Journalists have long pitied those colleagues who suffer under the yoke of Michael Bloomberg henchman Matthew Winkler. A style guide put together by the wire service boss-a program to reeducate journalists by the cultish name of the 'Bloomberg Way'-forbids the use of but and pretty much any other word which might convey meaning and opinion. But Bloomberg News' battered reporters and editors do at least have one escape: defection from the wire service is punished by excommunication but it is notionally possible. Editor-in-chief Winkler's offspring don't have that option, however. An unwise publicist has allowed the notorious style nazi to give an interview to the Columbia Journalism Review. It's clear why he's allowed out in public so rarely: the famously shouty Winkler has not mellowed; and he reveals that he inflicted the Bloomberg Way on his two unfortunate sons.

The days of the "autopsy"—what former employees describe as "Maoist self-criticism" sessions in which reporters explained to a roomful of people what the fuck was so wrong with their article that it didn't get picked up for syndication—are over at Bloomberg News. Screamy bow-tied Bloomberg EIC Matt Winkler instituted the rule, and now, to mark the new regime of "chief content officer" and Time veteran Norman Pearlstine, it has been done away with. [Talking Biz]

Though Bloomberg News' decision to hire former Time Inc. Editor-in-Chief Norman Pearlstine is probably bad news for the news wire's tyrant editor, Matthew Winkler, it seems likely to open up opportunities for recently-installed Bloomberg executive Dan Doctoroff, a former Lehman Brothers dealmaker. The Times sees hints Bloomberg is getting ready to make some acquisitions:

The internet has given us so many things, among them jargon which can dress up any brutal corporate maneuver in bland and progressive-sounding language. When Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation decided to seize full control of the Wall Street Journal, the Australian media mogul's chief lieutenant took the title of head of content, reducing the role of managing editor to a cipher and sidestepping the rules intended to protect the editorial independence of the newspaper. And now the new management at Bloomberg's financial information company has played the same trick on the bow-tied tyrant who rules over wire service's newsroom like a dapper Stalin, Matthew Winkler.

Oh no, now you've gone and encouraged Michael Bloomberg again: Newsweek reports that "the mayor's confidants and closest associates are, in fact, encouraging him to explore the idea" of buying the Times. And to bolster their case they've no doubt assembled clips of others saying the same thing in the press over the past few months, including Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff, shouting head Jim Cramer and former Wall Street Journal managing editor Paul Steiger. Despite frightful working conditions at Bloomberg's financial information company, his buddies imagine him shielding the Times newsroom from intense financial pressures:

Here's a final thought on Michael Bloomberg's annoying flirtation with a presidential campaign, which ended with his declaration in the New York Times today that he wasn't running. The commentators have noted that a short Jew with no political base had no shot at the presidency. But even the New York mayor's supposed managerial competence, his main claim to credibility, wouldn't have stood up to the political spotlight.

One of the few places on earth where the dollar actually goes further than it did at the start of the year: South Africa, where the rand is down 12% against the US currency. The mines, the country's main export earner, had to shut for five days last month because the state electricity company hasn't been investing in new generators, explains Bloomberg News. To the white technocrats who used to run the country, this is evidence of course that an incompetent black-led government has ruined South Africa. That couldn't be what Bloomberg's famously insensitive editor-in-chief, Matthew Winkler, meant, could it? According to the wire service grapevine, Winkler briefed his reporters: "South Africa is a great place, but the people who are running it don't have the brains to run it." Which is pretty much what one could say about Bloomberg, a fabulously profitable company with management so dysfunctional that employees refer to their workplace not-altogether-jokingly to Doomberg. (Related: one of Winkler's acolytes asks after the catastrophic Asian tsunami: Why do we care? And here's the now-notorious audio clip of Winkler ranting at his staff after a reporter made an error.) After the jump, Winkler, aka the deranged bowtie after his trademark dorkwear, shows how to tie one in a classic Youtube clip.

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.

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.

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.

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.