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Article: A dubious benefactor: when the New York Times Co. needed to borrow money, it turned to a controversial Mexican billionaire one of its own writers had described as a "robber baron." Who is Carlos Slim Helu and what are the journalistic ramifications of the deal?
- Article from:
- American Journalism Review
- Article date:
- April 1, 2009
- Author:
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The voice that answered the telephone that February afternoon in the New York Times newsroom was cordial. That is, until the conversation turned to the reason for the call: Did the editorial writer have time to talk about a column he wrote in August 2007 about Mexico's "robber barons," a label he had pinned on the country's super-rich? Suddenly, there was a chill on his end of the line.
"I'm not going to talk to you about that," said Eduardo Porter, abruptly ending the conversation. His refusal to comment was understandable. The article he had written 18 months earlier suddenly had come back to haunt him and his bosses.
When Porter wrote the opinion ...