The Trump campaign on Monday announced it will not provide media credentials to correspondents of Bloomberg News, a major American news outlet that is owned by former New York City Mayor and now Democratic presidential aspirant Michael Bloomberg.
The decision by the Trump campaign comes after Bloomberg News said it won't investigate Bloomberg or other Democrat presidential candidates, but will continue critical reporting on the incumbent president.
"Since they have declared their bias openly, the Trump campaign will no longer credential representatives of Bloomberg News for rallies or other campaign events," Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale said.
"We will determine whether to engage with individual reporters or answer inquiries from Bloomberg News on a case-by-case basis. This will remain the policy of the Trump campaign until Bloomberg News publicly rescinds its decision," Parscale said.
In a statement, the Trump campaign said the decision by Bloomberg News to formalise preferential reporting policies is troubling and wrong.
"Bloomberg News has declared that they won't investigate their boss or his Democrat competitors, many of whom are current holders of high office, but will continue critical reporting on President Trump," it said.
"As President Trump's campaign, we are accustomed to unfair reporting practices, but most news organisations don't announce their biases so publicly. Presented with this new policy from Bloomberg News, our campaign was forced to determine how to proceed," Parscale said.
Bloomber News's editor-in-chief John Micklethwait rejected the allegations.
"The accusation of bias couldn't be further from the truth. We have covered Donald Trump fairly and in an unbiased way since he became a candidate in 2015 and will continue to do so despite the restrictions imposed by the Trump campaign," he said Monday.
In an internal company e-mail last month, Micklethwait said the media outlets would "continue our tradition of not investigating Mike (and his family and foundation) and will extend the same policy to his rivals in the Democratic primaries."
"We cannot treat Mike's democratic competitors differently from him," he wrote.
At the same time, he wrote that Bloomberg's outlets "will continue to investigate the Trump administration, as the government of the day."
Michael Bloomberg in a separate memo said he would turn over control of the company to a management committee during his presidential campaign.
"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," he wrote in the memo reported by CNBC.
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