'NY Times' Examines Carlos Slim, Gingerly

Writing on Friday about the relationship between The New York Times and Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, Slate's Jack Shafer noted that the paper is "damned if it covers him and damned if it doesn't."

Damnation it is, then. Today brings a 1,400-word B1 feature on Slim, who last month loaned the Times Co. $250 million in a deal that could make him one of the publisher's biggest investors. The point of the article is clear: to send the message that Slim, whose vast holdings buy him a degree of immunity from the Mexican press, won't get a pass from the Times.

But as a statement of independence, it's pretty polite, more balancing act than shot across the bows. (The Times's tightrope has been getting quite a workout lately; recall last week's story by Richard Pérez-Peña on the Times Co.'s "resilient" strategy.) Writer Marc Lacey notes that Slim "sometimes gives the impression that he wants to be left alone to make more money in peace." Lacey calls Slim "[n]otoriously thin-skinned," but says the cell phone tycoon seldom encounters the sort of bad press that might prick his ego: "His vast resources often translate into less-than-critical coverage." Lacey quotes a few journalists who say more or less the same thing, while offering exactly zero smoking-gun examples of Slim transgressing clear-cut ethical or legal lines. Even the headline -- "The Reticent Media Baron" -- could apply to any number of them (including the one who owns Portfolio.) If I were Slim, I'd be relieved that the Times got this necessary exercise out of the way so quickly and painlessly.