ink-stained wretches

Goldman Sachs Is ‘Embattled,’ Not ‘Ailing’

Someone at the Times must’ve gotten a talking-to over yesterday’s page-one headline trumpeting Warren Buffett’s investment in “Ailing” Goldman Sachs, from either Goldman or Richard Pérez-Peña, because the paper today issued this odd little clarification:

A front-page headline on Wednesday with an article about Warren E. Buffett’s plan to invest $5 billion in the Wall Street investment banking firm Goldman Sachs described that company as “ailing.” While its stock has been battered and it has agreed to tighter government regulation and wants to raise more capital from investors, “embattled” would have been a more accurate headline description of Goldman’s state than “ailing.”



We suspect this correction came from Goldman themselves; we can see them being taken with the whole “battle” thing. But we’re actually getting tired of both “ailing” and “embattled” in these stories and think that, going forward, the Times could come up with some other descriptors for Goldman, such as: ass-kicked, beat-down, beleaguered, besieged, beset, tormented, tortured, roughed-up, or just “ridden hard and put away wet.” Thoughts?

Corrections [NYT]

Goldman Sachs Is ‘Embattled,’ Not ‘Ailing’