Bloomberg Broke an Embargo and Put Evan Gershkovich’s Release at Risk Just to Claim a Scoop
Charlotte Klein, reporting for New York Magazine:
According to multiple sources at the Journal and other major
outlets, the Bloomberg scoop left journalists and government
officials fuming. With a prisoner swap, you don’t know if it’s
going to happen until it happens. (As one Journal reporter put it:
“We literally had Yaroslav Trofimov on the ground with binoculars
waiting to see Evan come off the plane, and we pubbed as soon as
that happened.”) Which means that Bloomberg’s story proclaiming
Gershkovich was free was inaccurate, given that the Russian plane
was still in the air at the time of publication. That plane could
have just turned around and gone back to Moscow, which is why the
Journal and other publications had agreed to hold off.
“Incensed” is how one reporter, whose outlet had agreed to an
embargo — delaying publishing what they knew — reacted to
Bloomberg’s decision. “People are very, very disappointed in
Bloomberg. And not just the embargo breaking, but the football
spiking.” (The Bloomberg editor’s X post was later deleted.)
Another reporter added, “We all want to break stories. We also
need to consider the risks of breaking those stories. I hope
editors and reporters thought long and hard about the risks of
revealing the details of a hostage transfer before the hostages
were back in U.S. custody.”
There is no accountability at Bloomberg. I’ve fumed for years regarding their refusal to retract “The Big Hack”. But this is so much worse. As bad as “The Big Hack” was, journalistically, it wasn’t life-and-death. The exchange of these prisoners was.
What a disgrace, driven by their institutional obsession with being the first to report scoops.
★
Charlotte Klein, reporting for New York Magazine:
According to multiple sources at the Journal and other major
outlets, the Bloomberg scoop left journalists and government
officials fuming. With a prisoner swap, you don’t know if it’s
going to happen until it happens. (As one Journal reporter put it:
“We literally had Yaroslav Trofimov on the ground with binoculars
waiting to see Evan come off the plane, and we pubbed as soon as
that happened.”) Which means that Bloomberg’s story proclaiming
Gershkovich was free was inaccurate, given that the Russian plane
was still in the air at the time of publication. That plane could
have just turned around and gone back to Moscow, which is why the
Journal and other publications had agreed to hold off.
“Incensed” is how one reporter, whose outlet had agreed to an
embargo — delaying publishing what they knew — reacted to
Bloomberg’s decision. “People are very, very disappointed in
Bloomberg. And not just the embargo breaking, but the football
spiking.” (The Bloomberg editor’s X post was later deleted.)
Another reporter added, “We all want to break stories. We also
need to consider the risks of breaking those stories. I hope
editors and reporters thought long and hard about the risks of
revealing the details of a hostage transfer before the hostages
were back in U.S. custody.”
There is no accountability at Bloomberg. I’ve fumed for years regarding their refusal to retract “The Big Hack”. But this is so much worse. As bad as “The Big Hack” was, journalistically, it wasn’t life-and-death. The exchange of these prisoners was.
What a disgrace, driven by their institutional obsession with being the first to report scoops.