Bloomberg denies killing reports on Chinese corruption
11 Nov 2013
Bloomberg has strongly denied a report in The New York Times that it is killing reports about corruption in China.
According to the NYT report published on Saturday, Bloomberg News – one of the world's most respected news agencies - has been spiking articles on the corruption of Chinese officials out of fear that its reporters would be booted out of the country.
According to the report, Bloomberg's editor in chief Mathew Winkler himself compared this to ''the self-censorship by foreign news bureaus ... inside Nazi era Germany.''
The report quotes Winkler's statements in a recent conference call, as well as anonymous Bloomberg employees, to say the pressure was internal.
''He (Winkler) said he was looking at examples of how news organizations worked in Nazi Germany; how they were able to stay there,'' one employee told NYT.
Winkler denied the story, and an official Bloomberg News statement said, ''As we were very clear with the Times, it is absolutely false that we postponed these stories due to external pressure. We are disappointed that they chose to publish a piece that claims otherwise.''
China has punished both Bloomberg and NYT in the past for stories about corruption in the world's second-largest economy.
The Chinese government blocked the Bloomberg website after it published articles on the wealth of Chinese leaders, including the new Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping. The New York Times has been blocked in China after it ran a series of pieces on corruption, including a story about the wealth of the former prime minister.
Bloomberg reporters were working on stories about hidden ties between one of China's wealthiest men and the families of Chinese leaders, as well as an article about ties between international banks and the kids of Chinese leaders.
It is often the case with professionally run news organisations (Indian publishers excused!) that tendentious stories without sufficient backing are held – and the NYT report itself admits that the Bloomberg reporter primarily concerned has been asked to get more evidence.
