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Michael Bloomberg. (photo: Getty Images)
Michael Bloomberg. (photo: Getty Images)
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Michael Bloomberg, Presidential Candidate, Just Killed the Bloomberg News
Agency
By Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stones
28 November 19
If you can only report in one direction, youre not reporting in any
direction
Bloomberg News suffered a major disruption over the weekend. The episode
predicts the future of the news business, and the death of the news
business.
After billionaire and former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg formally entered
the race for the Democratic presidential nomination Sunday, Bloomberg agency
Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait circulated a memo to editorial and
research staff. In it, Micklethwait told staff it would not investigate
either his owner and boss, or any of his bosss Democratic opponents:
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 Mikes democratic competitors
differently from him.
If Mike Bloomberg had any respect for the news business he would encourage
his editorial staff to kick him in the balls at every opportunity. Either
that, or he would sell his media business. Or not run for president.
Characteristically, he picked the one path that is most contemptible and
destructive, retaining ownership of one of the worlds biggest news outlets
just to defang it for the duration of his (incidentally moronic)
presidential run. Its an awesomely selfish act that shows his contempt for
the whole idea of journalism.
With this decision, Mike Bloomberg just put the roughly 2,700 journalists
who work for him in a terrible ethical bind. If huge portions of the
political landscape are closed off to those reporters by fiat, by definition
none of their reporting in any other direction can really be legitimate.
Its appropriate to focus investigative coverage on President Donald Trump.
But if this is the only avenue youre allowed, its not news, and reporters
arent really supposed to put up with such conditions. It amounts to forcing
a political directive on the editorial staff.
Bloomberg readers and viewers will have no idea what stories were passed
over. They wont know what facts or narratives are being left out of
coverage. Its a joke.
Bloomberg with this move is the first major news outlet to openly transform
into an unidirectional political organ, formalizing a trend I wrote about in
a book called Hate Inc. The news landscape has already been divided into a
binary coverage paradigm. For-profit media companies have stopped telling
their audiences bad news about their political sides.
This began in the Nineties with Fox, which realized it could make boatloads
of ad dollars selling slanted coverage to the mostly white, politically
conservative 55 to dead demographic that Fox chief Roger Ailes was
targeting.
While the station didnt mind milking fake narratives for profit (Trumps
infamous birther story being a prime example), the biggest deception in Fox
was in its non-investigation of Republicans and conservatives.
Fox didnt have to lie: It just downplayed adverse coverage of politicians
its audiences had been trained to support. During its huge ratings surge
during the Iraq War, for instance, Fox avoided even belated skeptical
coverage of the failed WMD hunt, and covered episodes like Abu Ghraib as if
they were liberal plots. The biggest lies were in omitted narratives.
In the summer of 2016, we started seeing an acceleration of the same
behaviors in traditionally mainstream outlets like MSNBC, CNN, The New
York Times, and The Washington Post. Trump was inspiring what many outlets
described as a rethink of traditional objective journalism. I worried about
where this would lead in August of that year:
The model going forward will likely involve Republican media covering
Democratic corruption and Democratic media covering Republican corruption.
This setup just doesnt work.
Once relieved of the burden of at least looking unbiased, editors and
reporters inevitably become vulnerable to misinformation, then end up
doubling down on wrong narratives. In both the WMD affair and the
Russiagate/Walls are closing in narrative, news companies were easily led
off cliffs because they were working backward from narrative instead of
fact.
Worse, when you stop covering your side, editors and reporters start
pre-selecting stories that come from the right perspective. This leads to
over-coziness with certain political sources, which in turn leads to a
blurring of missions and even language: Reporters start to sound like
politicians.
Pop quiz: Which of the following groups of headlines are from a commercial
television station, and which were written by the Democratic National
Committee?
Group A
Watch Jim Jordan Get Smacked Down
Timeline: The Pressure Campaign Against Yovanovich
Debunked: Trumps Most Laughable Corruption Claim
The Last Time Trump Spoke at the Economic Club, He Lied a Lot
Group B
Gotcha: Rudy Giulianis Disorganized Crime
Trump Boasts About Economy With Many Sectors Reportedly Faltering
Trump Elevates Policy Over National Security
GOP Continues Pushing Ukraine Conspiracy Theory
Group A is the DNC. Group B is MSNBC.
You can repeat the same exercise with the other side. Which of the
following headlines were written by Republican operatives, and which by a
for-profit news company?
Group A
The Results Are In, Schiff Flopped
The African American Community Is Thriving Under Trump
Seeing Red: Democrats Panic as Trump Reshapes Federal Bench
Americans Are Decidedly Out on Impeachment, But That Wont Stop Democrats
Group B
Heres Why Bidens Supporters Think Hes Floundering in Iowa
Poll: Independents Flip on Impeachment, Now Vastly Opposed After First Two
Weeks of Public Hearings
Democratic Anxiety Rises Over Impending Thanksgiving Anti-Impeachment Ads
Elizabeth Warren Denied Sending Her Kids to Private School Despite Sending
Son to Elite Private School
Group A is the Republican National Committee. Group B is the Daily Caller.
The Bloomberg dictum created to accommodate a grandiose billionaire jumping
in the political ring is less of an organic development than the coverage
problems at places like Fox or MSNBC. Still, it comes from the same
misguided belief that theres such a thing as credible one-sided reporting,
or credible reporting that pre-excuses owners or sponsors from coverage.
For Mike Bloomberg to own a media network for as long as he has without
understanding or caring about this is astonishing. Hes been a presidential
candidate for just a few days now, and hes already done tremendous damage
by telling voters he thinks its OK to buy the free press. And this is the
guy whos going to rescue democracy?
There are many other reasons to distrust Bloombergs run, beginning with his
appalling record on police issues and his blasé dismissal of critiques of
Wall Street corruption, but his aristocratic take on the role of the media
that it may be permitted to look at some things and not others is already
disgusting. God save us from more billionaires with messiah complexes.
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