Bloomberg apologizes for premature story on prisoner swap and disciplines the journalists involved

Bloomberg News apologized and disciplined employees on Monday for prematurely publishing a story last week that revealed a prisoner exchange involving the United States and Russia that led to the release of detained American journalist Evan Gershkovich.

Bloomberg’s story, released before the prisoners had actually been freed, violated the company’s ethical standards, John Micklethwait, Bloomberg’s editor-in-chief, said in a memo to his staff.

The company would not say how many employees were disciplined and would not identify them. The story carried the bylines of Jennifer Jacobs, senior White House reporter for Bloomberg News, and Cagan Koc, Amsterdam bureau chief.

“We take accuracy very seriously,” Micklethwait said in the memo. “But we also have a responsibility to do the right thing. In this case we didn’t.”

Besides Wall Street Journal reporter Gershkovich, the exchange freed Paul Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive jailed since 2018, and Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist with dual U.S.-Russia citizenship. In return, the U.S. and other countries gave up Russians who had been charged or convicted of serious crimes.

Gershkovich’s imprisonment on espionage charges that his family and newspaper denied attracted particular attention in the journalism community, and the Journal campaigned vigorously for his release. Word of the deal had begun to spread among people familiar with the cases and the White House briefed reporters about it on an embargoed basis — meaning the journalists agreed not to release the information until given an official go-ahead.

Officials wanted to keep the news under wraps until the prisoners were safely released into U.S. custody for fear that public knowledge could scuttle the deal, and the Bloomberg story was published while a plane carrying them was flying to a drop-off point.

“This was not about a broken embargo,” The Wall Street Journal said in a statement Monday. “It was a report that Evan had been freed when in fact he had not yet been. We’re happy that Bloomberg corrected it.”

Jacobs, in a statement issued on X, said that at no time did she do anything inconsistent with the embargo or that knowingly would put anyone at risk. She also noted that reporters don’t have the final say over when a story is published or with what headline.

“As a journalist, the idea that I would jeopardize the safety of a fellow reporter is deeply upsetting on a level that’s difficult to describe,” Jacobs said. “I am so happy that Evan Gershkovich and the others are home.”

The initial Bloomberg story, which moved at 7:41 a.m. on Thursday, said that Russia was releasing Gershkovich and Whelan as part of a major prison swap, “according to people familiar with the situation.” It was updated more than an hour later to say that the prisoners had not yet been released.

The White House officially lifted its embargo at 11:33 a.m.

Bloomberg’s story put pressure on other news outlets to try to match it through other sources, without breaking the terms of the embargo agreements. The Associated Press, for example, sent an alert at 10:41 a.m. that Gershkovich and Whelan were being freed, quoting Turkish officials.

Shortly after the initial story moved, a Bloomberg editor wrote on X that “it is one of the greatest honors on my career to have helped break this news. I love my job and my colleagues,” according to New York magazine. That post didn’t sit well with other journalists who were aware of what was going on but were constrained from reporting it.

Micklethwait said he had apologized to Wall Street Journal editor Emma Tucker on Thursday, which the Journal confirmed. “Given the Wall Street Journal’s tireless efforts on their reporter’s behalf, this was clearly their story to lead the way on,” he said.

He said he was also writing personally to each of the freed prisoners to apologize.

Wall Street Journal reporter Dustin Volz, who covers the intelligence world, thanked Bloomberg for the apology in a post on X.

“Their premature story on Thursday caused a lot of people to panic and could have led to real harm,” Volz wrote. “It didn’t, thankfully, but it’s nice to see them own the mistake.”

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David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://twitter.com/dbauder.

David Bauder, The Associated Press