Obituary-Jim Flannery-respected editor renowned for his eccentric attire

Jim Flannery, a correspondent, overnight editor and desk editor at Reuters for 41 years, as famous for his eccentric attire as his skill, died at home in London on 23 October 2026 from heart failure. He was 95.

Jim joined Reuters in Washington in 1955, after working in New Zealand and then Australia for several newspapers and both NZPA and AAP. The latter sent him to New York from where he covered stories including the rise of Fidel Castro before transferring to Reuters.

Jim joined the tiny four-staffer Reuters Washington bureau. His boss, Pat Heffernan, introduced him to President John F. Kennedy who once told him, “We Irish must stick together”. 

After moving to London, he was the sole reporter to witness Winston Churchill’s private burial in Bladon, near Blenheim, where the press were kept at a distance. He used binoculars borrowed from the racing desk and persuaded a woman whose house adjoined the graveyard to let him look down on the scene.   

Later in that decade he had a three-year posting in Indonesia at a time of severe civil unrest, before moving to London in 1961, first as a reporter, then senior desker and overnight editor, where he alternated with the late “Prince of Darkness” Jim Forrester.

Flannery was known for his sharp intellect and journalistic skill but also his for his cynicism about editorial managers and impatience with arrogant or pretentious colleagues. 

He was renowned for his exotic headgear, including a newspaper hat like those worn by builders, and for wearing carpet slippers to work. One colleague said his embroidered caps made him look like a “Tibetan goatherder.”

Forrester wrote in a tribute to Flannery at his retirement in 1997, “Many Reuters journalists have the Financial Times on their mind, but Jim Flannery…was probably alone in having it on his head.”

After the full overnight shift in London was ended, Jim became a World Desk Editor-in-Charge. He did fireman stints in many places including covering Hong Kong's handover to China, the first free elections in South Africa, Nato and European summits,  Russia and the Balkan wars.

Barry Moody, who was theoretically his boss on the World Desk, remembers the sudden aphorisms uttered in his Kiwi accent in moments of silence on the desk. “Working here is like oral sex, dark and dirty work but somebody has to do it,” was one. Another, carefully uttered in Moody’s hearing, was “That’s an oxymoron, like News Editor.”

Jim was born to an Irish family in Invercargill, the southernmost city of New Zealand where he began his journalistic career on the Southland Daily News. He said that he learned how to write from retrieving his first drafts from the sub-editors’ waste bin. 

Before moving on to NZPA, he was a sub-editor on the paper , responsible for several sections including the highly popular “Confide in Caroline” agony aunt column, which issued romantic advice “from someone who himself had no idea.”

Jim was a lifelong student of Chinese, which he taught himself, and a keen fan of opera and classical music.

He is survived by his wife, Mary Sullivan and their daughters, Moore and Teague.   ■