As Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner’s public image has generally seemed “not quite ready for prime time.” But his PR acumen as president of the New York Fed was in large part credited for landing him the job — and now we know why. Geithner made one-on-one coffee dates, luncheons, tennis games, dinners and conference calls with reporters a major part of his job at the New York Fed, from the looks of the official schedule posted this morning by the New York Times. In addition to regular press briefings, backgrounders and whatever Geithner slipped in on his own time, Geithner scheduled one-on-one time for more than 68 journalists from 2007 to 2008, including twelve from the New York Times, ten from the Wall Street Journal and eight from the Financial Times. His favorite journalist by far appears to be Krishna Guha, an editorial page writer at the Financial Times, to whom he granted 12 interviews.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=143389