Explaining government to the business world

James Rainey of the Los Angeles Times writes Saturday about Bloomberg Government, the website service launched at the beginning of the year by Bloomberg News to cover the intersection between business and government.

Rainey writes, “Workers for the website include not just veteran reporters but academics and policy analysts. The BGov team intends to be first not only to report minutiae — who got a subcommittee appointment on the Hill — but also to post ‘deep dives’ and analysis that explain government to the business world.

“Customers pay $5,700 a year for access to a trove of information — campaign contributions breakdowns, analysis of federal contracting, directories of agency and congressional staff members and a granular parsing of legislation and regulations.

“The expansion continues a trend of recent years in Washington: While general-interest news organizations cut reporters in the face of shrinking ad revenue, outlets aimed at a specialty clientele expand. The niche outlets rely almost entirely on subscriptions, not ads.

“A whirlwind visit to the dual Bloomberg newsroom this week left me with conflicting symptoms: heart lightened in the presence of so many journalists making a good living, head spinning at the revenue potential, stomach churning at the notion of so much journalistic firepower directed at so few.”

Read more here.