Letters

The Five F’s of Bloomberg News

• First
• Fastest
• Factual
• Final
• Future

How It's Used

“BROOKE GLADSTONE: There are five W’s, of course, in standard journalism

SETH MNOOKIN: Right.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: who, what, when, where and why. [Matthew] Winkler [of Bloomberg News] had five F's.

SETH MNOOKIN: Right — first, fastest, factual, final and future. And all five of those had to be in, not only in every story, but in the lead. And when you start to think about it that way, you can see how they could write these stories essentially in advance, how they could use the Goldilocks approach.

"And one of the reasons why they needed to do that was because he felt that being first was so important. He felt that in the financial community either you’re first or you’re worthless.”