It’s a bit silly, though, to blame Bloomberg because its terminals carried erroneous information from a third party. That would be sort of (but not quite) like blaming Google and YouTube for this guy. A Bloomberg is an information conduit; it offers a variety of sources, and that is part of its strength. Dow Jones here is merely criticizing Bloomberg for offering more information, which should give you an idea why DJ had so much trouble with Bloomberg over the years. (Background available here:)
The more things you offer, the more mistakes you make. Put another way, and as every bad editor knows: if you don’t do anything, you’ll never screw up.
Still, though (and unlike YouTube), Bloomberg LP isn’t entirely blameless since it performs a journalistic function by controlling who is and isn’t allowed to post on its terminal. Thus it is ultimately responsible for any bad information that makes it on there.
There were a litany of breakdowns in the new media newsgathering process with the UAL story, but the role of the powerful Bloomberg terminal in amplifying the bad information should at least be considered. It’s not to say the model is flawed, but, again, without the terminal, nothing much happens here. Something to think about in these nervous times.
Also notable was the fine performance of Bloomberg’s news staff, which provided its readers better information, quicker than others, and helped correct the record.
Bloomberg may have corrected the story, but throughout the day it consistently put United in the position of having to deny filing bankruptcy rather than simply stating it was not correct as other media did, especially once it was clear that it was a 6-year-old story that created the problem. Each Bloomberg story said "UAL said it didn't file for bankruptcy..." Why put the monkey on UAL's back instead of stating factually it was untrue? That might be ok in the first or even 2nd story, but it stayed that way throughout the day and night. Other media did it right.
Posted by Bruce on Tue 23 Sep 2008 at 05:24 PM