Talk:Reuters/Archive 1

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Recent 'allegations of bias' addition

I'd like to suggest that the recent addition be reviewed (as a new user, I'm a little wary of touching it myself).

Whilst I'm not going to argue that the allegations of bias haven't happened, the 'Wall Street Journal' reference cited is pretty tenuous - the linked op-ed article merely states that the BBC's editorial guidelines on use of the word 'terrorist' is 'Reutervillian', no doubt pejoratively, but not quite a statement of criticism on Reuters' alleged anti-israeli/anti-american bias (the link placed directly after this claim).

Jherad 22:11, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

It's actually not a recent add; sentiments along those lines have been added and removed since January 2004, and the "Allegations of bias" section was added later that year. Considering the heft of the Wall Street Journal and the fact that it isn't the only notable criticizing party, I believe these belong in here, in spite of opponents wanting to sanitize this from the article. However, you're right that someone could work on the links. I chose the link in question because it showed that Reuter's "rule" against calling civilian-killers "terrorists" is not followed consistently. Past links, e.g., http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/critiques/2003_Dishonest_Reporting_-Award-.asp, charge Reuters with deception in covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, by, for example, misstating the goals of Hamas and using deceptive and slanted language against Israel. Clearly the source has an agenda, but anyone who seeks to expose bias - left, right, pro-Western, anti-Western, or otherwise - has one by definition. By the way, critics criticize Reuters more than AP and UPI, and this should probably be stated in the article. (The real root of the difference among the news agencies could be their country of origin, but the difference remains, no matter what its cause.) Calbaer 03:31, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Calbaer - as stated, I'm not really arguing against the 'feeling' of the addition, as I am well aware of criticisms levelled at Reuters for their (lack of) use of the 'T' word. Simply an issue with the given link, and its position in the text given what the article actually states. Anyway, as before, I'm not gonna touch this myself - Just thought it might be worth commenting on, as it surprised me a little. The WSJ link was the only one I took issue with - the other being much more meaty and relevent, even if the source is (at least in my opinion) on shakier bias terrority. Which of course doesn't matter in the slightest, as anyone can look that up for themselves! Jherad 23:40, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Well there's some new concerns about the bias, one of their recent images from Beirut was doctored very heavily; http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=21956_Reuters_Doctoring_Photos_from_Beirut&only which is quite disconcerting about other news they put out. Only a quick look at the image shows repeating patterns in the smoke, which is about as equally likely to happen as seeing God, finding out the meaning of life and then seeing Jesus doing a hula dance on national TV in the next 5 minutes. Also it's been spotted as a doctored image by professional photographers; http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=21302 --83.100.151.191 02:12, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I see there's been some disagreement about who discovered the fake photograph in the article revisions. For the record, I believe it was Johnson. Before anyone removes it again, please provide a source for your belief that it was discovered first elsewhere. Also, while we're on the subject, I believe Johnson is worth mentioning, given the relative notoriety of his blog and his past interaction with Reuters (the death threat) and the effect his work had on during the "Rathergate" affair. I don't particularly like Johnson, but I believe he is significant enough to be worthy of mention in this section. Stephen Aquila 04:17, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I am convinced it was Johnson of Little Green Footballs as well. I first saw a link early yesterday to LGF at PajamasMedia.com about this, which seems IMHO to be the most copious source of information on the Lebanon War (the other copious source is the pro-Hezbollah site http://angryarab.blogspot.com). The death threat incident where a Reuters employee wrote "I can't wait to see you blogger pigs get your throats cut" firmly established the meme that the Reuters' cultural atmosphere and the Blogosphere atmosphere are locked in some kind of ideological struggle. Since this article is about Reuters, more attention needs to be paid as to the economic reasons why a public company, especially one with the likes of Rupert Murdoch owning 15%, would bear so hard to the left wing according to the accusations of others. Maybe facts need to be stated regarding where Reuters wants to expand and how Reuters might think that the people in these expansion areas need to see news skewed to their prejudices or average IQ level? Is Reuters perceiving its "readership" to be more the underclass than the more affluent people who can read the Internet blogs? Does Reuters see the Muslim world as a growth market? One can be sure that today's "retraction" in regard to the doctored Beirut cityscape will not be reported on by most of the world's newspaper customers of Reuters, many of which have already printed the doctored photos on their front pages and will never run a correction for their millions of readers. How did Reuters skew their news during World War One and World War Two and Vietnam? There is no such thing as a free press and I doubt Reuters was unbiased for most of its long existence. The article makes it seem that Reuters has only developed a bias problem since 9-11. The Blogosphere and Wikipedia feature tons of businesspeople and those not in the journalistic field, while news services like Reuters tend to employ the type of people who have chosen journalism as a profession. Are there salary expectations as well as ideological and personality differences between a photographer who earns $2,000 per month roaming the third world and a businessman who makes $9,000 per month sitting in a London office building? If the businessman earning $9,000 per month instantly spots image fakery in a Reuters photograph and gets a third world citizen fired via exposure of such fraud...isn't that part of a wider class war where the lower classes gather within the low-paid journalistic field to do battle with the richer businessmen? Another question: has someone strategically decided that this class war will be played out as a "cat and mouse game" where journalists manipulate events via wire services and businesspeople use blogs to catch them? This would be like a proxy war where violence is not allowed outside certain proxy areas like Iraq and Lebanon, but biased words fly everywhere like bombs. Meanwhile, where is mention in the article of the denials by Reuters that much of the Qana incident was staged? Reuters responded to the charges, meaning they are relevant to the article. --EnglishGarden 10:23, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

By the way, the May 29th Reuters death threat incident was not "hearsay". Attempts to delete mention of this extremely important development in the history of the Reuters company and its employment policies...would be news in and of itself and we can take this to arbitration. By claiming "hearsay" one is saying that Ed Johnson, Communications Director of Reuters, did NOT suspend an employee for that incident and you are calling a competitor of Reuters a liar whose accusations cannot be proven and are not worth repeating. --EnglishGarden 11:09, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

In terms of general editorial policy: on any subject, controversy must be discussed in Wikipedia articles because it is censorship to leave things out, even when you are convinced that those things are irrelevant or worse: PR lobbying by professional organizations. Here is an example: I checked the article on "Mail Order Bride" and found that a lawyer in Washington DC had added a section describing her view of the three murders of "mail order brides" in the past 15 years in the USA (the DC law firm of Arnold & Porter is doing pro bono work to try to regulate dating websites). Knowing that thousands of American women were murdered by their husbands in the same time period, it should have been clear that the long descriptions of the 3 murders were PR added by an employee of a law firm and did not belong to an article on "mail order brides" anymore than a description of 10,000 domestic American murders belonged in an article on "marriage" or "divorce".

But I did not delete the 3 paragraphs about the 3 "mail order bride murders" because they are "being talked about" ...sensationalized in 2 major lawsuits involving the freedom of Americans to meet foreigners online without governmental interference. I kept them in with only a blurb to provide perspective. The murders are not hearsay. They did happen. The law firm is allowed to spread word about the murders, including manipulation of Wikipedia articles, and it is up to the intelligence of the American public to put these murders into perspective (and to read the history section of every Wikipedia article to see what's been deleted).

The same is true regarding Reuters. The company is under attack regarding bias incidents that the company admits happened. If a Reuters PR agent wants to counter the accusations and/or attack the credibility of Charles Johson...Wikipedia readers will be glad to see more information to help them make better judgments of the world they live in. But deletion is censorship. I don't engage in that. Neither should anyone here.--EnglishGarden 11:54, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I hate to contribute too much today, but the issue of the news services featuring photos of the same Lebanese woman losing a different home every week is downright creepy and needs Wikipedia documentation. This particular link below doesn't apply to Reuters, but a little research will probably find that Reuters has featured this woman who apparently keeps building new homes every week in order to have the Israelis bomb them: http://drinkingfromhome.blogspot.com/2006/08/extreme-makeover-beirut-edition.html. Looks like there will be a Yahoo scandal in the next day or so. Those photos don't lie. Apparently, a massive fraud has been perpetrated by Hezbollah on Yahoo and Reuters in the past month.

I've also researched the possible causes of the "bias problem" and have learned that Reuters is conducting "outsourcing" where they have as few actual employees as possible. In the Middle East, Islamist death threats make it so Reuters stringers must tow the Islamist line or they do not survive and Reuters does not continue to have "access" to "events." Some other editor needs to form a paragraph, preferably an honest Reuters employee who can speak with more authority.--EnglishGarden 13:56, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I've got a problem with the email to Charles Johnson being called a "death threat." "I hope you die" is different from "I'm going to kill you." In this case, presumably, Johnson's correspondent was somewhere overseas. Additionally there is an element of heresay... I will leave the fact that this email existed in the article, but I am going to call it something other than a "death threat." --AStanhope 16:30, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

One must place such things in their context. Given the surprising frequency of throat-slitting as a method of dissent suppression by advocates of a certain ideology (e.g., Mohammed Bouyeri), this could reasonably be characterized as either a wish, a threat, or even a call to action. I think calling it "arguably threatening" is fair.

Furthermore, where's the hearsay problem? No one appears to be denying that the e-mail did, in fact, exist, or that its content was other than Johnson described. Also, this would only be hearsay if we were quoting someone else saying X threatened Johnson. As is, we are quoting Johnson saying that he has been threatened and Reuters saying they took action, a level of source unbeatable except by asking Moira Whittle or Charles Johnson themselves to edit the page (which would be problematic). Stephen Aquila 15:25, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Old 'allegations of bias' section

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Reuters&oldid=48076875 is an earlier edition of this will a large 'allegations of bias' section. It was a tad ugly, so User:Afghanets put most of the content into a "Further reading," which was later deleted by User:Zui1 (now blocked). The rest of the controversy section has been periodically removed and readded. With the latest Reuters incident, there'll probably be enough watchdogs to guard this from happening again. And I'll readd "Further reading." Calbaer 02:08, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Reuters web page

What's with the recently banned user who, among his other bizarre and vandalizing edits, kept changing the Reuters link to its counterpart on "Yahoo!"? This isn't a particularly important question—I'm just idly curious. I mean, some of his edits were blatant vandalism, so he clearly didn't shy away from that. Why bother just altering a link to something almost as valid? It's a serious underachievement as far as vandalism goes. Stephen Aquila 14:11, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Allegations section

I removed the first section, since the second section expanded and explained it. kc12286 23:30, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

That was 72.75.73.18 — I should've just reverted his rewrite instead of fixing it, since obviously I didn't fix everything. Calbaer 02:16, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

More allegations of bias

I have found an allegation of media bias against Reuters, I guess if the other is "liberal bias" then this would be "conservative bias", although I don't think either term is accurate. I can't read Spanish, so I have no idea how legitimate the claims are, but the screenshots are quite clear in what the description is suggesting. It's interesting and very relevant to me because it's very similar to the fraudulent photos that came from Lebanon. Perhaps evidence of poor journalism, counter to bias. Ajzzz 22:58, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Please forgive my American imperialism in adding an ɹ to the IPA pronunciation of Reuters. The rationale was that Americans can include it and everyone else will ignore it as usual because of its position in the word. Its absence though makes it look as if Americans wouldn't pronounce it at all, but we do. If there's a better way to make that point in the pronunciation guide, I'm all for it. -- ke4roh 04:27, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Forgive my inability to read pronunciation guides, but in plain english, is it pronounced [royders]? Or pretty much like that? → JARED ^(t) 18:52, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Pretty much, though standard English would write the central consonant as /t/, whether it's pronounced /t/, flapped as /d/ or (how I'd pronounce it) /?/. EdC 21:01, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Pronunciation

In the article it said that Reuters was "pronounced 'roy-ters', not 'rew-ters'." My grandmother's maiden name was Reuter, and our family has always pronounced it rey-ter or the plural rey-ters. So I was wondering what pronounciation is generally used when referring to this organization?
JesseG 23:20, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

It's a Germanic name and they pronounce it 'Roy-ter' in Germany and Holland. When the Baron brought the company over from Germany to London, he kept the Germanic pronunciation. It was never Anglicised. Less Americanised.

--Jm butler 02:29, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

the section saying

"Overall the consensus is that Reuters sticks pretty closely to the Reuters Trust principles supported by the Reuters Foundation shareholding, namely:

that the integrity, independence and freedom from bias of Reuters shall at all times be fully preserved;

that Reuters shall supply unbiased and reliable news services to newspapers, news agencies, broadcasters and other media subscribers and to businesses, governments, institutions, individuals and others with whom Reuters has or may have contracts;" from this: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Reuters&oldid=5045981 version

should be restored unless 65.101.36.19 can give a good reason for removing it

Bias?

Why is half the article focused on "allegations of bias" when it is acknowledged that it is the case "with all media companies" that they are accused of bias?

Furthermore, the three examples given seem very irrelevant, as:

1.- in the first case ("Bush, who avoided combat in Vietnam...") it's not mentioned who made the accusations (and it's not clear to me why the quoted paragraphs would be biased)

2.- why is passage that reads "Reuters?s global head of news, re-inforced a long-standing policy of avoiding the use of emotive terms" supposed to be an example of bias? To me, on the contrary, it appears to be an example of extreme professionalism, which cannot be said of the reactions taken by the vast majority of American media, for example.

3.- the third example is a jewel: "Some supporters of Israel, such as Catholic Exchange and Honest Reporting, felt that Reuters's reporting on the Israel-Palestinian conflict had an unfair bias against Israel.". Why! Of course they will criticise anyone who doesn't show support for a particular cause, that's what political pressure groups are for! I bet this particular group does not criticise Fox News reporting--just take a look at their website

In conclusion, I believe the second half of the article is purely POV and I ask its author to reconsider. My choice would be to have it removed althogether, although I would also find acceptable a short mention to the effect that Reuters is less than popular in right-wing circles, if properly balanced by a mention of their achievements.

In your first example, it may have been me that put in the passage - I quoted it from a James Taranto column (third item), after it had made its rounds in the conservative blogosphere; Taranto, in turn, had quoted it directly from a Reuters article, which is no longer available at the Reuters website. It is biased because there is no evidence that Bush's intent was to avoid combat in Vietnam when he joined the guard; Reuters, however, states it as fact. I believe I cited Taranto when I first added the quote, but someone else has since rearranged it, so I have now added the citation again.

In your second point, that passage is not an example of bias; it is, in fact, Reuters's refutation of bias allegations. If you feel that it is unclear, simply clarify it, rather than making wholesale deletions.

As to your third point: a source's bias is not grounds for its removal from a Wikipedia article. If the organizations' accusations caused enough of a stir, and formed an important enough part of the history of Reuters (which I believe they do - I read about the reports in numerous other media), then they ought to be included in the article. See again, for example, FOX News, where reports by FAIR and PIPA, though they are not by any means unbiased organizations, are nevertheless included in the article. It is notability, not reliability, which is important.

Incidentally, I have reverted your massive deletions. The bias section could certainly use some POV work, but it should not be removed entirely, or reduced to a sentence. Ðåñηÿßôý | Talk 19:12, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The reason for condensing the section about bias was that it takes up half the article, in my opinion giving it much more prominence than it deserves. Those accusations are 1.- the fruit of recent events and so likely not to stay relevant for a long time and 2.- as far as I'm aware they were voiced and/or echoed only by U.S. media and organisations, making them even less relevant to the wider audience this article is directed to. btw, I've checked the entries for other news wires and newspapers and in none of them there was a whole section dealing with bias, alleged or otherwise.

Consequently, why should this Bias section not be reduced to a sentence?

The allegations of bias listed at FOX News are also "the fruit of recent events," and even if they will not be relevant in the future, they are relevant now. Regarding your #2: no one but the US is likely to complain of anti-American bias. Of course the offended party is the only one which complains. Republicans do not criticize FOX News - only Democrats and leftists and whatnot - and yet their criticisms are an important enough aspect of the channel to merit a large portion of the article. Rather than trimming the bias section, supposing you expand the section about Reuters's history and the other issues surrounding it (whatever they may be)? That way more relevant information may be included, without the section about bias being trimmed for the sake of making it appear less relevant. Ðåñηÿßôý | Talk 17:13, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

After having read the article on FOX News, I withdraw my comment.

--Oceanhahn 04:39, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

God knows what these people [the peoples making the allegations] would do, if they ever met someone who was actually left-wing. The bellman 09:37, 2005 Jan 30 (UTC)

Ownership?

In discussions of bias in corporate media, one only has to ask who owns the media source. Unfortunately, if the respondent had read this article, he would be forced to say, "I dunno", as this article lacks a divulgement of who owns Reuters. Is it controlled by a private individual who holds the majority of the stock? Is it held by a larger firm? When listening to the news, I've often wondered this myself - "Who owns these guys? Who do they have to slant the news for to keep their jobs?" If anyone has this information on Reuters (I don't), PLEASE add it to the article. Thanks. Kasreyn

I heard from a good source that it is owned by Time/Warner, which also owns AP.. Although I cannot 100% verify this.

24.18.229.33 3 Feb 2006

As the article points out, no single shareholder can hold more than 15% of Reuters. Certainly it is not owned by Time/Warner and neither is AP. Reuters' current biggest shareholder is Fidelity with 9%. AP, by contrast, is a non-profit cooperative of US newspapers and broadcasters. The AP article gives more details. 82.35.173.37 20:29, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Reauter,reuter,reuter

The sentances all start with "Reuters", reters this reuters that... That sounds and looks awfull, and makes me pissed when i try and read it. You should make sure to very the start of sentances, eg "The compeny", "They", or maybe not starting it with referring to them at all. Agreed? 193.217.136.46 18:56, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hey idiot, maybe before you start reading more articles instead of bitching about them. Maybe then you would learn how to spell. -Z

"See also: AP"?

I'm not sure why the AP is listed in "see also," or why it's the only thing listed there. It seems we could just mention earlier on that Reuters is a news agency. This "see only" link seems to imply some special, direct connection between the AP and Reuters. Is there one? If so, it should be explained; if not, I think this link should be removed. -Eleusinian 06:03, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

Holocaust

The section on the Holocaust does seem quite biased, especially the ascertion that Reuters supports Holocaust deniers (which is brought out in the tone of the last sentance)Yellowmellow45 20:59, 18 December 2005 (UTC) In fact, the entire bottom section seems to have been written by one person, to link to their weblog. These should not be presented as accurate. Behemoth01 00:08, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Presenting the point of view that Reuters is biased

James Taranto as editor of the online editorial page of the Wall Street Journal is notable. The criticism of Reuters for its rejection of terrorist and other actions are recorded in many places other than OpinionJournal.com such as the Media Research Center, the National Review, the Christian Science Monitor, CNN, and that's just from the first page of a Google search! It is not merely Taranto's point of view but one shared by many media outlets as an example of bias, bad journalistic practice and dishonesty. My choice of Taranto is that the page is accessible and Taranto linked in his editorials to the sources.

The rebuttal of this would be a cited, verifiable point of view that Reuters is not biased. patsw 02:34, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Homing pigeons

Does anyone feel like updating the article to mention Reuters' use of the homing pigeon (with microfilm attached to their feet) back in the day before the wire? It was faster than sending someone on a train, aparently. I know nothing about it, really. So i'll leave it to an "expert" to add. Pengo 12:50, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Reuters Foundation and AlertNet

The article is missing information on both the Reuters Foundation and AlertNet (which redirects to Reuters). 129.241.11.202 11:24, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Rosemary Martin

This mention of her as a member of the board of directors is linked to the actress. I doubt they are the same person.

They are clearly not the same person - the actress is dead! What is the best way to fix the link? (GhostInTheMachine 13:41, 29 March 2006 (UTC))

This article needs to be properly edited

I would suggest putting the "4 Allegations of bias" including Criticism by a Wall Street Journal columnist, on Terrorism and Holocaust

into a Further reading section with links. Otherwise, the article resembles a campus discussion.

Kind regards Afghanets 08:22, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Pronounciation

How is this name pronounced? 68.39.174.238 21:56, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Roy-ters Dave 22:12, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Controversy about the use of words?

May I suggest the section is just removed? There are plenty of other places where this debate can take place. GhostInTheMachine 21:11, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Controversy rewrite

The "allegations of bias" section was getting better at one point, but eventually got more POV, shrank, and disappeared. As noted in the archive, it is significant and should be there. I restored it from what seemed to be its best state and cleaned it up a bit. Now the primary example given of alleged bias is that, while they claim to not use the word terrorist without scare quotes, they did after the 7 July 2005 London bombings, which James Taranto and others argued to reflect a Euro-centric anti-American bias. A citation is needed in the claim that Reuters' reporting is pro-corporate (and, if someone wants to re-add it, pro-Western). Calbaer 18:33, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Recent 'allegations of bias' addition

Old 'allegations of bias' section

Reuters web page

Allegations section

More allegations of bias

Pronunciation

Pronunciation

Bias?

Ownership?

Reauter,reuter,reuter

"See also: AP"?

see also & bias

Holocaust

Presenting the point of view that Reuters is biased

Homing pigeons

Reuters Foundation and AlertNet

Rosemary Martin

This article needs to be properly edited

Pronounciation

Controversy about the use of words?

Controversy rewrite