Bloomberg News will not investigate owner or his Democratic rivals

Bloomberg News will not investigate its founder or any of his Democratic primary rivals, the news agency confirmed Sunday after the former New York City mayor officially entered the race for the White House.

“We will continue our tradition of not investigating Mike (and his family and foundation) and we will extend the same policy to his rivals in the Democratic primaries. We cannot treat Mike’s democratic competitors differently from him,” wrote Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait in a staff memo obtained by The Hill.

{mosads}The news agency is a subsidiary of Bloomberg LP, the former mayor’s financial software company.

Bloomberg News will aggregate or publish other outlets’ investigative work on the candidate or his competitors if they are “credible journalistic institutions,” Micklethwait added in the memo. It will continue to cover polls, interview candidates and assign reporters to follow their campaigns, including Bloomberg’s, according to the memo.

“We have already assigned a reporter to follow his campaign (just as we did when Mike was in City Hall),” Micklethwait said. “And in the stories we write on the presidential contest, we will make clear that our owner is now a candidate.”

The company will also suspend its opinion section’s editorial board, where the former mayor had the most direct contact with the news outlet, according to the memo. Micklethwait wrote that if Bloomberg is the Democratic nominee, the agency will “reassess” how to cover the race.

Bloomberg himself said in a separate memo that he would turn leadership of the company over to a management committee during the campaign, according to CNBC. “This is not the first time I’ve stepped away to run for office. And like the last time, we have put in place an outstanding leadership team to take the reins,” Bloomberg said.