A new job, the same mission
On September 1, I will take up the position of Head of Communications at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. This is what I plan to do and how you can help
Paul Julius Reuter arrived in Aachen with his wife Clementina at the end of 1849. After failing in a few ventures, he had spotted a business opportunity: a 76-mile gap in the telegraph line between Paris and Berlin. Bridging this gap between Aachen and Brussels required what we would call today a venture capitalist. A local brewer named Heinrich Geller lent Reuter some money and provided him with dozens of carrier pigeons. Those pigeons gave Reuter a competitive edge. As they travelled much faster than the 10-hour train between Brussels and Aachen, they could convey accurate stock and commodity prices to anyone willing to pay for them.
Two newspapers from Cologne and Brussels were probably Reuter’s first subscribers. Many others would follow. As John Entwisle explains in this piece, none of this would have been possible without Clementina, who worked as an unpaid, full-time assistant of her husband. “Even a simple pigeon operation needed two people; someone to run the office while the other went frequently to the telegraph office, to the railway station, to see subscribers and so on. (…) The…
