Scenes from a marriage

Scenes from a marriage may be a fair analogy for an editorial looking at the Reuters-Thomson romance from the management standpoint. But “Scenes from a date rape” seems more fitting from the vantage point of the news gathering and editorial sector, the sole source of the preeminence of the Reuters “brand”.

First, on 7 February 2011, Stephen J. Adler is appointed editor-in-chief of Reuters News as well as newly created executive vice president - news, overseeing the entire company’s news strategy and operations. His immediate task: to woo over, for even greater glory, that spirited young virgin (oh well, just for the analogy’s sake) that is the news and editorial sector with its multiple talents and vast institutional memory.

Second, the first date in the upscale nightclub. On bended knee Steve pledges: “Journalistic excellence will continue to be our hallmark, and our goal is to become a must-read among global professionals. To that end, we will continue to develop our extraordinary internal talent as well as hiring strategically from outside.” While our spirited young virgin swoons at these honeyed words, Steve slips date-rape ecstasy into her cup and before she can come to, there’s awful little “developing our extraordinary internal talents” and an awful lot of “hiring strategically from outside”. In fact a whole slew of FOS (friends of Steve) are suddenly figuring in star strategic roles, regardless of their unproven talents from the agency point of view and their zero institutional memory.

Third, on 28 April 2012, the engagement photograph. Steve appears, hand on heart, between President and Mrs Obama, at the White House Press Corps bash. I’m not sure how he got there. An enquiry at the White House Correspondents Association elicited the response that this privileged position is reserved for the guest of the association president, who this year was then Reuters’ Caren Bohan. I don’t know whether Steve, who would have been at the Reuters table anyway, asked to be her guest or whether it is normal for the association’s chief to automatically name her own chief editor as her guest, but one thing I do know, to quote Obama from another context, is: “You didn't build that, Steve”.

Fourth, with that imprimatur, date rape stampedes into wholesale gang rape with the slew of PIPs that are issued. Reach back into history and call it what you want – the rape of the Sabine women, the massacre of the innocents, the night of the long knives. But the result is the same: some of the most talented staffers Reuters has ever had, the likes of Jim Vicini and Glenn Somerville, are forced out after decades of sterling service. So much for developing “our extraordinary internal talent”. Meanwhile the FOS club is doing just fine, some of the old lesser editorial lights too, while our spirited young virgin lies on the floor dishevelled, distraught, deflowered.

Where we go from here is anybody’s guess. Perhaps Steve will, by hook or by crook, get David Thomson his coveted Pulitzers. It doesn’t matter. It still won’t un-defile the above. ■