Review chronicles Bloomberg’s missteps

An outside review of Bloomberg LP’s data compliance and news reporting revealed that the financial data and news provider didn’t curtail reporters’ access to subscriber data two years ago, when concerns about the access first emerged, due to internal “misunderstandings,” reports William Laudner of The Wall Street Journal.

Laudner writes, “The review, by Promontory Financial Group and law firm Hogan Lovells, didn’t point to any evidence of widespread abuse of customer data by Bloomberg News. It concluded that ‘a number of journalists’ used subscriber data in the course of their reporting, such as for looking up contact information, but it identified only two occasions where subscriber information or other sensitive data was clearly reflected in stories.

“In one of those examples, journalists reported on the pricing of a mortgage backed security offering using data on Bloomberg’s financial terminals that wasn’t available to all subscribers, the report found. Bloomberg said the reporter and editor responsible for the story didn’t know the data wasn’t available to all users. In the other, in 2011, a Bloomberg television reporter revealed on-air that he had used subscriber information available to Bloomberg journalists to report on rogue UBS trader Kweku Adoboli.

“The report, which former IBM Chairman  Samuel Palmisano advised on, and a separate study about newsroom practices by Clark Hoyt, who is a Bloomberg editor and a former New York Times public editor, will be released to Bloomberg clients and the public on Wednesday morning. Both reports were reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

“The reports recommended a series of steps to improve company practices, which Bloomberg has agreed to adopt.

“These include that the firm hire a chief risk and compliance officer and the appointment of a standards editor, as well as the creation of separate editor and ‘task force’ positions that are independent of the newsroom and that will focus on issues like external complaints and best practices, Bloomberg said.  Bloomberg also agreed to institute third-party audits into data practices and to take steps to better separate the company’s commercial and news divisions.”

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