Bloomberg Continues its Misreporting

On August 13 we posted an analysis on this Blog, written by one of our gas and oil researchers, Gretchen Gordon, pointing out that the Bloomberg news service was misreporting the Bolivia gas and oil story in a way that was so fundamental and so consistent that it seemed to be intentional.

We noted that in report after report, over a period of a month, Bloomberg kept declaring that the Bolivian government had "seized the assets" of foreign energy companies operating in Bolivia. In our post on August 13th we pointed out that the government had never seized any asset of any company and noted that we were sending a letter to the Bloomberg reporters involved, asking them to provide "the documentation of exactly which company assets were seized and when." We also offered Bloomberg equal space in which they could share their response on the Blog with our readers.

It has now been almost two weeks since that posting and our communication back from Bloomberg has been limited to a short note saying that our letter was passed on to their Latin American editor.

Today the news agency filed a report, once again, that includes the reference: "…after the government reversed a decision to seize the country's oil and gas fields."

Once again, we call on Bloomberg to provide the documentation of exactly which company assets were seized and when. They owe their readers accuracy, especially on an issue of such major importance both in Bolivia and abroad.

For readers interested in contacting the reporters and editor at Bloomberg directly, we are posting their names and emails below. We will also be sending a copy of this post to each. A full report on Bloomberg's errant Bolivia coverage, including links to their articles, can be found here.

Bloomberg Latin America Editor:

Laura Zelenko: lzelenko@bloomberg.net

Bloomberg Reporters:

Jeb Blount: jblount@bloomberg.net
Tom Cahill: tcahill@bloomberg.net
Alex Emery: aemery1@bloomberg.net
Ben Miller: bmiller29@bloomberg.net
Sarah Thompson: sthompson17@bloomberg.net