Stories by Chris Roush
Wired magazine launching video series
by Chris Roush
Mike Snider of USA Today writes Thursday about the video series that Wired magazine is starting.
Snider writes, “The techno-trend periodical, launched 20 years ago, has three new series that go live today on Wired’s video channel and on YouTube:
“The Window: an inside look at “extraordinary construction projects, factories, labs and landmarks seen through the eyes of people who work there.”
“Angry Nerd: features Wired’s Chris Baker and his tech-crazed nerdish rants.
“Game/Life: Wired video game gurus Chris Kohler, Peter Rubin and Chris Baker talk about games and industry news.
“More series, like the others sponsored by Microsoft Surface, Windows Phone and Windows 8, are in the works including the outlet’s first scripted series Codefellas about the NSA, animated by Richard Linklater Studios and starring John Hodgman (The Daily Show) and ReWired: The Documentary about the magazine’s redesign.”
Read more here.
The unique ethics situations that Bloomberg case exposes
by Chris Roush
Adam Geller of the Associated Press writes about how the Bloomberg snooping scandal exposes how new media companies face unique ethical situations.
Geller writes, “‘Many more journalism companies will face the type of competing values that the journalists at Bloomberg faced because, as the economic model for journalism changes, more companies, if they’re successful, are going to look like Bloomberg,’ said Kelly McBride, who teaches journalism ethics at The Poynter Institute.
“Today’s technology gives many types of news organizations access to information about consumers’ preferences for certain types of content, without clearly settled understandings of how that information should be used. Technology also has made it easier for reporters, and everybody else, to snoop.
“‘In a digital world in which everything online at some level, if you have the expertise, is probably available, this is simply reality,’ said Alex S. Jones, director of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University.
“At the same time, new types of journalism ventures are relying on different constituencies, often without clear rules for engagement, McBride said. Non-profit news organizations rely on donors, rather than advertisers. Others rely on advertisers who pay to sponsor content.
“All together, the uncertainties of those new relationships will force media organizations to grapple with tough questions, McBride says.”
Read more here.
Bloomberg can not take Wall Street for granted
by Chris Roush
John Gapper of The Financial Times writes about the Bloomberg LP snooping scandal, warning the financial data and news company about taking Wall Street for granted.
Gapper writers, “They could turn to its competitors, such as Thomson Reuters, or they could go it alone – creating their own instant messaging, pricing and data services, in the way that they have established ‘dark pool’ trading platforms to compete with exchanges. The internet has put the technology in their hands.
“Bloomberg does not have much experience of playing defence because it has spent its life on the attack, outflanking rivals with ‘the Bloomberg Way’ and expanding into news, television and magazines. (There is speculation that it wants to buy the Financial Times or The New York Times.)
“It took three attempts to get its response right, finally filling its trading screens with an apology from Dan Doctoroff, its chief executive. It is not used to saying sorry and, like other technology companies, its success has bred arrogance – it tends to think it knows best.
“‘It has a cult-like structure in which everyone is a believer,’ says one former Bloomberg executive. ‘There is such a degree of holy righteousness that journalism can only be done the Bloomberg Way that I was surprised by a failure of judgment on this scale.’”
Read more here.
Senate panel may investigate Bloomberg
by Chris Roush
Sen. Carl Levin’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which has examined the financial meltdown and JPMorgan’s “London Whale” debacle, is being urged to launch a probe into Bloomberg’s snooping scandal, The New York Post reports.
Mark De Cambre and Kaja Whitehouse report, “At least one federal official has recommended that the powerful committee take the lead on investigating the extent of Bloomberg’s spying on Wall Street and government clients through its ubiquitous data terminals.
“The privately held news and information giant falls outside of the scope of most financial regulators, noted one source.
“Bloomberg has admitted that some reporters used the terminals to monitor when clients were signed into the service and what functions they were using.
“Besides Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and other big banks, officials at the Fed and the US Treasury have also expressed concerns that they were being monitored.”
Read more here.
JP Morgan demands to know what Bloomberg reporters accessed
by Chris Roush
JPMorgan Chase & Co, one of the biggest customers of Bloomberg LP, said on Wednesday it has sent a formal legal request asking the financial data and news company to provide details of what bank information Bloomberg News reporters had been able to see.
David Henry of Reuters writes, “JPMorgan’s statement comes after Bloomberg acknowledged late last week that its reporters had limited access to data about clients’ terminal usage, such as when a customer logs in, contacts the help desk or delves into the system for information about assets, such as equities or bonds.
“The largest U.S. bank is seeking logs for five years of what precisely Bloomberg journalists accessed concerning the use of terminals by JPMorgan employees, a bank official said. Bloomberg has about 2,400 journalists worldwide.
“JPMorgan said it is also seeking ‘confirmation’ of controls that Bloomberg has put in place to stop future breaches.
“The bank declined to provide a copy of what it described as a formal request from its legal department.
“A Bloomberg spokesman declined to comment.”
Read more here.
Wall Streeters care more about their messages online than reporters snooping
by Chris Roush
Cyrus Sanati of Fortune writes about how the Wall Street bankers and traders who are the core Bloomberg customers are more worried about how some of their private messages using the company terminal made it on the Internet than they are about Bloomberg reporters using the terminal to snoop on them.
Sanati writes, “The bulk of the traders and bankers Fortune spoke to over the weekend concerning this story said that the snooping scandal had become more important to journalists than the greater financial community.
“But then came word Monday that a trove of Bloomberg messaging data had been found online. The data was old, but contained user info, trading data and sensitive communications between bankers, traders and their clients. Bloomberg messenger is an email and instant messaging program. A great deal of trading and price discovery goes on in these chats — especially in the opaque over-the-counter market. It is where essentially large parts of the financial industry conduct the bulk of their business. Bids and offers are sent between brokers and buy side professionals and deals are sealed all on Bloomberg chat. Bloomberg actively scans messages to help their customers seemingly keep records of their bids and offers.
“‘They have a system to capture your broker runs in Bloomberg and feed through into Excel,’ one fixed income trader told Fortune. ‘These runs come in every two seconds so it’s a priceless tool for us.’
“Bloomberg employs an army of ‘message mining analysts’ who, according to a recent job placement advertisement picked up by the Financial Times, ‘are responsible for ensuring that price information across Bonds, CDS, Loans and Mortgage products are properly picked up from individual messages and returned back to the client.’
“The key here is ‘returned back to the client.’ But with the cache of messages that were recently found online, some traders are concerned that their data isn’t being handled properly and could fall into the wrong hands. There is also concern that the company may be using that information to help Bloomberg Tradebook or Bloomberg Pool, the company’s growing broker-dealer and dark pool trading outfits, to gain an informational advantage over the clients.”
Read more here.
Apologies are a good first step for Bloomberg
by Chris Roush
Dan Orlando of the New York Business Journal writes about how Bloomberg LP’s quick apologies for allowing its reporters access to information about its clients was a smart move.
Orlando writes, “Today I talked to Mark J. Prak, a communications lawyer based in Raleigh, N.C., about Bloomberg’s Snoopgate. He says the confession should significantly stem the tide of possible cancelled subscriptions.
“‘The straight-up approach is likely to be an effort to defend their business and make sure that their customer base does not become disenchanted with them,’ Prak told me. ‘I give them credit.’
“Some commentators, while not defending Bloomberg, are arguing that people should put the scandal in perspective — while others say it reveals a basic character flaw in the financial media, a win-at-all-costs mentality similar to the greed and cheating so often portrayed on Wall Street itself.
“Bloomberg has been harshly critical of itself while at the same time insisting it won’t happen again.”
Read more here.
Investors scour WSJ articles for Fed clues
by Chris Roush
Matt Egan of Fox Business Network writes about how investors look at the Wall Street Journal‘s Jon Hilsenrath, who covers the Federal Reserve, for clues as to where the economy is headed.
Egan writes, “To be sure, market participants didn’t appear to be suggesting anything sinister on the part of Hilsenrath. Instead, the comments indicate the perception that senior Fed officials may seek to influence market expectations on monetary policy through timely leaks to the Journal.
“‘My stories are based on a lot of reporting across a wide range of people inside and outside the Fed,’ Hilsenrath said in an email. ‘My intent is to accurately inform our readers about what the central bank is up to so they can make their own judgments, to hold the institution accountable and to break news. It is not to be a messenger.’
“The focus on a single reporter may not be entirely appropriate as investors looking to get an inside track on monetary policy similarly paid close attention to columns by other former Journal reporters, including Greg Ip.
“‘I’m glad people trust The Wall Street Journal enough to pay attention to our work,’ Hilsenrath said.
Read more here.
Customers fear that Bloomberg is becoming a competitor
by Chris Roush
Peter Eavis and Nathaniel Popper of The New York Times write about how some of Bloomber LP’s biggest customers fear that it is becoming a competitor.
Eavis and Popper write, “In recent years, Bloomberg has offered new ways to trade stocks, bonds and more complicated financial products, potentially taking revenue from subscribers to the ubiquitous Bloomberg desktop terminals, which contain a vast store of market data. The expansion is even leading Bloomberg to offer traditional Wall Street services like wealth management and research.
“‘If you add all this stuff up together, they do look increasingly like a brokerage business,’ said Larry Tabb, founder of the consulting firm Tabb Group.
“He said that Bloomberg was not yet a dominant force in these activities and had been careful to placate the concerns of subscribers. But, he said, ‘it makes some of these brokers think, are these guys friend or foe?’
“Bloomberg says its trading operations are walled off from its data operations and asserts that it has won the trust of clients over the years. The company is eager to protect both its revenue and the wealth of Michael R. Bloomberg, which are still primarily generated by the terminals business.”
Read more here.
Examining the man behind The Bloomberg Way
by Chris Roush
Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson of The Financial Times writes about Bloomberg News editor in chief Matthew Winkler, who is the author of its “Bloomberg Way” stylebook and the conscious of the news service as it battles to overcome the perception that it spied on its clients through its terminal.
Edgecliffe-Johnson writes, “The story has left Wall Street asking whether Bloomberg needs a Chinese wall between its editorial and commercial teams, and shone a spotlight on Mr Winkler’s role as the demanding guardian of the newsroom’s culture.
“The bow-tied former credit markets correspondent has set the tone of Bloomberg News’ coverage, from the early days when its advantage lay in its exclusive data about obscure corners of the market, to the Twitter era, when Mr Winkler has highlighted its mission to sort information from misinformation for clients with fortunes at stake.
“The Bloomberg Way, which has grown from a 30-page manifesto into a 376-page book, was ‘a strategy to prove that we could compete with everybody,’ Mr Winkler recalls in a video on Bloomberg’s careers site.
“It says Bloomberg should be the first, fastest, factual, final and future word, and sets down rules on everything from sourcing to the avoidance of the word ‘but.’
“Assembled from his meticulous weekly feedback to staff (emails include lines such as ‘‘most ever’ is redundant’ and ‘Smarter means more, better faster. Seize the day!’), it includes a 660-word Bloomberg-style summary of Genesis (‘The world God created was good. But Adam and Eve – being human – blew it.’).”
Read more here.
