Top editor denies Reuters has abandoned accuracy for speed

But the news business has changed from the supposed golden age of authoritative journalism where sourcing was always rigorous and the pursuit of truth always relentless. And the nature of authority in the news business has also changed.

“Last week I was told that Reuters has lost its ethical bearings,” says Maguire, editor, political and general news. “You’ve sacrificed the sacred tenet of accuracy by  rushing to publish information without checking if it is true. Your credibility has suffered, the value of your brand will wither and the service you offer to clients has been devalued, I heard.” 

Writing in a Reuters Editors blog, Maguire concedes “It was a meaty accusation, especially as it came in the midst of a debate on ethics in journalism held at the London home of Thomson Reuters, the parent of the Reuters news organisation. The charge came from former Reuters journalists and a senior member of the trustees body that monitors Reuters compliance with its core ethical principles.”

The accusations concerned two inaccurate reports by CNN and Sky News that Reuters picked up.

“It is grating for any journalist to publish information that turns out to be incorrect,” says Maguire, who specialised in eastern Europe in the 1990s covering the fall of Yugoslavia and later conflict in the Middle East, particularly Iraq. “Even if we can say that the original error was made elsewhere some of the flak hits those who replicate the mistake. After all, those who republish a libel are as liable for it as its originator. 

“So why did we not check first and publish later? 

“The answer goes to the heart of how the news business has changed, how the notion of authoritativeness has altered and how Reuters journalists interpret the values they live by.

“But first let's scotch one myth. Embarrassing publicity notwithstanding, it is relatively rare for Reuters to publish what turns out to be an erroneous report by another news organisation. Since we instituted our current policy on 'pick-ups,' as they are known in the trade, the level of 'echoed mistakes,' has neither grown nor fallen.  

“To provide a complete service to our customers our policy is to pick up stories of significance that are being carried by normally reliable media that are in a position to know what they are reporting.” Hence the decision to quote CNN, which has a good record on reporting its own home turf, or Sky, which has broken news on the Lockerbie bomber story and follows it closely. “We protect our reputation by carefully acknowledging the source of the information and speedily checking its veracity.”

Hundreds of times every day Reuters journalists decline to go with a story running on local media because it smells wrong, is trivial, or both, Maguire says. “Mostly that decision is vindicated. The old school would have it that our policy is a failure of journalism. Yet walking the right line between publishing everything and publishing nothing actually requires a finer exercise of judgment. Better journalism, in other words. 

“The counter-argument is that we should only publish when we have 100 percent certainty from our own sources. That may be possible for a news organisation with a longer publishing timescale, such as a newspaper, or a periodical magazine. Yet even they, with online arms that are increasingly as ‘real-time’ as Reuters, the Associated Press or Bloomberg, face the same challenges of dealing with fast-breaking stories as the news agencies. With the advent of the Internet has come a cacophony of online voices that amplify and accelerate information, frequently dropping reference to where it originated or how it first became known. In that environment readers look to news services like Reuters to tell them what is known, and how it is known, with clarity and speed, regardless of whether we originated the story or not. In a complex, fast-moving world, no news organisation, no matter how well-resourced, can be first to report everything. All of us target the news we want to break and rely on others, who are sometimes allies and sometimes competitors, to paint their part of the picture."

Maguire asks whether that approach has destroyed the relationship of trust that clients and readers have with Reuters. His response: “The question supposes there was once a golden age of authoritative journalism where sourcing was always rigorous and the pursuit of truth always relentless. History suggests otherwise. Current anxiety over journalistic values is often a proxy for broader worry over the health of the media industry. Declining revenues have driven cost cutting that has threatened, many feel, the standards of journalism. Reuters is stressing speed for fear of losing its audience, critics say, and will do so at the expense of its reputation for accuracy.  

“Yet our business has always put a premium on speed, and given that we are one of very few global news organisations that is expanding its staff during the downturn we feel we are doing the right things to maintain our audience.”

The nature of authority in the news business has also changed, Maguire says. “Real-time readers understand breaking news is contingent, uncertain and provisional. Exclusivity evaporates fast as aggregators, citers and plagiarists disseminate the fruits of others’ reporting toil. Respect is won by breaking news and by operating with clear rules and standards. But it also come from guiding readers carefully to the reports of others, binding the audience in with compelling packages of conversation, illumination and curated content.” ■