Last December Bloomberg announced that it would begin publishing editorials within an initiative called "Bloomberg View". As reported earlier, the aim is to broaden the company's influence on national affairs.

The new opinion section will debut in late May, according to Poynter, which published a press release announcing the latest section's hires.

"Daily editorials will be written and edited by the Bloomberg View editorial board. (...) The new opinion section will also publish Op-Ed articles by outside contributors. Bloomberg View will debut on Bloomberg.com, which reaches more than 13 million unique visitors per month, and on the Bloomberg Professional service, which reaches over 300,000 of the most influential business and finance professionals globally. Content will appear across Bloomberg's media platforms, including Bloomberg Government, the company's Washington-based data and news website that provides insight into the business implications of government action", the press release announced.

You can find the whole list of Bloomberg View editorial board and columnists that was released here.

While waiting for the effective start of the opinion section, commentators wonder about the role of Bloomberg View inside Bloomberg and its relation to the opinions of New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of the company.

Recently the New York Times suggested that the opinion section will be merely a way to diffuse the mayor's personal opinion, expressing doubts about the possibility that his entry into the realm of opinion could intensify concerns about his overlapping roles and the concentration of so much power in the hands of a single man.

"Will Bloomberg View ever diverge from Bloomberg's view?" wondered the Huffington Post.

The article reported that each day Bloomberg View will publish two unsigned editorials - one domestic and one on foreign policy - that promote an institutional point-of-view. It quoted executive editor David Shipley, formerly at the New York Times, saying to the paper that with regards to the content of these editorials, they don't want to be pigeonholed.

He said readers will "see some time when we're in sync with the Times" but as the same time Bloomberg View might be in sync with the more right-leaning Wall Street Journal on other instances.

"I don't think we're going to define ourselves in relation to everyone else. We're going to go issue by issue and see where our analysis of each issue takes us. We have tremendous resources in that we have all the information Bloomberg has at our disposal. I think that will give us a tremendous advantage in approaching issues from an analytical standpoint", the article reported Shipley as saying.

However he finally acknowledged that, while it wouldn't be possible to constrain it in a definition, the editorial page may be considered fiscally conservative and socially liberal.

The article concluded saying that "whether or not Bloomberg View is perceived as a promotional vehicle for Mayor Bloomberg, the page does serve as another way for Bloomberg News to exert its influence".

Sources: Poynter, Huffington Post, New York Times