Outlet profile

Reuters (via Investing.com / The Star)

international center (wire service)

Owned byThomson Reuters Corporation, majority-owned (~67%) by The Woodbridge Company Limited, the private holding company of the Thomson family of Canada

FundingPrimarily subscription-based revenue from financial data and professional-services products (over 80% recurring revenue); the news division is a small share of Thomson Reuters' total business; no state funding in the current era

On the administrationmostly neutral

Background

Reuters was founded in London in 1851 by Paul Julius Reuter, who initially used carrier pigeons and submarine telegraph cables to relay stock prices between European financial hubs. The agency grew over the following century into one of the world's primary international wire services, restructuring as a private company in 1941 before listing on the London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ in 1984. Declassified UK government documents released in 2019 confirmed that Britain's Foreign Office covertly funded Reuters in the 1960s and 1970s to support expansion into the Middle East — an episode the agency had not publicized. In 2008, Canada's Thomson Corporation completed a $17.6 billion merger with Reuters Group, creating Thomson Reuters Corporation; the Thomson family's Woodbridge Company retained a controlling stake of roughly two-thirds of voting shares. The combined company's revenue is overwhelmingly driven by subscription-based legal, tax, and financial data services, with the news division accounting for well under 10% of total revenue. Reuters editorial independence is formally protected by the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles and a Founders Share structure that grants an independent oversight company veto power over ownership changes that could compromise journalistic autonomy. Bias-monitoring organizations — including AllSides (Center), Media Bias/Fact Check (Least Biased, Very High factual), and Biasly (approximately −2%, Center) — consistently rate Reuters among the least politically slanted major English-language outlets.

Sources

Profile compiled 2026-07-05; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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