If you said mean things about Amazon during that surreal three-month period when we all thought it was establishing a gargantuan headquarters in Long Island City, you may have hurt the feelings of one of the most powerful corporations on the planet. And if you’re a prominent politician or labor leader, Amazon executives likely took note—and recorded your insults in a secret dossier, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

That dossier took the form of a Microsoft Word document titled “NY Negative Statements,” the report notes, outfitted with “separate sections for a half-dozen politicians and officials” who provoked the powerful company’s ire by speaking out against the doomed HQ2 deal, which would have offered Amazon $2.5 billion in taxpayer-funded incentives. (The WSJ story repeatedly refers to this document as a “burn book,” though in the Mean Girls parlance, a burn book is a volume in which you scribble cruel insults and rumors about other people; it doesn’t document mean things other people have said about you.)

The story gives a behind-the-scenes glimpse at Amazon execs as they dealt with the roiling crisis of aggressive local opposition to HQ2. Publicly, Amazon remained quiet (and let prominent cheerleaders like Governor Andrew Cuomo do the talking) while politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denounced the deal as “dressed-up trickle-down economics.” Privately, the company’s higher-ups were exhausted and demoralized by the protests and denunciations. After a visit to New York in January, one person remarked that the team “looked like it had come from a war zone.” For those who opposed the deal, fearing it would accelerate gentrification and displace Queens residents, it’s a nice reminder that sustained protest sometimes (maybe, occasionally) works.

Though it’s been six months since the Amazon deal went bust, the WSJ piece is not the only HQ-related journalistic revelation to drop today. The City just published a new report detailing NYC's Economic Development Corporation’s (EDC) aggressive public relations push during the months immediately following the Amazon debacle. Per that report, the EDC, which had helped to forge the Amazon deal along with the Empire State Development Corporation, dropped $80,000 on a “reputational rescue” led by the private PR firm Edelman, which aimed to “lead a course correction in Amazon’s aftermath.”

It’s a puzzling response to the HQ2 blow-up, suggesting that the EDC is less interested in engaging with community opposition than in finding savvy ways to drown it out. More from The City piece:

The Edelman proposal from March, released to THE CITY under a Freedom of Information request, describes EDC’s “most urgent needs” as “capacity building and the preparations needed to weather and win critical land use fights.” [...] The proposal also aimed to elevate EDC President James Patchett in the public eye, “building executive visibility.” The objectives included positioning Patchett “as a fierce advocate for business growth and development,” and creating a “playbook outlining a strong defense to political or community-related attacks surrounding high-profile land use fights and other reputation risks."

An EDC spokesperson told The City, “EDC carries out dozens of complicated projects that require time and attention. As in the past, we’ve taken the straightforward step of engaging outside help to assist with capacity and strategic support.”

Meanwhile, one figure who could have perhaps used a PR blitz after the Amazon debacle was Governor Cuomo, who desperately wanted to bring Amazon to New York. The Wall Street Journal story notes that after Amazon pulled out, Cuomo “kept calling contacts at the company after the Valentine’s Day breakup” and suggested alternate locations in the city.

That February, The Onion ran this memorable headline: “‘Wait, Mr. Bezos, You Forgot Your Tax Subsidy!’ Says Andrew Cuomo Running Behind Limo.”