Young, brash, ambitious, cult-like; best financial data machine ever invented
Pros
Bloomberg makes the best financial data machine in the world and has a formidable news organization. It makes a ton of money (privately held, so actual profitability hard to gauge) and flaunts it: Modern, glass-walled, open, colorful, futuristic showcase buildings in the best part of town. The company is relatively young, the news division is a mere 18 years old compared to Reuters' 150 and its entrepreneurial spirit is largely is still alive although with rapid growth a certain bureaucratic mindlessness has set in. Pay for news reporters is above-average, but so are the hours. The focus is on hard-core financial news for financial professionals who can afford the $25,000 or so per year for the vaunted Terminal. The famous free food has been replaced by free snacks and coffee for several years now. Training is superior, beginning with an intensive introduction to the Bloomberg Terminal and the Bloomberg Way, the news formula that dictates how all business stories are to be written. Membership is exclusive: those who leave are traitors never to be re-hired.
Cons
In news, there is a huge divide between the top (the editor in chief and his direct reports) and the team leaders and line editors who handle the daily flow of copy. Yet the top dictates everything, down to the last comma and the semi-colon, giving the news a uniform, formulaic and stilted tone. A good place for young reporters hungry to learn about business news, a disappointment for journeymen who are smarter than the top editors but forced to ape the Bloomberg Way.