Bloomberg’s Winkler talks about news service founding

“Full Disclosure” host Roben Farzad interviewed Bloomberg News editor in chief emeritus Matthew Winkler about how the news service was founded 30 years ago.

“I really loved everything that I was doing,” said Winkler about working for The Wall Street Journal, where he wrote a story about Michael Bloomberg and his new terminal, which provided bond prices.

“It came as a surprise to me that a year and three months after our story had run, he called me,” said Winkler. “…And he said, ‘Seriously, I need some advice. What would it take to get into the news business?'”

Bloomberg came to the conclusion, Winkler said, that the more terminals he had installed, the more he would have to pay for the news services that were available on his systems. Winkler said he saw that people interested in the markets were hooked on the data that Bloomberg was providing. “The prevailing view was that I was nuts” to leave The Journal, said Winkler.

“Once I got to Bloomberg, within a few months Dow Jones said it would no longer do business with Bloomberg because it didn’t believe in doing business with a competitor, which was extraordinary because we hadn’t done anything yet,” said Winkler.

Today, Bloomberg has 2,700 journalists across 120 countries.

To listen, go here.