Bloomberg laid off 80 newsroom employees on Tuesday, including a veteran reporter who penned a memo blasting the “climate of fear” in the company’s Washington bureau.
The fate of senior writer Dawn Kopecki had been in limbo since June, when she sent a 3,222-word memo to executives assailing the company for bloat, in-fighting and low morale. The memo was leaked to the media, embarrassing the company.
Bloomberg dismissed about a dozen staffers in the DC bureau, which has been hit hard by low morale, a turf battle with the New York bureau over political coverage — and now layoffs.
Founder and CEO Mike Bloomberg has been looking to trim the fat — the company has 2,400 newsroom employees in 150 bureaus around the globe — since he returned to the helm a year ago.
After the company ramped up coverage in a number of non-core areas including art, sports and government, Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait is putting the focus back on the company’s money-making business of providing news and financial data for its $24,000-a-year terminals.
The layoffs were “not about downsizing; it is about refocusing our considerable resources,” Micklethwait said in a sprawling memo to staff Tuesday.
In the Washington bureau, Ken Fireman, the managing editor of non-US government news in the Americas, was also shown the door.
He had taken over responsibilities for Chris Wellisz, who departed last month after he inadvertently broke an embargo and sent out a headline about sensitive Federal Reserve data.
Other layoffs in the DC bureau included:
- Mark McQuillan, who was praised in a June 26 memo by Senior Executive Editor Marty Schenker as a “shining example of excellence” for his coverage of the Supreme Court;
- John Walcott, a national security editor who was previously editor-in-chief at SmartBrief and Washington bureau chief at McClatchy’s;
- Mark Rohner, an economics editor who was with the company for 21 years;
- David Lerman, a national security reporter most recently covering the Iran nuclear pact;
- Carter Doherty, who covered financial regulation for the last five years;
- Economics reporters Peter Gosselin and David J. Lynch.
Several reporters and editors in the New York bureau also got their walking papers shortly after the opening bell Tuesday. They included Melissa “Mina” Kawai, who covered telecom companies, and editor Karen Goldfarb.
Employees were given three weeks pay for each year with the company, according to insiders.
Ty Trippet, a Bloomberg spokesman, declined to comment.