Fallows: Time for Bloomberg to answer questions about China

James Fallows of The Atlantic writes Thursday that Bloomberg News needs to begin answering the questions surrounding its decision to scuttle controversial stories in China.

Fallows writes, “Here is the problem Bloomberg is creating for itself by refusing to engage discussion of this issue. The company is full of first-rate reporters and editors, including a lot of people who are my long-term friends. It is one of the great news organizations of the era. In China as everywhere else it has very good people doing very good work.

“But: over a long period now, named individuals have made specific and very serious allegations about the organization’s trustworthiness on a crucially important ongoing story of these times. Think for a moment of any other institution facing comparably specific questions about its decisions and values: a politician about conflicts of interest, a company about product recalls, a university about handling controversies about athletics or sexual assault, a tech company about protecting privacy or handling government pressures. In any of these situations, Bloomberg’s tough reporters would be among the first pushing for specific answers, beyond “no comment” or “our work speaks for itself.”

“It is past time for someone senior at Bloomberg—the former Mayor himself, editor-in-chief Winkley, chairman Peter Grauer, or anyone else in a position to speak for the firm—to do what Bloomberg reporters would expect of other institutions, and accept questions and give answers about the allegations that have mounted up.”

Read more here.