Michael Grynbaum of The New York Times examines how Bloomberg News is struggling to cover news about its majority owner and Democratic Party candidate for president.
Grynbaum writes, “Bloomberg News’s campaign reporters operate separately from the news outlet’s Projects and Investigations team. But the memo was widely perceived as a signal that Bloomberg News would cease accountability coverage of the Democratic field, even as Bloomberg executives called that a misunderstanding.
“Mr. Micklethwait told reporters at the December town hall that Bloomberg News management had not prevented any political story from being published. ‘If you look at what we’re doing and the pieces we’re writing, any doubt that we’re reporting this aggressively disappears,’ he said.
“Political reporters at Bloomberg News, however, say the memo left them vulnerable to undue criticism from readers and campaign aides. And they express frustration that it suggested a level of internal censorship that they say is not reflective of their experience.
“In December, the outlet published an article noting that Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren had criticized Amazon while paying the company for services. It was a run-of-the-mill story by the standards of a presidential race, where minor hypocrisies are fair game for journalists. But the candidates and their allies seized on the story to accuse Bloomberg News of bias.”
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