In January, two Reuters reporters, Andy Sullivan and Greg Roumeliotis published a piece about Bain’s takeover and subsequent management of GS Technologies – a steel mill in Kansas City. The piece is a long, nuanced piece of business journalism. The plant failed under Bain’s stewardship, but the piece points out that, overall, Bain has an excellent track record and that larger economic forces were at work in the plant's failure. It also points out that despite that failure, which was probably caused at least in part by the debt Bain loaded unto the company, Bain made $12 million on their $8 million dollar investment and at least $4.5 million in consulting fees.

Interest in Romney’s time at Bain made the piece notable when it was published (it was cited by Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry) but it didn’t really start making its way in the world until Priorities USA Action (a SuperPac closely, really closely, aligned with President Obama) made it the backbone of a series of ads against Romney.