at&t

Manufacturing con-(vention)-sent

Thursday, July 24th, 2008

Under the Federal Election Committee’s guidelines re-written in 1993, unions and corporations are forbidden from funneling unlimited contributions to political parties.

So last week when Congress provided immunity for telecom giants, such as AT&T, who are collaborators in the biggest spy bill passed in history, perhaps they weren’t looking for anything in return.

Except the fact that AT&T is now the sponsor of the Democratic National Convention.

Coupled with other winners like Comcast, Motorola, Coca-Cola, Google and a smorgasboard of additional corporate piggy sponsors, AT&T has donated over a $1 million to the DNC in return for “prominent display space and access to elected officials.”

Access to elected officials? Isn’t a corporation forbidden from political charity?

Alas, under an exemption that was created by the Federal Election Commission, which essentially is made up of representatives of the two major parties, “all of this money can be given if it’s given through a host committee under the pretense that it’s merely to promote the convention city.”

Denver 2k8 or bust!

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American Idol president

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

More on the ATT&T and Rock the Vote partnership we reported on a couple weeks ago… Here’s a video on the collaboration as it was announced in the weeks before the Iowa caucus. The idea is to get young people to text each other about politics and thus motivate each other to express their views, inform the campaigns, register to vote and get to the polls. In what we’re not sure is horrifically depressing or comically real or both are the insights on the plan offered by ATT&T Marketing Director Rich Robbins, who at about the 1:17 mark above starts in all about how ATT&T has partnered with American Idol for years, “helping America choose the next pop star.” According to him, that’s right, this plan will similarly help Americans choose the next U.S. president. Egad. World, this is how it works now! Welcome to the future.

Question: Are people actually using the plan? Is it getting New Hampshirites to the polls today?

rk the vt!

Thursday, December 20th, 2007

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According to a press release we received yesterday, AT&T, acting with profitable civic-mindedness, has gotten together with Rock the Vote to encourage young voters to… send more text messages about politics?!

In fact, the program seems cool. Rock the Vote is aiming to register 2 million people under the age of 30 for the 2008 election. No small thing. So the Rock the Vote staff were all brainstorming, like: “Damn, what’s the best way to get hold of these young people, to involve them in the process?” But the meeting was frustrating because everyone in the room was just nodding and texting the whole time. Then, whoa, it was like total kismet: “We can do it… via txt !!”

But what exactly people will be texting isn’t clear. Here’s a blurb from the release:

The AT&T and Rock the Vote campaign will employ wireless applications such as cross-carrier text message opt-in lists for election news and reminders, voter-registration updates and tools to facilitate increased registration. The campaign will also feature exclusive celebrity ringtones that promote the importance of voting, text-polling, reports from student journalists and event sponsorships, among other initiatives.

By “tools to facilitate increased registration” we think AT&T might mean text updates of registration center locations, or e-forms… not sure, though, so guess we’ll have to get busy doing some journalism and find out!

Here’s some related interesting stats for your holiday pleasure:
In post-2000 elections, 6.2 million new voters under 30 years of age cast ballots.
In 2008, 44 million Americans under 30 will be eligible to vote, more than one-fifth of all U.S. voters.

That means you!

Hello, it’s us

Wednesday, July 18th, 2007

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Remember the classic Apple ads about revolution (“Your only limits will be the size of your ideas and the degree of your dedication!”)? It was funny then. It’s just plain sad now, especially after the archetypal corporate deal we’ve just witnessed, where Apple teamed with AT&T in the iPhone project, condemning users to Cingular wireless and limiting where they can go on the web. It doesn’t have to be this way, people. Even if you couldn’t care less about the iPhone or can’t come close to affording the damn thing, send a message. Help free the iPhone now!