Loose lips and all that. Michael Wolff has a curious piece over at the Guardian. This is after Forbes interesting analysis of the Thomson Reuters - Bloomberg axis, discussing the impact of slowing data-sales which featured the timeless quote: “Our direct competitors are two guys in a basement somewhere are already developing tools to be the next generation newsroom. If we’re not busy doing the same thing, we’re dead."

Extract

...There are four companies that dominate the brand name financial information business: Pearson with the FT, News Corp with the WSJ, and Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters with their myriad assets. The latter two make their money and vast margins in this business. The former make their money in other businesses and maintain a foothold in financial information and news for mostly extra-business reasons. It is certainly true that neither Bloomberg nor Thomson Reuters need a newspaper – and yet it is true, too, that it could change the game were one of them to get a major financial news organ (so much so that each would probably do what is necessary to try to prevent the other from getting one – vastly enhancing the value of both the FT and WSJ). Indeed, while neither Pearson nor News Corp are ever going to turn the FT or WSJ into significant earners, Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters, with their back-end financial information resources, might be able to build a powerful and profitable financial news front end.

What's more, even before the recession, the terminal business was slowing for Bloomberg. So there may even be logic in seeing the media business, at least for last-man-standing players, as a growth business. If there is not a deal here, surely there is a dance.

And there is, too, a pleasing and – especially for rich men – perhaps irresistible counter-version of events. The news business, historically the province of organizations with big brands and big reach and big budgets, has been bitch-slapped by the digital upstarts. But here are two players distinguished by their establishment credentials, sound business footing, and vast resources – which, if they choose to act, could change things up, and, as well, allow many news journalists of my generation to breathe again.

I believe it: the game's afoot. Of course, never underestimate the glacial pace of the inevitable.

Read the Full Article at The Guardian