Financial news outlet Bloomberg has disciplined several employees who broke an agreement to keep details of a prisoner swap involving the United States, Russia and other countries a secret until the arrangement had been carried out.
Last month, several news outlets — including Bloomberg — learned details of the proposed prisoner swap involving Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich, ex-U.S. Marine Paul Whelan and a number of others who were wrongly held captive in Russia.
Reporters from the news outlets were briefed on the matter by officials at the White House, the U.S. State Department and other government agencies while the prisoner swap was in the planning and delivery stages, according to accounts that emerged once the swap was completed. Gershkovich, Whelan and other Americans held in detention were released last week, and landed back in the United States about a day after they were freed.
Bloomberg was the first to repot on the exchange, with their story published hours before the detained Americans left Russia. The story was also published before the lifting of an “embargo” that Bloomberg and others had previously agreed to; an embargo is a pre-arranged agreement by which reporters agree to withhold a story from publication until a specific day and time, or after certain events have transpired.
The breaking of the embargo before it lifted outraged reporters at the Wall Street Journal and other news publications, who voiced their displeasure with the White House Press Corps and on social media. Following a report by New York Magazine on the matter, a Bloomberg editor on Monday said the news outlet had taken steps to discipline the employees involved in the premature publication of the story, and was in the process of apologizing to the former prisoners themselves.
“Last Thursday, we prematurely published a story on the release of Evan Gershkovich and the other prisoners, which could have endangered the negotiated swap that set them free,” Bloomberg’s editor-in-chief John Micklethwait said in a note to employees, which was also published on the Bloomberg Terminal, a computer system used by financial services clients.
The note continued: “Even if our story mercifully ended up making no difference, it was a clear violation of the editorial standards which have made this newsroom so trusted around the world.”
Bloomberg initiated an internal investigation after complaints about the scoop last week, and determined disciplinary action was warranted.
“We will be reviewing our processes to ensure that failures like this don’t happen again,” Micklethwait said.
Micklethwait did not name the employees who were disciplined over the report. However, on Monday, one source at Bloomberg News familiar with the matter said White House reporter Jennifer Jacobs has left the company. Her byline was affixed to an initial version of the article on Gershkovich’s release and that of the other Americans held in Russia.
In a statement released late Monday evening, Jacobs said she was happy by the release of prisoners, that she worked “hand-in-hand” with her editors to adhere to Bloomberg’s editorial standards, and “at no time did I do anything that was knowingly inconsistent with [the government’s] embargo or that would put anyone involved at risk.”
“Reporters don’t have the final say over when a story is published or with what headline,” Jacobs continued. “The chain of events here could happen to any reporter tasked with reporting the news. This is why checks and balances exist within the editorial processes.”
Jacobs said the notion that she would “jeopardize the safety of a fellow reporter is deeply upsetting on a level that’s difficult to describe.” She did not comment directly on her dismissal.
The other reporter who was credited on the story, Cagan Koc, was also disciplined this week, the source said, but they declined to say whether he was still with the company.
