The Reuters brand

Well that’s it then. The secret is out. Reuters is no longer a news agency. It’s a “brand”, where it seems staff are hired solely for promotional purposes, according to the editor-in-chief Stephen Adler [Reuters hires Harold Evans as editor-at-large].

I look forward to the not too distant future, I hope, when Reuters moves into the sportswear industry, or perhaps the liquor trade and we see advertisements with the Reuters logo tattooed across the rumps of young floozies in Reuter bikinis or on Reuters “Nightlead” whisky with the strap across the bottle, “The Baron’s first choice”. Branding, I am glad to learn, now seems to be Reuters destiny as it fulfils its new role as an international mixed-goods conglomerate selling anything the market will bear.

Pip, pip and tallyho.

PS: Tell Stephen Adler when you’re next in touch with New York that I could fix him with a good line in grass skirts in time for the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. ■