Politics and Religion

Reuters prepares to cover Trump! ;)
mattradd 40 Reviews 1320 reads
posted

Good advice no matter who is president:

"Do’s:

--Cover what matters in people’s lives and provide them the facts they need to make better decisions.

--Become ever-more resourceful: If one door to information closes, open another one.

--Give up on hand-outs and worry less about official access. They were never all that valuable anyway. Our coverage of Iran has been outstanding, and we have virtually no official access. What we have are sources.

--Get out into the country and learn more about how people live, what they think, what helps and hurts them, and how the government and its actions appear to them, not to us.

--Keep the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles close at hand, remembering that “the integrity, independence and freedom from bias of Reuters shall at all times be fully preserved.”

Don’ts:

--Never be intimidated, but:

--Don’t pick unnecessary fights or make the story about us. We may care about the inside baseball but the public generally doesn’t and might not be on our side even if it did.
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--Don’t vent publicly about what might be understandable day-to-day frustration. In countless other countries, we keep our own counsel so we can do our reporting without being suspected of personal animus. We need to do that in the U.S., too.

--Don’t take too dark a view of the reporting environment: It’s an opportunity for us to practice the skills we’ve learned in much tougher places around the world and to lead by example – and therefore to provide the freshest, most useful, and most illuminating information and insight of any news organization anywhere."

What is sad is it's being said in the context in which they cover countries like "Turkey, the Philippines, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Thailand, China, Zimbabwe, and Russia," where Reuters sometimes experiences "some combination of censorship, legal prosecution, visa denials, and even physical threats to our journalists."

"So what is the Reuters answer? To oppose the administration? To appease it? To boycott its briefings? To use our platform to rally support for the media? All these ideas are out there, and they may be right for some news operations..."

All those ideas are out there? Really??? I wish Reuters named names. Which news organizations want to boycott Trumps briefings? Which ones want to rally support for the media? Who just wants to oppose the Trump admin?

Without even realizing it, as they blow their own trumpet bc they think they are the good guys, they just threw the rest of the media under the bus as partisan liberal hacks.

Here is a novel idea:

JUST REPORT THE NEWS. Let the reader determine for themselves what to make of it.  

There is a reason the public believes there is a strong, liberal bias and Reuters just made the case for it.

Yes, all those ideas are out there Jack. If you'd been listening to "Reliable Sources," or at least paying attention if you were. You'd know that.

The real story is, all the does and don't are in reference to covering countries who are hostile to the press. Notice, how many Western European countries with mentioned?  ;)

Posted By: mattradd
The real story is, all the does and don't are in reference to covering countries who are hostile to the press. Notice, how many Western European countries with mentioned?  ;)
Reuter's "Dos and Don'ts" list is clearly identified as their mission "in the U.S. and everywhere" (in the world), not just in the U.S. and everywhere else that is hostile to us.

Reuters makes note that they work and survive and succeed in all the listed hostile places. They also make note they do not yet know how hostile the Trump administration will be to them moving forward, but the implication is if they can work in these hostile countries by following their mission statement then it should work for them in the U.S.  

Jack raises very valid points of admission by Reuters. You attempt to ignore and spin reality here simply because Reuters didn't mention any other western country? Really? Confession on the part of Reuters via sin of omission now?

The real question is why did Reuters feel compelled to issue this statement? They must be trying to push back against those in their own organization that believe Trump doesn't deserve the same fair treatment that dictators receive.

But KUDOS to you matt. Kudos to Reuters as well. You both are recognizing the errors of the past and the honest way forward.

"The real question is why did Reuters feel compelled to issue this statement? They must be trying to push back against those in their own organization that believe Trump doesn't deserve the same fair treatment that dictators receive."

Perhaps, they are preparing for exactly what they experienced from the countries they mentioned. That would be the most straight forward explanation! ;)

Your statement requires that their mission statement is not used or enforced in these "other western states", but only when  the need arises. They have specifically stated this is a global policy, not one that gets applied only when the going gets tough.  

Let's place it in the context that is was addressed in:

"'The first 12 days of the Trump presidency (yes, that’s all it’s been!) have been memorable for all – and especially challenging for us in the news business. It’s not every day that a U.S. president calls journalists 'among the most dishonest human beings on earth' or that his chief strategist dubs the media “the opposition party.'”  

I know you and Jack want to ignore that context; Trump's stance toward the press! ;)

by leaving out parts important to the truth and you simply got called out for doing so.

Rest assured, I'm not following you down your rabbit hole matt. You are all alone there once again.

"the truth"

Of course, you are the only one allowed to determine what "the truth" is.

We'll I don't agree!  ;)

your rabbit hole offers nowhere to go than to criticize your opposition. This is almost always where you end up matt. Take care, it's dark down there.

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