Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait sent a memo Sunday entitled, “So Mike is running.” The memo set forth new guidelines for covering the 2020 campaign now that the owner of the media outlet, Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, is running for president. In the memo Micklethwait says “We will continue the tradition of not investigating Mike (and his family and foundation) and we will extend the same policy to his rivals in the Democratic primaries.” He then went on to say, For the moment, our P&I team will continue to investigate the Trump administration, as the government of the day.”

This blatant stifling of journalistic freedom was met by shock and outrage on social media. Many in the media world as well as political watchers took to social media to express their disbelief that a “reputable” media outfit would show such a stunning lack of freedom of the press. It is especially upsetting because they are doing so for just one side of the aisle.

Bloomberg the company is a $22.5billion news organization that employs over 2,700 journalists and analysts. His business interests in their entirety employ more than 19,000 people around the world in 69 total countries.