Wolff: Sorkin too soft on Goldman, Buffett

Newser founder Michael Wolff writes Wednesday that New York Times business reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin was starstruck in covering Warren Buffett and his stake in Goldman Sachs this weekend at the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting.

Wolff writes, “Andrew Ross Sorkin, the New York Times business reporter, may be even more in love with successful people than most of his colleagues. This is because he is charming and young and successful people love him back.

“Sorkin went out the other day to Omaha to attend the annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway at the invitation of its CEO, Warren Buffett, the most successful man in America. Sorkin was actually there as part of a three-person panel of journalists to question Buffett. That is, Buffett loves Sorkin, and Sorkin was there expressly to love Buffett in return.

“Sorkin then wrote about the meeting in the Times using the most successful man in America’s defense of Goldman Sachs as a way to help rehabilitate the firm. This is, on Buffett’s part (and, no doubt, on the part of Goldman’s PR strategists), a precise and canny use of the New York Times, possibly the most significant outlet for making, preserving, and protecting the reputations of successful people. It is also canny on Sorkin’s part to have placed himself smack in the middle of the matrix for success. (The most canny business reporters are not only smitten by the success of successful men, but are always figuring out a way to get some of it for themselves.)”

Read more here.