Bloomberg News reportedly fired a prominent White House reporter for breaking a media embargo on the prisoner swap that freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich from a Russian prison.
Jennifer Jacobs, a senior White House reporter for the news agency, was let go Monday after Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait vowed to discipline staff for throwing in the gun on the dramatic deal, according to New York magazine’s Charlotte Klein.
“Jennifer Jacobs — one of two Bloomberg reporters who flagged the Gershkovich embargo-breaking story — has been fired, according to a source familiar with the situation,” Klein tweeted to X on Monday.
Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal correspondent jailed by Russia on espionage charges, and fellow American Paul Whelan were among two dozen people freed Thursday in the largest prisoner exchange between Washington and Moscow since Cold War.
A news embargo was imposed until Gershkovich and others were deemed safe out of Russian hands.
However, Bloomberg published a story at 7:41 a.m. ET on Thursday. A few minutes later, one of his editors posted on X: “It is one of the greatest honors of my career to have helped break this news. I love my job and my colleagues.”
About an hour later, the Bloomberg story was updated with the comment: “An earlier version of this story has been corrected to reflect that the Americans have not yet been released.”
The paper, which is owned by The Post’s parent company News Corp, published its story just after 11 a.m. ET after it was confirmed that Gershkovich and the other Americans were no longer in Russian custody.
Micklethwait acknowledged that Bloomberg’s story “could have jeopardized the negotiated settlement that set them free.”
“Even if our story mercifully ended up making no difference, it was a clear violation of the editorial standards that have made this newsroom so trusted around the world,” he wrote.
The paper’s staff and other media outlets were furious with Bloomberg for breaking the embargo.
“We literally had [Journal chief foreign affairs correspondent] Yaroslav Trofimov on the ground [in Turkey] with binoculars waiting to see Evan get off the plane and we were published in the pub as soon as it happened,” a Journal source told New York Magazine.
A spokesman for Bloomberg declined to comment when contacted by The Post.
Micklethwait told staff that the Bloomberg Standards editor conducted a “thorough investigation” which resulted in “disciplinary action against a number of those involved.”
Bloomberg News will review its processes to ensure “failures like this don’t happen again.”
Micklethwait wrote that he personally sent letters of apology to each of the freed Americans.
He also revealed that he apologized Thursday to Emma Tucker, the Journal’s editor-in-chief.
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Image Source : nypost.com
