Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait released a memo last week saying the news agency will not “investigate” Michael Bloomberg, who has entered the 2020 race for the presidential nomination.
“We will continue our tradition of not investigating Mike (and his family and foundation) and we will extend the same policy to his rivals in the Democratic primaries. We cannot treat Mike’s Democratic competitors differently from him,” Micklethwait wrote.
Bloomberg News, though, will continue to investigate President Trump and Republicans.
That doesn’t sit well with the Trump campaign.
“The decision by Bloomberg News to formalize preferential reporting policies is troubling and wrong,” Brad Parscale, Trump 2020 campaign manage, said on Monday.
“Bloomberg News has declared that they won’t investigate their boss or his Democrat competitors, many of whom are current holders of high office, but will continue critical reporting on President Trump. As President Trump’s campaign, we are accustomed to unfair reporting practices, but most news organizations don’t announce their biases so publicly. Presented with this new policy from Bloomberg News, our campaign was forced to determine how to proceed,” he said.
Parscale said that because of the new policy, the Trump campaign will no longer give press credentials to reporters from Bloomberg News.
“Since they have declared their bias openly, the Trump campaign will no longer credential representatives of Bloomberg News for rallies or other campaign events. We will determine whether to engage with individual reporters or answer inquiries from Bloomberg News on a case-by-case basis. This will remain the policy of the Trump campaign until Bloomberg News publicly rescinds its decision,” he said.
Kathy Kiely who left Bloomberg News in 2016 over the organization’s strategy for covering its owner, said Sunday that the organization is making a mistake.
“I felt that that wasn’t ethical and it was just an untenable situation for me as the assigning editor to be in,” Kiely said on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.” “Unfortunately, they’ve had four years to think about this and they haven’t come up with a better solution. I’m really sorry to see this.”
“It’s not unprecedented for a rich person to own a news organization and to be covered by that news organization,” Kiely said. “I just don’t understand why they’re making this decision. It really undermines the credibility of the organization that Mike Bloomberg has invested so much money in. As a business decision, it doesn’t make sense.”
