Koch Brothers Call Rolling Stone Reporter A Liar, Receive Word Flogging Of The Century

In September 2014, Rolling Stone published an exposé detailing the extent of the Koch brothers’ “toxic empire.” Tim Dickinson’s 9,000-word piece showed the reach of the Kochs’ influence, both politically and in the business world, and shined what was apparently a very uncomfortable light on Koch Industries’ dealings.
In short, it was an epic smack down to which Charles and David Koch did not take kindly (when do they ever?). They replied a whole day later, and Tim Dickinson took the opportunity to, once again, smack them down.
What, exactly, did the Koch Brothers say? You can read their whole response here, of course, but here are the highlights:

• They felt Dickinson was simply “checking off a box” that would allow him to say he’d tried to get their perspective on things, and that he didn’t make a good-faith effort to speak with them;
• They felt Rolling Stone portrayed them dishonestly before, and were skeptical of talking to Dickinson in the first place;
• They feel that Dickinson was merely regurgitating information he found in other articles that were unfair, unbalanced, and generally hostile to Koch Industries;
• They claim that he ignored and refused to comment on nearly all of the information they furnished.

Dickinson, for his part, wrote a rebuttal to their rebuttal, which Rolling Stone published on Sept. 29, 2014. He said that, beginning on Sept. 4, Rolling Stone tried to engage the Koch brothers in “a robust discussion” of various issues. They were unable to get in personal touch with either Charles Koch or with Ilia Bouchouev, who heads Koch Industries’ derivatives trading division.
They did, however, get in touch with Mark Holden, the Koch brothers’ chief counsel, though he would only talk through email.

Dickinson once reported for Faux News, and even with that on his résumé, he says he’s never encountered anybody as paranoid as the Koch brothers.

Holden accused him of having what’s known as “an opposition research dump,” which supposedly showed that Dickinson was not acting in good faith.
Dickinson also didn’t ignore the Koch brothers’ information. In fact, he says that the background info they gave him informed his reporting considerably. However, according to his piece, they also attempted to re-litigate cases that the courts (and the Senate, in one case) had long since decided. As far as Dickinson is concerned, once cases are closed, they are closed. The Kochs apparently don’t agree.
He addresses the bullet points in the Kochs’ rebuttal one at a time. Long story short, Dickinson says the following:

• He believes that the Koch brothers are upset because he didn’t do their PR for them;
• Koch Industries, despite its awards and supposed record on what they think is environmental stewardship, is still one of America’s top polluters according to the facts;
• They did pollute the town of North Pole, Alaska, in that they didn’t work to fix the leak or clean up the spill plume;
• The Kochs claim that Dickinson never asked to speak to anybody involved in their trading and derivatives, which isn’t true, and is explained earlier in the piece;
• Much of the piece dealt with the history of Fred Koch and Koch Industries, including court cases and reversals, which, for some reason, Koch found to be contradictory.

The Koch brothers tend to act utterly butthurt whenever anybody in the media paints them in a negative light. They once sent a letter, along with a script, to Rachel Maddow after she put them in a very negative light. Rachel Maddow may be inflammatory, but she also has a long history of issuing on-air corrections and retractions when she and her team get something wrong.
In that case, the Koch brothers wanted her to not only retract her story in the face of legal threats, but they also wanted her to read a script, on the air, that they had drafted. She refused to do it, and explained, on the air, that she wasn’t issuing any retractions or corrections because the reporting was accurate. She said she “didn’t play requests.”
The same is true of Tim Dickinson’s original article; the reporting itself is accurate. The Koch brothers just don’t like it, and would rather the media talk them up like the benevolent kings we’re sure they wish everyone thought of them as. Dickinson’s reply puts them in their place a second time.