David Schlesinger joins debate over links to Reuters stories

“As head of a journalistic army of 2,700 professionals I obviously have an intense vested interest in ensuring that their work is valuable to readers and valued by them,” Schlesinger said in a Reuters blog posting.

“Part of that involves ensuring that they are in the centre of the action and that they fill their reports with their expertise and experience. Part of that involves ensuring that they are part of the debate, that their reports inform the debate and that the debate, in turn, informs their future reporting.

“Our standards on sourcing have always emphasized the importance of giving proper credit, even when quoting from competitors. And, of course, we expect the same in return.”

Schlesinger said that in the writing Reuters does specifically for the web “we’re as open to outbound linking as we are to the inbound”. But much of its other writing does not currently use outbound links “because of the particular ecosystem of our professional products, for which a lot of it is specifically written.” But he is sure that will change over time.

“The real danger in not being extremely open to linking, it seems to me, is that by moving yourself out of the mainstream debate you risk irrelevancy.

The fact that today the crediting can be done with a hyperlink is to me intellectually no different than the use of an academic footnote or a traditional journalistic “…according to XYZ in an interview”. It’s just better, because it’s fast, direct and creates an instant chain of knowledge.

“What’s more interesting to me is what one does with the link, not the link itself.

Schlesinger added: “I have a passing interest in the link or retweet that simply passes a nugget along.

“I have a bit more interest when the linker or retweeter extracts real gold that was hidden in the original and gives it more prominence.

“I have a lot more interest when the link or retweet uses the original as a jumping off point for argument, debate, or development.

“That’s when it gets interesting.” ■