'Alarming cultural influences' long behind him, David Storey steps down

When David Storey (photo) joined Reuters as a graduate trainee journalist he turned up for work in John Lennon glasses, shoulder-length hair, droopy moustache and a purple suit. It was September 1972 and he embodied “the alarming cultural influences of the time” as he puts it.

Now, “after a remarkable 43-year career, having accomplished virtually everything that foreign correspondents everywhere dream of” he is retiring at the end of this month.

Those words were written in a farewell message by Americas editor Dayan Candappa who noted that much has changed in the world since Storey walked into Reuters’ Fleet Street offices. “Fortunately for his colleagues, David's dress sense has changed too, while his professionalism, wry sense of humor, dedication to duty and loyalty to Reuters has not.”

He wrote: “Before taking his current role as Deputy International Affairs Editor, he set up and led the Breaking News Team in Washington with a mandate that included helping Reuters react quickly to stories emerging on Twitter.

“In between, David has had not one career, but two: the first as one of our most accomplished foreign correspondents with postings in Austria, Germany, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Turkey, Poland and Thailand, and the second, based in the United States, as a versatile editor and resolute defender of Reuters core values of speed, accuracy and freedom from bias.”

When he joined Reuters journalists worked on typewriters. Those in Vienna - his trainee posting - were like museum pieces. “One in particular was missing the ‘R’ key, which made typing the dateline rather awkward,” he recalled.

He arrived “on a weekend in September 1973 when Palestinian terrorists hijacked a train carrying Soviet Jewish emigrées as it crossed from Czechoslovakia into Austria. WH Auden died the same weekend. I covered his funeral in the churchyard of the tiny Alpine village of Kirchstetten marked by a single tolling bell after his shattered longtime American lover Chester Kallmann had sobbed violently in the kitchen of their cottage.”  

He worked in Vienna under the expert tutelage of the late Sidney Weiland, “a man of fizzing energy (sometimes called Sizzling Sid), vulcanic temper and savage loyalty to Reuters and its standards of objectivity and clear writing.”

What comes next? He plans to remain in Washington “breathing, listening, watching, thinking, avoiding ISIS videos, cultivating friendships I have been neglecting, relishing the slap of water on a hull and the rustle of the breeze through yellowing leaves and the rush of snow away from the skis. I have no idea how I will fit it all in!”

PHOTO: David Storey “relishing the slap of water on a hull”. ■