Tony Blair recently offered his opinion of 24 hour news media. In a recent statement, the former prime minister described such organizations as ‘feral beasts’ that ‘just want to tear people in public life apart’.

The speech was delivered at an office of the Reuters news agency. Many would argue Mr. Blair was in the presence of the most tremendous ‘feral beast’ of all (note the “Who Mongers Most” section on this page).

Guy Dresser of Reuters reacts to Tony Blair’s recent statements in a post online. The Reuters editor seems, surprisingly, to be in favor of Mr. Blair’s view. Below is an excerpt from Guy’s blog.

Tony Blair came to the Reuters HQ in London’s Canary Wharf to vent his spleen on the media and finally tell it how it is. His speech, billed as being about public life and leadership in the media age, turned out to be a 35 minute blood letting as he savaged the modern 24 hour news media as a ‘feral beast’ which just wants to tear people in public life apart.

He did pause to admit some responsibility, acknowledging that New Labour had assiduously courted the media and spent rather too much time worrying about what the papers said.

But the overall theme of his presentation was one of damnation. The press was ruining people’s lives, trampling over their personal affairs and making many Front page of the Independent newspaperthink twice about the wisdom of engaging in public life.

As a Reuters journalist I hesitate to wade in with an opinion. In a previous incarnation at Associated Newspapers, home of the Daily Mail, I would not have been so reluctant. Indeed, it would have been expected.

Perhaps the most troubling statement is Guy’s own - admitting he is afraid to express his personal opinions at Reuters, indicating he may be displeased with practices in his industry and perhaps is using Blair’s statements as a way of highlighting shared concerns.

We’ll follow up with Guy and see what more we can learn.

For more media reaction to Tony Blair’s speech, click here.

For a news agency that shares Mr Blair’s sentiments, visit Fearless News.

Investigation Central is an extension of Fearless News (http://www.fearlessnews.com).

We began our series of investigations with the agency that’s been #1 on our fear-monger list since our project began. Greater than sixty-percent of Reuters news stories, on average, have a damaging effect on the reader.

Part 1: Establish Contact

We stopped over at Reuters.com to see how we might get in touch with one of our editors. To our amazement, they’re ‘contact us’ section includes a quite friendly statement about the accessibility of their editing staff, there’s even a tinge of compassion. This is a snapshot of what we saw:

But how truly accessible are the editors? Will they actually respond to an introductory email? To satisfy this part of our investigation, we need to get in touch, which means some sort of formal reply. On Monday, July 2nd of 2007, we emailed the following statement via the “Contact a Reuters Editor” link above.

Our message to Reuters

Greetings,

Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to this message.

I have two brief questions.

The first: What sort of value is a Reuters editor offering to society when they participate in publishing Reuters news?

The second: Is a significant degree of personal discretion afforded in the process of determining which news stories to publish or does a well-defined rubric established by Reuters play the primary role?

I once again thank you for your time.

Regards,

Sean
Fearless News

We received this after submitting our message, we’ll certainly be checking out that blog

Thank you for contacting Reuters Editors. Your comments have been passed on to our editorial team. We appreciate reader feedback, and all e-mails are read by a senior editor. Please note that due to the huge volume of e-mails sent to the Editors daily, we may be unable to provide a personal response. However, we take your compliments, comments and criticisms very seriously, and we invite you to see what some readers are thinking on our Reader Feedback Page at http://blogs.reuters.com/gbu.

More to follow

Our next post is to include the Reuters reply and our questions regarding specific articles Reuters has published. If we don receive any reply, we’ll post our subsequent attempts at establishing contact, which will include phone calls and more.

We’re fully committed to getting some answers.