Nothing 'more prestigious or interesting than reporting for Reuters'

Reading Jim Flannery’s alas tragically accurate J'Accuse: Thomson cuts imperil Reuter news sadly brings to my mind this vignette of the past.

Nearly 40 years ago I was sent to stand in for several months between two chief correspondents in Tel Aviv where the Reuters bureau was then located in Israel.

During that time there was a major state reception at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament in Jerusalem, in honour of a visiting foreign leader.

During the event someone said to me about a third person nearby “Let me introduce you to former Attorney General and cabinet minister Gideon Hausner.”

Turning to the distinguished, scholarly-looking gentleman in question, the person said: “Mister Minister: Allow me to introduce to you the Reuters correspondent in Israel.”

I was speechless. Hausner was a leading jurist and historical figure who had been the chief prosecutor at the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.

As I stumbled to find a way to express my awe, Hausner grabbed my hand and said with a dreamlike expression: “Reuters? When I was a boy growing up in Lemberg (then in the Austro-Hungarian empire, now the city of Lviv in Ukraine), I used to fantasise that one day I might be a Reuters correspondent. I could not think then of anything more prestigious or interesting than reporting for Reuters.”

With staff cutbacks meaning that, for years now, Reuters correspondents hardly ever seem to get out of the office to do any reporting, I think he might be disappointed today. ■