100 for Reuters

With the release of 100 homing pigeons from its London headquarters and a banquet for more than 1,000 notables, Reuters' news service last week celebrated its 100th anniversary. Since Founder Paul Julius Reuter started the service by using pigeons to carry financial news on the continent, Reuters has grown to be the world's second largest news service (biggest: Associated Press), with more than 3,200 newspaper clients and 2,000 staffers and stringers around the world.

In the early days of Reuters, the foreign correspondence of most newspapers consisted of letters sent by ship, so Reuters had no competition in Britain when it set up its own cable service. By the time Founder Reuter died in 1899, the London Sun proclaimed that "no daily newspaper could afford to dispense with Reuters' service . . ."

Mouthpiece of Empire. Despite its reputation, Reuters soon slid into poor financial shape, as cable companies had captured most of its profitable private cable business. Long a mouthpiece of the British Empire, it was glad during World War I to take subsidies from the British government to spread propaganda, and Sir Roderick Jones, Reuters' chief and its biggest stockholder, was happy to double for a time as British Director of Propaganda. Reuters' reputation as the "official" government news service soon became an added handicap, and by 1926, Sir Roderick was forced to sell a controlling interest in the agency to Britain's provincial papers. Its troubles increased as A.P. Boss Kent Cooper expanded his international service and broke up the cartel run by "Reuters Rex," Havas (the French agency) and Wolff (German), which had divided up the world.

Reuters' financial difficulties continued until 1941, when the London press bought in, turned the agency into a cooperative (like the A.P.), which now includes papers in India, Australia and New Zealand. Sir Roderick Jones was replaced by Christopher Chancellor, who had been chief correspondent and general manager in the Far East. He cleaned out the deadwood, pepped up Reuters' flat and often long-winded copy, determinedly turned Reuters away from its old reputation as a voice of the Empire, was knighted for the job. In ten years, Sir Christopher, now 47 and his editor, Walton Cole, 38, have tripled the total of correspondents and revenues (to $7,000,000).

U.S. Invasion. During World War II, they shrewdly used their coverage of remote Far Eastern news spots to invade the U.S. (Reuters is much cheaper in the U.S. than the big U.S. services). Now Reuters services 35 dailies, including the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor and the Anglophobe Chicago Tribune, which carefully scanned Reuters' file first to make sure there was no British bias. But many U.S. newsmen still do not consider Reuters anywhere near as valuable as A.P. or the United Press, and often U.S. newspapers use Reuters largely to backstop their other wire services. Last week, at its centenary dinner, standing with Prime Minister Attlee and Sir Christopher Chancellor, an American proposed the principal toast. Said he: "I call upon my fellow guests ... to join with me in toasting a very great institution ... I give you the toast of REUTERS!" The American was A.P. Executive Director Kent Cooper, once the most outspoken critic of Reuters' old ways.

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