Transparency in Reports

A journalist of Bloomberg suggests the new style of the article structure in reporting, the ‘Bloomberg way’. It has four paragraphs in each story, which consists of lead, key quotations, detailed information of the issues, and the big picture. This style is created to show the investors the reason why they need to care about the news. He explains “Every story must say, ‘what does this news mean?’, ‘what does this news show?’, ‘why should I care about this news?’ Every story must have these in the first four paragraphs, if it doesn’t, we can’t, we won’t print it”.

He also adds, “We always bring in a first four paragraphs, winners and losers. Who is wining, and who is losing”. It is actually hard for the journalists to find out who is the winner/loser in a short time. A journalist of Bloomberg talks that they need to call to analysts, fund managers, and economists who “should know” about it.

Besides, there is another rule for the Bloomberg journalists to tell the name of news sources in every report. Transparency of the news source is important at Bloomberg.

S)At Bloomberg we feel more extremely transparent. At Bloomberg you cannot have a quote without a name of...

I) Yes, I know

S) So that is quite hard. You know, the English newspapers will say, Financial times will say ‘it has been reported that’ or ‘it is reported that’ without any sources, no attribution, you don’t know where do that news come from. Where do this…is it made up or is this some secret guy calling on the telephone?

I) Or creation?

S) Creation.. yes, but you can’t do that at the Bloomberg. It’s impossible. You get fired immediately, uh, but more than that, we would not run the story”.

(S: A journalist of Bloomberg, I: the researcher)

This style of reporting requires the news source to take responsibility to tell information. In other words, Bloomberg gives the source pressure. This is the way to protect the journalists from the manipulation. He continues:

S) “It’s a reflection of… sometimes getting…because in the past, we’ve got burned, you know, in the early days. We’ve got burned by, you know, some company trying to manipulate us, and so we won’t do that anymore”.

I) Do you think that without having news sources or clear information, it’s danger to be manipulated by…

S) “Absolutely. I mean, now, we’re so big and people try to manipulate us everyday, so we have to be very firm about our rules”.

The purpose of the Bloomberg ’s way is not only for the protection from the manipulation from the news sources, but also for their own business strategy.

S) “By the end of our day, we want to write a story that can be published in the New York Times, that’s our goal. Because we have four hundred newspapers that subscribe to Bloomberg, and we want… we want to be published in the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune, because they are good newspapers.

I) They already have their audience.

S) “They have, you know, millions of readers. If we get in there, then we think our story must be better than Reuters, or AP, or Dow Jones, which is really…or AFP, you know, AFX, which is the competition. So we have a clear strategy”.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14