By EDWARD WONG 
A Man Under the Influence: Matthew Winkler, the editor in chief of Bloomberg News.
A Man Under the Influence: Matthew Winkler, the editor in chief of Bloomberg News.
In early 2011, during a period of heightened tension between the Chinese government and foreign journalists, Bloomberg News created coding to give editors the ability to categorize stories under a new class, called 204.
Such stories would not show up on Bloomberg terminals in mainland China.
Managers did this after Chinese officials stressed to top editors in Hong Kong that the license granted to Bloomberg by the State Council allowed the company to publish only financial data and news on its terminals, not political news, employees said.
Within Bloomberg, the code has its critics.
Within Bloomberg, the code has its critics.
“I think of this as self-censorship,” said one journalist, who added that editors choose to apply the code to any article that might offend senior Chinese officials.
The code’s defenders, though, explained to their colleagues in internal conversations that Bloomberg must abide by the definition of its State Council license — or at least by the narrowest definition put forward by Chinese officials.
Two Bloomberg spokespeople have declined to comment on the code.
The use of Code 204 was first reported by The New York Times this month in articles that looked at another accusation of self-censorship.
The use of Code 204 was first reported by The New York Times this month in articles that looked at another accusation of self-censorship.
Specifically, top Bloomberg editors decided in late October not to publish an investigative article on China’s wealthiest man, Wang Jianlin, and his financial ties to the families of party leaders.
Several Bloomberg employees said Matthew Winkler, the editor in chief, justified killing the article by saying in a conference call that Chinese officials would not tolerate articles on the assets of the leadership.
How has Code 204 been used, and what are some of the articles that Bloomberg editors have decided to keep off mainland China terminals? (Bloomberg L.P. has 2,000 to 2,500 terminals in China, a tiny fraction of the total worldwide, according to Norman Pearlstine, the company’s former chief content officer, who gave the estimate at a talk in New York this month.)
“It’s very loosely applied,” a former employee said of Code 204.
A person with access to a terminal in mainland China ran a check on a handful of Bloomberg News articles to see whether they could be seen inside China.
“It’s very loosely applied,” a former employee said of Code 204.
A person with access to a terminal in mainland China ran a check on a handful of Bloomberg News articles to see whether they could be seen inside China.
One article missing from those terminals is the June 2012 investigation into the assets of close family members of Xi Jinping, who became the Communist Party chief last November.
Before it ran, Chinese officials pressed Bloomberg to kill it; Bloomberg defied those admonitions and suffered the consequences — state enterprises stopped buying terminal subscriptions, Bloomberg’s website was blocked in China and applications by Bloomberg journalists for new residency visas have not been approved. (The Times was similarly punished after it ran an investigative article on the Chinese prime minister’s family in October 2012, though it does not sell financial data terminals.)
The Xi article was the first installment in an ambitious three-part series called “Revolution to Riches,” which looked at the wealth of the party’s revolutionary families.
The Xi article was the first installment in an ambitious three-part series called “Revolution to Riches,” which looked at the wealth of the party’s revolutionary families.
The second article in the series, an examination of the family wealth of China’s Eight Immortals, some of the party’s most revered leaders, also cannot be seen on mainland terminals.
By contrast, an article early in 2012 about the assets of family members of Bo Xilai, a senior party official who had by then become embroiled in a murder scandal, does show up on the terminals.
The sensitivities around reporting on Mr. Bo took sharp turns in 2012.
By contrast, an article early in 2012 about the assets of family members of Bo Xilai, a senior party official who had by then become embroiled in a murder scandal, does show up on the terminals.
The sensitivities around reporting on Mr. Bo took sharp turns in 2012.
Chinese officials clamped down on articles about him and his family when the scandal first emerged in March 2012.
Chinese news organizations were generally not allowed to report on Mr. Bo, and his name was banned from the search engines of China’s biggest microblogs.
But as the party began to control the narrative surrounding the scandal, officials largely stopped trying to restrict coverage of Mr. Bo.
It is unclear whether Bloomberg editors took all this into account when deciding to keep their story on the Bo family, first published in April 2012, on the mainland terminals.
An article that is missing from mainland terminals is the one that, more than any other, might have helped catalyze the creation of Code 204.
It is unclear whether Bloomberg editors took all this into account when deciding to keep their story on the Bo family, first published in April 2012, on the mainland terminals.
An article that is missing from mainland terminals is the one that, more than any other, might have helped catalyze the creation of Code 204.
It is a story about political protests that ran on Feb. 21, 2011, and it is what prompted Chinese officials to cite the terms of Bloomberg’s State Council license to top editors in Hong Kong, employees said.
The article was a lengthy explanation written from the Beijing bureau about calls on the Internet for peaceful “Jasmine Revolution”-style protests in China modeled after the uprisings in the Middle East.
It even had the Chinese words for Jasmine Revolution — 茉莉花革命 — in the text.
Chinese officials, fearful that word of the protests would become widespread, had been trying to block any websites and mobile phone text messages that used those words.
Soon after the conversation with Chinese officials, Bloomberg editors deleted the story from the Bloomberg website, even though the site is global and not China-specific, employees said.
Soon after the conversation with Chinese officials, Bloomberg editors deleted the story from the Bloomberg website, even though the site is global and not China-specific, employees said.
This prompted an outcry from Bloomberg journalists in China, and editors later restored it, though it cannot be found with the site’s search engine. (A version of it shows up in a Google search.)
Employees said they recalled that it was possible to read the article on the mainland terminals.
But as of last week, the article could no longer be found there.
Editors might have applied Code 204 to the article after the code’s creation, which occurred in the wake of Bloomberg’s conflicts with Chinese officials over Jasmine coverage.
One person said he believed there was a way to apply Code 204 retroactively to articles, so that stories that appear on mainland terminals upon general publication can later be taken off.
An article published on Feb. 23, 2011, about a letter on a Chinese-language website operated from the United States, Boxun.com, calling for more Jasmine rallies, is also missing from both mainland terminals and the Bloomberg website.
An article published on Feb. 23, 2011, about a letter on a Chinese-language website operated from the United States, Boxun.com, calling for more Jasmine rallies, is also missing from both mainland terminals and the Bloomberg website.
As with the Feb. 21 article, it appears on terminals outside China.
There are some Jasmine-related articles, though, that show up on mainland terminals — for example, one published on March 1, 2011, in which a Chinese foreign ministry official said police officers had “properly handled” foreign journalists at a Jasmine protest site in central Beijing.
One Bloomberg employee said the existence of Code 204 can result in writers internalizing self-censorship. The code then becomes unnecessary because the writer has already decided to withhold information in order to ensure that terminal users in China can read the story, he said.
“If you wanted your story not to go by that code, then you don’t make sensitive references,” he said.
There are some Jasmine-related articles, though, that show up on mainland terminals — for example, one published on March 1, 2011, in which a Chinese foreign ministry official said police officers had “properly handled” foreign journalists at a Jasmine protest site in central Beijing.
One Bloomberg employee said the existence of Code 204 can result in writers internalizing self-censorship. The code then becomes unnecessary because the writer has already decided to withhold information in order to ensure that terminal users in China can read the story, he said.
“If you wanted your story not to go by that code, then you don’t make sensitive references,” he said.
“This where the self-censorship gets self-reinforcing.”
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