Bloomberg, Micklethwait ready new commentary and analysis service

John Micklethwait

Joe Pompeo of Capital New York profiles new Bloomberg editor in chief John Micklethwait and reports that Bloomberg is getting ready introduce a new platform for commentary and analysis that is expected to be endowed with substantial resources and manpower.

Pompeo reports, “Sources familiar with the project likened it to The Financial Times‘ Lex column, The Wall Street Journal‘s Heard on the Street and Reuters’ BreakingViews, and said it would be distinct from Bloomberg View, the company’s wide-ranging opinion site, in its tight focus on business and finance news. It’s being spearheaded by Bloomberg View publisher Tim O’Brien and editor David Shipley, who have been sniffing around the talent pools of outlets like the FT and the Journal.

“More generally, though, Micklethwait has been preaching the gospel of collaboration — the ‘advantage of our collective wisdom,’ as he put it in one of his weekly staff notes; ‘the advantage of being one editorial team,’ as he wrote in another.

“His arrival has coincided with a period of tumult at Bloomberg L.P., whose 73-year-old owner appears to be navigating two distinctly ambitious paths: To reap ever greater profits for the lucrative subscription service (The Terminal, in Bloomberg parlance) that makes the company more essential than air for stock market professionals the world over, and to enhance a suite of loss-leading media brands designed to make Bloomberg’s cachet soar ever higher among the world’s influencers and business elites.

“Bloomberg and his deputies would argue that the latter proposition supports the former—more influence among power brokers means more access to power brokers means more juice for the journalism that is a central element of the astronomically-priced Terminal subscriptions that are sold to power brokers.”