Not long after he began contemplating running for an unconstitutional third term as mayor of New York City in 2008, Michael Bloomberg made a strategic decision: He wouldn’t move forward without first wooing the owners of New York City’s biggest newspapers. Those very papers had helped block Rudy Giuliani’s quest for a three-month extension of his second term back in 2001. America’s Mayor felt that he needed to stick around to shepherd a city still reeling from the September 11 attacks. The editorial board of The New York Times called the move “a terrible idea,” arguing that the nation had never “postponed the transfer of power” for any reason.

Bloomberg would use a similar rationale as Giuliani, claiming that the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath required that he remain at the helm. But in fact, Bloomberg’s conversations with Arthur Sulzberger Jr. (owner of the Times), Rupert Murdoch (New York Post), and his longtime enabler Mort Zuckerman (New York Daily News) began well ahead of the collapse of Lehmann Brothers. By the time Bloomberg was ready to announce his bid for a third term, in the fall of 2008, all three papers had already endorsed the maneuver. For the Times, a third term was no longer corrupt and un-American. It was democracy at its finest: Term limits, in the Times’ revised view, “deny New Yorkers—at a time when the city’s economy is under great stress—the right to decide for themselves whether an effective and popular mayor should stay in office.”



As the legendary muckraker Wayne Barrett wrote in the Village Voice that fall, “We are all used to editorial boards making endorsements determined by their owners, but this was the first time in memory that these three proud institutions had marched in such lockstep on a policy matter after meetings between a political figure and their three owners.”



Bloomberg’s use of his immense wealth to influence politicians and advocacy groups has recently attracted significant attention, as he emerges as a late contender in the Democratic presidential primary. But his time as mayor also shows that he has had a similar impact on the media. Mayor Bloomberg thrived due to a combination of paid media, close ties to the city’s media elite, and the tacit approval of journalists who applauded his technocratic-cum-authoritarian efforts to transform New York City. It’s the same recipe he’s using in 2020, albeit on a supersized scale.



Bloomberg was first elected without much media scrutiny at all. When stories initially emerged about his long history of misogynistic comments and the climate of sexual harassment at his company Bloomberg LP, they did not get much traction. In the summer of 2001, Democrat Mark Green was the clear front-runner, and Bloomberg was considered something of an afterthought. “Every sign,” The New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert wrote just before Election Day, “points to his being a Pantalone-like figure who is parted from a great deal of money and humiliated in the bargain.” But by the late fall, Bloomberg was narrowly leading in the polls—and the media was understandably focused on the September 11 attacks, not on the mogul who would be mayor.

