Categories: OLD Media Moves

Harper’s publisher doubts Bloomberg’s honesty and courage

John MacArthur, the publisher of Harper’s Magazine, writes for the Providence Journal about the issues surrounding Bloomberg News.

MacArthur writes, “His Bloomberg News service seems for the most part to be reliable, though its recent decision not to publish two stories that would have angered the Chinese government makes me doubt the company’s honesty and courage.

“What I don’t doubt is that Bloomberg’s original financial-data business — the Bloomberg Terminal — places him in a serious, permanent conflict of interest with his news-gathering operations, which include television, radio and magazines.

“When the scandal erupted last May about Bloomberg reporters tapping into Bloomberg Terminals leased by Wall Street firms to track their usage — in order to get a jump on the competition at the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal and elsewhere — my first thought was about Murdoch and his domestic servants, Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks.

“How was terminal tapping at upscale Bloomberg News any less unethical than phone hacking at downscale News of the World? Why was Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief Matthew Winkler’s assurance that such dodgy snooping by his journalists would never be repeated allowed to pass, while Murdoch’s former employees stand trial and the British press potentially faces unprecedented regulation in the form of government licensing?

“In the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations, can we really believe that none of Bloomberg’s 2,400 editorial employees will have further access to anything on the Bloomberg ‘professional service’ terminals?”

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Former Bloomberg-er says:
November 15, 2013 at 3:15 pm
I suspect the story was withheld because the reporter needed more evidence and/or would expose the company to a libel risk. As they've said, the story was not spiked in its entirety, and the company has previously published stories that upset Chinese government officials.
As for the difference between Bloomberg and News Corp., the latter's employees allegedly broke the law to obtain private communication, while the former didn't break a law and did not have access to private communication, only limited data such as a client's last login date. The latter should not have happened, but comparing it to News Corp is a false equivalency.