Bloomberg News disciplines journalists for premature story on prisoner swap

Bloomberg News disciplined journalists on Monday for breaking a story that revealed the prisoner exchange involving the United States and Russia before the prisoners were freed.

The exchange ultimately led to the release of detained American journalist Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.

The company did not reveal which journalists were disciplined for breaking the embargo on the prison swap news but Jennifer Jacobs, senior White House reporter for Bloomberg News, and Cagan Koc, Amsterdam bureau chief, had bylines on the story.

CNN reported that Jacobs has been dismissed, citing an anonymous source.

John Micklethwait, Bloomberg’s editor-in-chief, said in a memo to staff that the handling of the story violated the company’s news ethics standards.

“We take accuracy very seriously,” Micklethwait said in the memo. “But we also have a responsibility to do the right thing. In this case we didn’t.”