Death and the Baron

Death is a serious business at Reuters. One of its snappers just won a Pulitzer for shooting a dying cameraman. “A moment to be proud of,” boasted bosses.

Back at corporate headquarters, a book of the dead reminds visitors more sombrely of the prices people pay to bring them news.

The latest entry will honour a Gazan cameraman killed by an Israeli tank. Having already lost half a dozen reporters to American fire in Iraq, Reuters is demanding an investigation.

So far, so fair. But when Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger turned his hand to eulogy, he betrayed the memory of 23-year-old Fadel Shana.

“Our hearts obviously go out to his family,” Schlesinger told staff, though his head was clearly elsewhere. “It is, of course, striking,” his memo continued, “that this tragedy occurred on the last day for Reuters as it has been and the day before Thomson Reuters begins.”

Cue homilies to this “news and information power”, which makes most of its money selling trading systems to banks.

No mention, of course, of the millions that Chief Executive Tom Glocer awarded himself by selling his employers to a Canadian family, while shredding the code of ethics.

The Reuters Trust used to stipulate that the company “shall at no time pass into the hands of any one interest, group or faction.” With it new owners exempted, what future for such lofty Trust abstractions as “integrity, independence and freedom from bias”?

And what does any of this have to do with Fadel Shana, and “more than a century and a half of bravery” from frontline journalists?

From Schlesinger, no clue. Just more empty corporate phrase-making: “Reuters news in the new company will forge a new tradition,” he declared, “building on the old, that we can all be incredibly proud of.”

So that’s alright then.