Legal Question in Civil Litigation in Texas

Your question may have different answers in different states. I suggest re-posting it under the correct state. There is no apparent reason why you should be reluctant to do so.

Here in California, at least, your friend would not have a slander case. Reports to public officials are generally privileged against such actions.

Besides, even if your friend could bring such a case, one of the things he would have to prove would be that the contractor's statements were false. My sense is that the statement is true. After all, you say only that the article wasn't about your friend's problems but you do not deny that it was about the same contractor. That your friend wrote about someone else's experiences with the contractor rather than his own is consistent with an intent to hurt the contractor's reputation -- especially since your friend probably had to go out of his way to find another client whose problems he could write about.

The good news, at least in California, is that the Attorney General probably would not act on the contractor's complaint. This sounds like a civil dispute between private parties. The Attorney General seldom has any interest in getting involved in such disputes. And even if your friend really did harm the contractor's reputation, the contractor would have to prove falsity in order to win a defamation suit against your friend. If the article was accurate, any defamation suit the contractor might bring should fail.