Bloomberg Announces Major Reorganization – Is it Trying to Become More Clownish Like CNBC?

Bloomberg News puts out a lot of good stuff. I link to Bloomberg articles often when it comes to finance and market stories, and I’m grateful for them. As such, when a news source this huge fires 90 journalists, and its recently hired editor in chief writes a 3,000 word memo announcing a major reorganization, it’s important to pay attention.

As much as I appreciate a lot of the work Bloomberg does, I have noticed what seems to be an increasing number of headlines pandering to what I call “oligarch porn,” as well as stories that seem to serve no news purpose other than celebrating the inane and superficial. Here’s a recent example, which I flagged via Twitter:

London’s poshest burgers get the taste test http://t.co/CeoZgfNlUr pic.twitter.com/RaCYDOH4UC

— Bloomberg Business (@business) August 26, 2015

Now I’m not arguing that many Bloomberg terminal subscribers wouldn’t find this article click worthy. What I am asking; however, is whether stories like this fit into the category of “Bloomberg Business”, or is it more reminiscent of CNBC yuppie pandering?

It’s perfectly fine if it’s the latter (I like reading about good burgers too), but let’s be honest about it. The big question to me is whether or not the Bloomberg reorganization will result in more stories like the one above, at the expense of actual hard-hitting financial journalism. If you read Mr. Micklethwait’s 3,000 word memo, you might think more substantive articles will be forthcoming, but reading between the lines, I have serious doubts.

Here are a couple of red flags from the memo:

In the second paragraph, we read…

We are committed to changing Bloomberg Editorial in significant ways, and I think this is the time to lay out in more detail the course we are now set upon. It is guided by three big ideas – what we want to be, who we are trying to serve and how we should be organized.

Personally, I think the “who we are trying to serve” passage is key. CNBC serves rich and powerful financiers who use cronyism, captured politicians and fraudulent markets to accumulate enormous wealth. I believe Bloomberg understands it serves those same masters, which is why it may be pivoting in a more clownish direction.

Then we see the memo outlines the new organization’s primary purpose…

1) Our Purpose – The Chronicle of Capitalism

So what does this mean? It starts off good…

Some of you may worry that chronicling capitalism means singing the praises of Mammon or boosting individual moneymakers. Not at all. Our job is to expose financiers’ mistakes and vanities, to probe into imperfect markets and to point to potential speculative bubbles – not least because that is exactly the information that our readers, viewers and listeners need to do their jobs. We will continue to expand our team of investigative journalists and expose the way in which individual capitalists twist regulation in their favor. Bloomberg Gadfly will sting as well as buzz. Part of our strength comes from our independence; that is why Editorial is separate from the rest of Bloomberg’s businesses and also why we have introduced and enforced consistent editorial standards across all our platforms.

But then we see the truth. It appears certain opinions will be censored.

So we are not slavish boosters of every form of capitalism. However, I still think that one way we can distinguish ourselves (and, frankly always have) is by our passion for business, finance and markets. So if you are not intrigued by how people make money, or are inclined to sneer at those who are good at it, or yearn to practice “gotcha journalism” on investment bankers simply because they’ve chosen to be bankers, Bloomberg is probably the wrong place for you.

Moving along, so who is the target reader? Mr. Micklethwait explains:

2. Our target: the clever customer who is short of time

Too often, we produce content that serves us rather better than it does the people who are paying to read it (or giving up a portion of their day to watch it or listen to it). Although our customers come from many different fields, virtually all of them share a common concern: their time is precious. Nothing annoys them more than our wasting that time – by giving them things they don’t want or by hiding the things they do want in the depths of the terminal or our website. They have a plethora of other sources of information to choose from, and when we’re out of step with their needs they vote with their eyes.

Sounds great. So why did the following come across my Twitter stream the other day. Under “Bloomberg Business” I might add:

Why not move the campaign up to 2016 Kanye? http://t.co/hd2nFhOci2pic.twitter.com/MoeSALZcrn

— Bloomberg Business (@business) August 31, 2015

Perhaps the reorganization has yet to begin, and I’m being too harsh. I certainly hope I am wrong, since I value a lot of what Bloomberg puts out. A pivot toward the clownishness of CNBC would be very unfortunate. For them and for us.

For related articles, see:

Video of the Day: Interview with Matt Taibbi About JP Morgan and the CNBC “Presstitutes”

Another Reason Why CNBC is Dying

Meanwhile, let’s not forget the clownish manner in which mainstream media, including Bloomberg, covered gold recently. Do we really need more of this?

4 Mainstream Media Articles Mocking Gold That Should Make You Think

In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

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