A dude named Lowell G. McAdam has an opinion piece in the New York Times today praising the “regulatory restraint” practiced right here in the U.S.A. regarding broadband access to the Internet, contrasting it with the mort main of the regulatory state in Europe. I’m quite willing to believe that everything in Mr. McAdam’s piece is true, including his claim that “Verizon offers 14.7 million consumers, in parts of 12 states and the District of Columbia, speeds up to 300 megabits per second via our FiOS network, which is poised to provide even greater speeds in the future.”
Yes, that’s “our FiOS network,” because Mac is chairman and chief executive of Verizon Communications. We hear a lot about “sponsored content” these days. The Times, obviously, has a new twist on the idea. They run ads for free.*
Afterwords
Would MacAdam have refused to allow the Times to run the piece if they had deleted his little plug for his own company? If so, would that have a journalistic disaster of any measurable magnitude? Doesn’t the Times have any number of writers on staff who could have discussed the same issues as intelligently—and, surely, more objectively—than Mr. McAdam? Or is the Times so hungry to portray itself as a “businessman’s newspaper” that it’s willing to publish such self-serving trivia? Or—perhaps—do they just want to do Mr. McAdam a favor?
*I’m assuming/hoping the Times didn’t charge Verizon $10,000 for running this piece.
