To Get Coverage on Bloomberg, Show Them the Money

Bloomberg News is all about money and deals, so for private equity and venture capital firms, the watchwords are: show them the money.



[caption id="attachment_1239" align="alignleft" width="120" caption="Dan Colarusso"][/caption]

That's a paraphrase from the illuminating one-on-one session with Dan Colarusso, U.S. Managing Editor of Bloomberg TV, who was interviewed at the PEI Investor Relations and Communications Forum by Emily Mendell, VP of Strategic Affairs & Public Outreach for the National Venture Capital Association.

"We're not try to cover venture capital in a traditional sense," said Colarusso. "We want to get to exits, real business, Bloomberg style -- show us the money."

Other insights from Colarusso:

• They are in the middle of remaking Bloomberg TV. They've hired staff from NBC, FOX and CNN, among others. "We're trying to be television - we're in 50 million homes, broadcasting 13 hours, 6am-7pm."


• They are arming print reporters with handicams to put stories directly up on Bloomberg TV


• The larger Bloomberg strategy is to take their great newsgathering army, get information and distribute through 4-5 different pipelines. There are now 152 Bloomberg bureaus around the world.


• He looks at footnoted.org, siliconalleyinsider, paidcontent.org

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Next up was an interview with Dennis Berman, deputy bureau chief for money and investing of the Wall Street Journal. It was less nuts-and-bolts and more philosophical. Berman said of private equity that he would like to see less arrogance, more humility and that he would like to see the industry directly addressing the conflicts of interest that can come up. For instance, working with management to take companies private and promising them significant ownership stakes in the new company.

"There's a culture of privacy and secrecy in private equity that doesn't create the benefit of the doubt that you would expect," Berman said.

He also said that the Journal is much less interested in covering venture capital than it used to be. "We're covering it the way we were in 1999. There's not that much interest in it."

Spoken like a true Manhattanite. Memo to the Journal: we here in California are VERY interested in venture capital!