Copyright
(c) 2000 by Michael Finley
Though I live in Saint Paul, I belong, for reasons I won’t go
into, to a mailing list of Seattle-based tech writers. We talk over the back
fence about what is especially putrid, horrible, defamatory and sick in the
world of technology, and this week, I got a doozy.
It's an inside-journalism memo from Neil Westergaard of the
Denver Business Journal, and it's a good enough cautionary tale of the age of
convergence to reprint the facts here.
You may know that a major telecommunications merger is
underway, involving the takeover of US West by a company called Qwest. And you
may have thought, well, they are phone companies, they must know what they are
doing.
Denver's Business Journal selected the Qwest/US West deal
as its top story of 1999. Besides publishing a nice positive article about the
merger, the paper invited executives of the two companies to a special
breakfast.
This is a considerable honor for any company, and 99 out of
100 would thank their lucky stars for the attention. But not Qwest. Freelancer
Frank Nelson, assigned to write the puff piece on the two companies, called in
to say there was "a problem."
The problem was that the corporate relations people at
Qwest refused to let Nelson talk to Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio, on the grounds
that they did not know Nelson. Company policy, it seems, is to communicate only
through known entities -- reporters the company feels comfortable with, and
knows where they live.
Furthermore, unless the Business Journal assigned the story
to a reporter selected by Qwest, Qwest refused to assist in arranging an
interview with Sol Trujillo, Nacchio's counterpart at US West.
This was PR hardball, and it was coming out of nowhere.
Surely Qwest understood that the task at hand was harmless even in the
powder-puff world of regional business journalism.
The editor called the Qwest flack back, hoping that there
was some sort of mistake. But there was none. Qwest refused to provide Nacchio
except to a writer it knew was in the company's pocket.
Neil Westergaard recalls thinking at the time: "What
kind of a company tries to tell a newspaper who to assign a story to?"
Especially this story, which was by its very nature a mushy profile that could
be produced with or without Qwest's cooperation?"
Answer? A monopoly, like the telephone company. Only this
wasn't the old telephone company. It was Qwest, the new age, high-tech new kid
on the block.
Westergaard stood his ground, and eventually Qwest backed
off. In so doing, Qwest came up with a new explanataion for their policy.
"We just wanted to make sure your reporter doesn’t waste Joe's time asking
a lot of stupid questions," Westergaard was told. Last time that happened,
Joe Nacchio "bit our heads off," the flack said.
But skip forward to last week. Two days before the breakfast,
US West called to ask why they hadn't received a special invitation as a
"winner." After all, they said, this was "a merger of
equals" that came about because of the vision and drive of Sol Trujillo
and Joe Nacchio -- so, logically, both
companies should be recognized.
Fair enough, the newspaper replied. Since it was not their
intention to shortchange anyone in the "deal of the year," they
worked out a plan whereby both companies would accept the award. They even
created an additional commemorative plaque to hand out.
Surely, surely, surely everyone was happy now?
Friday morning, at the breakfast, there was Nacchio walking
into the ballroom of the downtown Denver Marriott Hotel. But no Trujillo.
Instead, US West's new vice president of communications, Phil Burgess, would be
accepting the award. Trujillo was said to be busy with a "senior
management team" meeting.
Here were two giant companies who were making a big deal
about their ability to get along to achieve synergies in telecom matrimony. One
would imagine that they would have taken advantage of the chance to communicate
prior to the breakfast -- but they had not.
So Westergaard had the unhappy duty to inform Nacchio that
his US West counterpart would be a lowly VP. Nacchio went ballistic. "I
can't give you his exact words because I was too dumbfounded to whip out a
notebook," Westergaard said. Suffice to say Nacchio was not pleased. The
communications people at Nacchio's table were quaking with fear.
Nacchio took two bites of his breakfast, then rose and left
the hall.
Which is weirder -- demanded to be invited to an event and
then not showing up (US West)? Or showing up, and then pitching a hissy fit at
the protocol?
Either way, the future for telecommunications in the
immense western market is clear. Driven not by market realities, but by
executive ego.
Keep an eye on Joe Nacchio -- he's a capitalist for the new
epoch.
