Jennifer Saba and Paul Sandle New York and London
Billionaire news and information mogul Michael Bloomberg replaced the founding editor at his eponymous news service with The Economist editor-in-chief John Micklethwait, moving aggressively to broaden the one-time financial newswire beyond its core Wall Street audience.
Matthew Winkler, 59, the entrepreneurial and at times volatile leader of Bloomberg’s newsroom for 25 years, is stepping aside to become editor-in-chief emeritus.
The announcement on Tuesday marks the latest shake-up since Michael Bloomberg, who served as New York’s mayor for three terms, said he would return to the helm of his company next year.
“I have always believed that organisations benefit from internal change,” he said in a memo to employees.
Micklethwait’s arrival “will give us the chance to unify the editorial side of our company”, from real-time news to its magazines and digital properties, Bloomberg said.
Micklethwait, 52, will take over from Winkler in early 2015. He has been with The Economist, which is half owned by Pearson’s Financial Times media group, since 1987.
While editor-in-chief, he had successfully steered the magazine through a tough period for print media as more content moved to the web and cellphones, analysts said.
Before launching Bloomberg News in 1990, Winkler was a reporter with the Wall Street Journal.
Impression
He made such an impression on Michael Bloomberg while interviewing him for a story about the then-fledgling information service that Bloomberg recruited him to build the newsroom from scratch.
Over the span of a quarter-century, the bow-tie wearing editor built one of the world’s largest news organisations.
He did so with a hands-on leadership approach that extended to personally reviewing headlines, interviewing almost all new hires and enforcing Bloomberg’s notably stringent newsroom style guide. – Reuters