Britain's great press associationReuters, with 2,000 correspondents and an annual budget of approximately £6,000,000long the most reliable news service outside the U.S., last week acquired a new group of owners and the change stirred debate in the House of Commons.
The debate concerned the sale of 50% of Reuters shares to the Newspaper Proprietors' Assn., i.e., the big London publishers. Since 1925 all Reuters stock has been held by a cooperative of provincial papers calling themselves the Press Association; before that 60% was owned by Sir Roderick Jones, who sold out to...