On Friday evening, Next Media Animation posted to the Internet its unique take on the emerging conflict at Bloomberg News over two ill-fated investigative stories about China. Both examine Chinese leaders and businesspeople and were written by veteran reporters in Hong Kong. Some Bloomberg employees say that senior editors in New York, led by Matthew Winkler, the longtime editor-in-chief, have barred the stories from publication to ensure that Bloomberg has access in China. Bloomberg has come under fire from Communist Party officials since it published a prize-winning investigative series last year on the family wealth of Chinese leaders, including that of Xi Jinping, the new party chief.
We spoke to Bloomberg employees and wrote an article on this dispute. Laurie Hays, a senior executive editor in New York who worked closely on the stories, strongly denied in a telephone interview that the stories had been killed. “No stories have been spiked, and any notion that we did is completely untrue,” she said.
Next Media Animation is based in Taipei, capital of Taiwan. Its parent company is Next Media, a powerful Hong Kong media company critical of the Communist Party. Its flagship publications are banned from mainland distribution. The company’s founder, Jimmy Lai, regularly calls for democracy in China.