To fulfill part of its merger “penance” with the FCC from earlier this year, Comcast / NBC-U announced the other day it has entered into agreements that:

…create new and innovative cooperative news gathering and reporting arrangements with a series of locally-focused, non-profit news organizations.

The partnerships are with ProPublica, which will work with all ten owned stations, serving the following markets: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco Bay Area, Dallas-Fort Worth, Washington, D.C., Miami, San Diego and Connecticut; The Chicago Reporter which will work with NBC 5 Chicago; WHYY which will partner with NBC 10 Philadelphia; and KPCC which work with NBC4 LA. (Emphasis and links added)

As I wrote about previously on these pages, the Comcast Merger Order “voluntarily” commits the new company to foster local journalism via the “Voice of San Diego Model,” a socially progressive news organization.  ProPublica, The Chicago Reporter, and KPCC make good on this promise.  They are archetypical liberal media outlets, which are supported in large measure by the usual suspects among America’s top progressive foundations (like Soros, Ford, MacArthur, Knight, Pew, etc.).

What’s amazing is it’s happening as I had predicted – coming just in time to boost progressive messaging for the 2012 elections, all in key urban cities that are vital to Obama maintaining the White House.

Quite a “voluntarily agreed to” platform, huh?  And, go figure, a progressive one at that.  Hmm…

How many stories do think they’ll run, talking-up the important benefits of federalism, limited government, low regulation and taxation, the right to life, and economic freedom, etc.?

You want an idea? Listen to NPR.

When companies come to the government for merger approval, this gives Uncle Sam a huge amount of leverage.  The result for Comcast?  Its Merger Order runs 279 pages long.  Sixty of those comprise “community affairs” giveaways, which include the news partnerships mentioned above, among other numerous items unrelated to “fixing” the supposed “harms” created by the merger.

Now to be fair, NBC is no paragon of conservative thought.  And, Comcast’s Brian Roberts is reported to be one of Obama’s biggest contributors to his Victory fund.  Further, neither party came to this deal as a naïf – they knew what they would face from the government.  Especially this one.  But, would this buildout have occurred without the “voluntary” agreement?   No.  That aspect of the Merger Order would not have been unnecessary if they were.

Quite frankly, the government ploy here is not much more sophisticated than a backroom hold-up by a local mobster.

Says Zio Sammy darkening the alleyway door:

“Dats a mighty fine network ya’ got there.  A shame if anything happened to it, eh?”

And then Sammy reaches calmly into his rain slicker and pulls out some heat.

“Stick ‘em up, Comcast.  Empty your pockets.”

Ca ching.

“Tanks.  I knew you’d see it my way.”

This is how our government works.  The merger process is only a small reflection of the larger problem.  And, you think it just happens to the big guys?  Think again.

“You like what you got, Mr. 1%?  Gimme’ more of dat wealth so I can give it to my friends.”

“You want dat healthcare? Den you gotta’ buy dis here individual mandate, Joe da Plumba.”

“Need a job to get outta’ dis recession?  You gotta’ come tru me to get it, Mrs. Mainstreet.”

Change didn’t start all of this.  But Change hasn’t changed it either.

Only you can, starting next November.

Before I give you the big picture, let me start with a recent example.

Last month, Sprint, one of the big three telecommunications providers, raised its early termination fees (ETFs) on “advanced devices.”  These devices are smartphones, tablets, netbooks and notebooks, as Sprint outlines in one of its support documents online.  As MSNBC.com explains, ETFs are the carrier’s way of retaining customers, and Sprint has essentially doubled its fees to $350 beginning September 9^th.

An ETF is a fee intended to keep users from jumping from one carrier to another. They slowly decrease over the length of the contract, encouraging customers to wait until the contract is over before leaving for another carrier. Previously, the Sprint ETF was $200, which was lower than most competitors. AT&T and Verizon both charge $350.

With rumors swirling that the iPhone5 is coming to Sprint this fall, this would suggest that the ETF increases from AT&T and Verizon were actually justified based on actual costs, and not a reflection of market power or pricing power due to size, as many of the public interest groups would have us believe.

This is significant because when AT&T and Verizon both raised their ETF fees, the institutional left’s public interest groups had a lot to say about it.

Free Press, one of the most vocal “consumer advocate” groups, wrote several blog posts and called upon Congress to act to do away with such fees, and ran an attack campaign against Verizon.  Public Knowledge, another public interest group and ally to Free Press, also attacked ETF prices.

Now that Sprint has followed suit, the public interest groups must be making some noise, right?  Wrong.  They’ve been noticeably silent.  Haven’t said a word. But then, how can they, when Sprint seems to be funding some of their activities?

Whether or not these fees should exist is not the issue – that’s for businesses and their consumers to decide by way of the market.  What IS of concern is the Astroturf nature of the organizations involved in pushing an agenda that is supposed to be on behalf of consumers.

You may recall, I pointed readers to this relationship between Sprint and the institutional left some months ago when discussing the media reform crowd’s work with competitive interests in the telecom industry.  While these groups pose as consumer advocates and work with Sprint to build their “media reform” coalition, Sprint actually helps to fund some of their projects, like the NoTakeOver.org website, a campaign aimed at stopping the AT&T/T-Mobile merger.

And there are groups that have a little more of a business interest, like CREDO Mobile, the progressive phone company and subsidiary of Working Assets co-founded by Tides Foundation founder Drummond Pike and fellow Democracy Alliance member Michael Kieschnick.   CREDO is a mobile virtual network operator that resells Sprint, and, often together with Color of Change, uses its platform to conduct a wide variety of political activism campaigns through text messaging. Let’s not forget that CREDO, whose slogan is “fight the right wing with every call you make,” has long been exploiting the Tea Party to help grease the skids for the fight against AT&T.  Conveniently, their efforts also help Sprint.

The institutional left is known for portraying businesses as “evil” and using the narrative to create wedge issues and conjure up hostility toward those who politically lean right.  But the left’s ties to big business are rarely called out for scrutiny and examined.  Given the financial and project links to Sprint in this particular instance, it highlights the fact that Astroturf most certainly does exist on the left.

One link that frequently ties many of these groups together is Maura Corbett.  Corbett specializes in building coalitions between advocacy groups, businesses, government and the media.

The Daily Caller ran this lengthy piece in June that outlines Corbett’s connection in great detail.

But these groups have something in common that goes further than just their ideology. Not only can they all be linked back to corporate interests, but they were organized (at least in part) by Maura Corbett — a public affairs professional who recently left Qorvis Communications to start her own firm called the Glen Echo Group. When she left, she also took Google, Sprint, and the Connect Public Safety Now coalition with her as clients.

While at Qorvis, Corbett’s client list included Google and Sprint — both backers of net neutrality. Moreover, while Corbett handled Google and Sprint, she also had a hand in the formation of the coalitions and groups that advocated for policies that supported the interests of her corporate clients.

Corbett was media spokesperson for Net Coalition, No Choke Points and Digital Freedom Campaign. She also managed the Wireless Innovation Alliance, and her biography is listed on the website for Internet for Everyone.

To put all of this into the big picture context, it is helpful to consider the Obama administration’s related policies and technology agenda, especially as we approach the 2012 elections.

• Protect the Openness of the Internet
• Encourage Diversity in Media Ownership
• Bring Government into the 21st Century
• Deploy Next-Generation Broadband
• Reform Copyright and Patent Systems
• Modernize Public Safety Networks

Compare this with the list of coalitions and organizations in which the institutional left, particularly media reform activists, are involved.  Some are more recent, while some have been active as far back as 1999.  In some cases, the groups were founded by an/or are supported by companies like Google and Sprint.  Most of the activist organizations in these coalitions include Free Press, Public Knowledge, Media Access Project, the New America Foundation or some combination of these groups.

• NoTakeover (
• Wireless Innovation Alliance
• Internet for Everyone
• Open Internet Coalition
• Connect Public Safety Now Coalition
• No Choke Points
• Open Internet Coalition
• The Digital Freedom campaign
• NetCoalition
• SaveNetRadio coalition

Much of this also lines up nicely for the left’s New Public Media: A Plan for Action that I wrote about last year, referring to the report published by Free Press and embraced by its funding foundations, like George Soros’ Open Society Institute.   All this is not to say that it’s necessarily wrong in every case for such synergies to exist.  But it’s time to force the institutional left to stop pretending as though they aren’t acting as corporate front groups.  Which is precisely what they typically accuse those opposite them politically of doing.

Projection is easy to recognize, once you see it.

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Bruce Walker talks about the government’s attempt to stop the AT&T/T-Mobile merger, and Elizabeth Blackney and Benjamin Domenech walk through the HPV vaccine issue in response to Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Bachmann on Today Show: mental retardation “very real concern” for HPV vaccine
Bachmann: Crying mother shared HPV story
Heartlander: Vaccine Fearmongers Exposed
Heartlander: Customers, Not Government, Determine Competitiveness
AT&T: T-Mobile is Awful, Please Let Us Buy Them

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AT&T, while unionized, does not have the same liberal bent as Google.  They are more a traditional Beltway player.  Open Secrets.org describes their strategy as “Although the company has historically favored Republicans in its political giving, people and political action committees associated with AT&T have as of late generally split their contributions between Democrats and the GOP.”

Recently both Google and AT&T made strategic acquisitions.  How they were treated by the politicized Department of Justice makes an interesting statement.

Google is a giant and growing by the day. Google purchased Motorola and ITA Software, which builds online flight and ticket information software for travel websites.  Google paid $700 million for ITA and Motorola for $12 billion.  The acquisition of ITA allows Google to corner the market for travel and Motorola gives Google monopoly on thousands of patents that will help stave off competitive threats and patent-infringement lawsuits.

Despite howls of protests from the travel industry, that feared Google would crowd out other travel websites when combined with Google’s search engine.  Yet the Justice Department approved Google’s purchase with a caveat, Google must also set up a formal reporting system for anyone who believes it is acting unfairly.  With regard to the purchase of Motorola, DOJ seems poised to approve the purchase as well.

But for AT&T, the Department of Justice has been less than hospitable.  DOJ has filed a lawsuit trying to block the purchase of T-Mobile, arguing that it will hurt competition.

Did Google’s purchase of critical software so relied upon by the travel industry “hurt competition?”  Perhaps AT&T should offer to set up an informal reporting system for anyone who believes his or her calls didn’t go through.

All of this smacks of disparate treatment and crony capitalism.  With control of over two thirds of the search engine traffic, Google is the largest search engine – a gateway to the Internet – yet DOJ is allowing them to get even bigger.  Has the relationship between Obama and the company played a role in the decision-making?  Sure seems like it.

Justice Department officials say they’ve filed suit to block AT&T’s $39 billion deal to buy T-Mobile USA.

The government contends that the acquisition of the No. 4 wireless carrier in the country by No. 2 AT&T would reduce competition and raise prices.

At a news conference Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General James Cole said the combination would result in tens of millions of consumers facing higher prices, fewer choices and lower quality products.

Cole says the lawsuit seeks to ensure that everyone can continue to receive the benefits of competition.

Original story here.

But as these supposed media reformers actively work with community groups and state and federal agencies to oppose corporate interests on behalf of consumers, they fail to divulge their own ties to competitive corporate interests. And now, there are reports that a state commission may also have played a role in helping the competition.

As Amanda Carey has detailed at The Daily Caller, these Net Neutrality advocates have a long history of opposing these very companies, with the support of corporate competitors.

There is, and has been, a growing coalition advocating for media reform. But when the dots are all connected, what is left is far from a grassroots campaign. In reality, it’s a web of players advocating for corporate interests, coordinated by a public affairs specialist.

Within weeks of its announcement, media reform groups teamed up on a new “grassroots” initiative to fight the proposed telecom merger, complete with its very own website, NoTakeover.org.  Notice the website’s fine print?  “This site was developed with the support of Sprint.”

That’s right, Sprint.  Do you smell Astroturf?

The activity and its funding is especially notable in light of an incident that occurred earlier this week.  Politico reports that Sprint customers received an unsolicited text message notifying them of a public hearing with the California Public Utilities Commission, another entity that’s been recruited to review the proposed merger.

Some Californians were baffled to receive a text from Sprint this week reading “SprintFreeMsg: Public hearings on Proposed AT&T / T-Mobile merger July 21, 25, 27 in Culver City, San Diego, Fresno. More info at www.cpuc.ca.gov/merger” Was this a case of Sprint telling its customers to go lobby against the deal at public hearings held by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which is reviewing the acquisition?

That’s a good question.  It would certainly appear that CPUC is coordinating with Sprint.

Politico goes on to state:

It turns out the origin of the message was the state commission itself, which drafted it and asked Sprint to send it. “Doing the texts messages was one of the ways we thought would reach the exact audience we are trying to reach, but we wanted to be sure there was no cost because we realize the text is unsolicited,” said a commission spokeswoman. A Sprint spokesman said the company has received a couple of complaints about the texts. Kate Hennigan, a Sprint customer who works for the city of Los Angeles, said she received the message this morning but “didn’t care.” For its part, AT&T has got the word out about the hearings through notices in 80 newspapers in 10 languages, said a spokesman.

So, a state entity, by its own admission, has in fact coordinated with Sprint to send out the unsolicited text message – an action that violates Sprint’s own Customer Privacy Policy.  Various state and federal laws of course also prohibit cell phone providers from sending unsolicited text messages to a recipient unless there is an already established business relationship.  In this case, Sprint may be facilitating the distribution of the message, but the content actually comes from a third party, the CPUC, which in most cases likely does not have a relationship with Sprint’s customers.  Did the CPUC or Sprint break any laws with this action? Did the commission request that AT&T and T-Mobile send the same message to their customers as well, or were those companies left to rely only upon their newspaper announcements?

If this turns out to be the case, how can this commission render an unbiased judgment if they are already secretly collaborating with one side?

Ironically, many of the same media reform activists argued the stance in 2007 that “the decision of what kinds of speech a customer hears should be left to the customer and not to their wireless carrier.”  Will these so-called public interest groups condemn the actions of CPUC and Sprint?

In the days and weeks to follow, it will be interesting to see if the CPUC members who coordinated with Sprint recuse themselves from the review and decision making process.

In addition, CREDO Mobile, the progressive phone company and subsidiary of Working Assets co-founded by Drummond Pike, is a mobile virtual network operator that resells Sprint, and uses its platform to conduct a wide variety of political activism campaigns through text messaging.  CREDO lobbied the FCC just recently, urging the agency to deny AT&T / T-Mobile’s petition.

The proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile will have a deleterious effect on competition and consumers, and render it difficult to succeed with business models like that of CREDO Mobile, Inc.  [snip] CREDO’s customers, who rely on innovations in the wireless arena to connect them with both mobile devices and service and with sophisticated tools for charitable giving, will be hard hit.

Charitable giving?  Let’s not forget that CREDO, whose slogan is “fight the right wing with every call you make,” has long been exploiting the Tea Party to help grease the skids for this AT&T fight.

“CREDO would never give a dime to the Tea Party. When you join CREDO, you’ll join a movement dedicated to defeating right-wing radicalism.  [see "CREDO Action site]

That’s a platform for enabling political attacks, not “charitable giving.”  I’m all for fair competition, but let’s at least stop pretending that propaganda comes only from one side of the political spectrum, shall we?  Perhaps it’s time to start asking some questions of Sprint, the California Public Utilities Commission and the so-called “media reform” activists.

And specifically how they go about naming their gaggles – the groups they form to advance their Leftist agenda.

The Media Marxists looking to eradicate all private ownership of news and communications – so as to have the government be your sole provider of news and communications – are a part of the Leftist misdirection that calls themselves “public interest” or “consumer interest” groups.

What could be better – and less innocuous – then that?

Just about everything.

—–

As far as the “consumer interest” – let’s rationally examine who has a real stake in it.

Is it the Media Marxist groups – who represent no one and nothing save for a shaved shard of a pro-government, free market-loathing constituency consisting almost exclusively of themselves?

Or is it the media companies – who seek to everyday deliver whatever it is the most consumers possible are interested in?  So as to entice these consumers to hire, watch, listen to and read them?

Obviously, it is the latter.

Consumers get to choose which companies in which they are most interested.  If you want to, for instance, make cellular telephone calls, you can choose Sprint.  Or AT&T.  Or Verizon.  Or Cricket.  Or US Cellular.  Or Metro PCS.  Or Tracfone.  Or Boost Mobile.  Or Virgin Mobile.  Or….

You get the idea.

All of these companies would like to have more consumers – i.e. customers.  So (if they’re smart) they spend every waking moment – and many of their unwaking ones – devising ways to best meet these consumers’ interest – so as to get them to choose their respective companies.

And spending hundreds of billions of job-producing, networks-expanding, quantity-and-quality-improving dollars in the process.

This outlook and approach is true of every (smart) media company.  Indeed, of every company.  On Planet Earth.

On these day-in, day-out all-encompassing drives to deliver the consumers’ interest – the Media Marxists are a glaringly alien life form.

An unaffiliated, unassimilated, uninvited obtrusive guest who crashes the party and then demands that every one stop having their free market fun – and do it their Big Government, mucho regulation, Marxist way.

Like showing up at a frat house keg party and demanding everyone stop and play Pictionary.  Only much, much worse.

They spend zero time engaged in any activity that would help them glean the consumers’ interest.  Truth be told, they most likely couldn’t care less in what consumers are interested.

Especially so because the consumers’ interest so very rarely lines up with theirs – growing the government’s role in media and communications.

The Media Marxists are here to impose their myriad Big Government “solutions” to mostly non-existent problems.  Both the “problems” and their alleged “solutions” having been cooked up in college faculty lounges and warped Leftist “think” tanks.

No one outside of these fevered, finite corridors is at all interested.

How do we know this?

The consumers have spoken.

There is a… poll out that shows an overwhelming majority of the consumers Free Press and Co. are claiming to be helping – don’t want their help.  75% of Americans like the Internet just the way it is – no “saving” necessary.  And 57% think the federal government should not regulate the Internet at all.

And of the 31% who think the government should regulate the Internet, more than two-thirds of them said that the regulation should be focused on privacy, online safety and protecting.

Doing the math, that means less than 10% of Americans think the government should be regulating the Internet to the tune of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reclassification and Network Neutrality.

We need only look at the last election to see this in action.  95 Democrat candidates signed a Media Marxist-loved pro-Network Neutrality pledge – and all 95 lost.

—–

The “public interest” is best served by what the public is interested in.

And the public – the consumers, the people – aren’t at all interested in what Free Press, Public Knowledge and Media Access Project have to offer.

Will this Party of None status stop these Media Marxists from incessantly haranguing the rest of us with their terrible and terribly unpopular policy prescriptions?

Sadly, no.