The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee announced Monday that Bloomberg News reporters will no longer be given press credentials for 2020 events and rallies.
I cannot say I disagree with the decision. After all, Bloomberg News did announce last week that it would extend its policy of not covering its founder, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to his 2020 Democratic primary opponents, all while still investigating the Trump White House.
If Bloomberg News will not treat itself like a legitimate and even-handed news organization, then why should Republicans and the Trump campaign?
Of course, this is all an embarrassing mess. Trump campaign chairman Brad Parscale made the announcement Monday in a press release that reads
Bloomberg News has declared that they won’t investigate their boss or his Democrat competitors, many of whom are current holders of high office, but will continue critical reporting on President Trump. As President Trump’s campaign, we are accustomed to unfair reporting practices, but most news organizations don’t announce their biases so publicly. Presented with this new policy from Bloomberg News, our campaign was forced to determine how to proceed.
Since they have declared their bias openly, the Trump Campaign will no longer credential representatives of Bloomberg News for rallies or other campaign events. We will determine whether to engage with individual reporters or answer inquiries from Bloomberg News on a case-by-case basis. This will remain the policy of the Trump campaign until Bloomberg News publicly rescinds its decision.
Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait is not pleased with the decision. He responded Monday with a statement of his own, which reads: “The accusation of bias couldn’t be further from the truth.”
It adds, “We have covered Donald Trump fairly and in an unbiased way since he became a candidate in 2015 and will continue to do so despite the restrictions imposed by the Trump campaign.”
But the accusations of bias are not unfair. Bloomberg News has announced a policy of lopsided, self-muzzling news coverage. By self-censoring on behalf of its billionaire founder, all while still investigating his chief Republican opponent, what good reason does anyone have to believe that Bloomberg News will cover the Trump 2020 campaign evenly and fairly?
It is on Bloomberg News to show it can get the job done. It is not the responsibility of the Trump campaign and the RNC to hope and pray that a newsgroup that refuses to investigate its owner or his 2020 Democratic rivals will play it straight.
What is really amazing is that neither Bloomberg News nor Mike Bloomberg, who has been mulling a White House run for more than a decade, seem to have anticipated Monday’s announcement, as the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel notes. No one involved with Bloomberg News seems to have considered that there would be pushback for its widely criticized policy of uneven 2020 coverage.
