But when it comes to Greg Smith and the “Why I’m Leaving Goldman Sachs” meme started by The New York Times in March, the investment bank has got plenty to gripe about. According to the Times’s own research, almost all the claims made in Smith’s incendiary Op-Ed--about Goldman Sachs’s moral bankruptcy, toxic culture and love of ripping off clients and referring to them as “muppets”--turned out to be “curiously short” on evidence.

Sure, Goldman went on an all-out PR blitz to make sure we knew this, but that doesn’t mean it's wrong. As the company put it on Twitter this week, the Times took Greg Smith and "made [him] famous,” then, a few months later, exposed him as a fraud.

The trajectory of  this “viral op-ed,” as The Guardian called it, embodies so many of the ills of the media today.

The New York Times created a narrative so powerful that it generated millions of page-views, became a trending topic on Twitter and scored a seven-figure book deal for Smith. Then, months later, the paper saw no conflict in publishing an equally popular story that dismantled that narrative--without the paper having to issue a retraction or admit to any error in judgment.

Of course, the Times doesn’t have to endorse the viewpoints of every guest op-ed, but by giving space to a particular author, it is saying, “‘this person is worth your time.” It is now clear from the Times’s own research that it doesn't believe Smith was.

Did this happen because the Times and the rest of the media failed to police themselves? No, they were having their cake and eating it too. Despite its pretensions, the Times is a traffic-hungry monster like any other publisher, and polarizing stories move the needle. Outlets will do whatever it takes to get them--whatever makes the most money--even if it means creating the rumors, myths and chatter that they later shoot down.

Publish Greg Smith and get a bunch of people riled up. (Don’t vet his credibility pre-publication, of course, because then you might not be able to run it.) Then publish an article--with plenty of help from Goldman Sachs’s crisis PR department--that accuses Greg Smith of acting from ulterior motives ... and, what do you know? People are riled up again. How nicely (and lucratively) that works out!

The data justifies it. The Times is surely aware of the study of its own articles by the Wharton School of Business that found unequivocally that the No. 1 predictor of "virality" is how angry a New York Times piece makes readers.

People have criticized Tina Brown for her trolly Newsweek covers, but the reality is that all journalism today is corrupted by trolling. From Gawker to The New York Times, the game is about publishing whatever will get us to click--not about getting to the truth. In their own way, it’s almost impressive how artfully these sites can do it. Attack Goldman Sachs? It’s a perfect target, because the public has been hoping for dirt on the “evil” financial industry. Once that narrative gets stale, what’s next? Tear down the hero it built up as a vehicle for the first story. Next!

And the rest of the web blindly follows the agenda, publishing its own iterations of whatever the hot story of the moment is. Nine months ago, Goldman Sachs was the villain. Today, it’s Greg Smith. It’s all theater, and the only sincere reaction in town comes from naive readers who don’t know they’re being played.

Until the economics of the business change, we’re stuck with a model in which the press will build people up and tear them down. Our main job as readers--and frankly as human beings--should be to resist the urge to bite.

Ryan Holiday is the bestselling author of Trust Me I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator and a PR strategist for brands and writers.

At Bloomberg Television, Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle followed yesterday's reporting on the results of Goldman's internal investigations (bankers like Jim Henson!), with an interview today with Edith Cooper, global head of human capital management at the firm.On her initial reaction to Mr. Smith's New York Times op-ed: Quite frankly, I had not experienced someone resigning to The New York Times. My first reaction was, who is he and what was his experience? Let's figure that out. What is it, where does he work…to really understand Greg Smith's story.

Her first response: We spoke to his managers. We looked at his reviews. And then we went into a much more exhaustive analysis of all of the different avenues, whether that is compliance or outside third parties that we have in place that our employees could call. It was very difficult for us to believe that an individual could have been in a position where he was so concerned that he would not have expressed it. Our culture is about communication.

On the results of her fact-finding: We focus on the things that we can control and the things we can control are how we can interact with our people. My biggest disappointment is that Greg Smith did not come forward and speak with us. That is our biggest disappointment. Then of course, as we looked into his claims, I was very pleased to see that here there was no merit to those claims.

Meanwhile, from Deal Journal yesterday:

Mr. Smith tells of one near-encounter when he saw Mr. Blankfein, sans clothes, after taking a shower at the gym. Mr. Blankfein was “air-drying,” Mr. Smith writes, something Mr. Smith took not as a display of power but as something men of an older generation tend to do

Which is to say: We're still looking forward to getting out hands on a copy.

It seems the Times has also seen a "bootleg" copy of Greg Smith’s Why I Left Goldman Sachs, and its take is in line with what we've read of the book so far: "Long on Mr. Smith’s reminiscences of the pleasures of the job—handmade suits, sashimi at 30,000 feet, strawberries at Wimbledon—the former Goldman salesman’s book does not break much new ground on illegal or questionable financial practices at the firm."

Morgan Stanley chief executive officer and noted compensation realist James Gorman is likely to miss performance targets that would have netted him nearly $6 million, according to Bloomberg.

Argentina has found a jurisdiction where it can hide from Paul Singer’s Elliott Management, the hedge fund that seized an Argentinean naval vessel earlier this month, according to The New York Post. The Swiss government refused Elliott's request to embargo Argentina's deposits in the Bank for International Settlements, arguing it had no authority over the so-called central bank for central banks.

Anthony Chiasson, the Level Global hedge fund manager facing insider trading charges, is seeking to draw his better-known partner David Ganek into court. As Dealbook explains, Mr. Chiasson's lawyers say Mr. Ganek's trading records are similar to those of his client; Mr. Ganek wasn't accused of wrongdoing, so the fact that the two partners made similar trades may raise doubts on the charges against Mr. Chiasson.

With SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro expected to step down in the months to come, Bloomberg looks back at the tenure of a woman who revived the agency yet failed to meet several stated objectives.

It was a good day for Italian and Spanish bond markets.

Business Insider has a great email exchange between Democrat Whitney Tilson and Republicans on his email list.

A week ago yesterday, The Financial Times reported on the results of Goldman's internal investigation into the allegations that Greg Smith made in a New York Times Op-Ed published in March. What the probe turned up: Prior his very public departure from the firm, Mr. Smith had submitted compensation requests that his superiors believed to be out of line with his performance, and 99 percent of the time Goldman employees wrote the word "muppet" in an email, they were referring to the 2011 movie—not the firm's know-nothing clients.

Perhaps discontented with the attention received by the FT reports, Goldman went and slipped a nine-page summary of the so-called muppet hunt to Bloomberg, which reported today that "the documents paint a picture of Smith that is at odds with the image he fashioned for himself in the op-ed: an altruistic kid from Johannesburg, out of place in the rapacious, wealth-obsessed world of American high finance."

While Goldman was busy getting ahead of Mr. Smith's Oct. 22 pub date, news outlets have likewise been active seeking out early excerpts of the book. On Monday, Dealbreaker had an excerpt describing Mr. Smith's first exposure to the firm, in which one poor undergraduate learned a life lesson by way of a cheddar cheese salad; then Politico offered snippets regarding an apparently unseemly business in options on European banks and a woman nicknamed Ms. Silicone, and Dealbreaker was back with a kind of riveting tale of Mr. Smith's Ping-Pong prowess.

On the strength of these leaked excerpts, it's been understood that the book doesn't contain any major bombshell allegations against the firm.  Well, perhaps that's not surprising, given Mr. Smith's mid-level position at the firm (he was one of about 13,000 vice presidents, according to Bloomberg), and his presumed distance from the subprime business that sullied Goldman's reputation.

Be that as it may, we found the excerpts engrossing—not the first nor last word but a well-written one, and a relatively rare glimpse into life at the firm. For a guy who ended his career in investment banking in the heat of moral indignation, the bits we've read don't paint a particularly harsh picture of Goldman.

Maybe that's not surprising, but it was enough to remind us of the prologue to The Big Short, in which author Michael Lewis reflected on his first book. If he'd had any hopes for the publication of Liar's Poker, Mr. Lewis wrote, it was that "college students trying to decide what to do with their lives might read it and decide that it's silly to phony it up, and abandon their passions or even their faint interests, to become financiers." Instead college students took Liar's Poker as an instruction manual.

Well, we're not saying that Mr. Smith is Michael Lewis, and of course we've only read a smattering of pages, too few by far to know the tone of Why I Left Goldman Sachs. But it tickles us to consider the possibility that, for all of Goldman's efforts to dismiss the book pre-publication, and even as we tread into an era of boring banking, Mr. Smith's tale of his career, pre- and post-crisis, might make the industry feel fun again.

Which is to say, a court in Ghana ruled in favor of Mr. Singer yesterday, affirming the hedge fund manager's right to seize a training ship owned by the Argentinean navy over unpaid sovereign bonds. The Elliott Management affiliate contesting the issue is believed to be asking $20 million to return the three-masted frigate.

When you say not-nice things about people, they tend to say not-nice things about you, at any rate, that's been the case for Greg Smith, noted ping pong enthusiast and author of the forthcoming memoir, Why I Left Goldman Sachs. With the book set to come out next week, some Goldman bankers chatted up the Financial Times, telling the paper that until shortly before Mr. Smith's resigned on the op-ed page of The New York Times, he'd seemed more concerned with how much money he was making, and less interested in what he later labeled Goldman's toxic culture.

In other news, 99 percent of the times Goldman bankers used the word "muppet" they were referring to last year's movie, again, according to the FT.

Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein would pay higher taxes if it meant he didn't have to read Mr. Smith's book, or you know, if it would reduce the national debt or something.

JPMorgan said third-quarter profit rose 34 percent from a year ago as revenue from mortgage-lending rose.

The firm's chief financial officer Doug Braunstein is considering a new role at the bank, according to Bloomberg. Head of regulatory affairs and former chief risk officer Barry Zubrow was said last week to be retiring at the end of the year.

Morgan Stanley and IKB are being sued for selling mortgage-backed securities that quickly soured, turnabout for IKB, which has often been on the other side of mortgage lawsuits.

Brian Moynihan is still planning on letting go 30,000 employees.

Larry Ellison may be bidding on sports and entertainment giant Anschultz Entertainment Group, according to Reuters.

Alexander Rekeda, a former trader at Mizuho Financial Group, was the rare distinction being charged over two separate derivatives deals he structured in the run-up to the financial crisis.

A Department of Justice probe into the collapse of MF Global is going nowhere fast, according to The Wall Street Journal, which reports that former CEO Jon Corzine met with federal investigators for the first time last week. Meanwhile, sources tell The Journal that it's looking more unlikely criminal charges will be filed.

“Many people on Main Street distrust Wall Street right now, yet few can put their finger on why,” said Jamie Raab, publisher of Grand Central, according to The Times.Which is an overwrought explanation for giving former Goldman Sachs executive Greg Smith $1.5 million for his book, Why ILeft Goldman Sachs. A simpler reason: People want the dirt.

England's Financial Services Authority levied an $800,000 fine against Peter Cummings, a former head of corporate lending at HBOS, and Mr. Cummings isn't happy about it:

For the past three and a half years I have been singled out and subjected to an extraordinary Orwellian process by an organisation that acts as lawmaker, judge, jury, appeal court and executioner. The FSA has never had to prove its case to anyone other than itself, and sits safe in the knowledge that few individuals can afford to take it on.

“The decision to single me out for investigation is even more grotesque given that even the FSA has to admit in its notice that other senior people were involved in the critical decisions for which I am taken to task. This is tokenism at its most sinister, and has made it feel throughout like institutional oppression.

Moore Capital Management, the $15 billion hedge fund founded by Louis Moore Bacon, reduced its head count by 10 to 15 people, letting go of research analysts and portfolio managers, according to Bloomberg.

JPMorgan announced another reorganization of its corporate and investment banking division.

Shares in Abercrombie & Fitch rose yesterday after the retailer hired Goldman to help ward off activist investors. Relational Investors, the hedge fund managed by Ralph Whitworth, increased its stake in A&F from about 2 percent to 3.8 percent earlier this year.

Underwriters of initial public offering are increasingly inclined to allow company insiders sell shares before lockup periods end, according to The Journal. Traditionally, underwriters prohibit insiders from selling shares in the first 180 days after an offering, preventing the market for a company's stock from being flooded by sales as employees and early investors look to cash in.

Wall Street may be pulling for Mitt Romney, but it expects Barack Obama to win the presidential election, according to an informal poll conducted by CNBC.

Goldman isn't the only bank cutting staff, The Times notes politely:

Morgan Stanley reduced its work force by 2,935 during the 12 months that ended March 31. While it is a similar number to Goldman’s, this represents just 4.7 percent of its work force. If markets continue to deteriorate this summer, Morgan Stanley is likely to make additional small cuts.

Other firms have been cutting aggressively. Credit Suisse, for instance, had laid off people and earlier this year filed filed a notice with the New York Department of Labor, saying that it planned to lay off 109 people in the state before May 1.

Goldman Sachs managing directors earn a base salary of $500,000, with annual bonuses climbing into the millions, according to The Times. In absence of which pay, Greg Smith's seven-figure advance may be looking better and better.

Greg Smith, via nytimes.com

Bloomberg View's take on Goldman Sachs vice president Greg Smith's New York Times editorial-as-resignation reads like catty note written in Calc class and passed to all the Goldman Sachs employees reading the morning news on, well, their Bloomberg Terminals.

Just about every newspaper has treated yesterday's editorial as a news story in itself, including other departments of The New York Times. Rival Wall Street Journal covered it from every angle, publishing both the internal memo in which Goldman ceo Lloyd Blankfein responded to its allegations and a parody in the voice of Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni, who also resigned yesterday.

But today's un-bylined Bloomberg View editorial shows up even the parodies with its derision, synthesizing all the nasty things that cooler banker types said on Twitter yesterday.

Starting with the suggestion that Mr. Smith is naive:

"Apparently, when Greg Smith arrived at Goldman Sachs almost 12 years ago, the legendary investment firm was something like the Make-A-Wish Foundation -- existing only to bring light and peace and happiness to the world," it begins.

"One imagines Goldman bankers spending their days delivering fresh flowers to elderly shut-ins and providing shelters for abandoned cats."

Mr. Smith's main argument--that Goldman rips off, disrespects and misleads clients so "the firm" can make more money off them--is treated with the same sarcasm.

"It’s tragic that Goldman is losing an employee who realizes that you need customers to stay in business," the View writes.

And, naturally, it snickers at his ping pong accolades.

"And what an employee! He worked at Goldman as an intern in college and worked there continuously until today. “I was selected as one of 10 people (out of a firm of more than 30,000) to appear on our recruiting video, which is played on every college campus we visit around the world.” Then there was being “a Rhodes Scholar national finalist” and “winning a bronze medal for table tennis at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, known as the Jewish Olympics.”

Check out the tour-de-snark's surprisingly reasonable conclusion, as well as over 500 heated comments, at Bloomberg.

And here's one.

It's Greg Smith, a Manhattan doorman who donated $25 to Obama's campaign and got a pesonal response from the candidate. That got Smith considerable media attention, including an interview on CNN.

I first met Smith at a party in New York City the night Obama won the Ohio caucus. In the hallway at Invesco Field just now, Smith recalled "I cried like a baby."

At the time, Quinn said the practice was legal, practical, and ongoing for a number of years.

Quinn also said there were a number of inaccuracies in that story. So, after the event I emailed her spokeswoman, Maria Alvarado, to ask specifically what they thought the inaccuracies were.

Alvarado emailed me a point-by-point response later, which rests on the notion the council wasn't trying to hide the practice. Also, they say that city law doesn't require groups receiving taxpayer money to be registered as 501(c)(3) nonprofits.

Here's the email, with the News passages in quotes:

For the record, Greg Smith, editor of the Daily News investigations team, stands by the story. When I emailed Quinn's analysis to Smith, he replied: