NYT, FT: Bloomberg Spikes Investigative Journalism in China

[Winehole23]

Last year, just as the Chinese government’s new administration was heralding its commitment to stamping out corruption, profiles of the personal wealth and connections of top leaders—one by the New York Times, the other by Bloomberg—exposed the hypocrisy of that goal. The Communist Party has since denied visas to new journalists, blocked the New York Times’s and Bloomberg’s websites, and generally created headaches for foreign media.





Now there’s an allegation that this strong-arm tactic is working, and it puts Bloomberg’s ethical reputation on the line. The New York Times reported last week that Bloomberg had scrapped an investigative report (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/09/world/asia/bloomberg-news-is-said-to-curb-articles-that-might-anger-china.html?emc=edit_tnt_20131108&tntemail0=y&_r=0&pagewanted=all&utm_source=The+Sinocism+China+Newsletter&utm_campaign=8b8f89b375-Sinocism11_11_13&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_171f237867-8b8f89b375-24566969) linking China’s richest man with top party officials, as well as another article on children of Chinese leaders working at foreign banks. The Financial Times followed up today (http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d121fd70-49f2-11e3-9a21-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl&siteedition=intl#axzz2kKvNONX1) (paywall) with similar allegations.




According to both papers, Matt Winkler, Bloomberg’s editor-in-chief, spiked the reports after they had already been fact-checked and vetted by lawyers; he allegedly told reporters on a conference call that if Bloomberg ran stories of that nature, it risked being “kicked out of China.” Winkler and other senior executives say he made no such claim, and suggested that the stories had not been scrapped but merely weren’t yet good enough to publish. http://qz.com/145875/is-bloomberg-killing-investigative-stories-to-stay-in-china/

[boutons_deux]

"weren’t yet good enough to publish"

sure thing, we understand, looking forward to them soonish.

US loves exposing China's dirty secrets, and gets intimidated.

US hates Snowden, etc exposing USA's dirty secrets, and imprisons.

[Winehole23]

Bloomberg spiking its own reporting has what to do with Snowden, please?

[boutons_deux]

Bloomberg spiking its own reporting has what to do with Snowden, please?

US doesn't stop US journalists exposing China, but the US-govt-in-secrecy intimidates/proscecutes/jails US journalists and whistleblowers exposing the US. Is it really that hard for you to see the hypocrisy?

[FuzzyLumpkins]

the US government is not an actor in this story, boutox.

[Winehole23]

US doesn't stop US journalists exposing China, but the US-govt-in-secrecy intimidates/proscecutes/jails US journalists and whistleblowers exposing the US. Is it really that hard for you to see the hypocrisy?Not at all.

How is exposing that hypocrisy at all germane to Bloomberg censoring itself to please China?

[boutons_deux]

Not at all.

How is exposing that hypocrisy at all germane to Bloomberg censoring itself to please China?

Why didn't the US intimidate Bloomberg from exposing trading-partner/USBond-holder China like the US does to US journalists, whistleblowers?

Actually, maybe the US did, and got Bloomberg to say they were self-censoring.

[Winehole23]

I don't see any tigers around here; the tiger repellent I bought must be working.

[Winehole23]

I know, I know: the ostensible lack of evidence tends to confirm rather than disprove the conspiracy . . .

[boutons_deux]

"I don't see any tigers around here; the tiger repellent I bought must be working."

so you really think that the news you see is all there is to see?

[Winehole23]

absolutely not, but I can hardly see how what we don't know yet supports your take without begging the question to begin with.

[Winehole23]

Bloomberg News is clearing house in the wake of a series of embarrassing leaks (http://gawker.com/bloomberg-news-killed-stories-critical-of-china-1461409649) that revealed the would-be news agency killed stories to win the favor of the Chinese government.
The Post is reporting (http://nypost.com/2013/11/15/bloomberg-boots-china-leak-scribe-as-staff-layoffs-loom/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow) that journalist Michael Forsythe has been placed on an "unpaid leave of absence" after it was revealed that he was one of the reporters who spoke to the New York Times after the Bloomberg News editor-in-chief killed a story he had been working on for almost a year. Forsythe was escorted out of the Hong Kong office on Thursday. http://gawker.com/bloomberg-cans-reporter-who-talked-about-editors-killin-1465857648

[Winehole23]

The Chinese government is threatening to expel nearly two dozen foreign correspondents, working for the Times and Bloomberg News, in retaliation for investigations (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-29/xi-jinping-millionaire-relations-reveal-fortunes-of-elite.html) that exposed (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/business/global/family-of-wen-jiabao-holds-a-hidden-fortune-in-china.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all) the private wealth of Chinese leaders. It is the Chinese government’s most dramatic attempt to insulate itself from scrutiny in the thirty-five years since China began opening to the world. We won’t know if it’s prepared to follow through on the threat for another week or two, when correspondents’ annual visas begin to expire. So far, it has declined to renew them. Unless the government changes course, reporters and their dependents will be required to leave the country before the end of the year.


But following through is only part of the point. The real purpose is intimidation: to compel foreign news organizations to adopt a more compliant posture in their daily decisions, small and large. In attempting to shield themselves from the gaze of the world, the new generation of Chinese leaders has unwittingly provided one of the clearest views yet into their thinking, and their self-perception, as they confront the challenges that will define China’s future.


Before the government threatened to expel the foreign staffs of the Times and Bloomberg, there were already signs that a strategic change was underway. As I wrote last month, news organizations are facing a time of reckoning in China (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/11/what-will-it-cost-to-cover-china.html). The American correspondent Paul Mooney was denied a visa in November (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/world/asia/reporter-for-reuters-wont-receive-china-visa.html), joining a list of other journalists, including Andrew Higgins and Melissa Chan, who have been prevented from entering the country, or forced out, in the past two years. Chan, who was working for Al Jazeera English, was the first foreign correspondent expelled in thirteen years (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2012/05/china-expels-melissa-chan.html). At the time, we did not know what to make of the news; we now know that Chan’s expulsion, in May, 2012, was a milestone, not an aberrationhttp://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/12/the-meaning-of-chinas-foreign-press-crackdown.html?utm_source=www&utm_medium=tw&utm_campaign=20131206

[Winehole23]

Ben Richardson has resigned from Bloomberg News after 13 years to protest editors’ handling of an investigative piece reported from China – a story that the bosses feared would get them expelled from the country. (The New York Times broke this story (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/09/world/asia/bloomberg-news-is-said-to-curb-articles-that-might-anger-china.html?pagewanted=all) last November, then hired Michael Forsythe (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/business/media/new-york-times-hires-bloomberg-reporter-in-china-controversy.html), the reporter accused of leaking it to them.)


Richardson (http://topics.bloomberg.com/ben-richardson/), who was an editor at large for Asia news (he edited the enterprise stories and columns), writes in an email: “I left Bloomberg because of the way the story (http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d121fd70-49f2-11e3-9a21-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz2wtsffALG) was mishandled, and because of how the company made misleading statements in the global press and senior executives disparaged the team that worked so hard to execute an incredibly demanding story.”


He adds:


Throughout the process, the threat of legal action has hung over our heads if we talked — and still does. That has meant that senior management have had an open field to spin their own version of events. Suffice to say, what you read in the NYT and FT was a fair summation.


Clearly, there needs to be a robust debate about how the media engages with China. That debate isn’t happening at Bloomberg. Clark Hoyt supposedly reviewed the story and declared that it wasn’t ready for publication. But, to my knowledge, he didn’t ring or contact any of the team who worked on the story to discuss it. We don’t even know which version of the story he reviewed. Certainly the final version that I saw had been gutted and narrowed down so much that it could be dismissed as a story about “a bankrupt theatre chain”. The reporters who worked on the story for months didn’t get to review the copy before it was unilaterally spiked on a conference call with a ludicrous amount of top brass. [B]/CONTINUES


Richardson says of last Friday’s Times story (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/21/business/international/bloomberg-should-have-rethought-articles-on-china-chairman-says.html?_r=0) about Bloomberg L.P. chairman Peter Grauer:



It’s interesting to see Grauer speak so plainly. He is a straight-talking man and I’ve always enjoyed his frank comments. I enjoyed them especially today in the sense that they illustrate the frame of mind of senior management from the business side — someone should ask Mike to go public on his views on the right to free speech as a universal value. //january town hall. hint hint///



The sad thing about this is that a small group of incompetent and self-serving managers have screwed things up for everyone else. I spent 13 years at the company, as did Mike [Forsythe] I worked with some fantastic people who did and continue to do great work.


http://jimromenesko.com/2014/03/24/ben-richardson-quits-bloomberg-news-over-handling-of-investigative-piece/