Verizon campaign raises questions

Verizon campaign raises questions
Tuesday, January 24, 2006

By JEFF PILLETS
TRENTON BUREAU

Edward J. McKenna Jr., mayor of Red Bank for the past 16 years, thought he had seen just about everything.

But that was before the unsigned letters started pouring into his office last fall.

"All unsigned, all from the same fax machine, all supporting more competition in cable television," McKenna said. "It was very suspicious, so I decided to check them out.''

McKenna found out that more than 100 of some 200 letters he received were sent from non-existent Red Bank addresses. When he called about a dozen people whose names were on the letters, about half told him they had never heard of the campaign for cable choice and had never sent him a letter.

"I was stunned,'' McKenna said. "Who would be irresponsible enough to send out letters in someone's name without their permission?''

Officials at Verizon, the telephone company behind the statewide letter-writing effort, are now asking the same question as one lawmaker calls for a probe and evidence mounts that the phone company's "grass-roots" campaign for cable franchise reform is not exactly what it appears.

Verizon spokesman Richard Young said the company is undertaking an "internal investigation" to find out how so many bugs apparently invaded its computer-driven media campaign. He said company records show only 27 official e-mails were sent to Red Bank from a Web site set up by Verizon, TVChoiceNJ.com.

"Our records show only a few dozen letters going to the mayor of Red Bank," Young said. "If he says he got 200, something is wrong somewhere and we're going to find out where.''

Earlier this month, The Record reported the stories of several people who said they were stunned to find themselves unwitting recruits in Verizon's drive to change New Jersey's 30-year-old cable television laws. Cynthia Santomauro of North Caldwell said Verizon had even fabricated phony stationery to make it appear her letter to local officials was a personalized note.

Since then, a handful of others have come forward to say that Verizon has sent letters in their name without their permission. The Record has also found other holes in Verizon's "grass-roots" campaign:

In October, a "news flash'' on Verizon's TVChoice Web site claimed that the Bergen County town of Westwood had approved a resolution supporting more cable competition.
Borough Clerk Eileen Sarubbi said Westwood had actually passed a resolution supporting the old cable laws. Verizon said the news flash was an error that was corrected within 48 hours.

A group that calls itself "New Jersey Consumers for Cable Choice" would not exist if it were not for continued cash infusions from Verizon. The group's executive director, Rachel Holland, a self-described Democratic operative and former aide to Gov. James E. McGreevey, said in an interview last week that the group "probably couldn't survive" without Verizon.
Young, the Verizon spokesman, said he would not discuss how much beyond an initial $75,000 in "seed money" that Verizon had given to the New Jersey group and its parent organization.

Verizon's media campaign in New Jersey was designed, in part, by a onetime aide to then-Gov. Richard Codey. The aide played a key role in yet another deceptive public relations campaign last spring.
Mark Matzen, a former deputy chief of staff for Codey, designed and commissioned a March 2005 poll by the Civil Society Institute of Massachusetts showing that most New Jerseyans supported Codey's plan to finance stem-cell research. The poll was published without saying that it had been paid for by money from a special fund controlled by the Governor's Office.

Pete Cammarano, a former top aide to Codey, said last week that neither he nor Codey were aware the special fund was used to finance the poll. Codey, he said, was upset when he found out.

"Obviously the fund was not designed to be used like that, although it was not illegal,'' Cammarano said. "If the governor had known, it would have been disclosed.''

Matzen, in an interview Monday, said he was hired by Verizon at the request of its chief lobbyist, Harold Hodes, to offer strategic advice about the media campaign. He said he told the company to target municipal officials who would play a large part in deciding the fate of Verizon's proposals.

Matzen said he was not aware of any deliberate attempts to fabricate letters. He added, however, that the campaign had "something screwy" in its Web site that probably resulted in many errors. He also said workers at a Verizon information booth in Atlantic City were beset by computer problems and were responsible for "improperly signing people up" for the campaign.

"Things were very screwed up, but I can't say there was any purposeful deception,'' he said.

Matzen acknowledged making "a personal faux pas" in the stem-cell poll. He said that he had contacted the Massachusetts polling group in an attempt to "get some traction" for Codey's stem cell initiative, and requested money from the fund to pay "to find out what New Jersey's value are on stem cells.''

He said he did not tell Cammarano or Codey that the public money would be used for a poll.

"That should have been disclosed, and that is my fault,'' said Matzen, who left Verizon several weeks ago and is now employed by MWW, the politically connected public relations firm in Secaucus.

Verizon is in the midst of a multimillion dollar effort to build a fiber-optic network throughout the state. Lines have been built in a number of communities. Last fall, the company advanced legislation that would essentially grant it a statewide franchise to bring cable television and other fiber optic services to scores of cities and towns across New Jersey.

But firms such as Comcast and Cablevision, which together control 92 percent of the state's cable market, say such a law upends the state's 30-year tradition of local control over cable television. They say Verizon is free to compete for contracts town by town just as they have over the years.

Verizon officials suggest that questions about the phone company's media campaign are being fueled by frustrated cable executives who know their New Jersey monopoly is ending. They point out that the cable companies and their lobbyists are also spending millions on their own media campaign, polling and grass-roots advocacy.

"This is all about the cable industry running scared,'' said Young. "They know that there is enormous public support for ending their monopoly. People in New Jersey want choice and they know it, so they are doing anything they can to stop what's coming.''

Assemblyman John Rooney, a Republican, calls himself an avowed "enemy of Comcast" and says he is the biggest supporter of cable choice in New Jersey. But he says that his office has also been beset by the Verizon media campaign.

"Many of the letters received in my office were known to me either as current or retired Verizon employees and certainly were not from 'unbiased sources,'Ÿ" said Rooney, who is also the mayor of Northvale.

Rooney, who said he is especially troubled by reports that Verizon used people's names without their permission, plans to introduce a resolution calling for the state attorney general to investigate.

"Has Verizon committed mail fraud?" Rooney said. "Is Verizon secretly ... funneling money through a front group? Has New Jersey Consumers for Cable Choice violated state law by failing to disclose their funding?

"These are the crucial questions for which we must demand answers.''


Copyright © 2006 North Jersey Media Group Inc.
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Today's observation and some questions re Net Neutrality

We at BlueWave have been looking at our media for about a year now and one thing is clear. There is no absolute repository of truth- some outlets are better than others. In order to come up with the truth, one has to be willing to look at a lot of sources. For all of the damage that has been done by the 1996 Telecommunications Act (where one player can now own so much more - controling or distorting information) and the the demise of the Fairness Doctrine (where opposing viewpoints were required) we have consoled ourselves with the emergence of differing voices on the web. Well fasten your seatbelts because the free exchange of information is in serious danger. Please read the following editorial from the times yesterday and you begin to understand. I have a question, can someone find out what the legislation is that Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden (see article below) is intending to introduce to protect Net neutrality and is there anything like it in the works in NJ.

Some of you may notice addition links to the right - if you have favorites that you would like to see posted, please send them to me.

Also, does anyone know of any journalists for the Ledger or any other Jersey paper who might be covering the emerging cable issue in our state?

send info to susank@bluewavenj.org

Thx

Tollbooths on the Internet Highway

February 20, 2006
Editorial
Tollbooths on the Internet Highway

When you use the Internet today, your browser glides from one Web site to another, accessing all destinations with equal ease. That could change dramatically, however, if Internet service providers are allowed to tilt the playing field, giving preference to sites that pay them extra and penalizing those that don't.

The Senate held hearings last week on "network neutrality," the principle that I.S.P.'s — the businesses like Verizon or Roadrunner that deliver the Internet to your computer — should not be able to stack the deck in this way. If the Internet is to remain free, and freely evolving, it is important that neutrality legislation be passed.

In its current form, Internet service operates in the same nondiscriminatory way as phone service. When someone calls your home, the telephone company puts through the call without regard to who is calling. In the same way, Internet service providers let Web sites operated by eBay, CNN or any other company send information to you on an equal footing. But perhaps not for long. It has occurred to the service providers that the Web sites their users visit could be a rich new revenue source. Why not charge eBay a fee for using the Internet connection to conduct its commerce, or ask Google to pay when customers download a video? A Verizon Communications executive recently sent a scare through cyberspace when he said at a telecommunications conference, as The Washington Post reported, that Google "is enjoying a free lunch" that ought to be going to providers like Verizon.

The solution, as far as the I.S.P.'s are concerned, could be what some critics are calling "access tiering," different levels of access for different sites, based on ability and willingness to pay. Giants like Walmart.com could get very fast connections, while little-guy sites might have to settle for the information superhighway equivalent of a one-lane, pothole-strewn road. Since many companies that own I.S.P.'s, like Time Warner, are also in the business of selling online content, they could give themselves an unfair advantage over their competition.

If access tiering takes hold, the Internet providers, rather than consumers, could become the driving force in how the Internet evolves. Those corporations' profit-driven choices, rather than users' choices, would determine which sites and methodologies succeed and fail. They also might be able to stifle promising innovations, like Internet telephony, that compete with their own business interests.

Most Americans have little or no choice of broadband I.S.P.'s, so they would have few options if those providers shifted away from neutrality. Congress should protect access to the Internet in its current form. Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, says he intends to introduce an Internet neutrality bill, which would prohibit I.S.P.'s from favoring content providers that paid them fees, or from giving priority to their own content.

Some I.S.P.'s are phone and cable companies that make large campaign contributions, and are used to getting their way in Washington. But Americans feel strongly about an open and free Internet. Net neutrality is an issue where the public interest can and should trump the special interests.


Copyright 2006The New York Times Company