Into the depths of AT&T's let-us-buy-T-Mobile astroturf campaign

[DainBramaged]

AT&T is legendary for laundering its public policy preferences through minority and social service groups that it supports financially in order to produce an apparent groundswell of support. We've written about it enough times not to be surprised by the practice anymore, but the Center for Public Integrity has just concluded an in-depth investigation of the practice that's well worth a look. In order to support its proposed T-Mobile buyout, AT&T has dug deep into its roster of supporters, going so far as to get local groups like the Shreveport-Bossier Rescue Mission to write letters of support to the federal government.

Naturally, just about every nonprofit contacted for the CPI article was shocked, shocked! at any suggestion that AT&T was pressuring them… though no one denied being asked to write the letters. A few of the quotes were telling. The Special Dreams Farm in St. Clair Township, Michigan received only about $2,000 from AT&T over the last several years, but it went ahead and wrote a letter to the FCC asking the T-Mobile purchase to be approved. “Obviously we would like to support companies big or small if they're supporting us,” said the group's president, Larry Collette, to CPI. "Everything is a two-way street.”

Other groups, also refusing to say that they had been outright bought off, did admit that “we are suffering right now and we need their support.”

AT&T's top lobbyist also heads AT&T corporate foundation, which disperses grants to thousands of small groups across the country. Such relationships can be useful when it comes time to show Washington what a wholesome company you run, but using grant money to help build support is hardly a tactic limited to AT&T. When a nonprofit called ReelGrrls criticized its corporate donor Comcast via Twitter, a Comcast exec wrote to the group and said that he "cannot in good conscience continue to provide with funding—especially when there are so many other deserving nonprofits in town," given that " is shaming us on Twitter."

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/10/into-the-depths-of-atts-let-us-buy-t-mobile-astroturf-campaign.ars

[Odin2005]

1. This is exactly why nobody should praise rich people for their "charity foundations."