Categories: OLD Media Moves

NYPost: Bloomberg CEO frustrated he can’t hold editor accountable

Bloomberg LP CEO Dan Doctoroff has privately expressed frustration with founding Editor-in-Chief Matt Winkler’s Teflon status in the fallout from the company’s spying scandal, reports Mark DeCambre of the New York Post.

DeCambre writes, “A source said while Doctoroff has made his feelings known to some clients and colleagues, he has also indicated his hands are tied ‘right now’ when it comes to holding Winkler’s feet to the fire for the damaging data breach.

“Winkler — who wrote the company’s ethics and style handbook, ‘The Bloomberg Way’ — has admitted that Bloomberg reporters on his watch used the company’s ubiquitous terminals to gain access to proprietary information about clients, such as when they logged on and what functions they used.

“As the Spygate scandal enters its fourth week, Mayor Bloomberg had thought the problems of the terminal excesses had been settled a long time ago, according to sources.

“Sources present at a recent discussion with Doctoroff said he indicated that he wanted to hold Winkler more accountable for the offending practices but believed that his options were limited because of internal politics and long-held allegiances.

“Winkler maintains close ties with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who tapped the then-Wall Street Journal reporter nearly three decades ago to build out the company’s bare-bones news operation. Bloomberg is now one of the largest news organizations in the world, with 2,400 reporters and editors.

“A spokesman for Bloomberg said any suggestion that Doctoroff is frustrated with Winkler is ‘simply untrue.'”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.