Bloomberg News was founded by
Michael Bloomberg and
Matthew Winkler in 1990 to deliver financial news reporting to Bloomberg Terminal subscribers. The agency was established in 1990 with a team of six people. Winkler was first editor-in-chief. In 2010, Bloomberg News included more than 2,300
editors and
reporters in 72 countries and 146 news bureaus worldwide.
Beginnings (1990–1995) Bloomberg Business News was created to expand the services offered through the terminals. According to Matthew Winkler, then a writer for
The Wall Street Journal,
Michael Bloomberg telephoned him in November 1989 and asked, "What would it take to get into the news business?" In his book,
The Bloomberg Way, Winkler recalls a conversation with Bloomberg about a hypothetical ethical dilemma which could have arisen from Bloomberg's interest in creating a newspaper: Winkler recalls this as his "deciding moment", the time at which he became willing to help Bloomberg build his news organization. As a new company in 1990, Bloomberg hoped that the news service would spread the company name, sell more Bloomberg Terminals and end Bloomberg's reliance on the
Dow Jones News Services. In 1994, Bloomberg launched a 24-hour financial news service through
Bloomberg Information Television, which was broadcast on
DirecTV. Bloomberg also launched a web site to provide the audio feed of its radio broadcasts. In April 2014, Bloomberg News launched the
Bloomberg Luxury lifestyle section of its paper. The section's content covers topics including travel, wine news, dining, auto news, gadgets, technology news, and more. It also highlights content from Bloomberg's quarterly lifestyle and luxury magazine,
Pursuits.
Business in China In 2012, Bloomberg News published investigative series titled "Revolution to Riches", which focused on China's political elite. The series won that year's
George Polk Award for International Reporting. One story in the series delved into the family wealth of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. However, before publishing the Xi story, Bloomberg executives and senior editors met with Chinese diplomats twice, without informing the journalists working on the story.
Zhang Yesui, the
Chinese ambassador to the United States, reportedly threatened Bloomberg with consequences for its Chinese operations if it published the story. The following year, Bloomberg shut down an ongoing investigation into the financial ties between a wealthy Chinese businessman and top Chinese leaders' families. Another planned article "about the children of senior Chinese officials employed by foreign banks" was also killed, according to Bloomberg employees. At least five journalists and editors, including the lead writer on the Xi story, One of the journalists said Bloomberg had disparaged "the team that worked so hard to execute an incredibly demanding story" and claimed it threatened the journalists who worked on the story with legal action if they discussed the incident publicly. Bloomberg's top editors, including the senior editor on the stories,
Laurie Hays, and editor-in-chief Matthew Winkler denied that the stories were killed. After the incidents, Bloomberg set about trying to repair its relationship with the Chinese government. By 2015, Bloomberg's reporters began receiving visas again. In 2018,
Bloomberg Businessweek, a subsidiary of Bloomberg News, published an article alleging that the Chinese government had hacked several American companies, including
Apple Inc. and
Amazon, by placing secret
integrated circuits into their computers. Apple and Amazon strongly denied the report. The incident became a long-running dispute between Bloomberg; the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the
U.K. National Cyber Security Centre both issues statements supporting the companies' denials of the story. In 2021, Bloomberg published a follow-up article standing by its allegations. In 2016, Bloomberg published a news release claiming to be from
Vinci SA, a French construction company, that it had discovered accounting irregularities and had to revise its earnings reports. The news release turned out to be a hoax. Vinci's stock briefly fell by 18% when Bloomberg published it, although it quickly recovered once it became clear it was not true. In 2019, France's stock markets regulator, the
Autorité des marchés financiers, fined Bloomberg €5 million for publishing the report, stating that it should have known it was false. An appeals court reduced the fine to €3 million in 2021.
Michael Bloomberg presidential campaign In November 2019, as
Michael Bloomberg announced
his presidential campaign, editor-in-chief
John Micklethwait ordered his staff not to investigate their boss, nor any other
Democratic candidates, while investigations into
Donald Trump would continue, "as the government of the day". Subsequent reporting said Micklethwait was referring to a team of specialized investigative reporters, as opposed to the overall political team, but he would not elaborate or issue a public clarification despite newsroom staff wishing for him to do so. Investigative journalists and political reporters operate separately but reporting indicates this distinction would not be clear to the general public. Following Bloomberg's announcement, the
Houston Chronicle dropped Bloomberg as a source for the 2020 Presidential campaign, saying that "journalists should not choose targets based on their political affiliation." Former Bloomberg News DC Bureau Chief Megan Murphy also criticized the decision, saying it bars "talented reporters and editors from covering massive, crucial aspects of one of the defining elections of our time" and calling the decision to avoid coverage "not journalism". Responding to the controversy,
Michael Bloomberg told CBS News: "We just have to learn to live with some things." He added that his reporters "get a paycheck. But with your paycheck comes some restrictions and responsibilities." Bloomberg suspended his campaign on March 4, 2020, the day after
Super Tuesday.
2024 Russian prisoner exchange While the
2024 Russian prisoner exchange was still in progress, Bloomberg News broke a
news embargo by reporting information provided by the White House. Other publications, including the
Wall Street Journal, criticized Bloomberg for breaking the embargo, potentially jeopardizing the exchange, and for a Bloomberg editor's apparent boasting for being the one to first publish a breaking news story. ==
Bloomberg Businessweek==