Comcast Keeps Scolding Me For Calling Its Top Lobbyist A Lobbyist

from the a-rose-by-any-other-name dept

Last summer I noted that Comcast's PR department pretty consistently now sends me snotty e-mail "corrections." Not about any of the thousands of articles Techdirt or I have written about the company's abysmal customer service, punitive usage caps, ridiculously high prices, or obnoxiously anti-competitive behavior mind you, but to scold me for one and only one thing: calling the company's top lobbyist a lobbyist.

You see, despite the fact that Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen spends the majority of his time trying to influence state and federal regulators (he was the lead salesman of the NBC and Time Warner Cable mergers), Comcast calls him the company's "Chief Diversity Officer." That's because updated 2007 lobbying reporting rules require that if an employee spends more than 20% of their time lobbying in DC, they have to register with the government as a lobbyist, detail their travel with lawmakers, and more fully outline their contributions to politicians and their myriad foundations.

As a result, Cohen -- and thousands of other lobbyists -- simply started calling themselves something else. And ever since Comcast started complaining, I've of course felt compelled to refer to him as a lobbyist as often as possible. I did so again last week when I wrote a blog entry noting that Cohen saw a notable contract extension and pay raise despite his failure to get the company's Time Warner Cable deal approved. Not too surprisingly, Comcast spokesperson Sena Fitzmaurice was quick to reach out and scold me, for what I believe is now the third time:

"I know I may be not worth asking, but could you use factual information in your pieces? It is factually incorrect to say that “David Cohen spend the lion’s share of his time pushing Comcast in policy circles just like any other lobbyist.” That is just not true. To be true, David would have to spend the lion’s share of his time in Washington, DC – which he doesn’t. It would have the be the lion’s share of his responsibilities which it isn’t. Your belittling of the serious time he devotes to his Chief Diversity Officer duties is insulting, it isn’t tap dancing around a legal rule. Our workforce is 59% diverse, our 2014 hires were 69% diverse, and David expends considerable time to his commitment as Chief Diversity officer."

And while the Comcast HR department's dedication to diversity is admirable, Cohen's primary claim to "diversity" fame is his creation of "Internet Essentials," a piece of regulator bait Cohen used to seal the NBC Universal deal to the FCC and DOJ. Crafted as a merger condition by Comcast itself, Internet Essentials is supposed to offer low-income users who qualify for the nation's school lunch program $10 broadband for a limited time. Of course when initially released, the poor people Cohen so adores actually protested on the streets of Philadelphia, arguing that the project was a PR stunt that, in reality, was hard to qualify and sign up for.

Cohen and Comcast use Internet Essentials as a public relations and lobbying weapon to highlight the company's incredible altruism at every conceivable opportunity. Cohen's cherub-esque visage can often be seen standing among smiling children at what's an endless series of PR junkets. That I doubt the purity of these efforts by arguably the least-liked company in America is most likely some kind of defect in my character, I'll be the first to admit.

But Fitzmaurice continued, lecturing me on the fact that Comcast actually did a wonderful job at adhering to the more than 150 flimsy NBC merger conditions, most of which Comcast itself created:

"Further, your continued insistence that Comcast hasn’t adhered to the more than 150 conditions of the NBCUniversal transaction by the FCC and the DOJ consent decree belies the facts. In the nearly 5 years since the transaction was concluded, the FCC has taken 1 action on a merger condition, and that was over 3 years ago. That means the FCC has not had enforcement issues with about 150 other conditions. That hardly seems like “failed utterly to adhere to merger conditions.” Other than on that one issue of standalone broadband marketing, which was resolved and the consent decree on that issue itself has expired, the FCC and the DOJ have not taken actions on violations of conditions or the consent decree."

And that's technically true. The only wrist slap Comcast got was a $600 million fine from the FCC for hiding a $50 a month standalone broadband option it had promised to offer. But the fact that the FCC couldn't be bothered to enforce the NBC merger conditions says more about the FCC than anything else. And indeed, the lion's share of the conditions Comcast pats itself on its back for adhering to were utterly hollow, including things like adding "1,500 more titles to Comcast’s on-demand offerings for children." Most of these show pony suggestions were suggested by Comcast because the company had already planned to accomplish them anyway as a matter of course, like expanding its broadband network to 400,000 additional homes.

Subsequent investigations found that Comcast violated the most meaningful conditions and was never held accountable for them, including promises not to meddle in the management of co-owned Hulu. And to reiterate, the company's star NBC merger condition was so "successful" it resulted in public protests in the streets of Philadelphia. And indeed, numerous news outlets reported that Comcast's failure to adhere to NBC Universal deal conditions played a major role in their rejection of the Time Warner Cable merger, causing regulators to even consider additional punishment beyond deal rejection. So yeah, factual information and all that.

After explaining this all to Comcast (again) I reminded the company I'm using the dictionary definition of the word lobbyist, and it may want to contact Random House and Merriam Webster with any future concerns. Still, I'm happy to use the powers of the Streisand effect and pen a blog post each and every time the company's PR representatives feel like scolding me for semantic bullshit. There's certainly a lot more to be said about the nation's utterly pathetic lobbying rules that let most lobbyists like Cohen tap dance over, under, and around political influence reporting requirements.

Filed Under: chief diversity officer, david cohen, influence, journalism, lobbyist
Companies: comcast

Comcast Really Wants Me To Stop Calling Their Top Lobbyist A 'Top Lobbyist'

from the tomato,-tomahto dept

Comcast executive David Cohen is, by dictionary definition, a lobbyist. And not just any lobbyist; a gushing profile piece by the Washington Post in 2012 called him a "wonk rock star" and the company's "secret weapon," who uses "his vast network of high-powered contacts" to help craft Comcast-friendly regulations and apply pressure on DC policy makers. You know, a lobbyist. Unless you're Comcast, which has now e-mailed me repeatedly to demand I stop calling him that.

After I mentioned that Cohen was hosting a $2,700 per plate fundraising dinner for Hillary Clinton last month, I received this e-mail from Comcast spokesperson Sena Fitzmaurice on June 18:

"Karl – your piece today is offensive and inaccurate. David Cohen doesn’t pretend he’s not a lobbyist – he isn’t by the definition of the legal term – we keep very close records of his time and activities to make sure the law is complied with – to imply that we are not complying with the law with no evidence is irresponsible journalism."

You see, the legal DC definition of a lobbyist was beefed up slightly back in 2007, when the Lobbyist Disclosure Act was notably amended by the Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007. Those changes required that if an employee spends more than 20% of their time lobbying, they have to register with the government as a lobbyist, detail their travel with lawmakers, and more fully outline their contributions to politicians and their myriad foundations. Comcast addressed these changes by simply calling Cohen something else.

Cohen's technical title ever since has been Senior Executive Vice President of Comcast Corporation, though more recently the company has been calling him the company's "Chief Diversity Officer" with a big focus on "community investment":

"David L. Cohen is Senior Executive Vice President of Comcast Corporation. David has a broad portfolio of responsibilities, including corporate communications, government and regulatory affairs, public affairs, legal affairs, corporate administration and community investment, and serves as senior counselor to the CEO. He also serves as Chief Diversity Officer for the company."

Cohen played the starring role in selling regulators on Comcast's acquisition of NBC Universal in 2011, crafting conditions it would later be discovered Comcast ignored at its leisure. Cohen's secret weapon during that transaction was Internet Essentials, a program that promised low-income households $10, 5 Mbps broadband for a limited time should they jump through a laundry list of conditions. The program was frequently criticized for being intentionally hard to qualify for, though it provided an endless sea of PR opportunities to help portray Comcast as an agent of pure altruism.

Cohen also spearheads Comcast's entirely-above board (and very common in telecom) practice of giving money to minority groups and organizations with the unwritten expectation that they parrot anti-consumer policy positions. These groups then sing the praises of Comcast's latest merger or sell their constituents downriver on issues like net neutrality, helping to create an artificial sound wall of support for Comcast policies, which, as you may have noticed in your travels, often don't benefit Comcast customers or the internet at large.

So while Cohen is clearly a lobbyist by dictionary definition or for anybody with optic nerves, he's not a lobbyist by legal definition. He's just a guy that really, really loves minority communities and helping the poor, and just happens to spend the lion's share of his time whispering in politicians' and regulators' ears. In fact, as Fitzmaurice was kind enough to illustrate in another e-mail to me on July 18, Cohen has absolutely nothing to do with lobbying whatsoever:

"While I know asking you to be accurate may be futile, David Cohen is not Comcast’s top lobbyist, in fact he is not a lobbyist at all. Lobbyist has a very specific legal definition, and David Cohen does not fit it. David has several different sections of the business which report up to him, only one of which is Government Affairs. The top lobbyist in Washington is Melissa Maxfield."

I responded by informing Fitzmaurice that I'm using the Random House definition of lobbyist, not Washington's intentionally flimsy, watered down definition:

NOUN

1. a person who tries to influence legislation on behalf of a special interest; a member of a lobby.

I write a lot about Comcast. Without bragging (since frankly it's often unpleasant and I'd often rather be doing something else), I might write more about Comcast than potentially anyone on the internet. By and large my experiences with Comcast's public relations department have actually been very positive, and on the very rare instance where they contact me to let me know a data point or statistic is in error (two or three times in a decade, looking at my inbox archive), I'm happy to correct it. But this is curiously the first issue that the company has felt the need to repeatedly reach out to me on, suggesting it's a potentially sensitive subject for some strange reason.

So, out of respect for Comcast's integrity and this nation's great and unimpeachable legal apparatus, I've decided to acquiesce and start calling Cohen something different. I'm tossing around a number of potential titles. Funpants McGillicutty? Comcast's "Overlord of entirely-authentic-and-not-at-all-politically-motivated-altruism"? Doctor Schnitzel-Fuhrer? Surely readers have a few suggestions.

Filed Under: chief diversity officer, david cohen, lobbyist, pr
Companies: comcast

Former Senator Scott Brown's Staff Sends Larry Lessig A Letter Demanding He Stop Referring To Brown As A 'Lobbyist'

from the stop-using-the-truth-to-smear-our-candidate! dept

Larry Lessig's new SuperPAC must be making a few people in Washington nervous. That's the only thing that could explain former Sen. Scott Brown's office sending a little hate mail demanding an apology for calling the former politician a "lobbyist." [PDF link]

Sent by Colin Reed, the campaign manager for New Hampshire for Scott Brown, the letter opens this way and doesn't let up.

Your MAYDAY Super PAC has issued a piece of mail to New Hampshire voters falsely calling Scott Brown a 'Washington lobbyist.' This is a flat-out lie.

Scott Brown is not nor has he ever been a lobbyist. Ever. We call on you to immediately cease and desist with the mailer in question, and to use one of your various media appearances as a purported authority on ethics to retract your falsehood.

As Lessig points out, Brown not being a lobbyist largely depends on what a normal person would think a lobbyist is. He quotes The Hill, which details Brown's post-Senate employment.

I take it Mr. Reed’s outrage is triggered by the Senate’s regulations of what constitutes being a “lobbyist” for purposes of the Senate rules. I hadn’t received the memo that explained that the English language is now regulated by the rules of the United States Senate. If there is such a memo, they should send it to The Hill too. Here are a few snippets of what they reported last March:

Brown has joined Nixon Peabody, a law and lobby firm, as counsel in the firm’s Boston office. The Massachusetts Republican, also a former state senator, will concentrate his practice on “business and governmental affairs as they relate to the financial services industry as well as on commercial real estate matters,” according to the firm.

Nixon Peabody has a burgeoning K Street practice, having made more than $1.5 million in lobbying fees for all of 2012, according to the Center for Responsive Politics...

So yes, according to the Senate, Scott Brown isn’t a “lobbyist.” But I submit to anyone else in the world, a former Senator joining a “law and lobbying firm” to help with Wall St’s “business and governmental affairs” is to make him a lobbyist. Because to anyone else in the world, when you sell your influence to affect “business and governmental affairs,” you are a lobbyist.

Other news sources agree. Brown now holds the position of "counsel" in a lobbying firm. This may not exactly make him a lobbyist but it certainly makes him more lobbyist than "counsel." The only thing likely preventing Brown from retaining the title of 'lobbyist' are rules meant to keep this sort of revolving-door behavior from being so blatant and prevalent.

The Boston Globe noted Monday that while Brown himself will not be a lobbyist — Senators may not lobby their former colleagues for the first two years after leaving office, under the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 — “he will be leaning heavily on his Washington contacts to drum up business for the firm.” The position will also allow him “to begin cashing in on his contacts with the financial services industry, which he helped oversee in the Senate.”

So, not technically a lobbyist but as close to a lobbyist as one can get. The overblown letter also calls into question Lessig's "Harvard code of conduct" and hilariously refers to the Mayday SuperPAC's letter as evidence of Lessig's "partisan political agenda" -- apparently unaware of the fact that Lessig is backing a Republican candidate against Brown in the upcoming New Hampshire election.

The letter wraps up with the following threat:

If you fail to immediately cease the mailer in question, we are leaving all our legal options on the table.

Lessig has responded to this angry letter in three ways, all of which suggest a dearth of respect for Scott Brown or his purported legal representation. First, there's the last line of his blog post about the letter:

And finally, as for those “legal options” that Mr. Reed says he’s “leaving on the table,” let me offer the words of Harry Callahan: “Go ahead. Make my day.”

And this tweet.

Yea, an institution that calls ketchup a vegetable doesn't get to tell me how to speak English. http://t.co/mjBTc4bNP0

— Lessig (@lessig) September 7, 2014

If you can't read the tweet, it says:

Yea, an institution that calls ketchup a vegetable doesn't get to tell me how to speak English.

And, finally, Lessig did, in fact, change Mayday's ad as follows. The top one is the original ad, the bottom one is the "new" ad:
Someone set the "table." I'll make popcorn.

Filed Under: influence, jim rubens, larry lessig, lobbying, lobbyist, money in politics, scott brown
Companies: mayday pac

EU Hires IFPI Lobbyist To Lead On Copyright Issues; How Do You Spell Regulatory Capture?

from the shameful dept

The revolving door between companies and government isn't just a US phenomenon. Over in Europe, the EU Commission has hired one of the recording industry's top lobbyists to head up copyright issues, including the ongoing negotiations over ACTA and IPRED2. Prior to taking this new job Maria Martin-Prat's title was Deputy General Counsel, Director of Legal Policy and Regulatory Affairs at the IFPI. So now she gets to put in place the very one-sided policies that she lobbied for for years. That's what's known as regulatory capture, around these parts. Pretty amazing, really, that the EU would so blatantly abdicate the interests of citizens to a single industry.

Filed Under: eu, lobbyist, maria martin-prat, regulatory capture
Companies: ifpi