Bohan, executive director of Reuters America, leaves after 35 years

Peter Bohan, executive director of the Reuters America news service, has left the company after 35 years.

Here is his farewell email:

Friends and comrades

Thirty-five years is a nice round number — so off I go from January 1.

There are far too many of you to thank individually for your work, lessons and fellowship. So let me thank you one and all most sincerely for your endless time, energy and pursuit of excellence. I was blessed with many good managers – among them Phil Wardle, Tony Perry, Janie Gabbett, David Schlesinger, Bernd Debusmann, Betty Wong, Paul Holmes, Steve Hays, Brian Rhoads, Anita Tobias and Brett Curtis. Good listeners and enablers all — I tried to follow their lead and do both.

As we know, these are troubling times for the news business. But anyone who’s read through Donald Read’s history of Reuters, or leafed through the book of honor enshrining our heroes at the DC bureau, knows that we’ve seen tougher days. The assault on News will turn because the world needs facts – our stock in trade. And it is great to see that even now the world still looks at Reuters as we look at ourselves, as the well-known graphic here from Vanessa Otero illustrates.

Reuters is a beacon because we are a bedrock of facts. So I can only leave you with a couple of nuggets from early in my Reuters career: 1, “Your mother says she loves you? Check it out!” (City News Chicago, 1983), and 2, “Source every word!” (Ian Macdowall, 1986). Oh, and of course: “Never be first with the wrong news.”

So that, lads and lassies (as Ian would say), is a wrap.

Best wishes to you all for happy, healthy and prosperous years in 2019 and beyond.

Peter