The big news last week: After 16 months of imprisonment in Russia under false charges, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was free.
The Journal was not the newsroom to break that story, however.
Bloomberg News was.
And it wasn’t a scoop to celebrate, since it came thanks to what looks like a broken embargo and before Gershkovich and other prisoners were safely back in the United States.
In the days since, the story of how that happened has itself become the news.
“Embargoes are an important tool for both journalists and sources,” said Kelly McBride, Poynter’s senior vice president and the chair of the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership. “Most of the time they involve a timing request by the source: Don’t report this information until this specific point in time. They allow journalists to prepare a news story, so that they can publish the moment the embargo is lifted. Just like granting a source background or off-the-record status, agreeing to participate in an embargo is a promise that you are making.”
They can also be crucial to national security, troop movements and people’s lives.
On Friday, Charlotte Klein wrote for New York Magazine “Everybody Is Mad at Bloomberg News for Its Embargo-Breaking Gershkovich-Is-Free Scoop.”
Klein reported: “At 7:41 a.m. on August 1, Bloomberg published its scoop about the prisoner swap. Ten minutes later, a Bloomberg editor posted proudly on X, ‘It is one of the greatest honors of my career to have helped break this news. I love my job and my colleagues.’ Then, 8:59, the piece was updated to read: ‘An earlier version of this story was corrected to reflect that the Americans have not been released yet.’ The Journal itself didn’t report it until just after 11 when their reporter and other Americans — whose freedom was negotiated by the U.S. Government as part of an extremely complicated, 24-person swap across multiple countries — actually deplaned in Turkey.”
That scoop, Klein continues “was inaccurate, given that the Russian plane was still in the air at the time of publication. That plane could have just turned around and gone back to Moscow, which is why the Journal and other publications had agreed to hold off.”
Klein reports that Bloomberg was among the news organizations that were getting briefings after agreeing to hold the story.
On Monday, New York Times media reporter Katie Robertson tweeted about disciplinary action Bloomberg took against a number of people involved and included the screenshot of an email from Bloomberg’s editor-in-chief, John Micklethwait.
NEW: Bloomberg says it has taken disciplinary action against a number of people involved in breaking the prisoner swap embargo last week, email here from EIC John Micklethwait pic.twitter.com/XfFvuCO7x7
— Katie Robertson (@katie_robertson) August 5, 2024
Soon after, Washington Post media reporter Elahe Izadi tweeted that one of the two Bloomberg reporters who broke the news was no longer at Bloomberg.
Jennifer Jacobs is no longer with Bloomberg News, per two sources familiar
— Elahe Izadi | الهه (@ElaheIzadi) August 5, 2024
That reporter, Jennifer Jacobs, followed up Monday afternoon with a tweet that further explained the breach.
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) August 5, 2024
Bloomberg wasn’t the only news organization to disregard the embargo. Author and journalist Brian Stelter tweeted that Fox News broke the news on Wednesday night.
Regarding today’s story about Bloomberg breaking an embargo: Fox News rushed onto the air Wednesday night and said the swap was happening 8+ hours before any other outlet. Totally irresponsible. Fox later deleted the video from its website. https://t.co/EsFBffyKbO
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) August 2, 2024
While most embargoes are about the release of reports, studies and rulings and can be inconsequential, McBride said, that doesn’t mean they should be disregarded.
“It undermines the trustworthiness of you and your colleagues.”
By Kristen Hare, Poynter faculty
Why was Trump at NABJ?
Why was former President Donald Trump at the Black journalist family reunion last week? The question continues to reverberate.
Before a crowd of predominantly Black journalists at the NABJ convention in Chicago, Trump implied his opponent Kamala Harris is Indian and not really Black, berated Black women moderators, and toyed with giving immunity to Jan. 6 Capitol insurrectionists and the police officers who killed Sonya Massey.
His appearance pushed NABJ into the national news, brought protesters to the hotel where the convention was hosted, and created a rift within the organization. One of the interview hosts received death threats following the interview.
Some left asking — what’s a Black journalists’ convention for?
NABJ has long faced questions over its mission.
Letrell Crittenden, now the director of inclusion and audience growth at the American Press Institute, wrote his dissertation on NABJ’s history.
There has been “a great deal of dissension over how and for whom NABJ would operate” ever since its founding meeting on Dec. 12, 1975, Crittenden wrote. (Read Crittenden’s dissertation on the history of NABJ, from its founding in 1975 through 2014, here.)
The question about purpose emerged yet again last week, like an ugly pimple, when NABJ was at the top of the news cycle for all the wrong reasons.
“At a time when NABJ members should have been engaging in fellowship with their peers and mentors,” Shamira Ibrahim wrote in The Guardian last week, “they were instead forced to extend professionalism to a hostile guest who peddled racist ideas.”
The organization faced the tension between its dedication to journalism and journalistic integrity and its mission to advocate for fair treatment of Black journalists.
While leadership has defended its decision to invite Trump, there’s no ignoring the potential for a ripple effect.
By TyLisa C. Johnson, audience engagement producer
Louisana police: ‘Stay back’
A new Louisiana law will make it a misdemeanor for anyone — including journalists — to be within 25 feet of a law enforcement officer if the officer orders them back, Nieman Lab reports.
A coalition of media companies representing a couple dozen Louisiana news outlets are alleging the law violates the First Amendment, and has filed suit against Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, State Police Superintendent Robert Hodges and East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore III.
In 2016, two Louisiana journalists were among a group that filed a suit alleging their constitutional rights were violated when they were arrested during a protest march in Baton Rouge. The city later agreed to pay them $1.17 million.
Images made by those in attendance, including the journalists, were critical in countering the officers’ claims that the protesters were the aggressors, said William Most, an attorney for the plaintiffs.
The two journalists said they wouldn’t have been able to capture those images if the law had been on the books during the protests.
By TyLisa C. Johnson, audience engagement producer
Divide and conquer
Bill Grueskin, professor at the Columbia Journalism School and alumnus of The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News and the Miami Herald, wrote for CJR about the benefits and complications of starting a new arm of a newsroom in the spirit of innovation.
“(Harvard Professor Clay) Christensen nailed the key issue, then and now: newsroom managers must figure out if their current staff is equipped — intellectually, emotionally, technologically — to handle the pace of change in the business.”
The Washington Post is the latest traditional outlet to rise to such a challenge, with new publisher Will Lewis putting into action a plan that created a third, digital division.
The piece also reminds readers that if this seems like deja vu, that’s because it is. Other outlets, especially in the very early 2000s, allowed digital teams to experiment with homepage editing, podcasting, blogging, etc. “And let me tell you, it was glorious,” Greuskin wrote.
Greuskin also said the quiet part out loud: “Dual staffs are expensive.” And he recalled how contentious these “digital vs. print” divisions got in newsrooms.
By Josie Hollingsworth, audience director
Media tidbits and links
- Unionized staff at Crooked Media — which was founded by former Barack Obama staffers Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor — staged a one-day strike Monday after more than a year of contract negotiations. Members of the 61-person union alleged in a statement that the company was not living up to its progressive values: “Jon, Jon, and Tommy have consistently reminded us that organizing is essential to successful politics. If the founders believe that this is the case, we ask them to show that by coming to the bargaining table in these final days.” Among the union’s demands are higher salary floors, annual cost-of-living adjustments and safeguards against layoffs.
- McClatchy — which owns about 30 newspapers, including the Miami Herald and The Kansas City Star — will merge with accelerate360, a major magazine publisher and distributor. The magazine company owns such titles as Us Weekly, In Touch Weekly, Woman’s World and Life & Style. Its tabloid publications, including the National Enquirer, Star, National Examiner and Globe, will not be included in the merger. Both companies are owned by hedge fund Chatham Asset Management.
- The Buffalo News has completed the sale of its former headquarters to a local developer for $5.2 million. In a feature story about the effects of new leadership on the News, Poynter media business reporter Angela Fu noted that a previous deal, for $9 million, fell through in February 2023. Once interest rates cool down, the developer plans to connect the property to others that he owns and create a neighborhood of little alleys and “very cool little buildings.” He also plans to make “some kind of display and create a museum about the history of The Buffalo News.” The News was housed in the brutalist structure from 1973 until 2022.
- What happens when a news site shuts down and takes its website with it? Neiman Lab’s Hanaa’ Tameez with “To preserve their work — and drafts of history — journalists take archiving into their own hands.”
- 404 Media’s Samantha Cole with “Leaked Documents Show Nvidia Scraping ‘A Human Lifetime’ of Videos Per Day to Train AI.”
- The New York Times’ David McCabe writes, “‘Google Is a Monopolist,’ Judge Rules in Landmark Antitrust Case.” We’ll have more on this in the coming days and weeks.
- The United States’ Olympic drought in the men’s 100m final came to an end on Sunday, thanks to Noah Lyles — and extremely precise photo finish equipment. Lyles beat Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson by just .005 seconds. ESPN has a photo breakdown of Lyles’ by-a-hair finish.
Today’s Poynter Report was written by Kristen Hare, TyLisa Johnson, Angela Fu and Ren LaForme.
More resources for journalists
- Lead With Influence is for leaders who manage big responsibilities but have no direct reports.
- Public media journalists: attend our Digital Transformation Project Q&A webinar Aug. 13.
- Teaching, informing, empowering and convening — see our impact.
Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.
The Poynter Report is our daily media newsletter. To have it delivered to your inbox Monday-Friday, sign up here.
