Media

Bloomberg Fires Jennifer Jacobs After Breaking Embargo On Russian Hostage Story: REPORT

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Robert McGreevy Reporter
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Bloomberg fired a reporter after the outlet allegedly broke an embargo on the prisoner swap that freed Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reporter Evan Gershkovich from Russian custody, New York Magazine’s Charlotte Klein reported Monday.

Jennifer Jacobs, who was the outlet’s senior White House reporter, co-wrote the story on the prisoner swap, however, the outlet published the story before he was officially free, breaking a White House embargo, according to NYMag.

Bloomberg published their story, which according to NYMag inaccurately claimed Gershkovich and the other prisoners were free, Thursday at 7:41 a.m. At 7:51 a.m. a Bloomberg editor posted, in a now-deleted tweet, “It is one of the greatest honors of my career to have helped break this news. I love my job and my colleagues,” according to NYMag.

Bloomberg then issued a correction at 7:59 a.m. that read, “An earlier version of this story was corrected to reflect that the Americans have not been released yet.”

Bloomberg published their story before Gershkovich’s own paper. The Journal’s ran after 11 a.m., only when Gershkovich and the other prisoners were safely out of Russian hands and off the plane in Turkey, NYMag reported.

The White House had asked news outlets to hold off on reporting the story until Gershkovich and the others were in U.S. custody, according to NYMag.

“News outlets found this compelling and agreed. In exchange for their agreement to the embargo, journalists were briefed ahead of time and given useful information for their reporting. Including Bloomberg,” NYMag reported.

Bloomberg’s decision to publish early “left journalists and government officials fuming,” WSJ sources told NYMag. (RELATED: Incarcerated WSJ Reporter Evan Gershkovich Sought Exclusive Interview With Putin Prior To His Release)

Bloomberg Editor in Chief John Micklethwait announced in an e-mail that the company had taken “disciplinary action against a number of those involved” in publishing the story, New York Times reporter Katie Robertson reported Monday.

“Last Thursday, we prematurely published a story on the release of Evan Gershkovich and the other prisoners, which could have endangered the negotiated swap that set them free. 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,” Micklethwait wrote, according to Robertson.

“We publish thousands of stories every day, many of which break news. We take accuracy very seriously. But we also have a responsibility to do the right thing. In this case we didn’t,” the e-mail concluded.

Jacobs, in a statement she posted to Twitter late Monday afternoon, claimed she did nothing that was “knowingly inconsistent with the administration’s embargo or that would put anyone involved at risk.”

She also added that “reporters don’t have a say over when a story is published or with what headline. The chain of events here could happen to any reporter tasked with reporting the news. This is why checks and balances exist within the editorial process.”

Jacobs shared a byline on the story with Bloomberg’s Amsterdam bureau chief Cagan Koc. It is unclear at this time whether Bloomberg is taking any disciplinary action against Koc. The Daily Caller reached out to Bloomberg for clarity but did not hear back by time of publication.

The U.S. freed Gershkovich along with former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan and others in a 26-person prisoner swap that involved people from seven countries, according to multiple reports.

Russia’s Federal Security Service arrested Gershkovich in March 2023 on espionage charges, which the Biden administration, multiple U.S. lawmakers and The WSJ objected to as false and politically motivated.