Michael Bloomberg’s Race for President: As If People Needed Another Reason to Doubt the Mainstream Media

With Michael Bloomberg announcing he is going to run for president, the editorial and research wing of his mega-media company has a bit of a problem.  (I think it is fair to call it a “mega-media company” since its annual revenues are over $10 billion.  While most of that money comes from people who subscribe to Bloomberg LP’s business terminals, the editorial and research group has 2700 journalists and analysts.¹  That’s a mega-media company.)

Mr. Bloomberg’s announcement is a problem for Bloomberg LP because Mr. Bloomberg has a policy that journalists who work for his company can’t say anything bad about him.  Mr. Bloomberg explained it last year: “[Q]uite honestly, I don’t want the reporters I’m paying to write a bad story about me.”²  To show you how far Mr. Bloomberg’s definition of a “bad story” goes, the Bloomberg Billionaire List doesn’t include Mr. Bloomberg, even though Forbes says he the eighth richest man in the world.

So, the question was, with Mr. Bloomberg running for president, what was Bloomberg LP going to do.  After all, journalists working for Bloomberg LP have investigated Donald Trump.  What now?

Well, John Micklethwait, the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg LP’s editorial and research division, announced the decision last Sunday.  Mr. Micklethwait said Bloomberg LP journalists “will write about virtually all aspects of this presidential contest in much the same way as we have done so far.  We will describe who is winning and who is losing.  We will look at policies and their consequences.  We will carry polls, we will interview candidates and we will track their campaigns, including Mike's.”  However, Bloomberg LP will "continue [its] tradition of not investigating Mike (and his family and foundation) ….”  In words, Bloomberg LP will cover all of the fluff and very little of substance of Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign.  Plus, according to Mr. Micklethwait, the Bloomberg LP will extend this non-investigation policy to all of Mr. Bloomberg’s rivals in the race for the Democratic nomination.

Which means Bloomberg won’t investigate any of the candidates for president – except President Trump.³  If you want to read about the drive to impeach President Trump, Bloomberg LP will tell you everything that is wrong with President Trump but nothing that is wrong with any of the Democrats leading the move to impeach him, as long as they are running for president (which is a fair number of them).

I feel sorry for the journalists employed by Bloomberg LP because Messrs. Bloomberg and Micklethwait have decided that their reporting on the election won’t be fair or complete.  They will investigate and criticize President Trump, but not Mr. Bloomberg or any other Democrat.  Which raises the question: How can readers believe what these journalists write when there is so much that is off limits to them?

Mostly, though, Bloomberg LP’s announcement is going to give people yet another reason to not believe the mainstream media.  Not because they are lying but because there is so much they won’t report.
--------
¹ Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson and Anna Nicolaou, “Bloomberg News wrestles with owner’s run,” Financial Times, November 27, 2019.
² Which sounds exactly like the policy Donald Trump would have if he owned a media company.
³ One assumes that Bloomberg LP will also investigate President Trump’s Republican challengers, William Weld and Joe Walsh – if they can find them.  (Mark Sanford has dropped out.)