Reuters
Paul Julius Reuter
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Paul Julius Reuter began in 1850 with forty-five pigeons ferrying stock prices between Aachen and Brussels, bridging a gap in the telegraph lines. A year later he moved to London and founded Reuter's Telegram Company, using the new Dover–Calais submarine cable to flash continental news to the City's banks and newspapers. Speed was the product.
Reuter's genius was organization as much as technology. He built a network of correspondents and exclusive contracts — his men famously scooped Europe with the news of Lincoln's assassination in 1865 — and sold the same dispatch to many papers at once. News stopped being something each paper gathered alone and became a shared utility.
The agency's dispatches rode every new wire: the transatlantic cable, the colonial cables, the telegraph web girdling the globe. Reuters grew into one of the world's great news organizations, and its financial data business became the ancestor of the market-data terminal.
Frequently asked
How did Reuters start?
With 45 pigeons: in 1850 Paul Julius Reuter used them to ferry stock prices between Aachen and Brussels, bridging a gap in the telegraph lines — then moved to London in 1851 to found his telegram company.
What made Reuters different from newspapers?
He sold the same dispatch to many papers at once, turning news from something each paper gathered alone into a shared utility — the wire-service model.
Is Reuters still around?
Yes — it grew into one of the world's great news agencies, and its financial data business became the ancestor of the modern market-data terminal.
Why it matters today
The 24-hour news cycle, the wire-service alert on your phone, and the market-data terminal all descend from Reuter's 1851 gamble that speed itself was the product.
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