Journalists have long pitied those colleagues who suffer under the yoke of Michael Bloomberg henchman Matthew Winkler. A style guide put together by the wire service boss-a program to reeducate journalists by the cultish name of the 'Bloomberg Way'-forbids the use of but and pretty much any other word which might…
The days of the "autopsy"—what former employees describe as "Maoist self-criticism" sessions in which reporters explained to a roomful of people what the fuck was so wrong with their article that it didn't get picked up for syndication—are over at Bloomberg News. Screamy bow-tied Bloomberg EIC Matt Winkler instituted…
Though Bloomberg News' decision to hire former Time Inc. Editor-in-Chief Norman Pearlstine is probably bad news for the news wire's tyrant editor, Matthew Winkler, it seems likely to open up opportunities for recently-installed Bloomberg executive Dan Doctoroff, a former Lehman Brothers dealmaker. The Times sees hints…
The internet has given us so many things, among them jargon which can dress up any brutal corporate maneuver in bland and progressive-sounding language. When Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation decided to seize full control of the Wall Street Journal, the Australian media mogul's chief lieutenant took the title of head…
Oh no, now you've gone and encouraged Michael Bloomberg again: Newsweek reports that "the mayor's confidants and closest associates are, in fact, encouraging him to explore the idea" of buying the Times. And to bolster their case they've no doubt assembled clips of others saying the same thing in the press over the…
Here's a final thought on Michael Bloomberg's annoying flirtation with a presidential campaign, which ended with his declaration in the New York Times today that he wasn't running. The commentators have noted that a short Jew with no political base had no shot at the presidency. But even the New York mayor's supposed…
One of the few places on earth where the dollar actually goes further than it did at the start of the year: South Africa, where the rand is down 12% against the US currency. The mines, the country's main export earner, had to shut for five days last month because the state electricity company hasn't been investing in…
Bloomberg's editorial supremo, Matt Winkler, is a lightning rod for disgruntled reporters at the wire service. But a website set up by the Newspaper Guild of New York, for the effort to unionize at Bloomberg, identifies other newsroom monsters at the secretive private company. On the Guild's online complaint forum,…
The company jet to a private airport outside London, and a helicopter into the city: Bloomberg's tyrannical editorial boss Matthew Winkler is traveling around Europe in style. (Now he's at the World Economic Forum, with his peers in Davos, Switzerland.) Before one disapproves of private air travel on well-served…
From the legend of Matthew Winkler, tyrannical editor-in-chief of Bloomberg. We still tracking down the details of the deranged bow-tie's attack on a bond desk editor in the 1990s. But, in the meantime, here's an anecdote from a tipster to keep things going.
Most of the time, let's be frank, crowd-sourcing in journalism is a dismal failure, even in though the internet would seem to be made for it. An appeal for help goes out to readers, nothing useful comes in, because nobody cares, and the lazy journalist (that's me) moves on as quickly as possible to the next story,…
So, help us unpick this media lore. It's an old story, about Bloomberg's tyrannical editorial boss, Matt Winkler, that goes something like this. Ever wonder why the financial news service's reporters are barred from sending headlines directly to the wire unsupervised? One of the many reporters fired by Winkler got…
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…
Matthew Winkler, the famously unbalanced editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, is known for his pathological hatred of the words "but" and "announce". (The word "the" is apparently still permitted.) For a while, the bowtie-wearing wire service editorial chief reined himself in, after reporters complained to the company's…
