Boots on the ground

For some years now I’ve wondered if Reuters news is fully understood by the people, mostly from magazine/newspaper backgrounds, who run it. Exclusives are terrific, and keep our name in lights, but I question whether they should take priority over the fast, accurate, unbiased bedrock news we are truly famous for from our many correspondents on the ground. Now more than ever the world needs reliable news quickly and you can only provide global coverage of excellence, in pictures as well as words, from people on the scene. There is no substitute for the reporter living in county with good connections to the people who matter.

Perhaps devoting more time to in-depth exclusives is worth the effort but surely as the cream on top, not at the expense of a daily, hourly, minute-by-minute flow of hard news.

Which is very difficult to deliver with fewer and fewer boots on the ground. ■