A sense of mistrust between Bloomberg and BusinessWeek

Marketwatch.com media columnist Jon Friedman writes Monday about the mistrust that still exists between Bloomberg and BusinessWeek staffers now that the former owns the latter.

Friedman writes, “Remember, BusinessWeek veterans don’t exactly have a reputation for opening their arms to a newcomer. These are the same wags who dubbed Steve Adler as ‘Steve Two’ not long after he succeeded their long-time boss Steve Shepard (or, ‘Steve One’) as the top editor of BusinessWeek several years ago.

“Pretty clever, eh?

“I’m sure they can find common ground eventually. For example, both sides have dubbed Bloomberg’s futuristic Lexington Avenue headquarters ‘The Death Star,’ a nod to ‘Star Wars.’ And each faction thinks the other’s writing style stinks, is turgid and deathly dull (some outsiders may say they’re both right on that point).

“Meanwhile, Bloomberg L.P. loyalists scoff that their ‘BusinessWeak’ colleagues don’t break news, take too long to crank out a story and engage in imprecise journalism. To top it off, they wonder darkly, if the verbose newcomers can adapt to ‘The Bloomberg Way,’ the newsroom style bible?”

Read more here.