PrintJanuary 19, 2009
Pinch's den of thieves
Would the New York Times take as a partner a man it virtually labeled a thief? Apparently so.
The website Reflections of a Newsosaur discovered that Carlos Slim, the Mexican billionaire reported to be in talks to invest in NY Times preferred stock to rescue the company, was castigated in a 2007 Times op-ed:
...the momentous scale is not the most galling aspect of Mr. Slim's riches. There's the issue of theft.Like many a robber baron - or Russian oligarch, or Enron executive - Mr. Slim calls to mind the words of Honoré de Balzac: "Behind every great fortune there is a crime." Mr. Slim's sin, if not technically criminal, is like that of Rockefeller, the sin of the monopolist.
Pinch Sulzberger has run his family's patrimony into the ground, and now he turns to a man his paper labeled a thief. His ancestors must be rolling in their graves.
