Essay --

This is the story of one company, but two businesses, trying to do business in China, a country which can be very difficult even in the best of times. It is even more difficult when those two businesses are in conflict with each other. Much has been made of Google’s entry to and exit from the China market because of Chinese hacking and censorship. Other media companies, such as the New York Times, have also had issues with Chinese censors. But few companies are facing the dilemma that is currently facing Bloomberg LP, which recently became the world’s largest distributor of financial news and data (Elkind, 2013). This dilemma is placing its large money-making business side against its smaller media side, forcing them in some ways to fight head-to-head. And while the winner of this fight may be determined by where the money is, how the company chooses to handle this sensitive situation will speak volumes about both its ethical and business priorities. The business side consists of Bloomberg’s financial data unit, which includes its famous data terminal. That terminal is a part of investment offices around the world and responsible for 85 percent of the company’s $8.3 billion in annual revenue (Elkind, 2013). The media side consists of Bloomberg News and its 2,400 journalists, which includes its worldwide cable television channel, web page and other outlets such as Bloomberg Business Week. This part of Bloomberg brings in just 4 percent of the company’s revenue (Jager, 2013). This push-and-pull between the news and business sides of Bloomberg’s China operations dates back to 2012, when Bloomberg News published a series of stories about the personal wealth of China’s new president Xi Jinping and his family (â€Å"Xi Jinping Millionaire... ...and not journalism. It can choose to change its journalism model in order to preserve its financial data business model. Evidence of this shift is already taking place. The company recently laid off about 40 news staffers, and executives say Bloomberg will shift its focus away from certain areas, including its investigative unit. â€Å"We must have the courage to say no to certain areas of coverage in order to have enough firepower in areas we want to own,† Winkler said in a memo to his staff (Chozick, 2013). It is also my opinion that this is a wise course of action. While political conditions in China are far from ideal, it is possible those conditions will change in China over the course of years. Bloomberg is not compromising the ethics of its core business, and will leave itself in a position to quickly take advantage of any loosening of China’s censorship policies.