????你也許覺得Bloomberg的日子非常愜意——無論是彭博社，還是其同名創始人邁克爾?布隆伯格。前者是一家年營收額高達90億美元的數據和媒體公司，它擁有的人力和財力足以讓其他媒體公司嫉妒得發抖，后者則是備受尊敬的紐約市前市長，一位名副其實的巨頭級人物。然而，盡管彭博社獲得了成功，但公司內部卻遭遇了認同危機，這是其創始人最終需要應對的難題。

????美國政治新聞網Politico最近發表的一篇文章，概述了這種認同危機的某些層面，比如，自布隆伯格回歸這家媒體巨頭之后，許多重量級人物相繼離職。前任CEO丹?多克托洛夫欣然放棄他的職務，將其讓給了這位被他稱作“神”的創始人。而傳奇作品《彭博之道》(Bloomberg Way)的創作者馬特?溫克勒也選擇離開。這本書是專門面向該公司最重要的終端業務撰寫的，是一本類似于信徒教條的新聞采編手冊。

????不過彭博社內部的緊張局勢與任何員工都沒有關系，甚至與那個名字寫在彭博社大樓上的人也沒有關系。盡管這家公司規模龐大、實力雄厚，但它面臨的最大挑戰與其他媒體沒有多大區別：核心業務正在失去生機，其主要原因是來自互聯網的競爭，所以彭博社必須設法完成業務轉型。而時間所剩無幾。

????傳統觀點認為，龐大的彭博社數據終端業務堪稱一株搖錢樹，其地位穩如泰山，大多數經紀人和基金經理寧愿放棄他們的長子，也不愿放棄彭博終端。每臺終端的價格是一年2萬美元，而彭博有超過32萬臺終端。不過隨著廉價甚至免費的商業數據來源持續涌現，這一優勢開始減弱。而從社交層面上看，數據終端通過公司內部通訊系統提供的內容也面臨著來自Slack和Twitter等媒體的壓力。

????作為回應，彭博社耗費了大量資金來開展免費的網絡業務，并特意招募著名經理人助其一臂之力，比如Atlantic Media的賈斯丁?史密斯和喬什?泰蘭基爾。該公司還斥巨資引進人才來撰寫《彭博商業周刊》、彭博視角（Bloomberg View）和其他產品。不過正如Politico的文章所指出的那樣，這一切也造成了新員工之間的緊張感，其中許多人并不遵從“彭博之道”和老員工的指導。

????“在這樣一家過于看重秩序和穩定的公司，不和的苗頭開始滋生：新聞社和《彭博商業周刊》之間矛盾重重，不過更明顯也更重大的分歧出現在立足數據的終端新聞和布隆伯格本人特別推崇的高品位內容之間。事實證明，彭博社的雙重目標——通過為終端提供數據來賺取數十億美金收入，以及為更廣泛的世界創造重要的新聞作品——并不總是符合多克托洛夫設想的‘良性循環’。它們有時候會產生矛盾?！?/p>

????彭博社內部還有大量守舊派——實際上，彭博內部什么都很多。他們不僅有大批專門寫證券市場消息的記者，還有許多只報道證券市場某一特定方面的記者。彭博社有超過2400名編輯，他們針對某些特定話題的編輯團隊，比Business Insider等網站的所有采編人員加起來還多。根據一名華盛頓特區分部的員工泄露的備忘錄，彭博社就像商業新聞領域的BBC，公司內部充滿了牢騷。

????長遠來看，彭博社最大的困境與其競爭對手路透社沒有多大不同。路透社一直在經受煎熬，它面臨的壓力更大，因為其數據業務不如彭博社那么賺錢。路透社也試圖依托網絡建立媒體運營平臺，花費了數百萬美元招聘作者和編輯，投資了數千萬美元購買新的內容系統——然后新上任的首席執行官停止了該項業務，聲稱其回報不足以收回當初的投資。

????You might think it would be easy being Bloomberg—either the company or its eponymous founder, Michael Bloomberg. The former is a $9-billion data and media business that has enough staff and money to make every other media company vibrate with envy, while the latter is the well-respected former mayor of New York City and a mogul in every sense of the word. But there is an identity crisis festering at the heart of the company, despite its success, and that’s something its founder will eventually have to deal with.

????A recent article by Politico outlines some of the aspects of this identity crisis, including some of the significant departures that have taken place at the media giant since Bloomberg returned. Former CEO Dan Doctoroff willingly gave up his spot to the man he refers to as “God,” and Matt Winkler—the architect of the legendary “Bloomberg Way,” a cult-like approach to journalism designed for the all-important terminal business—also headed for the exit.

????But the tension at the heart of Bloomberg doesn’t really have anything to do with personnel, and it may not even have anything to do ultimately with the man whose name is on the building. Despite its size and power, the biggest challenge for the company isn’t all that different from what other media companies are facing: Its core business is slowly fading, due primarily to competition from the Web, so Bloomberg has to figure out how to transition from that business to a different one. And time is running out.

????The classic view of Bloomberg is that its vast, money-spinning data-terminal business is almost unassailable, thanks to the fact that most brokers and fund managers would rather give up their first-born than go without their Bloomberg machine. Each terminal costs $20,000 a year, and there are more than 320,000 of them. But that hold is weakening as cheaper—and even free—sources of business data continue to proliferate. And the social aspect that the terminal provides via its internal messaging system is also under pressure, from things like Slack and Twitter.

????In response, the company has spent a lot of money building up its free web operations, by hiring high-profile managers like Justin Smith from Atlantic Media and Josh Tyrangiel, and bringing in expensive talent to write for Bloomberg Businessweek, the Bloomberg View site and other parts of the empire. But as the Politico piece points out, all of that has also created a lot of tension between the new hires, many of whom don’t follow the “Bloomberg Way,” and the old guard.

????“In a company that obsessively valued order and stability, fault lines were emerging: between the wire service and Tyrangiel’s shop, but more broadly and significantly, between data-driven terminal news and the highbrow content Bloomberg personally desired. The twin aims of making billions of dollars by churning data for the box and producing important work for the wider world, it turned out, were not always part of the ‘virtuous cycle’ envisaged by Doctoroff. They were sometimes at odds.”

????There are also an awful lot of those old guard—in fact, Bloomberg has an awful lot of everything. Not only are there are dozens of reporters who just write about the stock market, there are dozens who just write about one specific aspect of the stock market. With an editorial staff of more than 2,400 people, Bloomberg has topic-specific teams that are larger than the entire writing staff of a site like Business Insider. It’s like the BBC of business news, and it’s filled with discontent according to a leaked memo from one member of the Washington, D.C. bureau.

????In the long run, Bloomberg’s larger dilemma isn’t all that different from what its competitor, Reuters, has been going through for some time. However, the pressure on Reuters has been intensified because its data business doesn’t spin off quite as much cash as Bloomberg does. Reuters tried to create a web-based media operation too, spending millions to hire writers and editors and investing tens of millions in a new content system—and then a new CEO pulled the plug, saying the returns didn’t justify the investment.