Why no scoops in BusinessWeek?

Former BusinessWeek staff writer Gary Weiss has problems with a statement by a Bloomberg executive in Monday’s New York Times that says that all breaking news will appear on the Bloomberg wire first, not in the weekly magazine it recently acquired.

Weiss writes, “As far back as the 1990s, BW used to run certain time-sensitive, competitive articles online — not on the Internet but on America Online, which used to carry BW exclusively back then — a few hours before they ran in the magazine. However, this was done sparingly, for the simple reason that it eroded BW’s franchise as a news magazine.

“Indeed, one of the ‘ten commandments’ of the former BW editor Steve Shepard was that BW breaks news. This was essential, for it was believed that otherwise BW would not be worth reading.

“If a scoop runs in Bloomberg first, it is no different from any BW competitor getting to a story first.

“I have no idea if there are any exceptions to the no-scoop rule, such as major investigations by the BW staff. What I do know is that a weekly news magazine that doesn’t consistently break news is not going to be of much value to either readers or advertisers, no matter how many pages are run or how pretty it may be.”

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