Categories: OLD Media Moves

Bloomberg passes over woman in naming new editorial boss

Bloomberg LP passed over the woman — senior executive editor Laurie Hays — many inside and outside the company thought that would be the likely successor to editor in chief Matthew Winkler when it named a new editor earlier this week, writes Matthew Zeitlin of BuzzFeed.

Zeitlin writes, “Hays, who joined Bloomberg from the Wall Street Journal in 2008, was promoted to be one of six senior executive editors in 2013 under Winkler and has taken more and more of a leadership role in newsroom, former employees and people familiar with the company have said. At least internally, she was viewed as Winkler’s natural successor. ‘It’s discouraging,’ one Bloomberg staffer said about Hays not getting the top job. ‘I find it personally disheartening.’

“It can also be seen as a blow to the company’s efforts to promote diversity, particularly in its upper ranks. As the most senior woman in the newsroom, Hays had already taken on much of its day-to-day management, according to a person familiar with the company.

“One of her main initiatives has been building out a mergers and acquisition team, lead by former Journal reporter Jeffrey McCracken. Since McCracken came on in 2010, Bloomberg News has been churning out M&A scoops that hit the marks for a great Bloomberg story — exclusive and market-moving.”

“Hays hired high-profile editors and writers like Pulitzer Prize winners Daniel Golden and Jonathan Kaufman, who oversaw some of Bloomberg’s enterprise and investigative reporting that made a big impact outside the company’s core group of terminal subscribers. ‘She was instrumental in really modernizing the newsroom,’ the person familiar with Bloomberg said.”

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Former Bloomberg-er says:
December 11, 2014 at 2:31 pm
Or perhaps just a sign that the company thought new leadership and talent was required to deliver their mission of being the most influential source of reporting on business and finance. The Economist has succeeded in that respect of its influence extending far beyond its actual readership, so Micklethwait is an inspired choice.