Is Reuters US-obsessed?

Perhaps Stephen Adler, in his thank you note after the storm, mentioned the coverage outside the US. In the portions of the note on The Baron, it was all US, except for a tip of the hat to editing desks in London and Asia. In any case, to field more photographers on this story than any other in recent memory says a lot about either Editorial's priorities or one's memory.

Stephen Adler's note dated Tuesday 30 August 2011 follows - Editor:

Colleagues:

As we continue to cover the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, I wanted to thank all of the text and visuals staff and stringers who worked so hard in the field, in the affected bureaus and on the editing desks over the last several days to make our coverage a success. A story like this one that is important to so many of our clients and has multiple angles provides a great opportunity to showcase Reuters breadth and expertise – and we seized that opportunity from start to finish as the storm emerged in the Caribbean and churned its way up the East Coast.

Some of our journalists hunkered down near Irene’s path to chronicle the storm’s destruction. TV put out 23 live signals over three days, totaling more than 20 hours of live cover. We had more photographers in motion on this story than any other in recent memory. Text reported on the human impact of the story, the effects on power companies and their customers, the mass transit lockdown in New York City, the likely impact on Wall Street trading, the corporate winners and losers, the flooding across New Jersey and Vermont, and the costs to federal and state government, the economy and the insurance companies.

Staff in Miami, Washington, New York and Boston, tracked the storm’s path, reported on Irene’s effects locally, wrote our trunk stories, blogged for Reuters.com, edited and filed to our clients, and directed our coverage. Many spent the weekend in local hotels to ensure they could get to the office, some returning home later to deal with flooded basements. Other U.S. bureaus not directly involved in coverage and editing centers in London and Asia volunteered to help if necessary. And the editorial technical and facilities staff worked with us every step of the way to ensure we had what we needed to cover the story.

My thanks to all of you for your efforts and your strong performance.

Regards,

Steve ■