Revealed: The trout, the eagle, the herring and more

Zurich-based correspondent Martin De Sa’Pinto, pictured, sent the e-mail, in which he praised the journalists he worked with and damned the “politicians” in the newsroom, on Monday, his last day with Reuters. He wrote: “To the many fine journalists among you with whom I’ve had the good fortune to share stories and contacts, I say thanks, it’s been great working together, and best of luck.

“To the politicians among you, congratulations on turning a vibrant and cooperative culture into something significantly more miserable and depressing. To you I say sodoff, it’s been really mediocre working with you.”

He added: “Many of the journalists I enjoyed working with have now left the company, often pushed out by others with half the skill in getting at news, but very developed abilities in politics and wheedling. We may need to cut costs, but getting rid of people who can get exclusive and valuable news and keeping automatons who want to homogenise everything and whose main concern is their own career doesn’t seem like the right way to me.”

In the history of farewell e-mails from journalists, it may go down in history as one of the all-time greats, said Chris Roush, who monitors US business journalism for the University of North Carolina website Talking Biz News.

“It’s been amazing the amount of feedback, and none of it negative,” said De Sa’Pinto. He would not confirm the identities of those to whom he referred, but Roush said some former Reuters staffers confirmed that:

• The Impetuous Trout is chief executive Andrew Rashbass, who joined Reuters in July. The nickname is a play on his last name.
• The Eagle Has Pharted is editor-in-chief Stephen Adler. “Adler” is the German word for a bird of prey.
• The Magic Herring is Michael Stott, editor for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, who was pushed out in July.
• Turtle Neck is Paul Ingrassia, managing editor. Ingrassia, who once covered the US auto industry for The Wall Street Journal, is also known as Carman (hallucinating in the sky).
• The DWeeb and Dwarf Rabbit refer to Devin Wenig, former head of the Reuters division that oversaw news.
• Chubba the Hutt is Chris Wickham, former European science correspondent.

De Sa’Pinto also referred to other editors and executives as Yankers/Smurf, Armytage and The Lying Dutchman, but their identities have not been disclosed. ■