Bloomberg disciplines multiple staff over premature prisoner swap story

Bloomberg News has disciplined several staffers after the outlet prematurely published a story last week on a prisoner swap between the U.S. government and Russia, which brought home Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, among others.

The story, published early Thursday before the deal had been announced, “could have endangered the negotiated swap that set them free,” Bloomberg Editor-In-Chief John Micklethwait wrote Monday in a memo sent to staffers that was obtained by The Hill.

“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,” he said.

Micklethwait said the outlet conducted a formal internal review of what led to the story’s publication, and as a result “have today taken disciplinary action against a number of those involved, and we will be reviewing our processes to ensure that failures like this don’t happen again.”

Micklethwait said he had personally communicated with Emma Tucker, the Journal’s top editor, to apologize to each of the prisoners released as part of the swap, saying “this was clearly their story to lead the way on,” citing the newspaper’s months-long efforts to advocate for Gershkovich’s release.

A spokesperson for Bloomberg declined to comment further on how the story was published or who at the outlet had faced disciplinary action.

“We publish thousands of stories every day, many of which break news. We take accuracy very seriously,” Micklethwait wrote to staff. “But we also have a responsibility to do the right thing. In this case we didn’t.”