Reuters keeps lead on Stanford fraud saga

Reuters was first to report that two Stanford Financial executives had ties to the regulator FINRA, a watchdog group aimed at preventing abuses. Reuters also broke the news that FINRA had removed the executives from their posts after news of SEC charges against Stanford broke last week. Unsighted on Bloomberg, and Dow picked up the Reuters story. Reuters obtained letters asking that the two main fundraising arms for the Democratic and Republican parties return more than $1 million in donations from Stanford. Bloomberg followed the Reuters story with a story four hours later. Dow had a story on its wire the next day, as did the Wall Street Journal. Reuters beat all rivals by days in detailing the financial limbo facing Stanford brokerage clients whose assets have been frozen. Reuters had the first investor to file a motion to try and unfreeze his $50,000 brokerage account six days before the Wall Street Journal featured him in a similar story.