Goldman vs. Columbia Journalism Review

Gwen Robinson of the Financial Times notes the battle between Goldman Sachs’ top PR person and Dean Starkman, who critiques the business media for the Columbia Journalism Review.

Robinson writes, “Starkman has recently written written posts denouncing the ‘secrecy’ surrounding the government bailout of AIG — secrecy that, among other things, he says, ‘has led news organisations to publish wildly different accounts of the degree to which, if at all, the bailout benefited Goldman Sachs.’

“One post, ‘Goldman’s Backdoor Bailout,’ highlighted a Sept. 29 Bloomberg story, saying it ‘blows away any inference that Goldman had no stake in the bailout,’ an inference, he says, ‘made, interestingly, in a second Bloomberg story by different authors that actually ran after the first, on Oct 21.’

“In another post, Starkman also pursued glaring discrepancies between reports by Bloomberg and The New York Times on the question of the extent of Goldman’s exposure to AIG at the time of its first bailout, and cited reporting that described Goldman’s ‘extraordinary efforts’ to make good on its AIG investment as evidence of its keen interest in the insurer’s fate.

“Not surprisingly, Goldman’s van Praag, took issue with Starkman’s take and has responded in a letter to Starkman, asserting that at the time of the AIG bailout, Goldman’s exposure to AIG was ‘immaterial.'”

Read more here.