@jbtaylor on tech

As I mentioned yesterday, the Washington Post's Cecilia Kang has a must read story and blog post out about how AT&T has showered politicians and groups of all types with cash contributions.

Lo and behold, these same politicians and groups are backing AT&T's bid to takeover T-Mobile.

Kang writes:

"We went through some of these supporters and found it’s just plain hard to find politicians or organizations that haven’t received some financial support from AT&T over the years."

This is the kind of Washington, D.C. Inside-the-Beltway politics as usual that disgusts the rest of America. AT&T is banking that reporters covering this story won't do the digging that Kang has done.

What I am urging media to do is to ask questions to uncover who is working for whom before they act on what a source tells them.

Consider the recent opinion pieces in Politico and Roll Call backing AT&T.

Politico ran a pro-AT&T piece by former FCC commissioner Henry Rivera which never disclosed that Rivera's law firm, Wiley Rein, is representing Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile USA.

A few days later, Roll Call ran a pro-AT&T opinion piece by former Congressman Rich Boucher which never disclosed that his employer, Sidley Austin, represents AT&T. Furthermore, the Internet Innovation Alliance of which Boucher is an honorary co-chair is an AT&T-funded outfit.

Suppose Rivera was still an FCC member and Boucher still represented Virginia in Congress (something I personally wish was the case, BTW), would either man still come out in support of AT&T?

I'm assuming they would.

But readers of Roll Call and Politico were never told of the financial ties between AT&T and the two gentlemen.

On May 18, Roll Call ran a piece about Boucher's new job at Sidley Austin. Would it have been that hard for the opinion page to read the news story which Roll Call's Kate Ackley had reported less than two weeks earlier?

A quick check of Boucher's Open Secrets profile discloses that between the 1998 and 2010 elections, the former Congressman's campaign committee received $110,500 in campaign cash from AT&T and all the competitors it's gobbled up during that time.

Here's the thing, the Internet makes this really easy to do. AT&T is banking on reporters not taking the time to investigates these ties.

My expectation is that neither Politico nor Roll Call will make this mistake again. Politico, to its credit ran a piece yesterday which looked into AT&T's financial ties to lawmakers.

There should be more of this type of reporting in my personal view.

With disclosure of financial ties, the public can decide for itself what is being said and what the motivations are behind the message.

Last week AT&T filed a formal application at the FCC seeking approval to takeover T-Mobile. If you read one story about this regulatory milestone, read the one I've linked to above from Ars Technica.

Writer Nate Anderson points out how AT&T regulatory attorneys (i.e. FCC lobbyists) spend the entire document trashing T-Mobile and talking up all the competitors they are afraid of, like Cricket and Metro PCS. (I am not making this up.)

Apparently AT&T is really scared of Sprint -- they can't say enough nice things about us. They love us so much, it led two Washington Post reporters to claim that an AT&T lobbyist -- I mean, regulatory attorney -- was starting to sound like a Sprint spokesperson.

Wait a minute. That's MY job.

Maybe the AT&T lobbyist -- I mean regulatory attorney -- really wants my job instead of the one she has. Do you think she knows what kind of pay cut she'd have to take if she left AT&T for Sprint?

Hmm.

I hope you read the entire post from Forbes today which I've linked to above. It will give you an idea of what consumers are up against when they take on AT&T.

Today, I held a conference call with reporters where I set the record straight about AT&T's false statements concerning remarks made by our CEO at Sprint, Dan Hesse.

AT&T's top lobbyist deliberately misquoted Dan and his remarks on the state of competition in wireless. He cherry-picked quotes and removed all the context which would have clearly communicated what Dan actually said.

It's the kind of sleazy politics that turn consumers off from everything that happens in Washington, D.C. and state capitals across the country.

Rather than fess up to their distortions when confronted, AT&T just repeated the lies to media in response to our conference call setting the record straight.

They insist that removing T-Mobile from the marketplace won't make it any less competitive. And they insist that it's perfectly appropriate to mislead consumers and media about what the public record actually says.

It's laughable, except I'm not laughing; because if AT&T wins its bid to takeover T-Mobile, every consumer in America loses. There will be less choice and higher prices for cell phones.

I promise.

That's why you need to stand up and fight back. Here's how you can help.

I love the current T-Mobile television ads like the one above. By any measure this campaign is resonating with consumers. (They're reminiscent of the old Alltel Chad ads that Verizon killed when they gobbled up Alltel.)

But today, Jim Alling, T-Mobile's Chief Operating Officer, posted an open letter to customers on its website sending a very different message than the ads mocking AT&T.

"The merger (with AT&T) will ensure the deployment of a robust 4G LTE network to 95% of the U.S. population, something neither company would achieve on its own in the timeframe that would be possible with this merger."

So in other words, if regulators don't approve this deal, 4G won't be available to 95% of Americans.

It kind of makes you wonder what T-Mobile is advertising now. Is it 4G or not?

Telling, isn't it?