China Detains Bloomberg News Employee

Back in 2014, Bloomberg chairman Peter Grauer effectively admitted that the media titan will go “soft” on its China coverage because it “needs to be there” for one reason: Bloomberg terminal sales.

As the NYT reported then, Grauer said that the company should have reconsidered articles that deviated from its core of coverage of business news, because they jeopardized the huge sales potential for its products in the Chinese market. The comments, as the NYT said “represented the starkest acknowledgment yet by a senior Bloomberg executive that the ambitions of the news division should be assessed in the context of the business operation, which provides the bulk of the company’s revenue. They also signaled which of those considerations might get priority.”

Acknowledging the vast size of the Chinese economy, the world’s second-biggest after that of the United States, Mr. Grauer, said, “We have to be there.”

“We have about 50 journalists in the market, primarily writing stories about the local business and economic environment,” Mr. Grauer said in response to questions after a speech at the Asia Society. “You’re all aware that every once in a while we wander a little bit away from that and write stories that we probably may have kind of rethought — should have rethought.”

Grauer’s comments on Bloomberg’s “journalistic priorities” in China reflected what some Bloomberg employees said was “skepticism from the business side about whether investigative journalism is worth the potential problems it could create for terminal sales.”

“Being in China is very much a part of our long-term strategy and will continue to be so going forward,” Mr. Grauer said. “It occupies a lot of our thinking — Dan Doctoroff, our C.E.O.; me; Mike; and other members of our senior team.”

The reason for that is simple: Michael Bloomberg has built his multi-billion fortune on sales of the company’s terminals, which are ubiquitous on bankers’ desks around the world, and account for over 80% of the company $10 billion in revenue. But sales of those terminals in China declined after the company published an article in June 2012 on the family wealth of “president for life” Xi Jinping, at that time the incoming Communist Party chief. After its publication, officials ordered state enterprises not to subscribe to the service. Mr. Grauer did not specifically mention the article about Mr. Xi or any other articles.

So Bloomberg backed off, effectively refusing to cover the illicit practices of the world’s most corrupt regime.

Which is ironic because fast-forwarding to today, Bloomberg reported that Chinese authorities detained Haze Fan, who works for the Bloomberg News bureau in Beijing, “on suspicion of endangering national security.”

“Chinese citizen Ms. Fan has been detained by the Beijing National Security Bureau according to relevant Chinese law on suspicion of engaging in criminal activities that jeopardize national security. The case is currently under investigation. Ms. Fan’s legitimate rights have been fully ensured and her family has been notified,” the Chinese authorities said.

Fan was last in contact with one of her editors around 11:30 a.m. local time on Monday. Shortly after, she was seen being escorted from her apartment building by plain clothes security officials.

Throughout the four days since her disappearance, Bloomberg has sought information on Fan’s whereabouts from the Chinese government and the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC. Her family was informed within 24 hours. Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, on Thursday received confirmation that Fan is being held on suspicion of participating in activities endangering national security.

“We are very concerned for her, and have been actively speaking to Chinese authorities to better understand the situation. We are continuing to do everything we can to support her while we seek more information,” said a Bloomberg spokesperson.

Fan, a Chinese citizen, began working for Bloomberg in 2017 and was previously with CNBC, CBS News, Al Jazeera and Thomson Reuters. Chinese nationals can only work as news assistants for foreign news bureaus in China and are not allowed to do independent reporting.

One wonders what it was the Bloomberg published – or was about to publish – that sparked this latest retaliation, and does this mean that Bloomberg terminal sales in China are about to slide again…