Carlos Slim Helú: The Reticent Media Baron

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MEXICO CITY — Carlos Slim Helú was clearly annoyed. He had invited dozens of foreign correspondents to lunch one day last fall and, after many questions about business trends, one journalist pressed him on how it felt to be worth so much in a country in which many people struggle to get by.

Mr. Slim cut off the questioner and defended his stewardship of a vast business empire. His curt tone made clear that he did not favor that line of questioning.

Mr. Slim, Mexico’s richest man and now a major shareholder in and lender to The New York Times, has a complex relationship with the news media. He invests money in an array of television and newspaper companies and says he sees a bright future for those media companies that adapt.

But when the news media focus their spotlight on him, he sometimes gives the impression that he wants to be left alone to make more money in peace.

An avid newspaper reader of what he calls the “paper generation,” Mr. Slim says he sees the shift to digital news, which has left newspaper companies struggling, as not necessarily being their death knell. He likens them to transport companies at the turn of the 20th century that grappled with the advent of motorcars. Those that stuck to horses went belly up.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/16/business/media/16slim.html?th&emc=th