Bloomberg to Lift Ban on Anonymous Sources?

By now, you've read a lot about all the changes taking place at Bloomberg News since the arrival of chief content officer Norman Pearlstine. But here's one you haven't read about: The company's editorial leaders are discussing whether to relax restrictions on the use of blind quotes and anonymously sourced information.

As the rules now stand, any utterance that appears between quotation marks has to be attributed by name, and the appearance in print of any information attributed to anonymous sources has to be approved by a newsroom higher-up, usually editor in chief Matt Winkler.

There has long been a feeling by Bloomberg journalists that this policy leaves them at a disadvantage in competition with rival organizations that allow more liberal sourcing, which is just about all of them. "It gets you beat sometimes, but you can usually work around it," says one newsroom insider.

Asked via email about the sourcing rules, Pearlstine replied, "I am unaware of any planned changes to these policies," adding that further comment would have to come from Winkler or a company spokeswoman. Neither replied to a follow-up inquiry.

But the newsroom insider said the end of the ban on blind quotes, if it happens, would be of a piece with other emendations now being made to the Bloomberg Way, Winkler's notoriously elaborate and persnickety best-practices guide. Another one involves the mandate that earnings stories must all be written in advance to speed publication; that's no longer being enforced.

"The whole culture is loosening up," said the insider. "One by one, Norm Pearlstine is resolving all these conflicts, and he's resolving them in favor of the way they do it at the Journal or at Fortune," both of which Pearlstine has run.

"You have to wonder," added the source, "at what point does Matt just say 'This is not the job I had' and leave."