

Bloomberg News Suspends Reporter Whose Article on China Was Not Published - 1337biz
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/18/world/asia/reporter-on-unpublished-bloomberg-article-is-suspended.html

======
r0h1n
Interestingly while Bloomberg suspended this reporter; prepares to lay off 50
people [1]; and possibly shutter its investigations division [2], [3], there
is "good" news too: 'NewCo', the Pierre Omidyar-Glenn Greenwald news venture
just brought on board NYU's Jay Rosen.

>> Out of the press box and onto the field -
[http://pressthink.org/2013/11/newco/](http://pressthink.org/2013/11/newco/)

As Bill Bishop (one of the best 'China experts' on Twitter) recently said:

"Perhaps the new omidyar news venture can hire some of the excellent Bloomberg
journalists in the projects and investigations team"

[https://twitter.com/niubi/status/401645221022142464](https://twitter.com/niubi/status/401645221022142464)

==============

[1]
[http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303...](http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303531204579204372517369240-lMyQjAxMTAzMDEwNzExNDcyWj)

[2]
[https://twitter.com/niubi/status/401618179878686721](https://twitter.com/niubi/status/401618179878686721)

[3]
[https://twitter.com/niubi/status/401618756192858112](https://twitter.com/niubi/status/401618756192858112)

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doe88
China is now such a big market and a big power that every industries,
countries downplay any criticism. I think one of the biggest example is
Hollywood, it has long gone the time where there was movies on the Tibet, now
Hollywood is even making special versions of its movies to include few minutes
with chinese actors (see Iron Man 3).

~~~
camus2
It has been this way for 10 years already. Nobody's complaining about China
anymore in the mass media or hollywood, the whole western economy relies on
china's manufacturing capabilities.

Good for china , bad for most of us, because there is a hidden cost to all
these cheap stuffs , it's called debt.

We could build stuff so people can actually afford it, instead of working at
McDonalds or Walmart for a minimum wage, but it's not profitable enough in a
world of short term profit.

~~~
peterjancelis
You have it backwards. The US and Europe can source their cheap products from
many locations in Asia, while China is very reliant on the EU and US economies
to keep buying their stuff.

China is not 1,1 billion new consumers. It's a 200 million people extension of
the western economy with 900 million people in Africa level poverty.

And despite this massive human surplus wages keep rising because even
assembling an iPhone is relatively hard.

And soon other Asian countries will start doing it cheaper. If that happens,
China has a huge industrial plant with no internal market to afford it.

Also, the average profit of Chinese exports is just 1.7%. So basically the
Chinese made massive investments based on a projection of export demand that
lasts long enough for sustainable internal demand to catch up. When the
discount rate turns out to be a bit higher than expected, the house of cards
falls.

Think of China as the Groupon of nations.

The smart Chinese elite is also buying foreign assets as fast as they can.
Like insider stock trades, when a management of a country starts divesting,
that's a sign of troubles, not of wealth.

This is not to say the Chinese elite was wrong to grow via market liberation
and exports. What I do say is that the bulls on China conflate revenues with
profits, and activity with lasting competitive advantages.

It also means the Chinese are buying US debt not to enslave the US (hard to do
that with zero procent interest rates!), but as a favor to their largest
client base.

~~~
nealabq
Automation is a big unknown facing Chinese manufacturing. Eventually the West
will have robotic lines that can manufacture iPhones cheaper than Chinese
laborers. When, and what happens next, is anyone's guess.

~~~
jl6
Then neither the West nor East will have jobs and millions more will join the
ranks of "human surplus"...

~~~
chris_mahan
Robots don't buy iPhones, or pay for data plans from Verizon and AT&T.

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Fuxy
Aren't they just ignoring the important things in order to remain in China.

If they're not going to report on meaningful things what is the purpose of
them still being there then?

I suspect it's money but that just confirms my suspicion of them not being
real journalists.

~~~
jonknee
Yes, Bloomberg the news outlet has no purpose there if they can't report on
what's going on. However, Bloomberg the terminal subscription seller (e.g.
nearly all the revenue that Bloomberg makes) can remain in China and continue
to make money. The market is too large to ignore, at least for Bloomberg.

~~~
legutierr
Isn't one reason that people subscribe to the terminals that they get
unfiltered access to the Bloomberg news feed? I know that market data is the
primary benefit, but isn't timely access to potentially market-moving news
stories a significant secondary benefit? If they start pulling punches in
cases like this, how much can you trust the accuracy and completeness of news
being delivered over the terminals?

~~~
fargo
no, the terminal and the news are unrelated. the main reason to subscribe to
the terminal are messaging and data.

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bradleyjg
Funny how news organizations don't like when employees leak internal
information. I'm all for whistleblowing, but what great public interest is
served by publishing e.g. the colors of the new IPhone before it's announced?
Certainly less important interests than that served by knowing Bloomberg News
is kowtowing to the Chinese government.

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genericacct
Considering they're also pushing BTC to no end -AND- they've been caught
reading their customers' communication with no authorization you can draw your
own conclusion about about bloomberg's integrity as a news organization.

------
Amadou
Reminds me of this recent incident where the Whitehouse appears to have caved
to chinese pressure to dis-invite a reporter.

[http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/china-blocked-
ac...](http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/china-blocked-access-to-
white-house-news-conference-with-xi-reporter-says/)

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confluence
There's was a certain point in my transformation from an optimist to a
pessimist where I was just so angry. I was angry at news organizations for not
having the balls to fight for their readers. I was angry at all the myths and
lies I was fed, from meritocracy, to religion, to honor and loyalty. I was
angry at businesspeople for rigging the game, and I was angry at politicians
for helping them. I was angry at myself for believing and trusting in what I
was told. I was just angry at everyone. And it was at this point that many
youth would've become militarized, thinking that revolution was the answer. I
did too. That is until I realized that revolutionaries are no different.
They're just more of the same; people telling more lies to fuck over more
people so that they can drive their precious fucking Mercedes past homeless
shelters and slums. I'm still angry, but now when I read the latest bit of
depressing news I just seem to laugh. The NSA spied on everyone? Good luck
filtering that river of shit for useful intel guys. JPMorgan bribed the
daughter of the Chinese prime minister? Haha investment bankers are such
whores. Finance papers are too pussy to investigate totalitarian regimes? I
think a new tagline is in order: All the news that's fit to print ... money.

I call this coping strategy the John Stewart method.

I think it's because nothing really surprises me anymore. I've just reached
peak cynicism. So nowadays I just try to make light of the absurd brutality
that is the world that we live in, because doing otherwise just seems
pointless.

All the world is a farce.

/rant

PS: I'm not a conspiracy nut or anything like that. I'm just disappointed with
the local incentive driven actions that some people take at the expense of
society at large some of the time.

~~~
xradionut
Peak cynicism? I like the phrase, but you aren't quite there yet.

The zenith of peak cynicism is when you wouldn't be surprised if the .01% (or
powers that may be) decided one day to reduce the world population through NBC
warfare just to maintain their power.

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frank_boyd
Forget the "media". Drop your stuff at WikiLeaks.org

~~~
mjolk
Yes, that's sage advice. Let me call all my non-internet-obsessed friends and
family and tell them to only get their news from a single website.

~~~
frank_boyd
Yes, kind of, actually:

If our media are too corrupt, then we need to create new ones that work better
and change our habits. Submission to corruption can not be a mid- or long-term
solution.

~~~
mjolk
Why does Wikileaks get to skip your filter? And who is talking about
submission to corruption?

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tpurves
This is an extremely awkwardly constructed first sentence. Top Bloomberg
editors were killing Chinese workers??:

"A reporter for Bloomberg News who worked on an unpublished article about
China, which employees for the company said had been killed for political
reasons by top Bloomberg editors, was suspended last week by managers. "

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lifeisstillgood

      A reporter for Bloomberg News ... which employees for the company said 
      had been killed for political reasons by top Bloomberg 
      editors, 
    

Is it just me or did anyone else read the first paragraph and wonder if top
Bloomberg editors assassinated a reporter ? Tough newsroom.

Edit: ellipsis

~~~
codeka
I got about half way through the article before I realized they were talking
about the _story_ being killed, not the reporter.

The bit where they say he went up to HR's office and never returned was
particularly worrying, until I realized they'd only fired him...

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typhonic
Wow, what lousy grammar for a Times article! It might be different if this
were breaking news, but the article refers to an earlier story The New York
Post.

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lucb1e
Site gives DNS errors for me (Netherlands), but it seems I'm able to ping
it(?!). Anyone else with trouble?

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williamle8300
Noble of NYtimes to publish article. But, are we forgetting about one TPP
treaty which they sponsored?

