So Matthew Winkler, Bloomberg's bad-tempered editor-in-chief, is a stickler. (He explodes when companies are deemed to have "announced" anything, for instance; recently berated his exhausted South Asian team for "style violations" in their coverage of the Bhutto assassination; and loathes the use of anonymous sources.) But isn't that obsessiveness kind of admirable, particularly at a news service that traders rely upon? Not really, when it means the wire service is late to a story. Bloomberg News is stricter than any financial newspaper, or Reuters, in sourcing stories. "It's fairly draconian. It allows anyone to beat us on a story. We can't get stories moved the way they can," says our spy. The company's radio and television broadcasts, which aren't allowed to go with item until they are first on a Bloomberg terminal, are even more hobbled.

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