Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600

photojournalist Photojournalism is journalism that uses images to tell a news story. It usually only refers to still images, but can also refer to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (such ...

s in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was established in London in 1851 by the German-born Paul Reuter. It was acquired by the Thomson Corporation of Canada in 2008 and now makes up the media division of Thomson Reuters.

History

19th century

Paul Reuter worked at a book-publishing firm in Berlin and was involved in distributing radical pamphlets at the beginning of the

Revolutions in 1848 The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europe ...

. These publications brought much attention to Reuter, who in 1850 developed a prototype news service in

Aachen Aachen ( ; ; Aachen dialect: ''Oche'' ; French and traditional English: Aix-la-Chapelle; or ''Aquisgranum''; nl, Aken ; Polish: Akwizgran) is, with around 249,000 inhabitants, the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the 28th- ...

using

homing pigeon The homing pigeon, also called the mail pigeon or messenger pigeon, is a variety of domestic pigeons (''Columba livia domestica'') derived from the wild rock dove, selective breeding, selectively bred for its ability to find its way home over e ...

s and electric telegraphy from 1851 on, in order to transmit messages between Brussels and Aachen, in what today is Aachen's Reuters House. Reuter moved to London in 1851 and established a news wire agency at the

London Royal Exchange The Royal Exchange in London was founded in the 16th century by the merchant Sir Thomas Gresham on the suggestion of his factor Richard Clough to act as a centre of commerce for the City of London. The site was provided by the City of London Co ...

. Headquartered in London, Reuter's company initially covered commercial news, serving banks, brokerage houses, and business firms. The first newspaper client to subscribe was the London '' Morning Advertiser'' in 1858, and more began to subscribe soon after. According to the '' Encyclopædia Britannica'': "the value of Reuters to newspapers lay not only in the financial news it provided but in its ability to be the first to report on stories of international importance." It was the first to report Abraham Lincoln's assassination in Europe, for instance, in 1865. In 1865, Reuter incorporated his private business, under the name Reuter's Telegram Company Limited; Reuter was appointed managing director of the company. In 1870 the press agencies French Havas (founded in 1835), British Reuter's (founded in 1851) and German Wolff (founded in 1849) signed an agreement (known as the Ring Combination) that set 'reserved territories' for the three agencies. Each agency made its own separate contracts with national agencies or other subscribers within its territory. In practice, Reuters, who came up with the idea, tended to dominate the Ring Combination. Its influence was greatest because its reserved territories were larger or of greater news importance than most others. It also had more staff and stringers throughout the world and thus contributed more original news to the pool. British control of cable lines made London itself an unrivalled centre for world news, further enhanced by Britain's wide-ranging commercial, financial and imperial activities. In 1872, Reuter's expanded into the Far East, followed by South America in 1874. Both expansions were made possible by advances in overland telegraphs and undersea cables. In 1878, Reuter retired as managing director, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Herbert de Reuter. In 1883, Reuter's began transmitting messages electrically to London newspapers.

20th century

Reuter's son Herbert de Reuter continued as general manager until his death by suicide in 1915. The company returned to private ownership in 1916, when all shares were purchased by Roderick Jones and Mark Napier; they renamed the company "Reuters Limited", dropping the apostrophe. In 1923, Reuters began using radio to transmit news internationally, a pioneering act. In 1925, the

Press Association PA Media (formerly the Press Association) is a multimedia news agency, and the national news agency of the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is part of PA Media Group Limited, a private company with 26 shareholders, most of whom are national and re ...

(PA) of Great Britain acquired a majority interest in Reuters, and full ownership some years later. During the world wars, '' The Guardian'' reported that Reuters: "came under pressure from the British government to serve national interests. In 1941, Reuters deflected the pressure by restructuring itself as a private company." In 1941, the PA sold half of Reuters to the

Newspaper Proprietors' Association The News Media Association is a trade body which styles itself as "the voice of national, regional and local news media organisations in the UK". It was created in 2014 by a merger between the Newspaper Society and the Newspaper Publishers' Associat ...

, and co-ownership was expanded in 1947 to associations that represented daily newspapers in New Zealand and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. In 1945, Reuters was the first broadcasting company to broadcast news of Heinrich Himmler's attempts to negotiate with the western allies through

Count Bernadotte Count of Wisborg (french: Comte de Wisborg; ; german: Graf von Wisborg) is a title granted by the monarchs of Luxembourg to some men formerly titled as princes of Sweden and their descendants. Since 1892, the title has been borne by the male-lin ...

, a Swedish nobleman. The new owners formed the Reuters Trust. The Reuters Trust Principles were put in place to maintain the company's independence. At that point, Reuters had become "one of the world's major news agencies, supplying both text and images to newspapers, other news agencies, and radio and television broadcasters." Also at that point, it directly or through national news agencies provided service "to most countries, reaching virtually all the world's leading newspapers and many thousands of smaller ones," according to ''Britannica''. In 1961, Reuters scooped news of the erection of the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government ...

. Reuters was one of the first news agencies to transmit financial data over oceans via computers in the 1960s. In 1973, Reuters "began making computer-terminal displays of foreign-exchange rates available to clients." In 1981, Reuters began supporting electronic transactions on its computer network and afterwards developed a number of electronic brokerage and trading services. Reuters was floated as a public company in 1984, when Reuters Trust was listed on the

stock exchange A stock exchange, securities exchange, or bourse is an exchange where stockbrokers and traders can buy and sell securities, such as shares of stock, bonds and other financial instruments. Stock exchanges may also provide facilities for th ...

s such as the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

. Reuters later published the first story of the Berlin Wall being breached in 1989.

21st century

Reuters' share price grew during the dotcom boom, then fell after the banking troubles in 2001. In 2002, ''Britannica'' wrote that most news throughout the world came from three major agencies: the Associated Press, Reuters, and

Agence France-Presse Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency. AFP has regional headquarters in Nicosia, Montevideo, Hong Kong and Washington, D.C ...

. Until 2008, the Reuters news agency formed part of an independent company, Reuters Group plc. Reuters was acquired by Thomson Corporation in Canada in 2008, forming Thomson Reuters. In 2009, Thomson Reuters withdrew from the LSE and the NASDAQ, instead listing its shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The last surviving member of the Reuters family founders, Marguerite, Baroness de Reuter, died at age 96 on 25 January 2009. The parent company Thomson Reuters is headquartered in Toronto, and provides financial information to clients while also maintaining its traditional news-agency business. In 2012, Thomson Reuters appointed Jim Smith as CEO. In July 2016, Thomson Reuters agreed to sell its intellectual property and science operation for $3.55 billion to private equity firms. In October 2016, Thomson Reuters announced expansions and relocations to Toronto. As part of cuts and restructuring, in November 2016, Thomson Reuters Corp. eliminated 2,000 jobs worldwide out of its estimated 50,000 employees. On 15 March 2020, Steve Hasker was appointed president and CEO. In April 2021, Reuters announced that its website would go behind a

paywall A paywall is a method of restricting access to content, with a purchase or a paid subscription, especially news. Beginning in the mid-2010s, newspapers started implementing paywalls on their websites as a way to increase revenue after years of ...

, following rivals who have done the same.

Journalists

Reuters employs some 2,500 journalists and 600

s in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters journalists use the ''Standards and Values'' as a guide for fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests, to "maintain the values of integrity and freedom upon which their reputation for reliability, accuracy, speed and exclusivity relies". In May 2000, Kurt Schork, an American

reporter A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

, was killed in an ambush while on assignment in Sierra Leone. In April and August 2003, news cameramen

Taras Protsyuk Taras Protsyuk ( uk, Тарас Процюк; January 16, 1968 – April 8, 2003) was a Ukrainian TV cameraman working for Reuters, who was killed during the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Biography Born in Ivano-Frankivsk (Ukraine), Protsyuk wa ...

and Mazen Dana were killed in separate incidents by U.S. troops in Iraq. In July 2007,

Namir Noor-Eldeen Namir Noor-Eldeen ( ar, نمير نورالدين; September 1, 1984 – July 12, 2007) was an Iraqi war photographer for Reuters. Noor-Eldeen, his assistant, Saeed Chmagh, and eight others were fired upon by U.S. military forces in the New ...

and

Saeed Chmagh Saeed Chmagh ( ar, سعيد شماغ) (January 1, 1967 – July 12, 2007) was an Iraqi employed by Reuters news agency as a driver and camera assistant. He was killed, along with his colleague Namir Noor-Eldeen by American military forces in the N ...

were killed when they were struck by fire from a U.S. military Apache helicopter in Baghdad. During 2004, cameramen

Adlan Khasanov Adlan Khasanov (russian: Адлан Хасанов 25 May 1970 – 9 May 2004) was a Russian Chechen journalist and photographer, killed in action in Grozny. Khasanov studied journalism at the Chechen State University, and later worked in newspap ...

was killed by Chechen separatists, and Dhia Najim was killed in Iraq. In April 2008,

cameraman A camera operator, or depending on the context cameraman or camerawoman, is a professional operator of a film camera or video camera as part of a film crew. The term "cameraman" does not imply that a male is performing the task. In filmmaking ...

Fadel Shana Fadel Shana'a (27 March 1984 – 16 April 2008) was a Palestinian journalist working as a cameraman for Reuters. He was killed, along with eight bystanders (aged 12 to 20) by a flechette shell fired by an Israeli tank in the Gaza Strip (the 2008 ...

was killed in the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...

after being hit by an Israeli tank. While covering China's Cultural Revolution in Peking in the late 1960s for Reuters, journalist

Anthony Grey Anthony Grey (born 5 July 1938) is a British journalist and author. While working for Reuters, he was imprisoned by the Chinese government for 27 months from 1967 to 1969. He has written a series of historical novels and non-fiction books, i ...

was detained by the Chinese government in response to the jailing of several Chinese journalists by the colonial British government of Hong Kong. He was released after being imprisoned for 27 months from 1967 to 1969 and was awarded an

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

by the British Government. After his release, he went on to become a best-selling historical novelist. In May 2016, the Ukrainian website

Myrotvorets Myrotvorets or Mirotvorets ( uk, Миротворець, lit=Peacemaker ), is a Ukrainian Kyiv-based website that publishes a running list, and sometimes personal information, of people who are considered by authors of the website to be "enemies ...

published the names and personal data of 4,508 journalists, including Reuters reporters, and other media staff from all over the world, who were accredited by the self-proclaimed authorities in the

separatist Separatism is the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group. As with secession, separatism conventionally refers to full political separation. Groups simply seeking greate ...

-controlled regions of eastern Ukraine. In 2018, two Reuters journalists were convicted in

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

of obtaining state secrets while investigating a massacre in a Rohingya village. The arrest and convictions were widely condemned as an attack on

press freedom Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the fundamental principle that communication and expression through various media, including printed and electronic media, especially published materials, should be considered a right to be exerci ...

. The journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, received several awards, including the Foreign Press Association Media Award and the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, and were named as part of the Time Person of the Year for 2018 along with other persecuted journalists. After 511 days in prison, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were freed on 7 March 2019 after receiving a presidential pardon.

Killed on assignment

Controversies

Accusation of collaboration with the CIA

In 1977, '' Rolling Stone'' and '' The New York Times'' said that according to information from

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

officials, Reuters cooperated with the CIA. In response to that, Reuters' then managing director, Gerald Long, had asked for evidence of the charges, but none was provided, according to Reuters's then managing editor for North America, Desmond Maberly.

Policy of objective language

Reuters has a policy of taking a "value-neutral approach" which extends to not using the word ''terrorist'' in its stories. The practice attracted criticism following the September 11 attacks. Reuters' editorial policy states: "Reuters may refer without attribution to terrorism and counterterrorism in general, but do not refer to specific events as terrorism. Nor does Reuters use the word ''terrorist'' without attribution to qualify specific individuals, groups or events." By contrast, the Associated Press does use the term ''terrorist'' in reference to non-governmental organizations who carry out attacks on civilian populations. In 2004, Reuters asked CanWest Global Communications, a Canadian newspaper chain, to remove Reuters' bylines, as the chain had edited Reuters articles to insert the word ''terrorist''. A spokesman for Reuters stated: "My goal is to protect my reporters and protect our editorial integrity."

Climate change reporting

In July 2013, David Fogarty, former Reuters climate change correspondent in Asia, resigned after a career of almost 20 years with the company and wrote that "progressively, getting any climate change-themed story published got harder" following comments from then deputy editor-in-chief

Paul Ingrassia Paul Joseph Ingrassia (August 18, 1950 – September 16, 2019) was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who served as managing editor of Reuters from 2011 to 2016. He was also an editor at the Revs Institute, an automotive history and re ...

that he was a

climate change sceptic Climate change denial, or global warming denial, is denial, dismissal, or doubt that contradicts the scientific consensus on climate change, including the extent to which it is caused by humans, its effects on nature and human society, or th ...

. In his comments, Fogarty stated: Ingrassia, formerly Reuters' managing editor, previously worked for '' The Wall Street Journal'' and

Dow Jones Dow Jones is a combination of the names of business partners Charles Dow and Edward Jones. Dow Jones & Company Dow, Jones and Charles Bergstresser founded Dow Jones & Company in 1882. That company eventually became a subsidiary of News Corp, and ...

for 31 years. Reuters responded to Fogarty's piece by stating: "Reuters has a number of staff dedicated to covering this story, including a team of specialist reporters at Point Carbon and a columnist. There has been no change in our editorial policy." Subsequently, climate blogger Joe Romm cited a Reuters article on climate as employing " false balance", and quoted Dr. Stefan Rahmstorf, Co- of Earth System Analysis at the Potsdam Institute that " mply, a lot of unrelated climate sceptics nonsense has been added to this Reuters piece. In the words of the late Steve Schneider, this is like adding some nonsense from the Flat Earth Society to a report about the latest generation of telecommunication satellites. It is absurd." Romm opined: "We can't know for certain who insisted on cramming this absurd and non-germane 'climate sceptics nonsense' into the piece, but we have a strong clue. If it had been part of the reporter's original reporting, you would have expected direct quotes from actual sceptics, because that is journalism 101. The fact that the blather was all inserted without attribution suggests it was added at the insistence of an editor."

Photograph controversies

According to Ynetnews, Reuters was accused of bias against Israel in its coverage of the

2006 Israel–Lebanon conflict The 2006 Lebanon War, also called the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah War and known in Lebanon as the July War ( ar, حرب تموز, ''Ḥarb Tammūz'') and in Israel as the Second Lebanon War ( he, מלחמת לבנון השנייה, ''Milhemet Leva ...

after the wire service used two doctored photos by a Lebanese freelance photographer, Adnan Hajj. In August 2006, Reuters announced it had severed all ties with Hajj and said his photographs would be removed from its database. In 2010, Reuters was criticised again by ''

Haaretz ''Haaretz'' ( , originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , ) is an Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel, and is now published in both Hebrew and English in the Berliner f ...

'' for "anti-Israeli" bias when it cropped the edges of photos, removing commandos' knives held by activists and a naval commando's blood from photographs taken aboard the ''Mavi Marmara'' during the

Gaza flotilla raid The Gaza flotilla raid was a military operation by Israel against six civilian ships of the " Gaza Freedom Flotilla" on 31 May 2010 in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea. Nine activists and no Israelis were killed on one ship dur ...

, a raid that left nine Turkish activists dead. It has been alleged that in two separate photographs, knives held by the activists were cropped out of the versions of the pictures published by Reuters. Reuters said it is standard operating procedure to crop photos at the margins, and replaced the cropped images with the original ones after it was brought to the agency's attention. On June 9, 2020, three Reuters journalists Jack Stubbs, Raphael Satter, Christopher Bing incorrectly used the image of an Indian herbal medicine entrepreneur in an exclusive story titled: "Obscure Indian cyber firm spied on politicians, investors worldwide". Indian local media picked the report and the man whose image was wrongly used was invited and interrogated for nine hours by Indian police. Reuters admitted to the error clarifying that its reporters had mistaking the man for the suspected hacker Sumit Gupta because both men share same address.

Accusations of pro–Fernando Henrique Cardoso bias

In March 2015, the Brazilian affiliate of Reuters released an excerpt from an interview with Brazilian ex-president Fernando Henrique Cardoso about Operation Car Wash ( pt, Operação Lava Jato). In 2014, several politicians from Brazil were found to be involved in corruption, by accepting bribes from different corporations in exchange for Government contracts. After the scandal, the excerpt from Brazil's president Fernando Henrique's interview was released. One paragraph by a former

Petrobras Petróleo Brasileiro S.A., better known by the portmanteau Petrobras (), is a state owned enterprise, state-owned Brazilian multinational corporation in the petroleum industry headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The company's name transla ...

manager mentioned a comment, in which he suggested corruption in the company may date back to Cardoso's presidency. Attached, was a comment between parenthesis: "" ("we can take it out if outhink better"), which was removed from the current version of the text. This had the effect of confusing readers, and suggests that the former president was involved in corruption and the comment was attributed to him. Reuters later confirmed the error, and explained that the comment, originating from one of the local editors, was actually intended for the journalist who wrote the original text in English, and that it should not have been published.

Funding by the UK Government

In November 2019 the UK Foreign Office released archive documents confirming that it had provided funding to Reuters during the 1960s and 1970s so that Reuters could expand its coverage in the Middle East. An agreement was made between the Information Research Department (IRD) and Reuters for the UK Treasury to provide £350,000 over 4 years to fund Reuters' expansion. The UK government had already been funding the Latin American department of Reuters through a shell company; however, this method was discounted for the Middle East operation due to the accounting of the shell company looking suspicious, with the IRD stating that the company "already looks queer to anyone who might wish to investigate why such an inactive and unprofitable company continues to run." Instead, the BBC was used to fund the project by paying for enhanced subscriptions to the news organisation, for which the Treasury would reimburse the BBC at a later date. The IRD acknowledged that this agreement would not give them editorial control over Reuters, although the IRD believed it would give them political influence over Reuters' work, stating "this influence would flow, at the top level, from Reuters' willingness to consult and to listen to views expressed on the results of its work."

Partnership with TASS

On 1 June 2020, Reuters announced that Russian news agency TASS had joined its "Reuters Connect" program, comprising a then-total of 18 partner agencies. Reuters president Michael Friedenberg said he was "delighted that TASS and Reuters are building upon our valued partnership". Two years later, TASS's membership in Reuters Connect came under scrutiny in the wake of the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...

; '' Politico'' reported that Reuters staff members were "frustrated and embarrassed" that their agency had not suspended its partnership with TASS. On 23 March 2022, Reuters removed TASS from its "content marketplace". Matthew Keen, interim CEO of Reuters said "we believe making TASS content available on Reuters Connect is not aligned with the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles".

References

Citations

Sources

* Read, Donald (1992). ''The Power of News: The History of Reuters 1849–1989''. Oxford, Oxford University Press. . * Mooney, Brian; Simspon, Barry (2003). ''Breaking News: How the Wheels Came off at Reuters''. Capstone. . * * * * * Silberstein-Loeb, Jonathan (2014). ''The International Distribution of News: The Associated Press, Press Association, and Reuters, 1848–1947''.

External links

*
Times of Crisis
– multimedia interactive charting the year of global change
Bearing Witness
award-winning multimedia reflecting on war in Iraq
Reuters – The State of the World
– News imagery of the 21st century
Thomson Reuters Foundation
– philanthropic foundation * {{Navboxes , list1 = {{News agencies {{Reuters {{Thomson Reuters {{White House James S. Brady Press Briefing Room Seating Chart {{Media in the United Kingdom, comporg {{GeraldLoebAward Images, Graphics, Interactives, and Visuals British companies established in 1851 Financial services companies established in 1851 Financial news agencies Mass media companies based in London Multilingual news services News agencies based in the United Kingdom Webby Award winners Gerald Loeb Award winners for Images, Graphics, Interactives, and Visuals Photo agencies