October 7, 2024

Woodward Clashes With White House and Conservatives Take Note

His feud with an unnamed official, first reported in Politico, which said Mr. Woodward clearly saw the administration’s choice of words “as a veiled threat,” initially drew cheers from many conservative commentators and bewilderment from many Washington reporters who wondered whether Mr. Woodward was being a tad oversensitive.

In an interview later on Thursday, Mr. Woodward emphasized that he had not said he felt threatened. “I never said it was a threat,” he said, but added that he still had concerns about how the administration handled criticism. “We live in a world where they don’t like to be challenged, particularly when the political stakes are so high,” he said.

The dust-up started last Friday, when The Washington Post published an op-ed article by Mr. Woodward that said Mr. Obama was “moving the goal posts” by insisting that a substitute for the Congressionally mandated automatic spending cuts include new revenue. “That was not the deal he made” back in 2011, Mr. Woodward wrote.

The staff of the House speaker, John A. Boehner, circulated the article to reporters immediately. By Sunday, when the article appeared in print, the headline of Politico’s widely read Playbook newsletter read “Woodward v. White House!”

On Wednesday Mr. Woodward attracted streams of new conservative friends when he said that an unnamed senior White House official had yelled at him “for about a half-hour” and warned that he would “regret this.” After Politico published his comments under the headline “Woodward at War,” Twitter lighted up with vigorous debate.

To some Republican politicians and conservative activists, Mr. Woodward’s assertions were new evidence of their belief that the Obama administration exerts tremendous pressure on a mostly cowed news media. Representative Steve Stockman, Republican of Texas, said in a statement, “Even Bob Woodward accuses Obama of ‘madness.’ ” The Fox News host Steve Doocy defended Mr. Woodward and said, “This White House is one of the most thin-skinned White Houses ever.”

But in the worlds of politics and journalism, a consensus was forming around the suggestion — supported by people close to the White House — that Mr. Woodward had overreacted.

“Arguing with press aides and senior officials” might as well be part of the job description for White House correspondents.

“In fairness to the White House, the First Amendment applies to them as well,” said Ed Henry, the chief White House correspondent for Fox News.

As reporters badgered the White House for comments about whether a threat had been conveyed, details about the discussion between Mr. Woodward and his source began to leak out. BuzzFeed reported that the official was Gene Sperling, the director of Mr. Obama’s National Economic Council.

On Thursday morning Politico published their e-mail exchange, which seemed remarkably polite. Mr. Sperling started by saying: “I apologize for raising my voice in our conversation today. My bad.” He later said “perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here” and “as a friend, I think you will regret staking that claim.” Mr. Woodward responded: “You do not ever have to apologize to me. You get wound up because you are making your points and you believe them.”

Mr. Woodward would not say whether this White House was more sensitive about being challenged than the past administrations he has covered. But he said, “I can’t recall an instance when somebody in the White House said I was going to ‘regret staking out’ a position that they disagreed with, but were not that factually challenging.”

Other veteran reporters said on Thursday, in essence, “We’ve heard worse.” Major Garrett, the chief White House correspondent for CBS, said that he thought the flare-up was “a completely ridiculous story” and that conflict came with the White House beat. “Every reporter knows when a source is angry about something you’re working on, you’re on the right track,” he said. “Just get on with it.”

Jake Tapper, who recently joined CNN from ABC, where he covered the White House, recalled unpleasant conversations with both Republicans and Democrats and called it part of the job. “In my experience,” he said, “neither side has had a premium on tones that may not be soothing, or words that may not be suitable for children.”

Martha Joynt Kumar, a political scientist at Towson University who studies presidential communications, said a truer measure of the relationship between the White House and the press corps was whether journalists were prevented from doing their jobs.

“People are not prevented from reporting,” she said. “There’s no enemies list. That’s the threat that I would see, not a case of Gene Sperling writing the e-mail he did to Bob Woodward.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/business/media/woodward-clashes-with-white-house-and-conservatives-take-note.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Wall Street Stocks End Mixed

Opinion »

Letters: Can the Catholic Schools Be Saved?

Readers respond to an Op-Ed article, “Catholic Education, in Need of Salvation.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/business/daily-stock-market-activity.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Former Nortel Executives Acquitted

Opinion »

Letters: Can the Catholic Schools Be Saved?

Readers respond to an Op-Ed article, “Catholic Education, in Need of Salvation.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/technology/former-nortel-executives-acquitted.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Wall Street Stocks Slip

Opinion »

Letters: Can the Catholic Schools Be Saved?

Readers respond to an Op-Ed article, “Catholic Education, in Need of Salvation.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/business/daily-stock-market-activity.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

DealBook: Former Banker Promises Inside Peek at Goldman

Greg Smith, author of the book Why I Left Goldman Sachs, which is scheduled to be published on Oct. 22 by Grand Central Publishing.Herman EstevezGreg Smith, author of the book “Why I Left Goldman Sachs,” which is scheduled to be published on Oct. 22 by Grand Central Publishing.

Wall Street has plenty of worries heading into autumn: the stability of the euro zone, persistent United States unemployment and the historically volatile October stock market.

Goldman Sachs has an additional concern: Greg Smith’s book.

Mr. Smith’s memoir, “Why I Left Goldman Sachs,” is set for publication on Oct. 22. The release date comes just seven months after Mr. Smith publicly resigned from the bank with an Op-Ed page article in The New York Times that detailed his disappointment with Goldman’s business practices that reflected, more broadly, a corrosive culture at the nation’s largest banks.

The article struck a nerve. Within 24 hours, it had more than three million views online. Publishers clamored for the rights to a book. Grand Central Publishing, a division of the Hachette Book Group, secured a deal, offering Mr. Smith an advance of close to $1.5 million, according to people with direct knowledge of the negotiations.

His book comes at an inopportune moment for Goldman, which has largely disappeared from the spotlight after a wave of negative publicity damaged the bank’s reputation.

Greg Smith's Op-Ed article in The New York Times earlier this year reignited a debate over whether Wall Street was corrupted by greed and excess.The New York TimesGreg Smith’s Op-Ed article in The New York Times earlier this year reignited a debate over whether Wall Street was corrupted by greed and excess.The Daily Mash carried a parody of the Goldman letter, supposedly written by Darth Vader.The Daily Mash carried a parody of the Goldman letter, supposedly written by Darth Vader.

In addition, it paid $550 million to settle a civil case brought by the government over a subprime mortgage product that it sold to clients. An insider trading scandal ensnared the firm, with a member of its board facing prison time and at least two other executives under investigation.

And its depiction as a blood sucking “vampire squid” in a Rolling Stone article captured the public’s imagination, helping to make Goldman a symbol of Wall Street’s dark side.

But in recent months, Goldman has steered clear of the negative finance coverage dominating the headlines, most notably the huge trading losses at JPMorgan Chase and the growing scandal involving certain banks’ manipulation of interest rates.

“Why I Left Goldman Sachs” promises to be a tell-all of Mr. Smith’s 12-year career at the bank. His opinion article in The Times described Goldman as a once-vaunted institution that had lost its way. He wrote that when he first joined the bank as an intern in the summer of 2000, it obsessively put its clients’ interests first.

But over time, Mr. Smith said, Goldman devolved into a “toxic and destructive” culture that put profit before principle. His former colleagues mocked their clients, he said, derisively referring to them as “muppets.”

“I truly believe that this decline in the firm’s moral fiber represents the single most serious threat to its long-run survival,” Mr. Smith wrote. “It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off.”

Not everyone embraced Mr. Smith’s article. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York dismissed the piece as “ridiculous,” calling it nothing more than a nasty letter from a disgruntled employee. It also spawned numerous parodies on the Internet, including “Why I Am Leaving the Empire,” by Darth Vader.

David Wells, a Goldman Sachs spokesman, minimized the significance of the book. “Every day, some young professional, after a decade in a postcollegiate job, reassesses his or her career and decides to move on and do something else,” he said in an e-mailed statement. “Others can better judge whether Mr. Smith’s particular career transition is of unique interest.”

Grand Central has planned a robust print run of 150,000 copies in hardcover and expects to sell a sizable number of copies in e-book format.

“Many people on Main Street distrust Wall Street right now, yet few can put their finger on why,” Jamie Raab, publisher of Grand Central, said in a statement. “Greg Smith’s candid account of his years at Goldman Sachs does just that.”

A big selling point of Mr. Smith’s book is that it is about Goldman, which has long been a subject of fascination because of its immense profits and political connections. Also, within the hushed confines of the bank, a code of silence has always prevailed, so an insider’s account is especially tantalizing.

Several nonfiction releases about Goldman have had some success, most recently the best seller “Money and Power” by William D. Cohan, but the bank has never been the focus of a tell-all.

Yet many in the publishing industry, including several people who met with Mr. Smith in March, have their doubts, and question whether the book has the makings of a best seller.

Was Mr. Smith, a midlevel derivatives salesman who failed to become a managing director and had no one reporting to him, privy to Goldman’s inner workings? Does he have access to the firm’s previously untold secrets?

While Mr. Smith’s opinion article became rich fodder for critics of Wall Street banks and the reckless lending and business practices that led to the global financial crisis, it was largely devoid of specific details. Whether the 288-page book fills in the blanks remains an open question.

Grand Central will distribute the book with the secrecy of a Bob Woodward publication, with bookstores told not to display any copies until its release. Adding to the suspense around the book’s publication date, Mr. Smith has not done any interviews or media appearances since the article was published.

People familiar with the contents of Mr. Smith’s book say that while it shines an unsavory spotlight on the ways of Wall Street, it is not just a finger-wagging polemic.

Instead, much of the memoir details the whole of Mr. Smith’s career at Goldman Sachs, from when he joined the firm during the frothy dot-com boom to the grim days of the financial crisis.

A summary of the book on Amazon hints at some of the book’s details: “From the shenanigans of his summer internship during the technology bubble to Las Vegas hot tubs and the excesses of the real estate boom; from the career lifeline he received from an N.F.L. Hall of Famer during the bear market to the day Warren Buffett came to save Goldman Sachs from extinction, Smith will take the reader on his personal journey through the firm, and bring us inside the world’s most powerful bank.”

Grand Central considers the book a potential successor to “Liar’s Poker,” Michael Lewis’s firsthand account of the freewheeling antics of Salomon Brothers’ bond-trading desk during the 1980s.

Other Wall Street memoirs — including “F.I.A.S.C.O.” by Frank Partnoy, a former Morgan Stanley salesman, and Lawrence G. McDonald’s “A Colossal Failure of Common Sense,” a tale about Lehman Brothers — have not sold nearly as well as “Liar’s Poker,” which has sold more than two million copies.

Mr. Smith turned his book around quickly, eschewing a ghostwriter and writing his own first draft.

He did get some assistance from a professional writer, who provided advice and helped him polish the manuscript, said Jimmy Franco, a spokesman for Grand Central. The book’s editor is John Brodie, a former journalist and editor at Fortune magazine.

Once the book is released, the 33-year-old Mr. Smith, a South African native who lives in New York, is expected to do television and radio interviews, though no specific appearances have been announced. He has no plans for a traditional book tour with signings and readings.

One possible television spot would be on “The Colbert Report.” In March, Stephen Colbert, the show’s host, mocked Mr. Smith for including in his article that he had won a bronze medal in table tennis at the Maccabiah Games in Israel.

Joked Mr. Colbert: “Way to reinforce the stereotype that Ping-Pong players control the banking industry.”

A version of this article appeared in print on 09/13/2012, on page B7 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Book by Former Banker Promises Peek Inside Goldman Sachs.

Article source: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/09/12/former-banker-promises-inside-peek-at-goldman-sachs/?partner=rss&emc=rss