ABC, CBS, and NBC apparently have closed their bureaus in Moscow, or greatly reduced them. CNN has shrunk to one reporter, and Western print media also have reduced staff lately. The big exception among the international media is Bloomberg News. Speaking recently to fellow expats on Bloomberg's elegant terrace overlooking the Kremlin two blocks away, James Brooke, Enterprise Reporter, said that the Moscow bureau has doubled in the past year to 22 reporters and editors. There is a new Bloomberg bureau in St. Petersburg and another coming in Kazakhstan. There is even a stringer now for Georgia-Armenia and there may be another soon for Azerbaijan. Bloomberg also boasts Russian speakers and writers, a small but up-to-date TV studio in Moscow and excellent connections in London.
The Moscow bureau alone is Bloomberg's fourth largest overseas unit (among 50)--after London, Frankfurt, and Paris. "We are investing in the personnel to make Bloomberg the premier source of business news for Russia," Brooke states.
Brooke himself is a premier addition for Bloomberg. With twenty four years as a foreign correspondent for the New York Times before he joined Bloomberg, he is not only an able reporter and commentator, but also an ambitious promoter of his company's product and team. And why not? Those who think that Russia is no longer a big story on political and military issues may or may not be wrong, but they definitely are wrong to ignore the dynamic business scene in the Russian Federation and the former East Bloc.