Word: aig
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...away with murder," Representative Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, told TIME. He said taxpayers are majority shareholders who are "entitled to know how company money is being spent" without the data's being "dressed up with the benefit of high-priced media folks." (Read "Five Lessons from the AIG Bonus Blowup...
...AIG retained only one full-time p.r. firm when it ruled the insurance world. Today's four firms, said Ashooh, have different missions: Sard Verbinnen & Co. helps to structure statements on the bailout, Kekst & Co. focuses on sales of assets to pay back federal loans, Burson-Marsteller handles controversial issues and Hill & Knowlton fields inquiries from Capitol Hill and prepares congressional testimony for company officials. "If the criticism was we were running image-advertising or doing sponsorships to make ourselves look better, I could see that," Ashooh said. "But we're doing a lot of information-processing. It's really...
...Last week, however, the p.r. team went on the attack. It came on the eve of ex-chairman Maurice (Hank) Greenberg's congressional testimony critical of the firm's current leaders and the bailout strategy. Reporters were given a document outlining Greenberg's role in creating a ruinous AIG unit and his 2005 ouster. A press release questioned why he should have "any credibility." Ashooh said the document was prepared internally, not by p.r. firms, and was intended to correct "misinformation" spread by Greenberg...
...campaign that attacks specific individuals by name, that is particularly egregious. Even if the screed was done entirely in-house, it still constitutes a questionable use of taxpayer money, since the in-house staff is essentially government employees. There's very little legitimate expenditure on public relations for AIG at this point...
...Ashooh disagrees. He said the outside firms help AIG keep up with the pressing demand for information. "If we stopped doing what we're doing," he said, "there would be a worse outcry...