The independence of the Bloomberg news service and terminal estate is being called into question following the decision of the company's eponymous founder to enter the presidential race.
News broke earlier this week that the wire service has undertaken not to probe the campaign of Michael Bloomberg or any of his Democratic rivals.
In a memo announcing the new guidelines to Bloomberg's 2700 journalists and analysts, editor-in-chief John Micklethwait conceded: “There is no point in trying to claim that covering this presidential campaign will be easy for a newsroom that has built up its reputation for independence in part by not writing about ourselves.”
Micklethwait instructed the newsroom to continue its investigative works into the Trump administration but not to turn the microscope onto the Democratic nominations. Instead, journalists should continue to run humdrum stories covering polls and policies and provide summaries of other investigative work conducted by independent news services.
Trump in turn has banned Bloomberg journalists from his own rallies. Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, states: "The decision by Bloomberg News to formalize preferential reporting policies is troubling and wrong ... Since they have declared their bias openly, the Trump campaign will no longer credential representatives of Bloomberg News for rallies or other campaign events."
Bloomberg's terminal network, which provides breaking news and prices to trading desks the world over, has also come under fire for providing a redirect to the billionaire's campaign site to anyone who typed 'Mike' into the machine.
Uncovered by the FT, the report forced the New York city mayor into a hasty retraction. The Bloomberg press office clarified that the redirect had previously pointed to a page about the owner's philanthropic work and that the links to the campaigning Website had been an oversight, which has since been rectified.