In a recent 60 Minutes /Vanity Fairpoll, a large amount of the public mistook what the Reuters global news agency
actually was.
The poll taken in May of this
year found that 22 percent of people asked related the Reuters name as that of
a German airline, a private New Jersey college, a fast food chain, and a London
investment bank. Furthermore, 36 percent of those polled did not even have a
guess as to what industry Reuters belonged.
How can this be? Reuters has been
covering the world’s news since 1851. They currently employ over 3000
journalists worldwide. Are the Reuters bylines at the bottom of their 1000s of
articles published daily too subtle?
Well, one thing is for sure,
their competitors might just be better at tooting their own horn. Bloomberg News
Editor-in-Chief Matthew Winkler recently said, “that his news organization aims
to be the world's "most influential."
In response to the encroachment
of the other news agencies, Reuters has gone on a Pulitzer Prize level-hiring
spree, in that they have recently hired many of the recipients of the prize in
an attempt to raise their public profile.
Reuters has also made great strides
with updating their website to attract an increasingly techno-savvy audience.
It would be a shame to see a world-renowned
news agency go out of business simply because they did not carry the name
recognition of some newer upstarts. I do not think that will happen in this
case, but I guess I just wish Reuters would get the credit that is owed.
People don't read the news enough. Simple as that. It is sad though that such a big news agency can be mistaken for a fast-food chain.
ReplyDelete