Michael Bloomberg
Huelsen and Stark write, “An anecdote from the awarding of this year’s Pulitzer Prizes illustrates what little regard Michael Bloomberg holds for that which many of his journalists consider to be sacrosanct. In April, Bloomberg News became the recipient of America’s top journalism prize for the first time in the company’s history. Journalist Zachary Mider had won the award for his reporting on loopholes that enable US companies to systematically dodge taxes.
“The afternoon news broke of the prize, Mider stood together with colleagues in the newsroom on the fifth-floor of the Lexington Avenue offices. Colleagues gathered spontaneously and gave the reporter a champagne toast. The only person who didn’t seem to be in a cheerful mood was Bloomberg himself. One person present asked Bloomberg what it felt like to win the Pulitzer for the first time. Bloomberg reportedly answered that he had the impression that it is ‘apparently important to worry about these types of things.’
“Neither Bloomberg, Grauer nor Micklethwait attended the gala dinner at Columbia University, which administers the prize. And when a group of employees celebrated the award at the tony Spotted Pig restaurant in New York’s West Village, Bloomberg was also a no-show. Officially, Bloomberg himself does not want to comment, but his people say that he doesn’t go to gala dinners like the one at Columbia out of principle and that the party at the Spotted Pig had been an internal event for the reporting team. Mike and his firm, however, are ‘extremely proud of the Pulitzer win and we aim to win more,’ a Bloomberg representative says.
“‘It makes me sad to see what has happened to Bloomberg in the past year,’ says former culture editor Jeremy Gerard. He says that Bloomberg’s new direction has had ‘a damaging effect on the journalism.’ Another former section editor says that, increasingly, Bloomberg is moving away from the idea of journalism as a public service. ‘Bloomberg’s aspiration is shrinking back to what it used to be: a newsletter for bankers.'”
Read more here.
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you hit the only new thing in the spiegel piece. little did i know, though, that i worked for BB during a period of blossoming journalism! when i was only allowed to begin stories one way: with the name of a company being covered. true story. As for content designed to make bankers money, that would have required top editors who knew how. Their idea of judging reporters' financial analysis skills -- kid you not -- was to track how many times they accessed a specific Bloomberg data function called "FA" that displayed commodity info like balance sheets that was in SEC filings. If you read the filings themselves, you got marked down. K. Snyder, whose resignation you mention today, was among the worst offenders and as financially illiterate as any editor I ever met.