Bloomberg takes disciplinary action over Gershkovich embargo break

Bloomberg editor in chief John Micklethwait sent out the following:

Last Thursday, we prematurely published a story on the release of Evan Gershkovich and the other prisoners, which could have endangered the negotiated swap that set them free. Even if our story mercifully ended up making no difference, it was a clear violation of the editorial standards which have made this newsroom so trusted around the world.

Following a full investigation over the past few days by our Standards editor, we have today taken disciplinary action against a number of those involved, and we will be reviewing our process to ensure that failures like this don’t happen again. I have also written personally to apologize to each of the prisoners (and we are in the process of deliving those letters). I apologized immediately to Emma Tucker; given the Wall Street Journal’s tireless efforts on their reporter’s behalf, this was clearly their story to lead the way on.

We publish thousands of stories every day, many of which break news. We take accuracy very seriously. But we also have a responsibility to do the right thing. In this case, we didn’t.