Ben Smith of Semafor reports that William Cohan‘s book about disgraced financier Leon Black has led to a war with New York Times reporters also reporting about Black.
Smith writes, “Indeed, Cohan’s book has opened a bit of a religious war between the journalist, whose interviews with Black were first published in Puck, and the Times.
“Times journalists David Enrich and Matt Goldstein, who have broken a series of defining Epstein and Black stories and are at work on a book on Epstein’s ties to Wall Street, spoke with Black’s representatives last week and, among other things, ‘laid into’ Cohan and their treatment in Cohan’s book, according to Cohan and others familiar with the exchange. Cohan devotes a chapter to text messages Goldstein exchanged with one Black accuser, and one of the Timesmen complained Cohan hadn’t given them a chance to respond before publication to their depiction; Cohan notes that, in the course of reporting, he did talk to Goldstein.
“The larger dispute is around how to see Black, who shaped what is now a private equity-dominated American financial landscape.
“‘I just listened and heard him tell his story — and believe me, I would have loved to be the one to refute what he said, but I haven’t been able to,’ Cohan said. In his view, the Times journalists are ‘frustrated Leon won’t talk to [them] — but they haven’t been very nice to him, so I don’t know why he would.'”
Read more here.
