iProvo is not taking the Reason Foundation’s attack on its effort lying down. This week,¬¨‚Ćthe municipal broadband¬¨‚Ćagency in Provo, Utah,¬¨‚Ćissued a 29-page counter-attack to the 26-page report, Spinning Its Wheels,¬¨‚Ćthat the foundation released last month. “Fatally flawed” and “poorly researched” were just two of ¬¨‚Ćthe descriptions iProvo applied to Spinning Its Wheels in its own¬¨‚Ćreport, called Setting the Record Straight.iProvo is not taking the Reason Foundation’s attack on its effort lying down. This week,¬¨‚Ćthe municipal broadband¬¨‚Ćagency in Provo, Utah,¬¨‚Ćissued a 29-page counter-attack to the 26-page report, Spinning Its Wheels,¬¨‚Ćthat the foundation released last month. “Fatally flawed” and “poorly researched” were just two of ¬¨‚Ćthe descriptions iProvo applied to Spinning Its Wheels in its own¬¨‚Ćreport, called Setting the Record Straight.
The lessons from both sides in this stand-off seem to have more to do with managing the message than with enlightenment. As Tad Walch pointed out in his report for the Deseret Morning News:
The Reason Foundation’s report dwells on iProvo’s losses ‚Äö?Ñ?Æ between $1.36 million and $1.52 million each of the past four years ‚Äö?Ñ?Æ but doesn’t mention the swelling revenues. The Provo white paper only reports on the revenue, which jumped from $440,000 in 2004 to $2.1 million in 2006.
Clearly, more time is needed to see¬¨‚Ćwhich side’s¬¨‚Ćpredictions bear out.¬¨‚ĆOn¬¨‚Ća fuzzier front,¬¨‚ĆiProvo’s report¬¨‚Ćis¬¨‚Ćsignificant in its challenge to the Reason Foundation’s objectivity.¬¨‚Ć(It’s also enjoyable for its rhetorical gambits, calling its own report Setting the Record Straight while generally¬¨‚Ćreferring to the¬¨‚ĆReason Foundation’s report simply as Spinning.)¬¨‚Ć
iProvo¬¨‚Ćpoints out that Steven Titch,¬¨‚Ćauthor of¬¨‚Ćthe Reason Foundation’s report, claims his authority as the editor of a telephony magazine published by the Heartland Institute.¬¨‚Ƭ¨‚ĆHe is also founder of Expert Editorial, a public relations and advocacy consultancy that counts Qwest and other players in the telco market as clients. Titch¬¨‚Ćpromintently touts his connections with Qwest¬¨‚Ćon¬¨‚Ćthe home page of his web site, ¬¨‚Ćalong with this description of his business model:¬¨‚Ƭ¨‚Ć
Expert Editorial offers specialized market research and reporting, providing in-depth market and technology intelligence and analysis tailored to support the client’s business strategy and goals‚Äö?Ѭ? Expert Editorial brings its experience in all forms of media, print, Web, broadcast and conferences to help shape communications and media programs that sharpen, focus and unify corporate branding, marketing and product technology strategies.
The Reason Foundation said nothing of Titch being in the business of advocacy, nor about his connections to Qwest when it published the attack on iProvo.
Disclosure is generally considered de rigueur on the public stage. The public¬¨‚Ćexpects officials who profitted from¬¨‚Ćcompanies, past or present, to abstain on issues involving those firms.¬¨‚ĆIt expects judges and jurors to excuse themselves from cases when they’ve done business with the parties involved.¬¨‚ĆShouldn’t they expect the same of analyts, particularly when the analyst presents himself as an expert and a journalist?¬¨‚ĆTrue, iProvo’s response packs its own spin but we all know where it’s coming from.
Sadly, the so-called¬¨‚Ć”free-market” think tanks¬¨‚Ć (being a¬¨‚Ćfriend of free markets¬¨‚Ć myself, I have a big¬¨‚Ćbeef with the way these groups characterize themselves but that’s fodder for another column) that have been attacking municipal Wi-Fi for the last two years have been less that forthcoming about their associations.¬¨‚Ć
In comments to the Deseret Morning News, Titch dismissed the suggestion of impropriety, saying he had not worked with Qwest since 2003 and that the company “had nothing to do with the report.” That admission, coming only after he was confronted with the conflict some three weeks after his blast at iProvo, strikes me as much too little and much¬¨‚Ćtoo late.
Glenn Fleishman at Wi-Fi Networking News traced the “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to disclosure more than a year ago. His remarks were prompted by the release of another report in which Titch had a hand. That one, called Not in the Public Interest: the Myth of Municipal Wi-Fi Networks, was released by the New Millennium Research Council, another “free-market” think tank. Trouble was,¬¨‚Ćthe NMRC¬¨‚Ćwas the research arm of a Washington lobbying called IDI that counted the nation’s major telcos as its clients.
The NMRC¬¨‚Ćtook a thrashing in the technical¬¨‚Ćthe press for not having disclosed the association and months passed before¬¨‚ĆIDI’s Sam Simon defended the NMRC, pointing out that its association with IDI and, in turn, IDI’s assocation with the telcos was always right here on the web.
He was right. It is and it’s surprising that¬¨‚Ćso many media outlets don’t take the time to connect the dots.¬¨‚ĆTo twist around a sports addage, you can’t know the scorecard¬¨‚Ćwithout knowing the players. — Carol Ellison
The Spinning Wheels Report, is promoted by the Heartland Institute, which is stirring up muddy water everywhere. They called all of Nashville’s city council members and intimated that a Metro Broadband Initiative would strip funds from schools and neighborhood budgets. The Foundation’s principal benefactor and founder is also a founder and benefactor of the John Birch Society!