This story dovetails with what you said... - Bloomberg news service under Posted: Nov 26th, 2019 - 2:06 pm In Reply to: Today the "press" is owned by corporations. Billionaire - Jeff Bezos bought WaPo, billionaire
fire for ban on investigating owner
After Michael Bloomberg confirmed his run for president on Sunday, the news service that bears his name said it would not “investigate” the billionaire or any of his Democratic rivals.
A former editor of his Bloomberg Businessweek title branded the decision “staggering” and said journalists at Bloomberg News “deserve a hell of a lot better than this”.
The editor-in-chief, John Micklethwait, announced the new rules in a note to 2,700 journalists and analysts.
“There is no point in trying to claim that covering this presidential campaign will be easy for a newsroom that has built up its reputation for independence in part by not writing about ourselves,” Micklethwait wrote.
Bloomberg started his news service in 1990 to complement the financial information he sold to customers. It operates a TV and radio network and the business magazine.
Micklethwait said reporters would still cover polls, policies and how the Bloomberg campaign is faring. But they will not do investigative stories on Bloomberg or any other Democratic contender. It will continue to investigate the Trump administration.
If other credible organizations do investigative stories on Bloomberg or other Democrats, the news service will summarize or publish them in full, Micklethwait said. Bloomberg News “has handled these conflicts before – and proved our independence”, he added.
The announcement prompted criticism from some former Bloomberg journalists. When Bloomberg was considering a candidacy in 2016, politics news director Kathy Kiely resigned, saying she did not feel she could do her job without covering him aggressively.
Kiely said the new rules “relegate his political writers to stenography journalism … it’s not satisfying for journalists and it’s not satisfying for readers. I think people will go elsewhere for in-depth political coverage.”
Kiely said Bloomberg should step completely away, instead of undermining an organization....
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