With multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg officially throwing his hat into the ring for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, many have raised concerns over how his global news outlet, Bloomberg News, will handle the coverage of their boss and founder.
In a revealing announcement which sheds some light on the overall treatment of candidates from each part, Bloomberg News released a statement blunting telling the world of their future – and possibly prior – political bias for the upcoming election.
“So Mike is running,” Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Mickletwait writes in a memo to staffers. While he acknowledges the difficulty which will come from the owner of a massive news organization running for president, a feat that has never been done before, Micklethwait attempts to outline a few changes which he feels will maintain Bloomberg’s editorial integrity.
First, they will be dissolving Bloomberg Opinion, as this is the section of the organization with the most direct ties and contact to the billionaire candidate. They will also no longer take op-eds from Bloomberg insiders, and no op-eds from anyone on the topic of the election.
They are also suspending the editorial board, meaning “there will be no unsigned editorials.” It goes to show that as they feel forced to cut these two branches from their supposedly independent news outlet when their boss becomes a presidential hopeful, the possibility of editorials being pure political activism rather than objective journalism from both Bloomberg News and other organizations seems all but certain.
“On News, we will write about virtually all aspects of this presidential contest,” Micklethwait writes, emphasizing they will cover policies, debates, interviews, and polls, but they will “continue [their] tradition of not investigating Mike… and we will extend the same policy to his rivals.”
There will be no attempt to investigate the background, possible scandals, or past performance deficits of either Bloomberg or any of the dozen democrats competing for the nomination. Surely they’d carry the same policy for President Trump, as he’s technically running for the Republican nomination.
Wrong! They will not place any restriction on investigating the Trump administration, though he adds if both Bloomberg and Trump emerge as the nominees for their respective party’s, they will “reassess” this rule.
Guild at Bloomberg Industry Group, the company’s union was less than thrilled about this gag order, according to a statement released.
“We are extremely alarmed by management’s decision to silence the journalists we represent at Bloomberg Industry Group, as well as the unrepresented journalists at Bloomberg News,” the union wrote, adding, “we call on Bloomberg corporate management to rescind its policy and allow journalists throughout the Bloomberg family to do their jobs.”
The union, as well as many commentators, are calling on Mickelthwait to lift the ban on investigating Bloomberg and other Democratic candidates
Categories: U.S. News
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