Bloomberg View has failed to spark debate

Laura Bennett of The New Republic writes about Bloomberg View, the commentary arm of Bloomberg L.P.

Bennett writes, “But nearly three years into its existence, despite its lofty mission and its gallery of bigwigs, View has largely failed to spark debate among the cultural elite or usurp the clout of The New York Times’ op-ed page. What Bloomberg View has become, however, is a reflection of just how incompatible its founder’s ideas about influence are with the rest of the world’s.

“From the beginning, Bloomberg devised his opinion website as if it were the Davos of dinner parties. He approached a handful of prominent journalists he deemed like-minded intellectuals and made them offers too eye-popping to refuse. For on-site staffers there were ritzy amenities, such as the townhouse’s wireless-equipped rooftop Japanese garden. One former columnist based out of town had travel and accommodations written into his contract, which ended up including stays at five-star Manhattan hotels. Another was told off the bat that he’d be making ‘six figures, the first of which will be a two’ with no specifications for weekly output. And for particularly big-name contributors, the numbers are even more boggling. Michael Lewis makes around $8,000 per 1,200-word column.

“Bloomberg also hired two executive editors for close to half a million dollars each: David Shipley, the widely respected op-ed page editor at the Times, and Jamie Rubin, a former assistant secretary of state under President Clinton. Their styles could hardly have been more different. Rubin, married to Christiane Amanpour, is a big personality and a smooth talker. Shipley is mild-mannered and discreet. After ten months, Rubin was fired, which came as no surprise to him. ‘I had wanted to be part of something new, more like a centrist think tank than yet another opinion website with a limited readership,’ Rubin said.

“For columnists, however, the limited readership was offset by the sense that they were being read in the highest corridors of power. One former columnist walked into the townhouse dining hall one morning to find the mayor on his cell phone, reading aloud from a Bloomberg View editorial about Greg Smith, the former Goldman Sachs executive who resigned via Times op-ed. Asked who was on the other end of the call, the mayor replied: ‘Lloyd Blankfein.'”

Read more here. It’s interesting to note that Bloomberg View has 2.81 million unique views in recent months, up 66 percent from the 1.69 million unique views it had this time a year ago. That would suggest that its audience is growing.