Greece Lightning

Reuters again dominated news agency rivals with its Greek coverage, this time over suggestions that it might get longer to repay its EU/IMF loans. Greece’s finance minister, following up on helpful noises from the IMF, said on local television late on Monday Oct. 11 that Athens was discussing prolonging the repayment period for its 110 billion euro EU/IMF bailout deal. Reuters was well ahead of the game, getting the recorded transcript more than three hours before the TV show was aired. As a result, the Reuters report was widely picked up by Greek media; and our traditional rivals had to play catch-up. Greek bond spreads dived in last week on the back of this story despite German and European Commission attempts to pour cold water on it