Reuters
Encyclopedia : R : RE : REU : Reuters
Reuters Group plc (LSE: [RTR]
History
In the 1840s, the latest technology was the electric telegraph and Paul Julius Reuter, a German-Jew, saw that news need no longer take days or weeks to travel from one country to another. In 1850, the 34-year-old Reuter was based in Aachen on the border of Germany and Belgium and began to use the newly opened Berlin-Aachen telegraph to send news back to Berlin. But there was a 76-mile gap in the telegraph between Aachen and Brussels. Reuter spotted the opportunity to speed up news between Brussels and Berlin by using carrier pigeons to bridge the gap in the telegraph.In 1851, Reuter moved to London as attempts to lay a submarine telegraph cable from Dover to Calais looked like succeeding, after failures in 1847 and 1850. He set up his "Submarine Telegraph" office in October 1851 just before the opening of the cable in November, and agreed a contract with the London Stock Exchange to provide stock prices from the continental exchanges in return for access to the London prices, which he supplied to Paris brokers.
In 1865, Reuter's private firm was restructured and became a limited company called Reuter's Telegram Company.
Reuter's agency built a reputation in Europe for being the first to report scoops from abroad, like the news of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Today, almost every major news outlet in the world subscribes to Reuters. It operates in 200 cities in 94 countries, supplying text in 19 languages.
Reuters was floated as a public company in 1984 on the London Stock Exchange and on NASDAQ in the US. However, there were concerns that the company's tradition for objective reporting might be jeopardised if control of the company later fell into the hands of a single shareholder. To counter this possibility, the constitution of the company at the time of flotation included a rule that no individual was allowed to hold more than 15% of the company. If this limit is exceeded the directors can order the shareholder to reduce the holding to less than 15%. This rule was applied in the late 1980s when Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which already held around 15% of Reuters, bought an Australian news company which also had a holding in Reuters. The acquisition meant that Murdoch then held more than 15% and he was obliged to reduce the holding to less than 15% in line with the rules.
At the same time, as a further measure to protect the independence of Reuters news reporting, The Reuters Founders Share Company was set up. This is a company whose sole task is to protect the integrity of the company's news output. It holds one "Founders Share" which can outvote all other shares in the event that an attempt is made to alter any of the rules relating to the Reuters Trust Principles. These principles set out the company's aim to preserve its independence, integrity and freedom from bias in its news reporting [link].
Reuters began to grow rapidly in the 1980s, widening the range of its business products and expanding its global reporting network for media, financial and economic services. Recent key product launches include Equities 2000 (1987), Dealing 2000-2 (1992), Business Briefing (1994), Reuters Television for the financial markets (1994), 3000 Series (1996) and the Reuters 3000 Xtra service (1999).
In the mid-1990s the company had a brief foray into the radio sector with London Radio's two stations, London News 97.3 FM and London News Talk 1152 AM, which replaced LBC in 1994. A Reuters Radio News service was also set up to compete with Independent Radio News.
In 1995, Reuters established its "Greenhouse Fund" to take minority investments in a range of start-up technology companies, initially in the United States.
In 1940, Edward G. Robinson starred in a Hollywood film about the company called [A Dispatch from Reuters].
Journalists
Reuters has a committed team of several thousand journalists, who, over the years, have covered every big news event, sometimes at the cost of losing their lives. In May 2000 Kurt Schork, an American reporter, was killed in an ambush while on assignment in Sierra Leone. In April and August 2003, news cameramen Taras Protsyuk and Mazen Dana were lost at the hands of the US forces in Iraq. During 2004, the company lost cameramen Adlan Khasanov in Chechnya and Dhia Najim in Iraq.Investments
Notable investments include:
- Factiva:
- TIBCO Software:
- Instinet:
- Bridge Information Systems:
- Multex.com Inc.:
- EcoWin AB:
- Application Networks:
Main corporate locations
From 1939, the Reuters corporate headquarters was in London's famous Fleet Street, but in 2005 Reuters moved to a larger building in the more modern Canary Wharf. The Reuters Building is near the One Canada Square tower, Jubilee Park and Canary Wharf tube station. The open space below the Reuters building has since been renamed Reuters Plaza.The company's North American headquarters is the Reuters Building at 3 Times Square, New York. [link]
Allegations of bias
Reuters has asserted adherence to principles of journalistic integrity.[link] However, the company, more than similar organizations like the AP and UPI, has been accused by American right-wing and conservative people of showing left-wing or liberal bias.Accusations of bias are often prompted by the use of neutral words such as 'militants' or 'guerrillas'. Paradoxically, many media organizations that use these terms are, in fact, aiming to eliminate bias, on the basis that one person's "terrorist" is another person's "freedom fighter"; these words are avoided because they imply that the writer either supports or opposes the attacks carried out by such people. Nevertheless, the avoidance of such words is criticized. [link] Critics claim that Reuters' avoidance of biased words is selective and claim that such selectivity is slanted against the United States and Israel [link].
Reuters has also been accused by the left of exhibiting a pro-corporate bias[[Citing sources citation needed]], being itself a western multinational corporation, based in London.
External links
- [Reuters Group PLC Company Profile at Yahoo! Inc.]
- [Reuters Group PLC Company Profile at Google Inc.]
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