Terminal velocity

Bloomberg Building NYC

There are few, if any, industries that have received more negative coverage in recent years than the news business.  In particular, the decline of daily newspapers, magazines and broadcast networks is evidence of a profound shift in the media habits of readers as well as the mans of distributing news content to them.

It is interesting, therefore, to see how one news organization seems to be dramatically bucking the trend, and perhaps offering lessons to others, inside and outside the news business, trying to adjust to the cultural and technological changes all around us.

That company -- Bloomberg News -- is the subject of a revealing article in the current American Journalism Review. The  piece profiles Bloomberg at length and along the way touches on some of the sources of the media company's unquestioned success, including the following:

It doesn't rely on advertising. About 85 percent of the company's revenues come from subscriptions covering its 300,000 terminals.

It's tight focus on the economic and business impact of news begins what its president, Daniel L. Doctoroff, calls a virtuous circle: "The more readers and viewers of Bloomberg News we have, particularly among corporate executives and government officials who make business news, the more influence we have. The more influence we have, the more access we have to them. The more access we have, the more market-moving information we have. That helps us sell more Bloomberg terminals. The more we sell, the more we invest back into our news organization, creating this wonderful virtuous cycle that is unlike anyone else in any other news organization."


Strict adherence to a 361-page document called "The Bloomberg Way" that lays out basic principles for editors and reporters, including a dim view of the use of adjectives and opinion by staff and a strong emphasis on inclusion of opposing points of view.

And, perhaps most important of all, the organization pulls together under one overriding goal: to be the most influential new organization in the world.