Issue 62 Vol III, April 30, 2008

M E D I A

Reuters, from pigeons to multimedia

ON April 17 this year a new multi media giant took shape. Thomson Reuters Corp is a giant in the sense of its global reach and it inherits great historical experience of Reuters, a top world news gathering operator and disseminator of information since 1851. Only time would tell how this giant, particularly its non business reporting takes shape. Reuters has until now jealously guarded with zeal, its reporting of news worldwide and provided sharp focussed and varied analysis.

Thomson Reuters Corp is now a top global information company, hoping a portfolio of products from financial to legal and health-care will help it ride out a financial industry downturn. According to Reuters itself, “the new Thomson Reuters, headed by former Reuters chief Tom Glocer, sells electronic news and data to traders, fund managers and analysts, as well as databases and other information to lawyers, accountants, scientists and the health-care industry. The merger allows Thomson to expand its financial data business from its North American base, adding Reuters strengths in catering to traders to Thomson's business with money managers. And the deal is meant to help Reuters cut its exposure to financial markets, which have been buffeted by the credit crises.”

Shares of the company, formed by Thomson Corp's more than $16 billion cash and stock purchase of Reuters Group Plc, have started trading in London, Toronto and New York.

The merger allows Thomson to expand its financial data business from its North American base, adding Reuters strengths in catering to traders to Thomson's business with money managers. And the deal is meant to help Reuters cut its exposure to financial markets, which have been buffeted by the credit crises.

The new company, with headquarters in New York, has annual revenues of $12.5 billion, 50,000 employees and more than 40,000 customers in 155 countries.

Thomson's publishing roots date back to 1934 when Toronto native Roy Thomson bought The Timmins Press in Northern Ontario. Thomson was known for his odd collection of businesses, which at one point included an ice cream cone manufacturing operation.

The Thomson family has since been involved in textbook and newspaper publishing, at one point owning the Times of London. It also has run television stations and travel companies, as well as oil exploration.

Thomson sold The Times in 1981 and sharpened its focus on data publishing when it sold its North Sea oil interests in 1989 and Thomson Travel in 1998. It sold its education business for $7.75 billion last year.

Reuters started in 1851 when German-born Paul Julius Reuter transmitted stock market quotes between London and Paris on the Calais-Dover cable. Before that, he used pigeons to fly stock prices between Aachen in Germany and Brussels.

This was the beginning of the Reuters news service, which now has 2,400 journalists and became the foundation for a $5 billion-a-year news and financial data empire. The newly formed company's markets division with $7.4 billion in annual sales competes with Bloomberg LP for financial industry clients. Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters each have about a third of the global financial data market, according to Atradia Consulting Director David Anderson.

Rivals include Dow Jones & Co, now a unit of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, and Anglo-Dutch publisher Reed Elsevier. Reed owns the LexisNexis legal database, a competing offering to Thomson's Westlaw, and competes with the company's $5.1 billion-a-year professional division.

The company's immediate priority is to marry the Reuters array of financial products, such as the flagship 3000Xtra, with Thomson's products, such as ThomsonONE, which includes FirstCall company profit estimates. The company also aims to blend financial data and news staffs.

Executives have said they want to save $500 million in the first three years, with some of that coming from selling real estate as the enlarged group closes data centers and administrative offices that it no longer needs.

Thomson Reuters has not said how many jobs it will cut, but the company will have a number within the next few months.

Following is a chronology of key moments in Reuters' history:

1851 - German-born Paul Julius Reuter opens an office in the City of London that transmits stock market quotations between London and Paris via the new Calais-Dover cable.

Reuter had previously used pigeons to fly stock prices between Aachen and Brussels, a service that operated for a year until a gap in the telegraph link was closed.

1865 - Reuters is first in Europe with news of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln's assassination.

1870s - As overland telegraph and undersea cable facilities developed, Reuters expands beyond Europe to the Far East in 1872 and South America in 1874.

1923 - Reuters pioneers the use of radio to transmit news internationally.

1925 - The Press Association, the UK press agency, takes a majority holding in Reuters.

1927 - Reuters introduces the teleprinter to distribute news to London newspapers.

1939 - Reuters moves its corporate headquarters to 85 Fleet Street.

During both World Wars, Reuters comes under pressure from the British government to serve British interests.

In 1941 Reuters deflects this pressure by restructuring itself as a private company. The new owners, the British national and provincial press, form the Reuters Trust, with independent trustees.

The Trust preserves Reuters independence and neutrality. The principles of the Trust are maintained and the power to enforce them is strengthened when Reuters becomes a public company in 1984.

1973 - Reuter Monitor launches, creating an electronic marketplace for foreign exchange. The service expands to carry news and prices covering securities, commodities and money and leads to the 1981 launch of the Reuter Monitor Dealing Service.

1984 - Reuters floats as a public company in London.

1995 - Reuters establishes its Greenhouse Fund' to take minority investments in a range of start-up technology companies, initially in the United States.

2000 - Reuters announces plans to accelerate its use of Internet technologies. Its shares set a record intraday high of 1,715 pence on March 7, days before the peak of the tech bubble.

2001, July - Tom Glocer, a former mergers and acquisitions lawyer, becomes the first American to run the company.

2003 - Reuters unveils Fast Forward, a three-year programme to make it more competitive. Its shares end a three-year decline when they touch a low of 95.25 pence on March 12, having lost nearly 95 percent of their value.

2005 - Reuters consolidates most of its London-based operations into one building in the Canary Wharf financial district of London.
2007, May 4 - Reuters says it has received an approach.
2007, May 7 - Thomson confirms it has approached Reuters.
2007, May 15 - Thomson and Reuters say they have agreed to a deal, valuing Reuters at $17.2 billion.
2008, Feb 19 - Regulators in Europe, the United States and Canada give the antitrust go-ahead for the deal.
2008, March 26 - Reuters shareholders approve the takeover.
2008, April 17 - Thomson Reuters begins.
Sources: Company website, Reuters news reports

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Journalists demand release of Afridi

PAKISTAN Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), has sought the release of chief editor of The Frontier Post, Rehmat Shah Afridi, who has served 10-years imprisonment in a controversial drug case registered against him in the 90s. this is the  longest term served by any journalist in Pakistan. "Afridi has served more than a life term in a controversial case and his health has deteriorated over the years and deserve better treatment," PFUJ said in a statement.

Afridi had denied the charges and stated that he was a victim because of his newspaper's independent policies and corruption stories of influential people.

Mazhar Abbas, Secretary General, PFUJ  said over the years influential people suspected in much more serious offences were either released on indefinite parole or freed due to political influence, Afridi was not even given "fair trial." Though his newspaper (The Frontier Post) suffered a lot, both financially and otherwise but still in circulation in Peshawar and he wanted to continue his profession come what may and deserved a second life, it said.

PFUJ in the past had condemned his arrest but the unfortunate part has been the "silence," from his own community of editors and owners bodies who did not come to his support.

"At a time when then the government is following the policy of free media a fresh start should be made with the release of Rehmat Shah, whom many of his colleagues in journalism and politics have forgotten," it said.

PFUJ appealed to the Prime Minister of Yusuf Raza Gillani, PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari and PML (N) President Nawaz Sharif to look into the case of Afridi and give serious consideration for his release.

Afridi who had been exposing misdeeds of the earlier Nawaz Sharif government was denied a fair trial as is evident from the  this report I n the Daily Times. “On the day the verdict was to be announced, the court was cordoned off and Mr Afridi was brought to the court in an armoured security van accompanied by a large force of police commandoes. Mr Afridi was kept in the van until the judge arrived, not being allowed to speak to journalists or even his son Jalil. Journalists were not allowed inside the courtroom either. The judge took a few minutes to announce his verdict. ANF officials then quickly took Mr Afridi back to the van, but before boarding, he kissed his son and handed him a copy of the judgement. According to the prosecution, the ANF, on a tip-off, impounded Mr Afrid’s Mercedes outside a five-star hotel on The Mall in Lahore on April 12, 1999 and found 20 kilogrammes of hashish inside. Mr Afridi was charged in two cases while his driver Misel Khan and cleaner Abdul Malik were charged in one.”

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