Two Fronts

Here is one for the "truth is stranger than fiction" department.

I was working on a story last week about Frontline narrator Will Lyman having inadvertently fronted a video from the AT&T-backed Internet Innovation Alliance (it ias backed by a lot of others as well) issuing ominous warnings and stumping for a light regulatory hand on network management to insure the Internet pipes did not become clogged. It made the familiar anti-network neutrality arguments about the coming flood of information and the need for infrastructure buildout and the ability to prioritize network traffice.

As I was on the phone with a Frontline spokeswoman from WGBH TV in Boston, an e-mail popped up saying that Frontline had just tapped a former AT&T executive to be its general counsel. 

That after being assured by the show’s producers that Lyman should not have lent his familiar and authoritative voice to the video and that steps were being taken to make sure that the show’s independent voice remained independent.

After a moment of thinking the story had just become bigger, I noticed that the e-mail was from Frontline Wireless, the company launched to build a wireless network in competition to Verizon and AT&T.