Sponsorship: small rewards compared with reputational issues

Sponsors would likely only put up sponsorship money for political or economic reasons unconnected with a purpose to inform. Reuters has a purpose to inform. Why allow people to conclude that it needs sponsorship to fulfil that purpose?

Activities of similar ilk are not new to Reuters. It used to ferry various government news bulletins around the world on the back of its communications network.

There is no doubting the pressures involved in financing the perennially unprofitable collection of news. It is all too easy to be holier than thou.

But renting of spare capacity produces small rewards to balance against the reputational issues which usually emerge and leave a sour taste, however hotly defended.

The better struggle is normally to develop separate lines of business feeding off news-gathering capacity and the associated reputation for fair effort. ■