Recently-divorced food critic Alan Richman parted ways with his Bloomberg job a few days ago and now his week has gotten even worse. An Internet food writer reviewed dinner at Richman's house in Mamaroneck and filed a review filled with references to burnt sprouts, overdone tempura and processed meat wrapped in processed dough. Most revealing: after savaging post-Katrina New Orleans in GQ as an "a festival of narcissism, indolence and corruption" beset by "endless revelry," Richman is depicted answering the door in his robe, spending the first 45 minutes of his dinner "showering, opening a bottle of wine, and preparing pigs in blankets" and then complaining endlessly for hours. But, in fairness, Richman's guest actually enjoys most of the food, especially the blintzes, and is warmed by Richman's crankiness, which he calls "disarming, charming and exhausting." It remains to be seen if the subjects of Richman's ultra-bitchy reviews feel the same. [eGullet via Eater']

Tipster on the GQ-contributing food critic: "I work at Bloomberg and heard some babble that he had a fight with one of the editors and left. Can't confirm it though; usually when you leave Bloomberg, their Bio page is immediately updated to say 'former,' and his was normal last I checked, so maybe it just blew over."

You're pretty glad you work at a newspaper or a network that doesn't have mice running every which way, like the New York Times does, aren't you? Not so fast! We took a look at Department of Health inspection records available for employee cafeterias at media companies over the last year, and some of you better lift up your feet, quick. The chart above shows the combined number of violation points each organization earned in 2007. Time, CBS and NBC all earned a failing score of over 28 on one inspection, which triggered at least one additional inspection, which they all passed. Eventually. Interestingly enough, though the Bloomberg cafeteria reportedly earned a disgusting 55 on its February inspection, the record available through the DOH's website says it landed itself a flying-colors score of 2! Now we wouldn't accuse Mayor Bloomberg of screwing with statistics on the city's website to favor his own ginormous company. Nor would we suggest it might be easy to get a mulligan on that nasty inspection if the company's CEO happened to also be the city's mayor. Someone else might suggest that, but certainly not us.

Bloomberg's editorial supremo, Matt Winkler, is a lightning rod for disgruntled reporters at the wire service. But a website set up by the Newspaper Guild of New York, for the effort to unionize at Bloomberg, identifies other newsroom monsters at the secretive private company. On the Guild's online complaint forum, now defunct, an overseas employee noted another executive's less than sympathetic reaction to the disastrous tsunami that hit Thailand and Sri Lanka in December 2004.

The company jet to a private airport outside London, and a helicopter into the city: Bloomberg's tyrannical editorial boss Matthew Winkler is traveling around Europe in style. (Now he's at the World Economic Forum, with his peers in Davos, Switzerland.) Before one disapproves of private air travel on well-served transatlantic routes, a pause: for the financial information company's bad-tempered executives, a discreet jet is not so much a luxury as a necessity.

The New York Times Co., News Corp, and Time Warner all saw their stocks fall to 52-week lows. The one winner amongst the pall? Lightly viewed upstart Fox Business Network, the only business channel politically incorrect enough to make staffers work on Martin Luther King Day, as Europe's stockmarkets careened. While, Bloomberg TV only had a brief live period Monday morning, and CNBC was on taped programming all day, Fox Biz was covering the crash live from the overseas markets. Dr. King did always believe in the redemptive power of work.

In the unlikely event Michael Bloomberg is deluded enough to run for president, the New York mayor will tout his qualifications as a manager: the unfettered communication he allows in City Hall's open bullpen; the executive's ability to delegate to trusted subordinates; and the Bloomberg founder's general air of competence. It's inconvenient, then, that his financial information company, still ultimately controlled by Bloomberg and carrying his name, is such a hazardous place of employment.

From the legend of Matthew Winkler, tyrannical editor-in-chief of Bloomberg. We still tracking down the details of the deranged bow-tie's attack on a bond desk editor in the 1990s. But, in the meantime, here's an anecdote from a tipster to keep things going.

Not everybody has a benevolent billionaire looking out for them like we do here in the big, bad City - at least not yet. But with Hillary and John inching their way toward the inevitable, Mike Bloomberg says, "Hey, America. I've got your back." Mike's been toying with the press for months with his (kind of annoying and ultimately doomed) non-campaign for president, and yesterday he took his first little baby-step beyond City Hall into the great wilderness that lies west of the Hudson. All the way west. To California, specifically. Flanked by Arnie and a guy who's governor of Pennsylvania, Mike gave a speech demanding "independent, non-partisan" solutions to the problems facing the country's roads and bridges and things. Not really the sexiest issues to base a presidential bid around, but it's probably good to stick with what you know. [New York Sun]

During an internal conference call yesterday, Bloomberg LP management announced it would freeze hiring and cut costs, a source told Silicon Alley Insider. Sure, Bloomberg earns its money licensing terminals to Wall Street firms, and is therefore more directly connected to the mortgage meltdown than any Silicon Valley firms. But news that Silicon Alley's most successful tech firm is suddenly under the gun remains unpleasant. Especially considering yesterday's doom and gloom prognostications from Digitas Web-ad buyer Carl Fremont. (Photo by azrainman)

Most of the time, let's be frank, crowd-sourcing in journalism is a dismal failure, even in though the internet would seem to be made for it. An appeal for help goes out to readers, nothing useful comes in, because nobody cares, and the lazy journalist (that's me) moves on as quickly as possible to the next story, hoping nobody noticed. And then there's the case of Matthew Winkler, Bloomberg's tyrannical news chief.

Thanks for all the help in our research into the legend of Bloomberg's famously despotic editor-in chief, Matthew Winkler. A reminder: we were trying to find out whether a digruntled reporter at the wire service had indeed sent out a story entitled "Winkler is a wanker." The headline was, in fact, "Winkler Wanker, Winkler Wanker." We apologize for the error.

So, help us unpick this media lore. It's an old story, about Bloomberg's tyrannical editorial boss, Matt Winkler, that goes something like this. Ever wonder why the financial news service's reporters are barred from sending headlines directly to the wire unsupervised? One of the many reporters fired by Winkler got onto his machine and ,as a last gesture before exiting the building, fired off a salvo of flashes. The big news: "Matt Winkler Is A Wanker." I imagine there are other reasons Bloomberg reporters, like nuclear missile launch operators, would require a second key: their headlines can trigger trades worth billions of dollars. But this story sticks around; there must be something to it. So, wire-service veterans, true or false, or somewhere in between? (Oh, and if anyone has a tape of Winkler's subsequent outburst, anything as titanic as this one, please send it in.)

So Matthew Winkler, Bloomberg's bad-tempered editor-in-chief, is a stickler. (He explodes when companies are deemed to have "announced" anything, for instance; recently berated his exhausted South Asian team for "style violations" in their coverage of the Bhutto assassination; and loathes the use of anonymous sources.) But isn't that obsessiveness kind of admirable, particularly at a news service that traders rely upon? Not really, when it means the wire service is late to a story. Bloomberg News is stricter than any financial newspaper, or Reuters, in sourcing stories. "It's fairly draconian. It allows anyone to beat us on a story. We can't get stories moved the way they can," says our spy. The company's radio and television broadcasts, which aren't allowed to go with item until they are first on a Bloomberg terminal, are even more hobbled.

Matthew Winkler, the famously unbalanced editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, is known for his pathological hatred of the words "but" and "announce". (The word "the" is apparently still permitted.) For a while, the bowtie-wearing wire service editorial chief reined himself in, after reporters complained to the company's owner, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. But (see what I did there) he was his old self after Benazir Bhutto's assassination.

Working on a story on Bloomberg's editor-in-chief. Is he still as much of a tyrant? Examples please! Email nick@gawker.com.

Buried in his column in New York Magazine (see item #9), Jim Cramer passes on some gossip that's been going round town: that Michael Bloomberg's financial information company, which rents out terminals to Wall Street traders, is the logical acquirer of the Sulzberger family's vulnerable newspaper. The name of the TV pundit's show, Mad Money, doesn't exactly inspire confidence; nor do the bizarre money manager's notoriously erratic stock picks. But he is well-connected. And it's not the craziest notion: New York's mayor says he's not running for president; ownership of the Times would preserve his influence once his term is up.

• In an interview with the Guardian, Conrad Black calls his fraud trial "bullshit" and announces that he's at war with the U.S. government. The paper also has an excerpt from Black's forthcoming biography of Richard Nixon, which praises the former president's "surpassing dignity." Read into that what you will. [Guardian]
  

• Conrad Black's second-in-command turned star government witness serves up Lord Black on a platter. [WSJ]