A blizzard of brown envelopes from constant reader, rc

In the pre-cyber age, journalists at Reuters in London would regularly hear from their ultimate boss - Ron Cooper, a tough-as-nails news executive, though in person, a slightly-built, quiet-spoken, mellow cynic. By correspondence, he was the newsroom drill sergeant. His messages, typed in lowercase, signed rc, came in brown envelopes and contained criticism of your work, blistering enough at times to blow your socks off. Some people collected their "brownies", as one might hoard exotic coins or stamps. Sometimes they were funny if you didn't mind the joke being on you.

As a duty editor I would also get non-personal brownies about almost any graduate trainee, to this effect "tell (intern X) that he/she's a disaster, a complete waste of time in Reuters”. One then told the offender, later usually to become a journalistic star, "Ron Cooper thinks you are doing a great job, keep it up.”

Occasionally a missive read oddly as when we filed a story about the discovery of a long-lost Mozart manuscript -"Thought this one a real no-no. rc". No one ever read the file with such forensic skill. The guy deserves a monument in the Reuter hall of fame, if there is one. Okay, he was entirely old school, didn't believe in management-speak, merit awards, bonuses, golden handcuffs, all that. "You are paid to do a good job, that's enough." Under his baton, several generations of journalists became good-enough toilers for the Baron. Or else. ■