Bloomberg to End Its Daily Politics Show - New York Times
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With the election now in the rearview mirror, Bloomberg has decided to terminate its daily politics show “With All Due Respect” hosted by the political journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin and refocus its Bloomberg Politics team, according to a staff memo on Thursday.
“In the coming weeks, as Washington transitions from the Obama administration to the incoming Trump administration, our Bloomberg Politics team will transition as well — shifting our focus to the impact of politics and policy on the business and financial world,” John Micklethwait, the editor in chief of Bloomberg, and Justin B. Smith, chief executive of Bloomberg Media, said in the memo.
“Will All Due Respect,” which began in October 2014 and was broadcast on Bloomberg TV at 5 p.m. and MSNBC at 6 p.m., will run daily until Dec. 2, after which there will be four hourlong specials setting up the presidency of Donald J. Trump. The show will end with coverage of Mr. Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
Errol Cockfield, a spokesman for MSNBC, declined to comment on the network’s plans for the 6 p.m. hour.
Mr. Heilemann and Mr. Halperin, the authors of the popular book “Game Change” about the 2008 election, joined Bloomberg in May 2014. But their hiring caused discord between Bloomberg’s offices in New York and Washington, where journalists felt they were being overshadowed by the new politics team. The show initially struggled to find an audience and was criticized in some quarters for being too frivolous. With all of that in mind, the inauguration could be viewed as both a natural and convenient endpoint.
The duo are in discussions about staying on as contributors and columnists for Bloomberg, according to the memo, though they will no longer have day-to-day roles.
Bloomberg Politics will shift to a “more global outlook,” and there are plans to start a new television show “focused on global politics and the impact of the new administration’s policies on business and finance worldwide,” according to the memo, which was reported earlier by The Huffington Post.
The moves are part of a broader reshuffling at Bloomberg, which said in a separate memo on Thursday that it was revamping its magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek, to focus more on business and finance. Megan Murphy, who was Bloomberg’s Washington bureau chief, was named editor of the magazine, which is expected to begin publishing in its new form in the second quarter of next year. “What will emerge from this will be very different from the stand-alone magazine you all write for at the moment,” the memo said. The memo also said the editorial team at the magazine “may well be smaller.”
Correction: November 17, 2016
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of a picture caption misstated when “With All Due Respect” will end. Its daily schedule ends Dec. 2, and four hourlong specials will air before the show concludes on Jan. 20; it will not end in December.
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