Media Takes
Al Hunt, 63, has been a Washington fixture almost since the day he took over the Wall Street Journal's D.C. bureau more than two decades ago. And his trademark shock of thick white hair and genial demeanor became familiar to political junkies across the country during his 16 years as a commentator on CNN's Sunday politics roundtable The Capital Gang, which was canceled last year.
But Hunt, married to television newswoman Judy Woodruff, isn't winding down after closing out four decades with the Journal: For the past 14-plus months he has been overseeing more than 120 journalists working in the Washington bureau of Bloomberg News–a rare media organization bucking the trend of downsizing and aggressively expanding its worldwide news service and 24-hour financial television network and radio operation.
Hunt has bulked up the Washington news ranks with experienced business and political reporters and dramatically expanded the bureau's television operation from a lone correspondent and two staffers less than a year ago to a team of more than a half dozen now led by Kathryn Kross, former CNN Washington bureau chief. The bureau's customers are predominantly worldwide financial institutions and news organizations that lease specialized Bloomberg terminals, which the company calls "electronic newspapers." (Estimates of the current subscriber base range from 186,000 to 260,000.)
Hunt, who also sends out a daily morning E-mail to about 1,000 "Washington elites" highlighting top Bloomberg stories, sat down last week with U.S. News & World Report's Liz Halloran at the company's sleek, high-tech offices to talk about a news bureau he calls "a work in progress."
Why take on this demanding job when you could just ease into retirement–ply the pundit trail, write a column, and enjoy the cocktail party circuit?
I did that. And I was bored.
I've heard it's your goal to beat the pants off your former publication.
Nah. The interesting thing is that Bloomberg already devastated [WSJ parent company] Dow Jones. That happened 10 years ago. I have great affection for the Wall Street Journal–heck, I hired half the people in its Washington bureau. But would I rather us be ahead of the Wall Street Journal? Sure. But I'd also rather us be ahead of the New York Times, Reuters, Thomson, and the rest.
Getting more visibility seems to be one of your tougher jobs, especially since those without a Bloomberg terminal often don't know where to find your reporting and programs.
We have different audiences, and our most important is that group of 200,000-plus people–half of them overseas–who are customers with the Bloomberg terminal. One thing we never lose sight of is that base. I've hired more people for the economics team, and I'm going to hire more people to cover the Securities and Exchange Commission. Our principal mandate is to cover anything that has money written on it, anything that affects markets.
So why the expansion into other areas, including politics and culture?
I happen to believe that people who are wealthy investors or among the more affluent are interested in politics, culture, and sports. We also have 400 newspapers that subscribe to the Bloomberg terminal, and a number of them run our stories. We can do a better job persuading them to think about us not just in terms of Ford Motor Co. earnings or stock market results but in terms of other stuff we're doing–whether it's Rich Miller writing about income inequality or Roger Simon writing about politics.
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