Principles and power

How naive we were. Newsrooms full of hardened correspondents, usually able to sniff out an untruth like hogs do truffles, believed their independence was protected by the first of five Trust Principles: “That Reuters shall at no time pass into the hands of any one interest, group or faction.”

Company executives held up the Principles, saying they set Reuters apart; correspondents across the globe joined the Reuters newsroom so they could breath the air of press freedom denied to their countrymen who worked for organisations in the pockets of dictators, politicians and their cronies.

To the journalists, the principle meant freedom from any one interest, group or faction, regardless of nationality, politics or size of wallet. We had been trained to look for all sides to a story, and it meant we dealt in shades of grey and not black and white. “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” we would say - before 9/11.

Barred from reporting aggressively on our own company, we saw Reuters as our executives depicted it. Reuters “delivered the strongest six months of sales and installations in more than five years,” Tom Glocer told us in the company’s H1 2007 interim results as Reuters and Thomson put together their deal. Just months before the transaction was completed, Glocer lauded “strong revenue growth” in the first half of 2007 and said he was pleased by “a good set of numbers that shows our performance has not been impacted by the turbulence in the credit markets.”

Thomson seemed to be salivating over its prey. “Reuters is a perfect fit for our business model,” it wrote in its 2007 annual report.

Now we are told by Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, head of the Thomson Reuters trustees, that Reuters would have gone “down the drain” if Thomson had not rescued it [Principles and power: an inquiry]. The need to survive trumped independence - at least with hindsight.

Does something smell fishy?

What are we to make of the statement by Ellemann-Jensen that the Trustees would prevent the Thomson family from selling Reuters editorial if the owners soured on the strategic partnership? On what basis would the Trustees block the sale if they did not stand in the way of the earlier deal? To reclaim the moral high ground? Or to protect the bottom line?

I don’t necessarily disagree with David Ure, who says “like nuclear weapons, some powers are best left implicit or not used in anger”. But are the Trust Principles nuclear weapons - or a dog with no bite?

Of what value are principles honoured in the breach? ■