Chris Cramer, former president of CNN International who is now global editor of multimedia for Reuters News, said: “The broadcast model, the cable model, is broken. At the moment there is no competition. This is something unique.”
Michael Stepanovich, managing editor of Reuters Insider, said it would rely heavily on “tags” about each video clip, generated from transcripts using software acquired through the 2007 purchase of a “semantic engine” called Clear Forest.
As well as channels for sales and trading or enterprise customers, he said Reuters Insider could be customised to track individual sectors, asset classes, regions, companies and topics, or an investor’s portfolio. “We want to be able to create a [Bernie] Madoff channel,” Stepanovich said.
Users will also be able to watch “highlights reels” drawn from different videos, find sections of video from the relevant passage in the transcript, or send clips to their BlackBerrys.
David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, said the initiative was a response to the demands of a younger generation.
Reuters experimented with video a decade ago with Reuters TV but abandoned the initiative because of the high costs required before the web video era.
● SOURCE Financial Times
● CLICK to read Chris Cramer’s blog post on narrowcasting.
The service, called Reuters Insider, will provide live and searchable financial markets coverage, analysis and breaking news.
It will not run all day, will not rely on advertising and will be largely unavailable to the public. Clients, however, will be able to access it around the clock. Paying customers will be able to access on-demand news segments in the same way people watch video clips on YouTube. They will be able to select videos on channels grouped by category, such as foreign exchange, equities or political news.
The project is part of a $1 billion programme to update the company's products and infrastructure to make them more appealing to financial professionals accustomed to using the Internet to get information.
Thomson Reuters has been testing the service since last October, and is launching it during a time of uncertainty for media outlets.
Many newspapers, TV stations and news outlets are losing advertising revenue as people get more news online, often for free. Some news and information companies may be forced out of business. Others are trying to figure out how to get people to pay for their news.
Investing during the global economic downturn, which has led to layoffs in the financial industry, is what the company must do to keep performing well, said Devin Wenig, markets division chief executive.
Reuters journalists are contributing to the programming, and Thomson Reuters is recruiting about 120 people to run it from multi-media studios in New York, London and Hong Kong. It hopes clients such as banks and investment companies will also supply video and create their own channels.
The new service is designed to give financial professionals news they can use to make trades and other business decisions, but does not replace news articles, Wenig said.
"To me, this is just Reuters News 2.0," he said. Targeting a narrowly defined, paying audience works better for the company, Wenig said. "This isn't infotainment."
Chris Cramer, former president of CNN International who is now global editor of multimedia for Reuters News, said: “The broadcast model, the cable model, is broken. At the moment there is no competition. This is something unique.”
Michael Stepanovich, managing editor of Reuters Insider, said it would rely heavily on “tags” about each video clip, generated from transcripts using software acquired through the 2007 purchase of a “semantic engine” called Clear Forest.
As well as channels for sales and trading or enterprise customers, he said Reuters Insider could be customised to track individual sectors, asset classes, regions, companies and topics, or an investor’s portfolio. “We want to be able to create a [Bernie] Madoff channel,” Stepanovich said.
Users will also be able to watch “highlights reels” drawn from different videos, find sections of video from the relevant passage in the transcript, or send clips to their BlackBerrys.
David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, said the initiative was a response to the demands of a younger generation.
Reuters experimented with video a decade ago with Reuters TV but abandoned the initiative because of the high costs required before the web video era.
● SOURCE Financial Times
● CLICK to read Chris Cramer’s blog post on narrowcasting.
Thomson Reuters restructures multimedia operations
Wednesday 18 February 2009
Thomson Reuters is restructuring its multimedia operations to face a growing challenge from digital and video competitors like Bloomberg and The Associated Press.
Chris Cramer (pictured), former CNN chief, comes out on top. Cramer, named head of multimedia in October, will serve as the unit's global editor. His new responsibilities entail the creation of five editorial groups, including TV, photos, financial video, online and agency. By coordinating them, the company hopes to build on its appeal, even while it strenuously tries to cut costs, the digital media industry website paidContent said.
The five multimedia groups will be led by senior editors. Mike Stepanovich, senior vice-president and global head of business development, adds the role of managing editor of the financial video service. John Clarke and Tom Szlukovenyi will continue in their jobs overseeing TV and photos respectively. The two others – online global editor and agency global editor – are new posts and have not yet been filled.
Cramer was a president and managing director of CNN International before he retired from the Turner network in 2007. David Schlesinger, Reuters' editor-in-chief, brought him into the company last year to handle the financial video service. Before the latest change, only the teams who worked on financial video and online reported to Cramer.
“As competitors like Bloomberg and Associated Press have become more aggressive on the digital and video front, Thomson Reuters is trying to step up by introducing a new management structure for its multimedia offerings,” paidContent said.
● SOURCE Paid Content
Pay showdown seen after talks collapse
Monday 09 February 2009
Staff and management at Thomson Reuters in London are heading for a showdown over pay this week after talks at the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service broke down after three hours on Friday, The Guardian reported.
National Union of Journalists officials have rejected a revised 1.25 per cent across-the-board increase, while an attempt by management to force former Thomson London staff to give up their nine-day fortnight in return for a £500-a-year pay rise was rejected as "derisory", it said.
The combined Thomson Reuters NUJ Chapel is due to hold a mandatory meeting on Thursday to discuss the pay offer. A ballot for industrial action could also be held on the issue of former Thomson staff being forced to give up their nine-day fortnight following last April’s merger with Reuters. Reuters staff moved to a five-day week almost a decade ago and in return received a seven per cent across-the-board pay increase.
Management, led by editor-in-chief David Schlesinger, maintain they are changing the company's shift patterns, not the hours worked, The Guardian said. “When Reuters dumped its nine-day fortnight, in contrast, there was an increase in working hours.”
NUJ officials, however, claim that former Thomson Financial News staff are already on significantly lower wages than their Reuters colleagues for doing the same work and any move to a five-day week should be on a voluntary basis.
"Thomson Reuters encourages flexible working and will consider individual requests in line with company policy," a Reuters spokeswoman said in response.
The two sides have been battling over pay for months, the newspaper said. Management initially said there would be no across-the-board annual pay increase from April this year, but up to 2.5 per cent would be paid out on a performance basis.
That has since changed to a 1.25 per cent across-the-board increase, out of a total budget increase of 2.5 per cent, with the rest to be paid based on performance. From next year, management are understood to want to base all pay increases on performance, The Guardian added.
● SOURCE The Guardian
National Union of Journalists officials have rejected a revised 1.25 per cent across-the-board increase, while an attempt by management to force former Thomson London staff to give up their nine-day fortnight in return for a £500-a-year pay rise was rejected as "derisory", it said.
The combined Thomson Reuters NUJ Chapel is due to hold a mandatory meeting on Thursday to discuss the pay offer. A ballot for industrial action could also be held on the issue of former Thomson staff being forced to give up their nine-day fortnight following last April’s merger with Reuters. Reuters staff moved to a five-day week almost a decade ago and in return received a seven per cent across-the-board pay increase.
Management, led by editor-in-chief David Schlesinger, maintain they are changing the company's shift patterns, not the hours worked, The Guardian said. “When Reuters dumped its nine-day fortnight, in contrast, there was an increase in working hours.”
NUJ officials, however, claim that former Thomson Financial News staff are already on significantly lower wages than their Reuters colleagues for doing the same work and any move to a five-day week should be on a voluntary basis.
"Thomson Reuters encourages flexible working and will consider individual requests in line with company policy," a Reuters spokeswoman said in response.
The two sides have been battling over pay for months, the newspaper said. Management initially said there would be no across-the-board annual pay increase from April this year, but up to 2.5 per cent would be paid out on a performance basis.
That has since changed to a 1.25 per cent across-the-board increase, out of a total budget increase of 2.5 per cent, with the rest to be paid based on performance. From next year, management are understood to want to base all pay increases on performance, The Guardian added.
● SOURCE The Guardian
David Schlesinger: all a-twitter and scooping Reuters
Friday 30 January 2009
Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger has started a debate over his twitterings.
“I’ve been tweeting from the World Economic Forum, using the microblogging platform Twitter to discuss the mundane (describing crepuscular darkness of the Swiss Alps at 5 a.m.) or the interesting (live tweeting from presentations),” he writes on the Reuters blog Full Disclosure: Ethics, Innovation and News Standards.
The scoop? Beating Reuters from Davos on news that billionaire financier George Soros believes the current economic downturn could be worse than the Great Depression, and that as much as $15 trillion might be needed to save the banking system.
“Is it journalism?
“Is it dangerous?
“Is it embarrassing that my tweets even beat the Reuters newswires?
(Tweets are Internet messages limited by the technology to 140 characters.)
“Am I destroying Reuters standards by encouraging tweeting or blogging?” Schlesinger asks.
“(These aren’t rhetorical questions - I’ve been challenged by many people who would answer those questions as No, Yes, Yes, and Yes! I answer them as Yes, Potentially, No and No.)”
Schlesinger recalls that the foundation of what Reuters does as a company and as a news service are the Reuters Trust Principles.
“While it is vital to read the five as a whole, I take the fifth (”That no effort shall be spared to expand, develop and adapt the news and other services and products of Thomson Reuters so as to maintain its leading position in the international news and information business”) as an imperative for continual innovation and experimentation.
“I have no idea what journalism will look like in five years except that it will be different than it is now. That’s a great thing, I believe.
“I have little patience for those who cling to sentimental (and frankly inaccurate) memories of the good old halcyon days of journalism that were somehow purer and better than a world where tweets and blogs compete with news wires and newspapers.
“Bring it on, I say!”
Schlesinger says working for Reuters gives him a tremendous platform and great access. “It does not give me a license.”
Microblogging and macroblogging and social networks are themselves great platforms.
“If great storytellers use those platforms to display their knowledge, access, expertise and abilities, I think that is a marvellous advance.
“If I don’t beat the Reuters wire with a live tweet because I deliberately hold back, someone else will. If I don’t beat the Reuters wire because I’m slow or inattentive, someone else will.
“The reason my live tweeting was fast is that it was unintermediated, while the journalist covering the story went the traditional route and had a discussion with an editor about how best to position and play the story.
“Both methods have important roles. In this case, the editor added value.
“In a democratic world where publishing platforms are available to all, editors and institutions like Reuters MUST add great value if they are to survive the competitive fight with the unintermediated storytellers.
“I love that.
“I love the competitive pressure that brings.
“I love the way it will force us continually to redefine our role vis-a-vis unaffiliated storytellers.
“I love the way it is and will continue to force us to redefine our profession and our craft.
“Are there potential pitfalls and dangers? Could a mistweet hurt our reputation? Of course. And over time we will have to work hard to decide what we have reporters tweet in their own names and what we have them do in the company name; we’ll have to refine our rules about micro and macroblogging to allow the maximum of free expression while holding fast to our important values of being fair, accurate and free from bias.
“But we will get there. And consumers of news will be the ultimate beneficiaries.”
Bravo, David, says Silicon Alley Insider, another blog. “Reuters and other newswires have made their names and their fortunes by being first with the news — now anyone who is at a news event has the equivalent of a newswire in their pocket, thanks to cellphones, Twitter, and other social-media tools. Does that make them journalists? Possibly. But best of all, ‘real’ journalists can make use of all those tools too.”
● SOURCE Reuters | Silicon Alley Insider
“I’ve been tweeting from the World Economic Forum, using the microblogging platform Twitter to discuss the mundane (describing crepuscular darkness of the Swiss Alps at 5 a.m.) or the interesting (live tweeting from presentations),” he writes on the Reuters blog Full Disclosure: Ethics, Innovation and News Standards.
The scoop? Beating Reuters from Davos on news that billionaire financier George Soros believes the current economic downturn could be worse than the Great Depression, and that as much as $15 trillion might be needed to save the banking system.
“Is it journalism?
“Is it dangerous?
“Is it embarrassing that my tweets even beat the Reuters newswires?
(Tweets are Internet messages limited by the technology to 140 characters.)
“Am I destroying Reuters standards by encouraging tweeting or blogging?” Schlesinger asks.
“(These aren’t rhetorical questions - I’ve been challenged by many people who would answer those questions as No, Yes, Yes, and Yes! I answer them as Yes, Potentially, No and No.)”
Schlesinger recalls that the foundation of what Reuters does as a company and as a news service are the Reuters Trust Principles.
“While it is vital to read the five as a whole, I take the fifth (”That no effort shall be spared to expand, develop and adapt the news and other services and products of Thomson Reuters so as to maintain its leading position in the international news and information business”) as an imperative for continual innovation and experimentation.
“I have no idea what journalism will look like in five years except that it will be different than it is now. That’s a great thing, I believe.
“I have little patience for those who cling to sentimental (and frankly inaccurate) memories of the good old halcyon days of journalism that were somehow purer and better than a world where tweets and blogs compete with news wires and newspapers.
“Bring it on, I say!”
Schlesinger says working for Reuters gives him a tremendous platform and great access. “It does not give me a license.”
Microblogging and macroblogging and social networks are themselves great platforms.
“If great storytellers use those platforms to display their knowledge, access, expertise and abilities, I think that is a marvellous advance.
“If I don’t beat the Reuters wire with a live tweet because I deliberately hold back, someone else will. If I don’t beat the Reuters wire because I’m slow or inattentive, someone else will.
“The reason my live tweeting was fast is that it was unintermediated, while the journalist covering the story went the traditional route and had a discussion with an editor about how best to position and play the story.
“Both methods have important roles. In this case, the editor added value.
“In a democratic world where publishing platforms are available to all, editors and institutions like Reuters MUST add great value if they are to survive the competitive fight with the unintermediated storytellers.
“I love that.
“I love the competitive pressure that brings.
“I love the way it will force us continually to redefine our role vis-a-vis unaffiliated storytellers.
“I love the way it is and will continue to force us to redefine our profession and our craft.
“Are there potential pitfalls and dangers? Could a mistweet hurt our reputation? Of course. And over time we will have to work hard to decide what we have reporters tweet in their own names and what we have them do in the company name; we’ll have to refine our rules about micro and macroblogging to allow the maximum of free expression while holding fast to our important values of being fair, accurate and free from bias.
“But we will get there. And consumers of news will be the ultimate beneficiaries.”
Bravo, David, says Silicon Alley Insider, another blog. “Reuters and other newswires have made their names and their fortunes by being first with the news — now anyone who is at a news event has the equivalent of a newswire in their pocket, thanks to cellphones, Twitter, and other social-media tools. Does that make them journalists? Possibly. But best of all, ‘real’ journalists can make use of all those tools too.”
● SOURCE Reuters | Silicon Alley Insider
Thomson Reuters starting to feel ‘coherent, focused’
Friday 19 December 2008
At the close of a rollercoaster year of firsts, integration pains and the most challenging market of a lifetime, Thomson Reuters is starting to feel like a coherent, focused business and is on track to become one company in one year, says Devin Wenig, markets division CEO.
There is lots more to do and there are more challenges to come – hold tight for another amazing year, he has told staff.
“We recently held our holiday parties and I have to say that I wasn’t sure how people would react to these parties, given our focus on costs and the uncertainty in the market,” Wenig said in a year-end message. “I think people really had a great time and they understand that our goal was simply to say thanks for an extraordinary effort in an extraordinary year.
“As someone said to me in New York, anybody that has a party in this market environment must be winning!
“And what an amazing year it’s been – no-one could have predicted even a year ago the pace of change that we have seen inside our organization but also what’s happening to the markets and to our customers.
“It’s been a year of highs and lows, of things to celebrate, of getting to know new friends and colleagues, and saying goodbye to colleagues who are no longer with us. And, sadly, it’s also saying goodbye to long-standing institutions like Lehman Brothers who had been a loyal customer and supporter of ours for many, many years.”
It has been a year of firsts, Wenig said – the first year as a new company, the first year of serving a new and diverse customer base and the first year of making a significant step change in service.
“But we had two other important firsts this year. We won our first Pulitzer prize – won by Reuters News for breaking news photography taken by Adrees Latif. And then just recently, we won our first Emmy in recognition of Reuters News and our role in the pursuit of truth and our contribution to society. The Emmy, for lifetime achievement in journalism, was awarded to our own Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger. I’m incredibly proud of these two achievements, particularly as they come from the US, a part of the world where Reuters News has not always been as well known but is now gaining a really important place in the markets and with our clients.
“Let’s not forget what we were able to achieve together. We’ve pulled the business together; we’ve met our customers’ high expectations of service and benefits; we’ve exceeded our targets for the integration; and we’ve continued to deliver growth in the most challenging market of a lifetime. Most importantly, we’re on a path to become one company in one year. I hear a lot more people these days talk about Thomson Reuters rather than Thomson Financial or Reuters. It’s starting to feel like a coherent, focused business. We have a lot more to do and many challenges to come but I will enter 2009 with the optimism of knowing we have great people, great assets and a focused and high performing team.
“So we’re coming to the end of a rollercoaster year and I want you to know how grateful I am for all of your hard work; for putting up with the pains of integration and for helping me to build the great company that I dream about for all of us.
“Thank you and I hope you all have a wonderful time with family and friends over the holiday period. I know that many of you will be working around the world over the holidays and keeping our content and news flowing – and I thank you for that.
“So here’s to 2009…get some rest and get ready to hold on tight for what undoubtedly will be another amazing year.”
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters
There is lots more to do and there are more challenges to come – hold tight for another amazing year, he has told staff.
“We recently held our holiday parties and I have to say that I wasn’t sure how people would react to these parties, given our focus on costs and the uncertainty in the market,” Wenig said in a year-end message. “I think people really had a great time and they understand that our goal was simply to say thanks for an extraordinary effort in an extraordinary year.
“As someone said to me in New York, anybody that has a party in this market environment must be winning!
“And what an amazing year it’s been – no-one could have predicted even a year ago the pace of change that we have seen inside our organization but also what’s happening to the markets and to our customers.
“It’s been a year of highs and lows, of things to celebrate, of getting to know new friends and colleagues, and saying goodbye to colleagues who are no longer with us. And, sadly, it’s also saying goodbye to long-standing institutions like Lehman Brothers who had been a loyal customer and supporter of ours for many, many years.”
It has been a year of firsts, Wenig said – the first year as a new company, the first year of serving a new and diverse customer base and the first year of making a significant step change in service.
“But we had two other important firsts this year. We won our first Pulitzer prize – won by Reuters News for breaking news photography taken by Adrees Latif. And then just recently, we won our first Emmy in recognition of Reuters News and our role in the pursuit of truth and our contribution to society. The Emmy, for lifetime achievement in journalism, was awarded to our own Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger. I’m incredibly proud of these two achievements, particularly as they come from the US, a part of the world where Reuters News has not always been as well known but is now gaining a really important place in the markets and with our clients.
“Let’s not forget what we were able to achieve together. We’ve pulled the business together; we’ve met our customers’ high expectations of service and benefits; we’ve exceeded our targets for the integration; and we’ve continued to deliver growth in the most challenging market of a lifetime. Most importantly, we’re on a path to become one company in one year. I hear a lot more people these days talk about Thomson Reuters rather than Thomson Financial or Reuters. It’s starting to feel like a coherent, focused business. We have a lot more to do and many challenges to come but I will enter 2009 with the optimism of knowing we have great people, great assets and a focused and high performing team.
“So we’re coming to the end of a rollercoaster year and I want you to know how grateful I am for all of your hard work; for putting up with the pains of integration and for helping me to build the great company that I dream about for all of us.
“Thank you and I hope you all have a wonderful time with family and friends over the holiday period. I know that many of you will be working around the world over the holidays and keeping our content and news flowing – and I thank you for that.
“So here’s to 2009…get some rest and get ready to hold on tight for what undoubtedly will be another amazing year.”
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters
Discordant notes on the economic crisis
Wednesday 17 December 2008
Reuters has been indulging in navel-gazing over the global economic crisis to try to discover whether the media has been doing its job in reporting the story.
Are journalists keeping things in perspective? Should they even be using words like “crisis” or “meltdown”? Are they being careful not to sow panic and make things even worse?
David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, doubts whether financial journalists could have done much more to predict the depth of the crisis.
“Journalists do best when reporting what’s happening and giving the news context and analysis,” he said. “We also do well when we look backwards and discuss past events from the perspective of the present. We do least well when we prognosticate. While our reporting and commentary did discuss potential weak points in the economy, we did not – and nor frankly could we – accurately predict the calamitous events of this year.”
Dean Wright (pictured), global editor, ethics, innovation and news standards, says Schlesinger worries, though, that there was a certain inevitability to the crisis and that the media played a role.
“I do worry about the narrative lines of reporting that contributed to the crisis,” he said. “To take just one example, much of the crisis was caused by banks taking on excess risks in the pursuit of higher profits. Yet had a major bank president stepped back from that fray and declined to participate, the ‘grammar’ of our results reporting would surely have compared that bank’s results negatively against expectations and against its peers.
“That brave bank president would surely have lost at least his bonus and probably his job. The very fear of that kind of negative comparison helped spur things on – as Citibank’s ex-CEO Charles Prince said (while still in his job), ‘As long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance.’
“We in the media help play that music, probably exacerbating the highs on the way up and the lows on the way down.”
So, did the media help change the tune that was being played, Wright asks in a recent Reuters Editors blog. Did it raise questions about the factors that contributed to the crisis, including complex financial instruments, subprime mortgage lending and excessive risk?
Questioning notes were sounded, he writes. As early as 18 August, 2003, a Reuters story quoted a Federal Reserve governor citing the dangers of “predatory lending” in extending subprime credit. By 2006, the pace had accelerated. A Factiva search found 128 Reuters stories that mentioned the phrase “subprime mortgage” that year, including a number in which analysts predicted a deterioration in credit quality. The crescendo came in 2007 when there were more than 10,000 stories that referenced subprime mortgages and when Reuters.com built a special section to house material on the issue.
“Still, the overall ‘music’ was loud and infectious and it’s easy to understand why so many couldn’t stay off the dance floor, says Wright.
He adds: “As Schlesinger says, ‘We have a responsibility to be careful, and most of our reporting has been very careful. But we too have played some discordant notes and we need to learn from that.’
● SOURCE Reuters
US declines to free Iraqi photographer
Tuesday 09 December 2008
The US military in Iraq refuses to obey a court order to release a freelance photographer working for Reuters and said on Tuesday it will hold him into 2009.
The Iraqi Central Criminal Court ruled on 30 November that there was no evidence against Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed, detained in a raid on his home in Mahmudiya, 30 km south of Baghdad on 2 September. It ordered the US military to release him from Camp Cropper prison near Baghdad airport.
Iraqi prosecutors acknowledged there was a lack of evidence and said they were closing the case against Jassam.
“Though we appreciate the decision of the Central Criminal Court of Iraq in the Jassam case, their decision does not negate the intelligence information that currently lists him as a threat to Iraq security and stability,” Major Neal Fisher, spokesman for the US military’s detainee operations in Iraq, said in an e-mail to Reuters on Tuesday.
“He will be processed for release in a safe and orderly manner after December 31st, in the order of his individual threat level, along with all other detainees.”
Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said: “I am disappointed he has not been released in accordance with the court order.”
The International Federation of Journalists "strongly condemned" the decision. It "makes a mockery of the coalition's handover of powers to Iraqi sovereign institutions," said Aidan White, IFJ general secretary. "The American military officials in Iraq should stop interfering with the Iraqi justice and free Ibrahim."
● SOURCE Reuters
The Iraqi Central Criminal Court ruled on 30 November that there was no evidence against Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed, detained in a raid on his home in Mahmudiya, 30 km south of Baghdad on 2 September. It ordered the US military to release him from Camp Cropper prison near Baghdad airport.
Iraqi prosecutors acknowledged there was a lack of evidence and said they were closing the case against Jassam.
“Though we appreciate the decision of the Central Criminal Court of Iraq in the Jassam case, their decision does not negate the intelligence information that currently lists him as a threat to Iraq security and stability,” Major Neal Fisher, spokesman for the US military’s detainee operations in Iraq, said in an e-mail to Reuters on Tuesday.
“He will be processed for release in a safe and orderly manner after December 31st, in the order of his individual threat level, along with all other detainees.”
Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said: “I am disappointed he has not been released in accordance with the court order.”
The International Federation of Journalists "strongly condemned" the decision. It "makes a mockery of the coalition's handover of powers to Iraqi sovereign institutions," said Aidan White, IFJ general secretary. "The American military officials in Iraq should stop interfering with the Iraqi justice and free Ibrahim."
● SOURCE Reuters
Iraqi court tells US to free photographer
Sunday 30 November 2008
An Iraqi court on Sunday ordered the release of a freelance photographer working for Reuters who has been held by US forces for three months.
The Iraqi Central Criminal Court ruled there was no evidence against Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed and ordered the US military to release him from Camp Cropper prison near Baghdad airport.
Iraqi prosecutors acknowledged there was a lack of evidence and said they were closing the case against Jassam.
There was no immediate response from the US military but editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said: “I hope the US authorities comply with this order swiftly to reunite him with his colleagues, friends and family.”
US and Iraqi forces arrested Jassam on 2 September when they raided his home in Mahmudiya, 30 km south of Baghdad. They confiscated his photographic equipment.
Reuters and international media rights groups have criticised the US military's refusal to deal more quickly with suspicions apparently arising from reporters' legitimate activities covering acts of violence.
● SOURCE Reuters
David Schlesinger wins an Emmy
Tuesday 18 November 2008
Reuters’ editor-in-chief David Schlesinger has won an Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award for Business and Financial Reporting.
The award was made by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in the United States. Academy president and CEO Peter Price said “More than any other news organization, Reuters understands that there is no sharp dividing line between business reporting, political reporting, and other kinds of news.
“As Editor-in-Chief, David Schlesinger has preserved this venerable organization’s core journalistic values while enthusiastically embracing the possibilities and challenges of the digital age, and we are proud to honor him for this achievement.”
“It may not have the glamor of an Emmy for best actor but it’s incredible recognition of what we all do here,” Schlesinger said. “I feel very keenly that my own contributions are nothing compared to the 2,500 people around the world working for Reuters News,” he told the company’s in-house Daily Briefing.
“It’s a great reward for us because it recognizes our commitment to business and financial news, which is core. And it’s especially true in the U.S. where we haven’t had as large a profile as we should have had.”
Schlesinger joined Reuters as a correspondent in Hong Kong in 1987. After assignments to Taiwan and China, in 1995 he became financial editor for the Americas and later managing editor and then editor for the Americas, based in New York. He was appointed global managing editor and head of editorial operations in 2003 and Editor-in-Chief in 2007.
The award is due to be presented at a ceremony at the Rainbow Room in New York on 2 December.
● SOURCE Reuters | Variety
The award was made by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in the United States. Academy president and CEO Peter Price said “More than any other news organization, Reuters understands that there is no sharp dividing line between business reporting, political reporting, and other kinds of news.
“As Editor-in-Chief, David Schlesinger has preserved this venerable organization’s core journalistic values while enthusiastically embracing the possibilities and challenges of the digital age, and we are proud to honor him for this achievement.”
“It may not have the glamor of an Emmy for best actor but it’s incredible recognition of what we all do here,” Schlesinger said. “I feel very keenly that my own contributions are nothing compared to the 2,500 people around the world working for Reuters News,” he told the company’s in-house Daily Briefing.
“It’s a great reward for us because it recognizes our commitment to business and financial news, which is core. And it’s especially true in the U.S. where we haven’t had as large a profile as we should have had.”
Schlesinger joined Reuters as a correspondent in Hong Kong in 1987. After assignments to Taiwan and China, in 1995 he became financial editor for the Americas and later managing editor and then editor for the Americas, based in New York. He was appointed global managing editor and head of editorial operations in 2003 and Editor-in-Chief in 2007.
The award is due to be presented at a ceremony at the Rainbow Room in New York on 2 December.
● SOURCE Reuters | Variety
Former CNN chief to head multimedia
Monday 15 September 2008
Reuters appointed former CNN International president Chris Cramer to the newly created role of global editor for multimedia.
He will oversee multimedia projects including the reuters.com website and act as the main liaison between the news organisation and media business.
He will be based in New York and report to editor-in-chief David Schlesinger, who said: "Cramer's distinguished track record of driving innovations in news gathering will be key to building on our recognised multimedia ventures and century and a half of journalist excellence."
Cramer spent 20 years at the BBC prior to joining CNN.
● SOURCE Reuters
He will oversee multimedia projects including the reuters.com website and act as the main liaison between the news organisation and media business.
He will be based in New York and report to editor-in-chief David Schlesinger, who said: "Cramer's distinguished track record of driving innovations in news gathering will be key to building on our recognised multimedia ventures and century and a half of journalist excellence."
Cramer spent 20 years at the BBC prior to joining CNN.
● SOURCE Reuters
Freelance photographer held in Iraq
Wednesday 03 September 2008
Reuters is seeking additional information on the detention of a freelance photographer in Iraq.
Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed, an Iraqi who has supplied photos and video to Reuters on a freelance basis for about two years, was detained in a raid on his home in Mahmudiya, 30 km south of Baghdad, by US and Iraqi forces early on Tuesday morning, his family said.
They also confiscated photographic equipment, his sister Eman told Reuters.
A US military spokesman declined comment on any charges Jassam may be facing, saying only that he is in US custody.
"He was detained because he was evaluated as a security threat, and his case is now being evaluated," spokesman Rear Admiral Patrick Driscoll told Reuters.
"We are concerned to hear about Jassam's detention, and urge the US military to either charge or release him once an initial investigatory stage is concluded," editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said.
"Any accusations against a journalist should be aired publicly and dealt with fairly and swiftly, with the journalist having the right to counsel and present a defence. Iraqi journalists like Jassam play a vital role in telling this story to the world," Schlesinger said.
Reuters and international media rights groups have previously criticised the military's refusal to deal more quickly with suspicions apparently arising from reporters' legitimate activities covering acts of violence.
The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, an Iraqi press rights group, urged the military to reveal where Jassam is being held and to say why he was arrested.
● SOURCE Reuters
Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed, an Iraqi who has supplied photos and video to Reuters on a freelance basis for about two years, was detained in a raid on his home in Mahmudiya, 30 km south of Baghdad, by US and Iraqi forces early on Tuesday morning, his family said.
They also confiscated photographic equipment, his sister Eman told Reuters.
A US military spokesman declined comment on any charges Jassam may be facing, saying only that he is in US custody.
"He was detained because he was evaluated as a security threat, and his case is now being evaluated," spokesman Rear Admiral Patrick Driscoll told Reuters.
"We are concerned to hear about Jassam's detention, and urge the US military to either charge or release him once an initial investigatory stage is concluded," editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said.
"Any accusations against a journalist should be aired publicly and dealt with fairly and swiftly, with the journalist having the right to counsel and present a defence. Iraqi journalists like Jassam play a vital role in telling this story to the world," Schlesinger said.
Reuters and international media rights groups have previously criticised the military's refusal to deal more quickly with suspicions apparently arising from reporters' legitimate activities covering acts of violence.
The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, an Iraqi press rights group, urged the military to reveal where Jassam is being held and to say why he was arrested.
● SOURCE Reuters
US frees detained Iraqi cameraman
Thursday 21 August 2008
The US military freed detained Iraqi cameraman Ali al-Mashhadani on Thursday after holding him for three weeks without charge.
He was arrested in Baghdad on 30 July while he was in Baghdad's Green Zone government compound for routine checks for a US military press card. The US military said he was seized "because he has been assessed to be a threat to the security of Iraq and coalition forces," but did not elaborate.
They have detained Mashhadani, who also works freelance for the BBC and Washington-based National Public Radio, twice before. At one point he was held for five months, but no charge has ever been filed against the cameraman, who is based in Ramadi, capital of western Anbar province.
Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said: "While I am pleased at Ali al-Mashhadani's release, I am extremely concerned that this was the third time he was detained without explanation.
"If there are legitimate issues about him or any other journalist, let's have them aired openly and tested. If there are none, let them pursue their profession free from intimidation and fear."
Reuters, the BBC, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists and Iraqi journalist groups had called for the military either to explain the accusations against Mashhadani or free him.
The US military says that under the UN mandate governing the presence of foreign forces in Iraq it can detain anyone considered a security risk indefinitely.
US forces have held other Iraqi reporters working for Reuters and journalists from different media groups for long periods without charging them.
● SOURCE Reuters
He was arrested in Baghdad on 30 July while he was in Baghdad's Green Zone government compound for routine checks for a US military press card. The US military said he was seized "because he has been assessed to be a threat to the security of Iraq and coalition forces," but did not elaborate.
They have detained Mashhadani, who also works freelance for the BBC and Washington-based National Public Radio, twice before. At one point he was held for five months, but no charge has ever been filed against the cameraman, who is based in Ramadi, capital of western Anbar province.
Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said: "While I am pleased at Ali al-Mashhadani's release, I am extremely concerned that this was the third time he was detained without explanation.
"If there are legitimate issues about him or any other journalist, let's have them aired openly and tested. If there are none, let them pursue their profession free from intimidation and fear."
Reuters, the BBC, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists and Iraqi journalist groups had called for the military either to explain the accusations against Mashhadani or free him.
The US military says that under the UN mandate governing the presence of foreign forces in Iraq it can detain anyone considered a security risk indefinitely.
US forces have held other Iraqi reporters working for Reuters and journalists from different media groups for long periods without charging them.
● SOURCE Reuters
Killing was ‘more than just a tragedy’
Wednesday 13 August 2008
The killing of cameraman Fadel Shana on the basis of such little Israeli certainty was more than just a tragedy, editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said after the Israel Defence Forces cleared the tank crew who killed him in Gaza four months ago.
For a little more investigation, a little more military intelligence, would have shown clearly that he was just a professional doing his job and that his camera was a weapon only for the truth, Schlesinger wrote in a Reuters blog posting.
“I’ve written before that a camera is not a weapon, that a journalist is not a combatant, that the pen and the sword should not be confused,” he wrote.
“Yet the Israel Defense Forces seem to be putting the camera very much in the category of weapon in a report on the death in April of Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana.
“I’ve given a quote to our reporters about my disappointment in the report.
“That it does state that the death was a ‘tragedy’ does not counteract the fact that it condoned the firing of two deadly shells at people it admitted had not been identified clearly and whose only crime was to put a camera on a tripod.
“Said the report: ‘Two persons were spotted leaving the vehicle, carrying a large black object. The black object was placed on a tripod above a dirt mound, and directed at the tank… The tank crew reported the spotting to its superiors. The latter authorized firing a tank shell at the characters, in light of the genuine suspicion that the object mounted on the tripod and directed at the tank was an anti-tank missile or mortar, a suspicion consistent with the characteristics of that day’s hostilities…’
“I do understand the stresses of the battlefield,” Schlesinger wrote.
“I do understand that wars are horribly dangerous – Reuters has had close calls in Georgia; colleagues from other organizations have been killed.
“I do not understand the deliberate decision to fire on the basis of suspicion and uncertainty.
“I wonder how journalists can do their job if doing that job raises such suspicion in the eyes of the Israeli or any other military.
“The dangers seem too great.
“And yet, the stakes of not reporting a war to the world are too high as well.
“‘…the tank crew was unable to determine the nature of the object mounted on the tripod and positively identify it as an anti-tank missile, a mortar, or a television camera,’ the report said.
“To me, killing on the basis of such little certainty makes the death of Fadel Shana much more than just a tragedy.
“For a little more investigation, a little more military intelligence, would have shown clearly that he was just a professional doing his job.
“And that his camera was a weapon only for the truth.”
● SOURCE Reuters Editors blog
For a little more investigation, a little more military intelligence, would have shown clearly that he was just a professional doing his job and that his camera was a weapon only for the truth, Schlesinger wrote in a Reuters blog posting.
“I’ve written before that a camera is not a weapon, that a journalist is not a combatant, that the pen and the sword should not be confused,” he wrote.
“Yet the Israel Defense Forces seem to be putting the camera very much in the category of weapon in a report on the death in April of Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana.
“I’ve given a quote to our reporters about my disappointment in the report.
“That it does state that the death was a ‘tragedy’ does not counteract the fact that it condoned the firing of two deadly shells at people it admitted had not been identified clearly and whose only crime was to put a camera on a tripod.
“Said the report: ‘Two persons were spotted leaving the vehicle, carrying a large black object. The black object was placed on a tripod above a dirt mound, and directed at the tank… The tank crew reported the spotting to its superiors. The latter authorized firing a tank shell at the characters, in light of the genuine suspicion that the object mounted on the tripod and directed at the tank was an anti-tank missile or mortar, a suspicion consistent with the characteristics of that day’s hostilities…’
“I do understand the stresses of the battlefield,” Schlesinger wrote.
“I do understand that wars are horribly dangerous – Reuters has had close calls in Georgia; colleagues from other organizations have been killed.
“I do not understand the deliberate decision to fire on the basis of suspicion and uncertainty.
“I wonder how journalists can do their job if doing that job raises such suspicion in the eyes of the Israeli or any other military.
“The dangers seem too great.
“And yet, the stakes of not reporting a war to the world are too high as well.
“‘…the tank crew was unable to determine the nature of the object mounted on the tripod and positively identify it as an anti-tank missile, a mortar, or a television camera,’ the report said.
“To me, killing on the basis of such little certainty makes the death of Fadel Shana much more than just a tragedy.
“For a little more investigation, a little more military intelligence, would have shown clearly that he was just a professional doing his job.
“And that his camera was a weapon only for the truth.”
● SOURCE Reuters Editors blog
Israel clears cameraman’s killers
Wednesday 13 August 2008
Israeli tank crew who killed Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana in Gaza four months ago acted properly and will not face legal action, Israel's senior military lawyer has concluded.
The military advocate-general told Reuters in a letter sent on Tuesday that troops could not see whether Shana was operating a camera or a weapon but were nonetheless justified in firing a shell packed with darts that killed him and eight other Palestinians aged between 12 and 20.
Reuters said on Wednesday it was deeply disturbed by a conclusion that severely curtails the freedom of the media to cover the conflict by effectively giving soldiers a free hand to kill without being sure they were not firing on journalists.
Shana, 24, filmed two tanks positioned about 1.5 km from where he was standing for several minutes before, in a chilling final two seconds of video, his camera captured one tank firing a shell that burst overhead, showering him and others with thousands of metal darts known as flechettes.
"The tank crew was unable to determine the nature of the object mounted on the tripod and positively identify it as an anti-tank missile, a mortar or a television camera," Brigadier General Avihai Mendelblit of the Israel Defence Forces wrote.
But the military lawyer cited an attack that killed three IDF soldiers in another part of the enclave earlier in the day, a separate grenade attack on a tank, the fact that Shana and his soundman who was wounded were wearing body armour – "common to Palestinian terrorists" – among reasons for suspicion.
Their blue flak jackets, like the car, were marked "PRESS". The army said the troops could not see those signs. Journalists in Gaza say they have rarely seen militants wear flak jackets.
Mendelblit wrote: "In light of the reasonable conclusion reached by the tank crew and its superiors that the characters were hostile and were carrying an object most likely to be a weapon, the decision to fire at the targets ... was sound ...
"There is no doubt that Fadel Shana's death is a tragedy...
"A journalist in action was killed by IDF fire, along with others not involved in the hostilities.
"However ... the available evidence does not suggest misconduct or criminal misbehaviour ... I have therefore decided ... that no further legal measures will be taken."
Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said: "I'm extremely disappointed that this report condones a disproportionate use of deadly force in a situation the army itself admitted had not been analysed clearly.
"They would appear to take the view that any raising of a camera into position could garner a deadly response."
Reuters wrote to Mendelblit on Wednesday with a number of questions, including asking precisely why the soldiers ruled out the possibility that Shana was a cameraman, why the fact he stood in full view of the tanks for some minutes did not suggest he had no hostile intent and why the tank crew, if concerned but unsure, did not simply reverse a few metres out of sight.
In Jerusalem, the Foreign Press Association said it was disappointed with a report that seemed to give soldiers licence to fire on journalists without being sure of their target.
In New York, Joel Campagna of the Committee to Protect Journalists said: "These findings mean that a journalist with a camera is at risk of coming under fire and there's not that much that can be done. That's unacceptable.
"It's difficult to believe ... that the IDF took the necessary precautions to avoid causing harm to civilians – as it is obliged to do under international law."
● SOURCE Reuters
The military advocate-general told Reuters in a letter sent on Tuesday that troops could not see whether Shana was operating a camera or a weapon but were nonetheless justified in firing a shell packed with darts that killed him and eight other Palestinians aged between 12 and 20.
Reuters said on Wednesday it was deeply disturbed by a conclusion that severely curtails the freedom of the media to cover the conflict by effectively giving soldiers a free hand to kill without being sure they were not firing on journalists.
Shana, 24, filmed two tanks positioned about 1.5 km from where he was standing for several minutes before, in a chilling final two seconds of video, his camera captured one tank firing a shell that burst overhead, showering him and others with thousands of metal darts known as flechettes.
"The tank crew was unable to determine the nature of the object mounted on the tripod and positively identify it as an anti-tank missile, a mortar or a television camera," Brigadier General Avihai Mendelblit of the Israel Defence Forces wrote.
But the military lawyer cited an attack that killed three IDF soldiers in another part of the enclave earlier in the day, a separate grenade attack on a tank, the fact that Shana and his soundman who was wounded were wearing body armour – "common to Palestinian terrorists" – among reasons for suspicion.
Their blue flak jackets, like the car, were marked "PRESS". The army said the troops could not see those signs. Journalists in Gaza say they have rarely seen militants wear flak jackets.
Mendelblit wrote: "In light of the reasonable conclusion reached by the tank crew and its superiors that the characters were hostile and were carrying an object most likely to be a weapon, the decision to fire at the targets ... was sound ...
"There is no doubt that Fadel Shana's death is a tragedy...
"A journalist in action was killed by IDF fire, along with others not involved in the hostilities.
"However ... the available evidence does not suggest misconduct or criminal misbehaviour ... I have therefore decided ... that no further legal measures will be taken."
Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said: "I'm extremely disappointed that this report condones a disproportionate use of deadly force in a situation the army itself admitted had not been analysed clearly.
"They would appear to take the view that any raising of a camera into position could garner a deadly response."
Reuters wrote to Mendelblit on Wednesday with a number of questions, including asking precisely why the soldiers ruled out the possibility that Shana was a cameraman, why the fact he stood in full view of the tanks for some minutes did not suggest he had no hostile intent and why the tank crew, if concerned but unsure, did not simply reverse a few metres out of sight.
In Jerusalem, the Foreign Press Association said it was disappointed with a report that seemed to give soldiers licence to fire on journalists without being sure of their target.
In New York, Joel Campagna of the Committee to Protect Journalists said: "These findings mean that a journalist with a camera is at risk of coming under fire and there's not that much that can be done. That's unacceptable.
"It's difficult to believe ... that the IDF took the necessary precautions to avoid causing harm to civilians – as it is obliged to do under international law."
● SOURCE Reuters
Reuters Olympics team is 200 strong
Monday 04 August 2008
Reuters is fielding a team of 200 for the Beijing Olympics with 100 text reporters, 80 photographers and TV crews, technicians, logistics and other supporting teams.
Reuters has 24 correspondents stationed in China with a much larger local support team working on the ground.
“It’s definitely one of the biggest foreign media presences in China,” editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said on the eve of his departure for Beijing.
For Reuters, “the biggest problem and challenge is to find reporters who understand both the language, culture and Chinese society,” he told China’s Xinhua News Agency.
Schlesinger, formerly a correspondent in Beijing, was speaking in a telephone interview with Xinhua on the eve of his departure for a 15-day stay. He will be the guest of Li Congjun, president of Xinhua, at Friday’s opening ceremony.
“I’ll meet Xinhua’s new president during my stay in Beijing for constructive dialogue, in addition to meeting officials from the Information Office of the State Council as well as other friends,” Xinhua quoted him as saying.
Schlesinger said Reuters would offer “fair, unbiased, responsible coverage” of the Games, Xinhua said. Besides covering sports it would also report on the political, social and economic scene in China.
“We are interested in how China prepares for the Games, the facilities, how the city works during the Games, traffic and pollution, whether the stadiums are full, how athletes are made to feel welcome, media and visa regulations in the run-up to the Games, etc,” Schlesinger said.
● SOURCE Xinhua
Reuters has 24 correspondents stationed in China with a much larger local support team working on the ground.
“It’s definitely one of the biggest foreign media presences in China,” editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said on the eve of his departure for Beijing.
For Reuters, “the biggest problem and challenge is to find reporters who understand both the language, culture and Chinese society,” he told China’s Xinhua News Agency.
Schlesinger, formerly a correspondent in Beijing, was speaking in a telephone interview with Xinhua on the eve of his departure for a 15-day stay. He will be the guest of Li Congjun, president of Xinhua, at Friday’s opening ceremony.
“I’ll meet Xinhua’s new president during my stay in Beijing for constructive dialogue, in addition to meeting officials from the Information Office of the State Council as well as other friends,” Xinhua quoted him as saying.
Schlesinger said Reuters would offer “fair, unbiased, responsible coverage” of the Games, Xinhua said. Besides covering sports it would also report on the political, social and economic scene in China.
“We are interested in how China prepares for the Games, the facilities, how the city works during the Games, traffic and pollution, whether the stadiums are full, how athletes are made to feel welcome, media and visa regulations in the run-up to the Games, etc,” Schlesinger said.
● SOURCE Xinhua
US forces say they hold cameraman
Friday 01 August 2008
American forces in Baghdad said on Friday they are holding an Iraqi cameraman working for Reuters. Reporters Sans Frontières/Reporters Without Borders, the media rights group, said he had been held for nearly a week without charge.
Ali al-Mashhadani was arrested last Saturday at the Iraqi parliament press centre in Baghdad’s government and diplomatic Green Zone.
A spokesman for the US military confirmed to AFP that he was in custody.
RSF said he “must be freed at once. It is unacceptable that US troops hold him on security grounds”. It cited the US military as saying Mashhadani was held because “he has been assessed to be a threat to the security of Iraq and coalition forces”.
Reuters has urged the US military to release Mashhandani immediately or publicly produce evidence to justify his detention.
Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said any accusations against a journalist should be aired publicly and dealt with fairly and swiftly, with the journalist having the right to counsel and to present a defence.
● SOURCE AFP
Ali al-Mashhadani was arrested last Saturday at the Iraqi parliament press centre in Baghdad’s government and diplomatic Green Zone.
A spokesman for the US military confirmed to AFP that he was in custody.
RSF said he “must be freed at once. It is unacceptable that US troops hold him on security grounds”. It cited the US military as saying Mashhadani was held because “he has been assessed to be a threat to the security of Iraq and coalition forces”.
Reuters has urged the US military to release Mashhandani immediately or publicly produce evidence to justify his detention.
Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said any accusations against a journalist should be aired publicly and dealt with fairly and swiftly, with the journalist having the right to counsel and to present a defence.
● SOURCE AFP
Free our man, Reuters tells US forces
Thursday 31 July 2008
Reuters urged the US military to release an Iraqi cameraman immediately or publicly produce evidence to justify his detention.
Ali al-Mashhadani was detained on Saturday while he was in the Green Zone government compound in Baghdad for routine checks for a US military press card. It was the third time he had been detained. No charges have ever been filed against him.
“Any accusations against a journalist should be aired publicly and dealt with fairly and swiftly, with the journalist having the right to counsel and present a defence,” editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said.
“Iraqi journalists like Mashhadani play a vital role in telling this story to the world.”
A US military spokesman said Mashhadani was being held at Camp Cropper, an American prison near Baghdad airport.
“He is being detained because he has been assessed to be a threat to the security of Iraq and coalition forces,” the spokesman said. He said the case would be reviewed by early next week.
US forces have held other Iraqi journalists working for Reuters and other news organisations for long periods without charge.
Mashhadani was previously detained from August 2005 to January 2006 and for two weeks in mid-2006.
Mashhadani also works freelance for the BBC and Washington-based National Public Radio.
● SOURCE Reuters
Ali al-Mashhadani was detained on Saturday while he was in the Green Zone government compound in Baghdad for routine checks for a US military press card. It was the third time he had been detained. No charges have ever been filed against him.
“Any accusations against a journalist should be aired publicly and dealt with fairly and swiftly, with the journalist having the right to counsel and present a defence,” editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said.
“Iraqi journalists like Mashhadani play a vital role in telling this story to the world.”
A US military spokesman said Mashhadani was being held at Camp Cropper, an American prison near Baghdad airport.
“He is being detained because he has been assessed to be a threat to the security of Iraq and coalition forces,” the spokesman said. He said the case would be reviewed by early next week.
US forces have held other Iraqi journalists working for Reuters and other news organisations for long periods without charge.
Mashhadani was previously detained from August 2005 to January 2006 and for two weeks in mid-2006.
Mashhadani also works freelance for the BBC and Washington-based National Public Radio.
● SOURCE Reuters
Business TV channel coming - report
Thursday 24 July 2008
Thomson Reuters is preparing to launch a business television news channel to rival those of Bloomberg and CNBC, The Daily Telegraph reported.
It will appear both on the Internet and some form of cable or digital platform. The launch could be as early as January but may be pushed back as the company is conscious of Reuters’ earlier unsuccessful foray into television, the UK newspaper said.
Thomson Reuters wants an extra avenue through which to channel content and raise revenues, The Daily Telegraph said.
“Going head-to-head with the other rolling business channels is a brave move by chief executive Tom Glocer, as it is an already crowded market,” it said.
The newspaper said the New York newsroom, which will act as the main studio for the channel, was opened yesterday by Devin Wenig, chief executive of the markets division.
It quoted David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, as saying in an internal memorandum that the new newsroom was all about “multi-media opportunities”.
● SOURCE The Daily Telegraph
It will appear both on the Internet and some form of cable or digital platform. The launch could be as early as January but may be pushed back as the company is conscious of Reuters’ earlier unsuccessful foray into television, the UK newspaper said.
Thomson Reuters wants an extra avenue through which to channel content and raise revenues, The Daily Telegraph said.
“Going head-to-head with the other rolling business channels is a brave move by chief executive Tom Glocer, as it is an already crowded market,” it said.
The newspaper said the New York newsroom, which will act as the main studio for the channel, was opened yesterday by Devin Wenig, chief executive of the markets division.
It quoted David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, as saying in an internal memorandum that the new newsroom was all about “multi-media opportunities”.
● SOURCE The Daily Telegraph
Baghdad staff remember dead friends
Saturday 12 July 2008
Baghdad bureau staff marked the first anniversary on Saturday of the deaths of their colleagues Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, photographer, and Saeed Chmagh, 40, driver, in a US helicopter air strike in eastern Baghdad.
About 80 people including other foreign media in Baghdad and members of the two families attended the commemoration.
“Namir and Saeed’s deaths were a tragedy,” editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said in remarks read on his behalf. “Their energy, their professionalism, their friendship, their personalities – these are the memories that represent all that is best about our colleagues in Iraq and our colleagues around the world.”
A collection of Namir’s news pictures was shown during the commemoration and the Iraqi Photographers Association presented the bureau with a plaque.
Reuters is seeking US military video footage of the killings shot from the two Apache helicopters on 12 July 2007. The U.S. military said in an e-mail on Friday it was still processing Reuters’ year-old request.
Nine other people were also killed in the attack.
Four other journalists working for Reuters – Taras Protsyuk, Mazen Dana, Dhia Najim and Waleed Khaled – have been killed by American soldiers in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003.
● SOURCE Reuters
About 80 people including other foreign media in Baghdad and members of the two families attended the commemoration.
“Namir and Saeed’s deaths were a tragedy,” editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said in remarks read on his behalf. “Their energy, their professionalism, their friendship, their personalities – these are the memories that represent all that is best about our colleagues in Iraq and our colleagues around the world.”
A collection of Namir’s news pictures was shown during the commemoration and the Iraqi Photographers Association presented the bureau with a plaque.
Reuters is seeking US military video footage of the killings shot from the two Apache helicopters on 12 July 2007. The U.S. military said in an e-mail on Friday it was still processing Reuters’ year-old request.
Nine other people were also killed in the attack.
Four other journalists working for Reuters – Taras Protsyuk, Mazen Dana, Dhia Najim and Waleed Khaled – have been killed by American soldiers in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003.
● SOURCE Reuters
Army probe of Reuters death ‘flawed’
Monday 16 June 2008
US soldiers who killed a Reuters journalist in Iraq acted within military rules, but the Army’s probe of the incident was flawed by its failure to preserve evidence, a Pentagon investigation said.
The Defense Department’s inspector general, the Pentagon’s watchdog agency, found that US soldiers who fired on a Reuters car in west Baghdad in August 2005, killing Reuters Television soundman Waleed Khaled, reasonably responded to what they thought was a threat.
But the inspector general criticised the Army investigator for losing a critical piece of evidence – video from a Reuters cameraman in the car that captured events leading up to and including the shooting.
The Army investigator’s actions rightfully led Reuters to believe the investigation was not thorough or independent, the inspector general’s report said.
“We found that although the (investigating officer) who conducted the Army investigation did not pursue some logical investigative actions, he properly concluded that during an ongoing enemy attack the soldiers thought a video camera and external microphone held out of an indigenous, unmarked vehicle was a rocket propelled grenade,” the inspector general said.
“The soldiers reasonably believed that act constituted a threat to United States forces and as such were obligated to act and did so in accordance with the (rules of engagement).”
The inspector general also faulted Reuters and its safety practices. The car carrying Khaled and cameraman Haider Kadhem was not marked “press”, for example, and Kadhem wrongly stuck his camera out of the car window, according to the military.
That made it difficult for soldiers to distinguish the journalists from combatants, the inspector general said.
Reuters said it disagreed with the Pentagon agency’s findings but appreciated its recommendation that the US military work with news organisations on safety procedures to avoid similar incidents.
“I am never satisfied when a journalist is killed in the course of covering a story,” editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said. “I am satisfied that the inspector general took this case seriously and came up with useful and positive recommendations.”
Khaled and Kadhem were inside a Reuters car while Kadhem, in the front passenger seat, filmed the aftermath of an insurgent ambush on Iraqi police. The car was not marked “press” due to worries that Iraqi insurgents were targeting reporters, Schlesinger said.
The U.S. military confiscated Kadhem’s camera, which contained video of the shooting. The U.S. military showed the footage to Reuters staff but later lost that video, characterised by Reuters as a “key piece of evidence” and one that corroborated the Reuters version of events.
Reuters’ chief counsel Thomas Kim called the video “the only piece of objective evidence” available in the incident.
An independent inquiry commissioned by Reuters concluded in April 2006 that the shooting appeared “unlawful” and said nothing Khaled or Kadhem did could have been mistaken as hostile.
Iraq is the world’s most dangerous country for journalists. At least 179 reporters and media assistants have been killed since the US-led invasion in 2003, more than in World War II and during fighting in Vietnam, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
● SOURCE Reuters
UK editorial staff call for strike ballot
Tuesday 10 June 2008
London newsroom staff are to hold a ballot over possible industrial action, The Guardian reported. It said the decision follows the refusal of management to delay planned redundancies and rejection of an offer from National Union of Journalists’ officials to bring in the UK Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service.
NUJ officials met Thomson Reuters management on Monday but staff concerns about the technicalities of the redundancy process were not met, the newspaper said.
“As a result, the Thomson and Reuters NUJ chapels have now moved to hold strike ballots,” it said.
Thomson Reuters wants to cut 70 journalists from the London newsroom as part of job reductions following the recent merger.
“The NUJ said it had made several requests for management to explain the reasons for the cuts but has not received a satisfactory answer,” The Guardian said.
“Union officials also asked for ACAS to be invited to help resolve the dispute but the conciliation service cannot get involved until after the 90-day consultation period, by which time the job cuts will have taken place.”
The Guardian quoted editor-in-chief David Schlesinger as saying management has “maintained a transparent and cooperative dialogue with staff and relevant global unions” during the merger.
“We are trying the minimise the uncertainty for our UK journalists and we are continuing our ongoing consultation with the NUJ.”
● SOURCE The Guardian
NUJ officials met Thomson Reuters management on Monday but staff concerns about the technicalities of the redundancy process were not met, the newspaper said.
“As a result, the Thomson and Reuters NUJ chapels have now moved to hold strike ballots,” it said.
Thomson Reuters wants to cut 70 journalists from the London newsroom as part of job reductions following the recent merger.
“The NUJ said it had made several requests for management to explain the reasons for the cuts but has not received a satisfactory answer,” The Guardian said.
“Union officials also asked for ACAS to be invited to help resolve the dispute but the conciliation service cannot get involved until after the 90-day consultation period, by which time the job cuts will have taken place.”
The Guardian quoted editor-in-chief David Schlesinger as saying management has “maintained a transparent and cooperative dialogue with staff and relevant global unions” during the merger.
“We are trying the minimise the uncertainty for our UK journalists and we are continuing our ongoing consultation with the NUJ.”
● SOURCE The Guardian
140 editorial jobs go by end 2008
Monday 19 May 2008
Some 140 editorial jobs will be cut by the end of this year as Reuters News absorbs Thomson Financial News, editor-in-chief David Schlesinger told staff.
More than half the cuts will be in Europe while the rest will be scattered, he said.
At the same time Reuters will add about 50 new jobs in growth areas making for 2,500 editorial employees by year’s end.
“When two similar and once competing organisations come together, there is natural overlap and duplication in coverage,” Schlesinger told staff in a memo.
“Wherever possible, we have worked to minimize job losses and to avoid redundancy by moving people into new roles and cancelling open posts that don’t fit within the new organisation,” he added.
The National Union of Journalists said it had not ruled out a strike but would negotiate with the company first.
“The NUJ has been pressing hard to have any job cuts carried out through voluntary redundancies and will continue to do so,” said Myra MacDonald, Mother of the NUJ Chapel in London.
A BBC report said Thomson Reuters could lose about 1,500 jobs from its 50,000-strong payroll in total. The company is cutting as many as 650 jobs in its content, technology and operations division.
● SOURCE Reuters
More than half the cuts will be in Europe while the rest will be scattered, he said.
At the same time Reuters will add about 50 new jobs in growth areas making for 2,500 editorial employees by year’s end.
“When two similar and once competing organisations come together, there is natural overlap and duplication in coverage,” Schlesinger told staff in a memo.
“Wherever possible, we have worked to minimize job losses and to avoid redundancy by moving people into new roles and cancelling open posts that don’t fit within the new organisation,” he added.
The National Union of Journalists said it had not ruled out a strike but would negotiate with the company first.
“The NUJ has been pressing hard to have any job cuts carried out through voluntary redundancies and will continue to do so,” said Myra MacDonald, Mother of the NUJ Chapel in London.
A BBC report said Thomson Reuters could lose about 1,500 jobs from its 50,000-strong payroll in total. The company is cutting as many as 650 jobs in its content, technology and operations division.
● SOURCE Reuters
Photographer freed from jail
Thursday 08 May 2008
Reuters photographer Howard Burditt was released on Thursday from three days’ detention in Zimbabwe.
Burditt, a Zimbabwean national covering the aftermath of the country’s elections, had been in jail since Monday after officials accused him of illegally using a satellite phone to send pictures.
David Schlesinger, Reuters editor-in-chief, said: “I am extremely relieved that Howard has been released but disturbed that he should have been held in jail for so long on such a charge.”
● SOURCE The Guardian
Burditt, a Zimbabwean national covering the aftermath of the country’s elections, had been in jail since Monday after officials accused him of illegally using a satellite phone to send pictures.
David Schlesinger, Reuters editor-in-chief, said: “I am extremely relieved that Howard has been released but disturbed that he should have been held in jail for so long on such a charge.”
● SOURCE The Guardian
Reuters cameraman killed in Gaza
Wednesday 16 April 2008
Fadel Shana, a Reuters News cameraman, was killed in Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip.
Shana, 24, had stepped from his car, an unarmoured sport utility vehicle bearing "TV" and "Press" markings, to film an Israeli tank dug in several hundred meters away.
Video from his camera showed the tank opening fire. Two seconds after the shot raises dust around its gun, the tape goes blank – seemingly at the moment he was hit.
Witnesses said two youths passing by died in the same explosion that killed Shana.
Reuters soundman Wafa Abu Mizyed, 25, sustained a shrapnel wound and was being treated in a Gaza hospital.
Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger called for an immediate and complete investigation into the incident by the Israeli Defence Forces.
“We know, of course, that journalism is a dangerous business. We know, of course, that we rush into danger when others rush away. We know, of course, that accidents happen,” he said.
“But I also believe sincerely and absolutely that all of us – news organizations, governments and the military – have an obligation to make reporting safer and to take the utmost care when professional journalists are doing their jobs.
“It is, of course, striking that this tragedy occurred on the last day for Reuters as has been and the day before Thomson Reuters begins as a news and information power in the world. I can but reflect on our more than century and a half of bravery and sacrifice in the service of the news, and to vow that Reuters news in the new company will forge a new tradition, building on the old, that we can all be incredibly proud of.”
The Israeli army declined immediate comment on what caused Shana’s death. It expressed sorrow but also said journalists were putting their lives at risk in areas of combat.
An Israeli military official said: "We wish to express sorrow for the death of the Palestinian cameraman... It should be emphasized that the area in which the cameraman was hurt is an area in which ongoing fighting against armed, extreme and dangerous terrorist organizations occurs on a daily basis.
"The presence of media, photographers and other uninvolved individuals in areas of warfare is extremely dangerous and poses a threat to their lives."
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists and Paris-based Reporters Without Borders mourned Shana’s death.
"We are asking the Israeli authorities to publicly commit to carrying out an exhaustive investigation into this incident and to make its findings public," said CPJ executive director Joel Simon in a statement.
Shana, who was unmarried, was described as a gentle and popular figure among the 15-strong Reuters news team in the Gaza Strip. The bureau was honoured by Britain's Royal Television Society for its coverage of last year's factional fighting in Gaza.
● SOURCE Reuters
Reuters photographer wins Pulitzer
Thursday 10 April 2008
Reuters photographer Adrees Latif has won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography. It is the first time Reuters has scooped one of the awards.
Latif won for "his dramatic photograph of the Japanese videographer, sprawled on the pavement, fatally wounded during a street demonstration in Myanmar," the Pulitzer Prize board said.
His exclusive photograph, taken during a demonstration in Myanmar, dominated the front pages around the world and played a role in public outrage.
David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, said: "I'm extremely proud that the great work of one of our best photographers got this recognition.
"Our photography is a key part of Reuters global multimedia journalism with 2,400 men and women dedicated to telling the story in the best possible way under sometimes very dangerous conditions."
Latif was born in Pakistan and lived in Saudi Arabia before emigrating to the United States in 1980. He started working for Reuters in Houston and Los Angeles and has been based in Bangkok since 2003.
"Adrees is one of those rare talents whose presence on an assignment puts the mind of the editor at ease knowing that the picture coverage will be not only competitive but exceptionally high quality," said Thomas Szlukovenyi, Reuters global pictures editor. "The combination of his talent, experience, hard work and his news sense makes Adrees an outstanding photo journalist and a great colleague. We are all incredibly happy for him."
● SOURCE Reuters
Latif won for "his dramatic photograph of the Japanese videographer, sprawled on the pavement, fatally wounded during a street demonstration in Myanmar," the Pulitzer Prize board said.
His exclusive photograph, taken during a demonstration in Myanmar, dominated the front pages around the world and played a role in public outrage.
David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, said: "I'm extremely proud that the great work of one of our best photographers got this recognition.
"Our photography is a key part of Reuters global multimedia journalism with 2,400 men and women dedicated to telling the story in the best possible way under sometimes very dangerous conditions."
Latif was born in Pakistan and lived in Saudi Arabia before emigrating to the United States in 1980. He started working for Reuters in Houston and Los Angeles and has been based in Bangkok since 2003.
"Adrees is one of those rare talents whose presence on an assignment puts the mind of the editor at ease knowing that the picture coverage will be not only competitive but exceptionally high quality," said Thomas Szlukovenyi, Reuters global pictures editor. "The combination of his talent, experience, hard work and his news sense makes Adrees an outstanding photo journalist and a great colleague. We are all incredibly happy for him."
● SOURCE Reuters
