So this is the Bloomberg Way!
Bloomberg LP fired an editor today after he published an incorrect headline on the company’s terminals worldwide saying a jury had found ex-Goldman Sachs banker Fabrice Tourre not liable for misleading investors, The Post has learned.
In fact, the Manhattan federal court jury found Tourre liable for six of the seven claims brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
John Pickering — a roughly 20-year veteran at Bloomberg — input a headline on Bloomberg’s terminal that read: “BREAKING: Fabrice Tourre Wins SEC case claiming fraud in $1 billion CDO deal.”
The headline was corrected moments later.
But that wasn’t good enough for Bloomberg brass, which dropped the ax on Pickering less than 24 hours after the incorrect headline, according to people familiar with the situation.
A Bloomberg spokesman declined to comment.
A person familiar with the media giant confirmed that Pickering “is no longer with the company.”
Bloomberg’s wrong headline was reported by the Huffington Post yesterday.
A person identifying himself as Jack Pickering and claiming to be the ex-editor’s son, posted a comment on the Huffington Post wrong headline story today at 1:05 p.m., claiming his dad is a “political victim” who was fired because Mayor Mike Bloomberg had been momentarily embarrassed by the news.
“My father was the man who wrongly tweeted [sic] the verdict,” the comment said.
“He woke up a senior editor and now he’s unemployed. And for what? He issued a correction directly afterwards, and as was mentioned above his tweet didn’t affect the market,” the comment read.
The son accused Mayor Bloomberg, who founded the media outlet more than 30 years ago, of having a hand in Pickering’s firing.
“So why was he fired?” he wrote. “Because Mike Bloomberg was momentarily humiliated in front of his big, deeply immoral banker buddies and was looking for a scapegoat.”
Bloomberg LP denies the mayor had anything to do with Pickering getting fired.
Pickering’s bad news comes after a particularly bad day for Bloomberg. A reporter at the media outfit yesterday got into hot water with the judge presiding over the Tourre case for reporting details about the exhibits inside the jury room — which were visible from the courtroom but are usually not the subject of media reports.
Bloomberg staffers were stunned by the firing. Said one insider, “It’s quite a punitive action. It was a simple mistake, he hit the wrong button.”
The insider added, “He was a highly regarded employee.”
kkelly@nypost.com