Reuters has a proud history of factual, unbiased news coverage. In our news articles we let the facts speak for themselves; opinions are clearly sourced to the experts whom we interview.
But we have our own experts as well. And I want to let them increasingly have their voice on Reuters services.
It is vitally important to me and to everything we stand for that news and comment are kept separate. It is also vitally important, however, that we use all forms of journalism available to us to communicate with our audience and engage in a vibrant conversation around ideas.
Recently here on Reuters.com youll have had the chance to read our new world affairs columnist Bernd Debusmann or our global finance columnist Jim Saft with their analyses on current events. Both use facts as their base but then use their many years of reporting experience to deliver an argument an argument I hope youll join via email.
If you read Chinese, you can see how our Chinese financial columnist Wei Gu puts her expertise to work on our Chinese-language pages.
And subscribers to our Brazilian Portuguese-language financial service can read Agela Bittencourt as she dissects that countrys economy.
What these columns, and the ones that will join them, have in common is a mixture of facts expertise and a point of view. They wont engage in screeching name-calling or invective; they will be challenging and controversial. Agree or disagree with them as you like, but please read, be stimulated and join in the debate.
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6 comments so far
re: “In our news articles we let the facts speak for themselves; opinions are clearly sourced to the experts whom we interview.”
No, you don’t.
In the article, ‘Iranian president hits out at Israel, U.S.’ by Claudia Parsons, posted today, it states, “…Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel to be wiped off the map…”
This is total baloney and oft-repeated propaganda in the western media, designed to fan the flames of war against Iran.
Translation of phrase “wiped off the map” (from Wikipedia):
Many news sources have presented one of Ahmadinejad’s phrases in Persian as a statement that “Israel must be wiped off the map”, an English idiom which means to “obliterate totally”,and “destroy completely”, such as by powerful bombs, or other catastrophes.
Juan Cole, a University of Michigan Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History, translates the Persian phrase as:
The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e eshghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad).
According to Cole, “Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to ‘wipe Israel off the map’ because no such idiom exists in Persian” and “He did say he hoped its regime, i.e., a Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem, would collapse.”
- Posted by Scorpio69er[Blogs Moderator] Reuters responded to this charge on ‘The Good, the Bad & the Ugly’
- Posted by Mark Jonesre: “Reuters is confident that its translation of what Ahmadinejad said is correct…”
Professor Cole has given us the correct translation of what Ahmadinejad said, so your contention is manifestly incorrect. To yet refuse to admit it because “The Iranian authorities have never challenged our translation of the words…” is preposterous. They have no particular obligation to spend time correcting Reuters’ mistakes.
You, however, do.
- Posted by Scorpio69erRe: “…factual, unbiased news coverage…”
You mean, like this?:
‘Strong job growth eases recession fears’
By Glenn Somerville
“That averaged out to about 97,000 jobs a month during the third quarter…”
This is barely HALF the number of jobs required just to absorb the number of new workers entering the work force each month! By comparison, during the Clinton years monthly job growth averaged over 236,000 — even when you include the 7.3% unemployment rate and anemic job growth he inherited from Bush Sr.
Does the Republican Party pay you guys to write this stuff?
- Posted by Scorpio69erSorry Reuters, but you deffinitely have the translation 100% wrong, and are refusing to own up.
So much for “Reuters has a proud history of factual, unbiased news coverage.”
I’ll be sharing news of this biased and infactual reporting, trust me. Just please don’t lie in the future, and if you have the integrity, please make amends over this issue. Your mistake is wrongfully slandering a person and his country, with dire effects.
- Posted by David CYou wouldn’t like the same treatment, would you?
As to your “proud history of factual, unbiased news coverage,” and your pious insistence that Reuters’ “news and comment are kept separate,” please see your December 25 story, “Help for immigrants divides congregations.”
Of course there’s no crudely obvious editorializing. But the story is a classic puff piece–a full, faithful account of one side of the matter it addresses, the plight of illegal immigrants, with no mention of the immigrants’ impact on the communities they infest.
Do you really think you’re fooling anyone?
- Posted by Rick Rykken