Bloomberg grapples with covering Bloomberg

Michael Bloomberg

Bloomberg Politics is struggling with how to cover owner Michael Bloomberg, who was interviewed by the Financial Times on Monday and disclosed he is interested in running for president, writes Erik Wemple of The Washington Post.

Wemple writes, “Any news related to Michael Bloomberg puts Bloomberg News/Bloomberg Politics in a bind. As the Huffington Post’s Michael Calderone noted last month, the company bars reporting on the man’s ‘personal life and wealth.‘ Bloomberg Politics, accordingly, treats big news on the boss with a quick-and-dirty aggregational treatment. In response to the New York Times piece, for example, Bloomberg Politics whipped up several tight bullet points and published another item on comments from his pollster.

“Not good enough for Washington news director Kathy Kiely, who quit over the restrictions. ‘I did not feel we could cover the Bloomberg trial balloon in the aggressive way I thought it deserved,’ Kiely told Calderone.

“Maybe things are changing a touch. Whereas the piece following up the New York Times scoop shows no evidence that Bloomberg Politics checked with Michael Bloomberg for comment, a story today
on the Republican race from Bloomberg Politics contains this tell-tale sentence: ‘A representative for the former mayor, Marc La Vorgna, declined to comment.'”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.