Mr. Gottlieb said in an interview with the Journal that he found his press coverage unfair and wanted to fight back.
“I worked with this company to help me launch my new venture,” he said.
Status Labs interviewed Mr. Gottlieb on his interests and plans, and told him it would get him positive press coverage, according to a person familiar with the matter. He paid between $4,000 and $5,000 per month for the services.
Afterward, an article on a site called Medical Daily Times was published, saying Mr. Gottlieb made a donation to an initiative at New York University’s medical school.
The phone number for Medical Daily Times on its website rang at a pizzeria in Toronto. Until recently, the article’s author was listed as BJ Hetherington. The author couldn’t be reached for comment.
A black-and-white photo accompanied BJ Hetherington’s author page on Medical Daily Times. The photo is of a Canadian theater actor, Randy Hughson. A publicist for Mr. Hughson said he wasn’t aware his photo was being used with BJ Hetherington’s name until the Journal contacted him.
The information about Mr. Gottlieb’s donation is also inaccurate: An NYU spokeswoman said Mr. Gottlieb didn’t donate to that particular initiative, though he has donated to NYU on other occasions. Medical Daily Times didn’t check the information with Mr. Gottlieb, said a person familiar with the matter.
Medical Daily Times couldn’t be reached for comment…
Status Labs provided services to Ms. DeVos before she became U.S. education secretary to suppress Google search hits connecting her to her brother, Blackwater founder Erik Prince, a person familiar with the matter said. Blackwater was a State Department contractor that was banned from Iraq after a deadly 2007 shootout of Iraqi civilians. Mr. Prince couldn’t be reached for comment.
One article touting her accomplishments as a “reformer” appeared on chemfindit.com, a site that briefly used the same IP address as a company affiliated with executives of Status Labs called Blue Land Partners, according to a Journal analysis of data from Farsight Security Inc.
Another article about her appeared online titled “Betsy DeVos Positive News Article.” The August 2017 article was on a website called “Enable Diversity,” which also featured Mr. Gottlieb. The website has since been removed.