The New York Times recently reported that Bloomberg News decided not to run two investigative articles detailing how the families of Chinese leaders benefit from ties with Chinese tycoons and foreign banks. The Times also said that Bloomberg uses a special computer code to keep sensitive stories about China off its computer terminals there.
The theme is clear: Bloomberg L.P., which owns Bloomberg News, doesn’t want to further piss off China’s rulers and jeopardize sales of its expensive financial data system in the world’s most populous country.
Bloomberg’s website was blocked in China last year after the news organization ran an award-winning series on the vast wealth amassed by relatives of the country’s leaders, including current President Xi Jinping. Now the company is obviously running scared, worried that China will boot it out of the country and halt its terminal sales in a fast-growing market.
Bloomberg editors deny that the stories were spiked, though I’d be willing to bet the only way they’ll ever be published is in a severely watered-down version. I use to work at Bloomberg, and I know that profits often trump news judgment there.
