John Micklethwait, the chief editor of Bloomberg News, criticized the ranks for uneven performance over the past year, revealing cuts of approximately 90 people in the editorial and research departments.
The cuts account for just under 3 percent of employees who currently number about 3,100.
“As a newsroom, we’ve learned a lot in the past 12 months,” wrote Micklethwait, who took over Bloomberg News in 2015 after a stint at The Economist, in a memo obtained by Media Ink. “At our best, we have been unbeatable.”
But then he put the hammer down – with the particular aim of dragging his feet around the newsroom.
“We all know that we also ‘lost’ stories because we moved very slowly,” he continued. “The teams waited for someone to read an article retroactively or ignored requests from the News Desk to get it out quickly. Managers spent a lot of time setting up conference calls when they were supposed to be writing. Or the teams suddenly delivered corporate pieces that no one wanted.
“Covid highlighted these strengths and weaknesses. But in fact, they have been evident for some time. “
Most of the cuts are in the editorial ranks he is trying to design to get the stories out more quickly.
“This was not a step that we took lightly. But we always seek to make the newsroom better – to become more agile, to improve our content and to help us ‘chronicize capitalism’ in an even more comprehensive way. “
“A system that depends on someone further down the production line correcting errors means that no one has a story,” added Micklethwait. “We need responsibility: you approve a story only when you think it is ready to be published. You are responsible for that. We also need editors who can work for more than one team. ”
A spokeswoman declined to comment when asked if a particular story triggered the explosion of the company owned by former mayor Mike Bloomberg.