Bloomberg News disciplines staffers after breaking embargo on US-Russia prisoner swap

Bloomberg News took disciplinary action Monday against a “number” of its staffers after the outlet broke an embargo last week on news of the release of several American prisoners held by Russia, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

In a memo sent to the outlet’s staff on Monday and obtained by CNN, Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait wrote that an initial story, published at 7:41 a.m. ET Thursday, reporting Gershkovich had been released as part of a historic US-Russia prisoner exchange was posted “prematurely.”

Bloomberg’s reporting “could have endangered the negotiated swap that set them free,” Micklethwait wrote. “Even if our story mercifully ended up making no difference, it was a clear violation of the editorial standards which have made this newsroom so trusted around the world.”

Bloomberg’s Standards editor conducted a “full investigation,” Micklethwait added, and as a result the outlet was taking “disciplinary action against a number of those involved” and will be reviewing their process to make sure such “failures like this don’t happen again.”

The editor said he had personally written letters to apologize to each of the prisoners and that he “immediately” apologized on Thursday to Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker.

The initial report Thursday morning was touted by a Bloomberg reporter on X, who said it was one of the “greatest honors of my career” to help break the news of Gershkovich’s release. The reporter later deleted the post and the published story was later updated to note that the prisoners had not yet been released.

“An earlier version of this story was corrected to reflect that the Americans have not been released yet,” an editors’ note added to the story at 8:59 a.m. ET stated.

News organizations, including CNN, had agreed to hold on to news of the prisoners’ release so as not to endanger the process. According to a person familiar with The Wall Street Journal’s decision-making, the newspaper did not intend to publish a story on Gershkovich’s release until he was seen walking free during a handover at Turkey’s Ankara airport. Most news organization did not publish the news until later that morning.

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

Ahead of the prisoner swap, the White House had briefed reporters from multiple news organizations around 8 a.m. ET on the activity, with an embargo time on the news of later that day, according to a person familiar with the matter.

After Bloomberg’s story was posted online, the White House called the outlet asking for the story to be removed as Gershkovich and other prisoners had not yet been freed, according to this person. Bloomberg declined to take the story down, which frustrated the White House.

The historic prisoner swap, which also included former US Marine Paul Whelan and RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, was the result of years of complicated behind-the-scenes negotiations involving the US, Russia, Belarus and Germany.

A total of eight people, including convicted Russian assassin Vadim Krasikov, were swapped back to Russia in exchange for the release of 16 people who were held in Russian detention, including four Americans.