A U.S. judge yesterday denied a request by media company Bloomberg LP to stay an order requiring more than 100 people to disclose information they shared with its reporters about the bankruptcy of the largest U.S. rare earth mining company, which Bloomberg said inhibits its free speech rights, Reuters reported yesterday. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi in Wilmington, Delaware, curtly dismissed the request by Bloomberg's legal team to stay his order for 48 hours so the company could appeal. Last week, Sontchi ordered 123 people to disclose by yesterday their contacts with Bloomberg reporters regarding Molycorp Inc. over the prior 60 days. Judge Sontchi had ordered Molycorp and its creditors and other parties into confidential mediation in November, and information from the mediation was apparently reported by Bloomberg. Judge Sontchi's order did not spell out what specific information in Bloomberg's reporting troubled the judge. The order was prompted by the parties to the case, who consented to making the disclosures. "The order issued by the Delaware bankruptcy court last Thursday strikes at the heart of the First Amendment and the fundamental mission of a free press: to provide transparency into important public events," said John Micklethwait, Bloomberg's editor-in-chief.
