Bloomberg News Cuts Staff in Areas that Are Not About Business or Government
Bloomberg News is reportedly laying off staff and restructuring parts of its organization. The cuts will come at the expense of coverage of the arts and sports, as the company completely gets rid of their Muse branding on arts reporting—though the area will still get some attention—and focuses on the business angles of sports rather than matchups themselves.
The news was first reported by The New York Times, which also broke the news over this weekend about the organization supposedly killing a story critical of China in order to maintain business relations with the country.
A spokesperson for the company said that Bloomberg would be laying off around 40 employees and reassigning others. Editor in chief Matthew Winkler said in a letter to employees that the restructuring was so that they would have "enough firepower in areas we want to own," which means mostly financial news.
Among the laid off are technology reporter Richard Jaroslovsky, investigative reporter Elliot Blair Smith, and books editor Laurie Muchnick.
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The cuts are almost certainly not due to budgetary concerns. Bloomberg News is just one arm of the company, the bulk of which is funded by their massively profitable financial terminal service, a subscription to which costs $24,000 per user annually. The news and services sections ostensibly feed off each other: the reporting is aided by using the terminal and the strength of that reporting is then ideally used as a testament to sell more terminals. That would explain why sections less easily tied to a business angle, like sports and the arts, would be reduced.
This article was originally published at http://www.thewire.com/business/2013/11/bloomberg-news-cuts-staff-areas-are-not-about-business-or-government/355268/
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