Mr. Doctoroff, denying that any deal was in the works, told the gathering, “We do have greater aspirations, and in what form those aspirations will be fulfilled, we’re going to all have to sit and figure that out,” according to another employee who also agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity because the meeting was meant to be confidential.

Yet Mr. Winkler and Mr. Pearlstine seemed to distance themselves from the long-held company mantra that they are “builders not buyers” — meaning the company would seek growth organically rather than through acquisitions. Mr. Pearlstine noted Mr. Doctoroff’s résumé — he worked at Lehman Brothers and Oak Hill Capital, a private equity firm — and suggested that his expertise in deal making might be put to use.

Michael Bloomberg and Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. have both thrown cold water on speculation that Bloomberg might acquire the New York Times Company, and it's hard to make a strong business case that Bloomberg LP needs exposure to the struggling print news sector (reports of Michael Bloomberg's interest in the Times couched the potential deal as something of a charitable civic gesture).

So what else might Bloomberg LP be interested in buying? Its news operations may soon be unshackled from its slowing bread-and-butter terminal business, according to the Times, which means Bloomberg's various other news outlets could soon be free to break news without worrying whether it has first reached terminal subscribers. Any media acquisitions would likely be designed to accelerate advertising growth (already under way) and offset any further slowdown in the terminal business. With an eye toward those concerns, might Bloomberg might be interested in...

• Dow Jones Newswires? - Rupert Murdoch bought Dow Jones for the Wall Street Journal and its hard to imagine he'd have a tough time parting with the newswire operation, which faces big challenges in the wake of the Reuters-Thompson merger. On the other hand, it's hard to see how such a deal would appeal to Bloomberg.
• TheStreet.com? - The financial news site started by Jim Cramer could be bought for a tiny fraction of Michael Bloomberg's fortune and would bring two things that have been missing, by design, from Bloomberg News: A website that breaks news and quickly and brings attention to it efficiently, and opinionated analysis. As a bonus, the site is far ahead of Bloomberg.com in bringing video to the Web.
• CNET? - Another affordable acquisition that would bring Web smarts and video savvy, but CNET may be too consumer- and tech-focused for Bloomberg.
• GigaOM or TechCrunch? - Neither would add much ad revenue, and both are heavily tied to their founding bloggers. But either could at as a sort of flagship for Bloomberg's growth on the Web

Your own brainstorms are welcome, either in the comments or to tips@gawker.com.

[Times]

Norman Pearlstine, a veteran of Time magazine, is to take on the role of chief content officer at Bloomberg News. He will "partner" with the wire's editor-in-chief "to seek growth opportunities" and "make the most of the existing operations"—a nauseatingly mealy-mouthed a job description even by the despicable standards of modern corporation communications. Both Winkler and Pearlstine will report to Dan Doctoroff, the New York city official whom Bloomberg recently installed to run the business which made the mayor's multi-billion fortune. So, how to read the reorganization?

Winkler is the most widely hated media executive I have ever come across. We ran a tape of the bad-tempered newsroom boss yelling at subordinates who dared question a firing decision, which prompted more than 100 stories of the culture of terror and mind-numbing conformity that he had instilled at the Bloomberg wire service. (You must listen to the clip: "The enemy is the human!") His employees will be hoping that Pearlstine's arrival is part of a plan to reduce Winkler's absolute power, and gradually ease him out of the position he has held for nearly two decades. Winkler is a long-standing sycophant of Bloomberg, who still retains ultimate control of the company he founded, so Doctoroff probably can't remove the newsroom chief in one clean cut.

One sign that it's a humiliation for Winkler: the press release went overboard in touting Winkler's role as founder of Bloomberg News, their reunion of two former colleagues and their "mutual regard." The only departure from implausible corporate boilerplate was Winkler's video message to staff, which accompanied the text of the release. In a widely ridiculed effort to show how with it he is, Winkler has been putting his messages to music. The latest went out with a background of that Beatles song, You say you want a revolution. An unwise question; Winkler would not like the answer. (Please, some brave soul over at Bloomberg HQ, send us the clip!)

According to the source, the proponents of the merger are appealing to the mayor's sense of "civic-mindedness," arguing that he is best suited to take the publishing company private to "help protect the brand" in the wake of relentless shareholder assaults. "It is clearly a brand that Bloomberg could help preserve and that he cares about immensely … and could pay a competitive price" for, says this person.

It's not like Bloomberg would run the Times like some sort of non-profit. If that were the case, Rupert Murdoch probably wouldn't have even made the pretense, in the same Newsweek story, of claiming to be intimidated by Bloomberg: "I wouldn't look forward to going up against him," said the News Corp. chief and Wall Street Journal owner.

[Newsweek via PaidContent]

Wolff, author of one of the greatest chronicles of business failure, Burn Rate, writes: "And he's a man who would be trusted, maybe the man who would be most trusted, by the Times core constituency, the moderate-liberal establishment, to be a proper steward — he, by himself, might bring value to the Times."

The proposal makes superficial sense. Bloomberg, whose wealth is estimated at $11.5bn by Forbes, can afford the New York Times, which has a market capitalization of a mere $2.8bn. He does indeed have political views that mesh with those of the Times' defenders, as Wolff says. And the mayor shows no sign of political ambition after the expiry of his term; ownership of the New York Times would provide a platform, without the stress of national office, or the boredom of Albany.

But the idea that Bloomberg can provide a nurturing environment for great journalism is, despite the mayor's success in building New York's biggest private information company, entirely unproven. Bloomberg LP is of course primarily a financial information business, providing terminals and data to traders in bonds and other financial markets. The company's wire service arm is an adjunct, and a clumsily managed one at that.

To be sure, Bloomberg would never be so crass as to impose his mediocre editorial management on a newspaper as reputed as the Times. But the newspaper's reporters, and supporters, ought to wonder a little more about a proprietor who has allowed petty tyrants like this to rule over an unhappy newsroom for more than a decade. There's only one consolation: at least the meetings are lively. In case you haven't already heard it, here's audio of Bloomberg's pet editor, ghost writer of his autobiography, ranting at disobedient reporters.

Daily News: Bloomberg does song, dance for charity

No one is questioning Bloomberg's entrepreneurial chutzpah: he built the financial information service which bears his name into New York's most valuable private company. But Bloomberg's judgment in people is about as questionable as that of his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani. One cannot claim that any of Bloomberg's associates have mob ties that match Giuliani's aide, Bernie Kerik. But Bloomberg has left Lex Fenwick and Matthew Winkler, as nominal CEO and editor-in-chief, respectively, despite their evident failings as managers.

You've heard the audio tape of the irascible Winkler yelling at dissenting reporters; here's a former employee who can't believe that Bloomberg's corporate record has gone so long without proper examination.

Something that strikes me as odd in all of the will-he-won’t-he stuff about a Mike stab at the White House is that no one seems to be looking at the company he founded, with its peculiar management culture, surely one of the most spiteful and lowgrade, given the generally high standard of the workforce, that there is. Would his running of the United States be as nasty, with all the effing and blinding and ass-pinching that he brought to corporate culture ?

There is not only the vile Winkler, truly an unstable and unsavoury piece of work, but `humans’ like Lex Fenwick, the purple-suited ****-sniffing bald coot all the way from Britain, who strangely masquerades as the CEO when even the cleaners know the real boss is Grauer. Educated (more like interned) at Downside School, the disgusting specimen affects a Cockney accent to cosy up to the underdog. One person who hates our Lex with a vengeance is Emma Gilbey (of the Gilbey’s Gin family), the wife of the NYT executive editor Bill Keller. Her brother was at school with Lex …

A singularity is how Bloomberg News encourages the mediocre. Anyone with any spirit, any inclination to say `yes, but’ rather than snap straight into action no matter how ludicrous the order, and, my God, the orders can be so stupid, is crushed and sidelined. Thus, the horrid Winkler prevails with his no buts, no despites, no announceds and the rest.

From a Bloomberg News employee overseas on January 9, 2005: We are told that, on Dec. 27, John McCorry, who was chairing one of the news conference calls, interrupted various proposals on covering the tsunami to ask: "Why do we care?" This latest example of his finesse was greeted by silence. We knew McCorry was crass, but isn't this going a little far even for him? He's adding bad taste, maybe worse, to an already incompetent and unprofessional track record. It's truly astonishing that a company with employees of different creeds and origins living and working all over the world can keep such trash in positions of responsibility.

Winkler of course is famous for his abuse of subordinates; the temper of his purple-suited boss, Lex Fenwick, has sometimes been taken out on airline staff, according to Bloomberg lore. After one particularly noteworthy incident of air rage, the then-CEO of British Airways had to explain to the information giant's billionaire owner, Michael Bloomberg, that the airline no longer wanted Fenwick as a passenger. (Um, question: if the New York mayor and possible presidential candidate is such an awesome manager, how can he pick so many bad ones?)

The suit by female employees who claim they were eased out after becoming pregnant? That's probably par for the course for a big company. And one can overlook the mayor's loyalty to Matthew Winkler; the Bloomberg editor did, after all, ghost Mayor Mike's autobiography.

But it's pretty inexcusable that construction on the company's Upper East Side headquarters makes the New York Times' easily shattered new tower look like a work of craftsmanship. The 220 injuries at the Lexington Avenue skyscraper prompted a federal safety official to write "ouch" next to the figure in an internal e-mail. Which is the sound Candidate Bloomberg would make as soon as the attack ads addressed, no doubt unfairly, his management record.

I think this happened in 2004 at the former Bloomberg digs on Park Avenue. Matt Winkler had come to the newsroom to tell everyone about the latest Bloomberg triumph, I think it was a government contract that put a bloomberg machine in all the offices of the Department of Agriculture. It was a big contract and Winkler had in tow two of the salesmen who made it happen. He produces a bottle of champagne, opens it, and pours the contents into three paper cups — for himself and the two salesmen. He does this in the center of the newsroom. After downing the contents, thanks us for our work, off he went. No class at all.

So many editors and reporters have suffered his management for so long; as a private company controlled by a founder now busy with other matters, the financial information service can more easily hush up its embarrassments; so there is a huge reservoir of bitterness among current and former employees just waiting to relieve itself in the form of tips.

Since we ran audio of one classic Winkler tirade — "The enemy is the human" — the emails have flooded in. "Your stories about Winkler are only scratching the surface; the rant on the tape you have is, on a 1-10 scale of Winkler rants, about a 2," writes one informant. Another: "You are dead on about Winkler. Keep it going." So we will.

What do people know about a confrontation between the irascible Bloomberg news boss and an editor on the bond team, in the mid-1990s? In particular, after the company settled, what constraints did the group's top management put on Winkler's behavior around journalists, and how long did he have to adhere to them? We know how paranoid Bloomberg employees can be; all tips should be over public networks, and will be taken in confidence. Email nick@gawker.com.

The “wanker” story is legendary and numerous Bloombergers have insisted on its veracity to me, although like a great story few were around for first hand, the details seem to be crossing over into the realm of myth. According to some of their guys I was having drinks with a few years back, it was an night editor who blew his stack in Tokyo. What made it worse was that the hedes were “red stickies.” They didn’t just scroll by – these hedes had coding of such high importance they stayed glued to the top of the screen. As told to me, they had trouble getting the hedes killed and they just sat there.

The headline read "Winkler Wanker Winkler Wanker". It was posted by a disgruntled editor who had recently left and let himself back into the zero-security London office. The company sued the employee for everything under the sun, but the judge found him guilty only on the minor charge of theft of electricity. That I can confirm. This bit I'm not 100 percent sure on: the story at the time was that the editor had logged on as Mike Bloomberg (any Bloomberg employee could look up any other's login) and, along with his headline, sent rude messages from Mike to the Bloomberg terminals of the head of the SEC and the Fed chairman, among others.

A few weeks ago, clients of Bloomberg Business News saw a strange headline floating across their computer screens: "Winkler Wanker, Winkler Wanker." It was, insiders realized, a derogatory reference to Editor in Chief Matthew Winkler. In London this week, Scotland Yard police arrested a former Bloomberg editor on charges of violating the country's computer security laws. London bureau chief Doug McGill said the former editor (whose name has not been released) was fired earlier this year. [Washington Post, September 1994]

Enough of that. Back to the wanker. The way I heard it shortly after I had left was that the Screaming Dwarf fired the senior London night editor in another fit of rage. Forgetting that the London night editor had control over the computers in the dead time period. The editor spent considerable time, energy and creativity to create a blanket headline over-ride (or whatever the boffins might call it) that — according to my gleeful informant — over-rode everything else proudly to proclaim in an endlessly scrolling screenful of headlines:

Bloomberg's South Asia staff did their usual speedy and effective work, under difficult conditions. But that wasn't enough for the nit-picking editorial supremo. Writes a poster to the Bloomberg message forum on The Vault. "So who rolls up to overturn the applecart? Deranged bowtie himself, complaining that the people on the spot were committing 'style violations' — offenses to the rules laid down by his less-than-sound mind."

(Later today: an audio tape of Winkler yelling at subordinates after they complained about the summary dismissal of a reporter. Keep those tips coming.)

Yeas & Nays [Examiner]

For Kouyoumdjian, a sophomore who said she began smoking last year to fit in better with the college scene, kicking the habit was no big deal - no hypnosis, patch or nicotine gum, just old-fashioned willpower.

"I just quit," said the L.A. native, a poli-sci and foreign-relations major.

IT 'WORKS OUT' WELL FOR THIS FITNESS BUFF [NYP]

Bloomberg Dismisses Talk of Sale [NYT]
Mike aide carjacked [NYDN]

The form itself is fairly standard, corporate-wise: Provide a self-critique, list your goals for the following year, etc. There's an odd bit about whether or not you've fulfilled "'the five Fs'" as defined in THE BLOOMBERG WAY"; whatever they are, they're probably nowhere near as fun as we're imagining. It's toward the end of the document that things get interesting:

"For Team Leaders Only:
6. Please provide data on your five-week performance in the New York Times for the past year."

So apparently, success at Bloomberg is determined by how many stories you can get into The Times. Here's our tip to our friends over at Bloomberg: You can't go wrong with "fat logs" in local bodies of water.

Thank you, anonymous tipster! If the rest of you out there care to share your own organization's performance reviews, or even memos about pilferage from the breakroom refrigerator, please feel free to send them to us. E-mail is great, but there's something so "real" about getting documents in the post. Makes us feel lie actual reporters. Anyway, back to Adrian Grenier sightings.

But according to Johansson's people, she was never actually scheduled to attend the press conference. The mayor's spokesman Stu Loeser countered that Bloomberg had just been joking — such a sly cover. Gotta save face when Hizzoner's been stood up by a schedule-wielding publicist.

Mike Blushes Over Scarlett [NYDN]
[Image via OAN]

Coming in 22nd place is Oprah Winfrey, who donated $51.8 million to her various foundations, all of which bear her name. Ted Turner falls in at number 15, donating $70.6 million to the South African Peace Parks Foundation plus the Nuclear Threat Initiative, Turner Foundation, U.N. Foundation and Better World Fund. Jane Fonda would be proud.

The highest-donating media whore on the list is our own Michael Bloomberg, who clocks in at a respectable 7th place, having donated $144 million to feel-good vaguaries including arts, education, health care and social services. Wow — how generous of our dear mayor! Maybe in 2006, he could donate that cash to the Chinatown Loogy Cleanup.

The 2005 Slate 60 [Slate]

Mayor Bloomberg came by B-Bar on Tuesday night for the popular gay party Beige. He had a leisurely dinner with Brian Ellner and his partner and a few other gays. What's funny is that he was last seen at Beige just about 4 yrs ago, right before the election.

And, never one to go about these things half-assedly, Bloomberg then sashayed over to Boysroom, where he was last seen in the bathroom, vigilantly campaigning for saunas and glitter.

At this point, of course, we're well beyond being troubled that the billionaire mayor (indirectly) buys his elections.

We're just pissed he won't pay for our vote.

(You think the therapy it'll require after pulling a Republican lever is going to come free, Mike? Come on.)

Bloomberg's Giving Increases to $140M; 843 Groups Benefit [NY Sun]