Toronto
April 2020
CHAPTER ONE
Truth
Truth: from Old English triewe (West Saxon), treowe (Mercian) “faithful, trustworthy, honest, steady in adhering to promises, friends, etc.,” from Proto-Germanic *treuwaz “having or characterized by good faith” (source also of Old Frisian triuwi, Dutch getrouw, Old High German gatriuwu, German treu, Old Norse tryggr, Danish tryg, Gothic triggws “faithful, trusty”), from PIE *drew-o-, a suffixed form of the root *deru“be firm, solid, steadfast.”
—Oxford English Dictionary
My relationship with the Reuters Group dates back to 1984, the year it was floated as a public company in London, when I was first asked to join the board of directors of Reuters Holdings, PLC. My long-standing affinity for commitment to integrity made Reuters—with its mandate to adhere to the Trust Principles of ethics established in 1941—a very appealing institution. In advance of the flotation, it was decided that three non-press directors should be added to the board—one American, one British, and one European (since, as we have now been informed, Britain is not part of Europe). The board approved the addition of US Citicorp chairman Walter Wriston, UK chairman of Courtaulds Christopher Hogg, and me (then CEO of Volvo) representing the rest of Europe. A new entity—named the Reuters Founders Share Company Ltd.—was formed, and the new corporate charter specified that the board of directors be charged with overseeing that the company continue to adhere to the original Trust Principles, specifically:
1 1.That Thomson Reuters shall at no time pass into the hands of any one interest, group, or faction;
2 2.That the integrity, independence, and freedom from bias of Thomson Reuters shall at all times be fully preserved;
3 3.That Thomson 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 Thomson Reuters has or may have contracts;
4 4.That Thomson Reuters shall pay due regard to the many interests which it serves in addition to those of the media; and
5 5.That no effort shall be spared to expand, develop, and adapt the news and other services and products so as to maintain its leading position in the international news and information business.
At that time in the 1980s, Reuters had enjoyed a reputation as one of the world’s leading news agencies for over a century. Renowned as much for its commitment to incorporating the newest technologies as for its integrity, Reuters’ beginnings were characterized by ingenious strategies devised to work around shortcomings and inconsistencies in the existing communications network.
On October 17, 1851, engineers of the Submarine Telegraph Company successfully completed laying the first functional submarine communications cable across the English Channel. That same evening, the first electronic message between England and France was transmitted and received. It was an accomplishment significant enough to merit the immediate conveyance of the message to the Queen and to the Duke of Wellington.
Shortly thereafter, Paul Julius Reuter arrived in London to open a transmission service to convey stock quotes to and from Paris using the new Calais-Dover cable. His focus on finding ways to allow for the rapid communication of accurate information was already well established. News agencies were regularly sending stories via overland telegraph cables in Europe, but in 1850 the line of connections from one side of the continent to the other still contained gaps. Reuter came up with the idea of bridging the telegraph gap between Brussels and Aachen by using carrier pigeons. Up until this time, the most reliable prevailing method of bridging the gap was to send messages by train, an eight-hour journey. Reuter’s birds could make the same seventy-six-mile journey in an impressive two hours. His pigeon post remained the fastest method of disseminating the news until the Belgium-Germany telegraph gap was closed in April of 1851. Mindful of ongoing plans to establish a telegraph connection between England and France, Reuter relocated to London, financial capital of the world.
Over the course of several decades, the name Reuter became synonymous with rapid news circulation, in large part due to Paul Julius Reuter’s continued focus on finding ways to speed the dissemination of news after its arrival from the United States, a country that would not have a lasting cable connection with Europe until 1856. News traveled eastward from America’s east coast across the Atlantic via steamer, taking an average of about nine days to reach Europe. Reuter hired men to work as lookouts posted near Crookhaven Harbor on Ireland’s southwestern coast. These lookouts scanned the horizon for the approach of mail-carrying steamships. By arrangement, whatever steamship happened to be carrying mail from Reuter’s US news agent, Associated Press, would turn on a blue signal light when they neared the Irish coast. As soon as a blue-lit steamer came within view of one of the lookouts, the crew on Reuter’s own tender Marseilles would be alerted to intercept the inbound steamship. Also by previous arrangement, the purser on the incoming steamer would pack all mail addressed to Reuter in watertight canisters, which were tossed overboard to be retrieved with nets by the Marseilles crew.
Getting hold of incoming US news before anyone else provided no advantage unless it could also be circulated to and across Europe. Reuter had a system for that, too. He purchased a private cable connection between Crookhaven and Cork, some seventy miles to the northeast. Time-sensitive news retrieved by the Marseilles from the floating containers was telegraphed from Crookhaven, and from Cork it was retransmitted to London. In this way, breaking news from Reuter arrived in the London telegraph a minimum of several hours before the same mail steamer that carried it across the Atlantic could reach Liverpool. These details are telling in giving an idea of the lengths and expense Paul Julius Reuter was willing to go to in order to ensure he had the earliest possible access to transatlantic news and be the first European source of developing news stories. This was far more than merely a nominal accomplishment, as evidenced by Reuters breaking the news story of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, an event that in addition to its social and political import had a direct effect on the financial market.
Over the next several decades, Reuters expanded across European countries, and ultimately across continents, following the growing telegraph-accessible locations to the Far East and South America. In 1923, the agency became the first to send stock quotes via radio, transmitting them from London to Europe in Morse code. Reuters remained consistent in placing a priority on incorporating the newest technologies into their communications network, adopting the teleprinter to distribute stories to newspapers throughout London, and reinventing their own position in the market with the introduction of the computerized Reuters Stockmaster real-time price retrieval system in 1964. In 1973, President Nixon dismantled the Bretton Woods Agreement, which had obliged member nations to establish a fixed rate of external exchange by linking the rate to the gold standard. Reuters anticipated the widespread effects of the “Nixon shock” by creating and launching the Reuter Monitor Money Rates Services—an international foreign exchange network. The Reuter Monitor enabled contributing institutions to input their exchange rates and allowed subscribers to retrieve and view on video display terminals all of the participating banks’ exchange rates for each currency—information that had never before been accessible from a single source.
I