Inside the Cold War newsroom: My interview with Marcus Ferrar
Over the past few years, I’ve had many long conversations with Marcus Ferrar about what’s happening in the world, and I’ve always come away inspired by his perspective. That made me want to explore his own story in this interview. Marcus worked for 34 years at Reuters, first as a correspondent and later in management. He was the sole Western reporter in East Berlin, covered Prague after the Soviet invasion, and witnessed Portugal’s revolution in the 1970s. These days, he chairs the Dresden Trust and writes books. His latest, Wrong War?, came out in 2025.
This newsletter contains approximately 3,200 words, which should take you around 15 minutes to read.
Interview highlights:
“Reuters advised its reporters: keep it tight. Write a great story everyone wants to read, with all the important facts, but don’t go on too long.”
“At lunchtime, the news slowed down because everyone went to Mrs Moon’s, a notorious Fleet Street pub in a basement.”
“The first rule when you went out on a big story wasn’t to find sources, but to verify your communications. If you couldn’t send your story back to London, it didn’t matter what you’d discovered.”
“After the Berlin Wall fell, they found 35 microphones hidden in the walls of our flat and office.”
“I don’t want just to consume news — I want to live.”
What first drew you to journalism? Who or what inspired you to choose this profession?
I wasn’t really thinking about journalism, but I was attracted to Reuters as an international news agency and thought that my degree in modern languages could be useful. I studied French and German, and my German in particular was fluent because my mother was German. I think that may well have been why Reuters chose me as a trainee. This was the Cold War, and Germany was at its centre.
Did you think of other career paths, or did you already know you wanted to be a foreign correspondent?
No, I also thought of going into publishing. I even had an interview with a publisher — and three weeks later, he dropped dead. So I didn’t pursue that career. Perhaps that was fortunate, as I feel I was really lucky to have worked for Reuters. It was also a time when they were making money, particularly from financial services, so they had resources to spend on good news reporting.
How did you land your first job at Reuters?
In 1967, I applied for the trainee scheme. There were several hundred applicants, and they ultimately selected only 12 of us. So, I started as a trainee, working on the economic desk. After a while, I asked to move to general news, and they agreed.
Then they sent me, after several months of training in London, to the Paris newsroom. There I was, still a trainee, but much more independent. If I managed, they’d leave me on my own late in the evening. I had to do everything myself. That’s how I really learned to be a journalist.
What skills or qualities helped you stand out early in your career?
First of all, curiosity — wanting to know what’s going on and to understand the background. I had that from the beginning. Then I realised I had a natural skill for writing. I could manage the routines of journalism: the first sentence has to carry the most important facts, ideally under 32 words. Then you build up with the next sentences.
Above all, Reuters advised its reporters: keep it tight. Write a great story everyone wants to read, with all the important facts, but don’t go on too long. Their teleprinter circuits were slow and had limited capacity. They were sending news all over the world, so long stories weren’t practical.
What did Reuters’ newsroom look like in the 1960s and 70s? What was it like to be inside?
Well, in those days it was in Fleet Street, at the heart of the newspaper district. Now there are no newspapers there, and Reuters moved to Canary Wharf in 2005. But the building is still there — by the way, it was designed by Edwin Lutyens, the same architect who built the Cenotaph in Whitehall.
Inside, there were two floors: one for economic reporting, and above that, a general news section. It was a huge, open-plan newsroom that had been there since before the Second World War. At the time, open-plan was very modern — you could hear and see what was going on.
In the middle sat the copy taster, who looked at everything coming in and passed it to the sub-editors, telling them to cut it down, sharpen it, make it smarter. They’d rewrite on typewriters, and then a copy editor would check their work, often saying, “I’m not entirely satisfied with this,” and sending it back. You’d do it again, then hand it over to the telegraphists, who punched telex tape to send out on the wires at 50 baud, or 66 words per minute — really, really slow.
There were strict union lines. Journalists like me joined the National Union of Journalists; telegraphists were in their own union. Their area was fenced off — if you set foot in it, they’d immediately go on strike. So yes, quite a militant union atmosphere. I wasn’t interested in that side, but it was part of the culture.
It was also a good place to learn. The “old hands” — many of them former correspondents — spotted every mistake. Reuters drilled into us: above all, you must be accurate. And second, you must be first. The subs acted as a safety net for correspondents in the field, who might panic when events moved too quickly. It was reassuring to know they were there.
And, of course, they enjoyed drinking. At lunchtime, the news slowed down because everyone went to Mrs Moon’s, a notorious Fleet Street pub in a basement. There were unwritten rules: if she didn’t like you, she’d throw you out. So you had to behave according to her rules.
Speaking of drinking culture, how diverse was the newsroom? Was it still a boys’ club?
You bet it was. Reuters only sent men out as correspondents. Maybe one token woman worked on a commodities desk, or perhaps on the French desk — I think there were one or two women. But on the Asia desk, North American desk, European desk — all men. It was very male-oriented. Now, of course, it’s completely changed, as you’d expect.
You mentioned old hands. Who were your mentors at Reuters, and what did you learn from them?
Mostly the sub-editors who’d been there some time. As a trainee, you’d be sent to a desk with three or four subs, and they’d take turns helping and coaching you. They took the time.
They didn’t come from privileged backgrounds — many were from the East End of London or had worked at provincial papers. Often, no university degree at all. It would have been easy for them to look down on us graduates and treat us badly, but they didn’t. If you were receptive, they shared their experience generously. You got real wisdom very quickly.
Today, journalists can’t imagine working without emails or smartphones. How did you gather, verify, and send news in the late 1960s?
It was much more rudimentary. Sometimes there were telephones, but often there was nothing. So the first rule when you went out on a big story wasn’t to find sources, but to verify your communications. If you couldn’t send your story back to London, it didn’t matter what you’d discovered.
In Africa, for example, you sometimes gave your copy to a runner who might carry it 50 miles to another office — perhaps a UN office — where it would be sent on by very slow telegraph. It could take a day or two, but it would get through. Sometimes you were really alone with the story.
Being skilled at managing difficult communications was one of the main skills you learned as an agency journalist. In East Berlin, Reuters had the only Western office actually inside the city. If you wanted to send a story, you made a telex tape, then ran it through. It went first to the East German news agency ADN, which was friendly and cooperative. From there, it went to Reuters in Bonn, then on to London. Tok, tok, tok, like that. It was slow, but still better than what other Western journalists had, since many had virtually no communications until they returned to West Berlin.
Was it harder to fact-check news without the Internet or Wikipedia? What methods did you use?
You had to focus only on facts and be very sceptical of what people told you. Don’t trust too much. One of the old hands in London once said to me, “Marcus, when you go abroad as a correspondent, don’t trust what you read in the newspapers.” That stuck with me — always check and check again.
Of course, sometimes you couldn’t check endlessly. You had to balance caution with speed. When I was covering the Portuguese Revolution, there was chaos and no clear authority. One evening, a member of our staff told me something important was happening. I asked how he knew. He said he’d heard it from a member of the revolutionary committee, a soldier he’d fought alongside in Guinea-Bissau. I decided to trust him. I wrote the story, and it turned out fine. If you were too careful, you often found yourself behind.
We live in a 24-hour news cycle now. How were deadlines and pressures different then?
In Reuters, it was always 24 hours. News never stopped — through the night it kept moving, from America, Asia, everywhere. If something happened in the middle of the night, you had to get up and cover it.
My predecessor in East Berlin in 1961 had just that experience. There were rumours that the Communists would build a wall, but nothing had happened yet. On a Thursday, a senior Party member gave him a quiet warning: “If I were you, I wouldn’t take any trips outside Berlin this weekend.”
For two days, he filed stories saying, “Berlin is tense, rumours of a wall,” but London got impatient — “You’ve said this for 24 hours, nothing’s happened, tone it down.” He insisted something was coming. Sure enough, at 10.30 on Saturday night, he got an anonymous phone call: “Go to the border now.” He drove there in five minutes and saw them putting up the first barriers.
He rushed back, used our East Berlin communications, and sent out the news flash. Reuters was the first to report on the construction of the Berlin Wall. That’s what it was like — you had to be alert day and night.
When you were sent to East Berlin as a correspondent in 1971, what went through your mind when you got that assignment?
I was grateful Reuters gave it to me so young — I was only 27 or 28. I thought it would be exciting. I’d been well briefed by others who had worked there, and my predecessor gave me a good handover. We also had an assistant in the office, so it was a relatively stable setup. I wasn’t entirely on my own, but I knew it would be a challenge.
It was difficult in some ways. I spoke German, but the German in East Germany was more old-fashioned than what I’d picked up from my West German relatives, which was more modern, even Americanised. In East Berlin, they used older words — not “Telex” but Fernschreiber, for example. Sometimes it was a struggle to understand.
I also knew it would be hard to talk to people. I was the “capitalist enemy.” They didn’t mind me being there, but I wasn’t a friend, not someone to confide in. Officials kept me at a distance. And ordinary East Berliners were afraid of the Stasi. The secret police knew everything we did. After the Wall fell, they found 35 microphones hidden in the walls of our flat and office.
If I tried to talk to people, the Stasi would threaten them later: “You’ve got a good scientific job, but maybe next time you’ll be sweeping the railway station. You’ve got two sons? We know about them. Maybe they won’t get into university.” Sometimes it was worse — arrests, secret courts, long prison sentences. Some died there.
It was therefore difficult to get people to talk. Once, during détente, an agreement was reached between the two German states. One November evening, about half past seven, I decided to do a Vox Pop. I walked up and down a rainy street. Everyone recognised me as a Westerner and walked on. Finally, one man stopped. I asked what he thought of the agreement. He said: “Now, man can fly to the moon, but I still can’t go to West Berlin.” That was it. That was what I wanted to hear. Then he walked off into the night. I never knew who he was, but I admired his bravery.
Can you recall a moment when reporting from East Berlin felt risky or even dangerous?
Not for me, no. I never felt it was a danger to me personally. I sensed authorities wanted me to be there. Sometimes I crossed to West Berlin through Checkpoint Charlie. It was complicated, but I had a special pass that made it easier. I got to know the guards — jackboots, Tommy guns — and we’d chat about East German football results. There was no point in being unpleasant to them; they weren’t unpleasant to me either. I think they respected that I chose to live among them, even though I didn’t have to.
But these were the same guards who shot people trying to flee. During my year in East Berlin, six people were killed on the frontier. So they weren’t really “friendly” people — nice enough in person, but lethal on duty.
How did you maintain objectivity in such a politically charged environment?
You took a critical view. If you read the newspapers, you’d see what the regime wanted to say, but then you’d check through your own sources how much of it was true — most of it wasn’t. It was opinion and propaganda, but it told you what the regime was thinking.
I was never tempted to side with the communists. I saw it as a fake system, a fake society, a fake politics — and a nasty one. The whole Cold War was a Russian empire. They didn’t ask, “Do you want socialism?” They imposed Marxism-Leninism with an iron fist: you obey, or else.
You could also see the economic reality. Living standards were held back by central planning. Goods were inferior — trams, cars, everything. But they kept trading the rubbish around Comecon, and no one could complain. Still, everyone had jobs because you had to. When the Wall came down, that disappeared.
I also looked for positive aspects in those societies. In East Germany, women could work. In West Germany at the time, it was frowned upon — women were expected to stay home. In the East, workplaces offered daycare for infants, making it easier for women to balance having children and careers. After communism ended, that system disappeared, and East Germans often said they missed it.
After you moved from reporting to managing, was there ever a moment when you missed working in the field?
Of course. I liked being in management — I didn’t want to spend my whole life reporting what others were doing. I wanted to do something myself. In management, I worked with media partners, met interesting people, and I enjoyed that.
But the one time I really felt it was when the Berlin Wall came down. I watched it live on television — the East Berliners who had once been afraid to talk to me were now challenging the police, pushing up the barriers. You could see the whole regime collapsing in front of you. That was when I thought: oh gosh, I’m not there. The adrenaline came back. Everyone who was there says it was the defining moment of their professional lives.
What do you think could be the next moment like that — the fall of the Berlin Wall — in the next 10 or 20 years?
Good question. And the truth is: I don’t know. None of us foresaw the Wall coming down. All through my time in Eastern Europe, I tried to anticipate Soviet intentions. I thought liberalisation might come through Germany, maybe Hungary. It never occurred to me that Mikhail Gorbachev would be the one to undo the system.
The key was when he told Eastern European leaders he wouldn’t send in Soviet troops to save them. Once Soviet power was withdrawn, everything collapsed. Did I see it coming? Not at all. So I think the next big change will also be something unexpected.
Could it be the end of the Ukraine war? Maybe when Putin is replaced — he must be eventually. But how? We don’t know. What about America? Nobody foresaw Donald Trump — certainly not the second time. And what does his rise mean for America’s role in the world? Hard to say.
I tend to be an optimist. I don’t believe in disaster scenarios, not even with climate change. It’s a huge challenge, yes, but also a positive one — humanity must rise to it. The same goes for politics: things will be complicated, sometimes bad, sometimes good, but not the end of the world.
Based on your experience, what advice would you give to journalists today?
The same advice I was given: be sceptical about everything you hear. There’s a lot of bad journalism — sometimes deliberately slanted for political reasons. That’s fine if you know the outlet’s bias, but don’t take it at face value. The important thing is to digest it all, then form your own view. We’re privileged to have access to high-quality inputs — but you must still think for yourself.
And finally, has modern reporting lost or gained something compared to the past?
It’s lost something. There’s an oversupply of news. People are often overwhelmed by the sheer volume. In Reuters’ day, they were more discriminating. Many stories got spiked — literally spiked on the copy taster’s desk if they weren’t strong enough.
That doesn’t happen now. Anyone can be a reporter, and anyone can set up a news site. Some are good, many not. The result is fatigue: too much news, all the time. I don’t watch TV news as much anymore. It’s just overwhelming.
Yes, we’ve all become news junkies — but we’ve also got news fatigue.
Exactly. And at some point, you think: I’ve got other things to do in life. I don’t want just to consume news — I want to live.
And that’s it for today! Thanks for reading! If you enjoy the newsletter, share it with a friend. And if you really enjoyed it, consider upgrading to a paid subscription: it helps support my work and means a lot.
Elia Kabanov is a science writer covering the past, present and future of technology (@metkere)
Cover art: Elia Kabanov feat. DALL-E.