Rethinking Borderline. Should I continue this blog?

I feel bad about blogging. Lately it's been hard to come up with posts, and when I do, it seems that a lot of readers don't like what I have to say.

There're other problems, too. It takes a lot of time to blog. Borderline has written something like 200 or 300 posts since 2005, and some of them take many hours to write, research, or maintain, such as the ones listed on this page. I can't write this stuff during the day, it's always at night or on the weekend, or when I have a day off from work. I'm writing this post right now at 10:30 pm on a Saturday night. So blogging is taking away from my free time, which I could otherwise be spending with my family, or doing other more productive things around the house, or just relaxing.

And I don't make any money on this blog. Not one red cent. I know I could make some money using Google Adsense or the Boston Blogs advertising banner, but it just seems ... wrong. I really did start Borderline out of a labor of love, talking about all of the interesting things about Waltham and Newton, and to add commercials just takes away from the independent spirit that I want to have on Borderline. As regular Borderline readers know, I love tweaking the nose of the establishment and business community, which includes companies, connected people, and mainstream media titans. It would seem hypocritical to start taking money from this group, even if it was only indirectly through the automatic advertising banners that Google uses with Adsense.

So what should I do? Take a break? Sell it? Open it up to other writers? Give it up?

Waltham sends Northland packing, the Common is saved! (For now)

This news brings a smile to Borderline: The Northland Invesment Corporation was told by the City of Waltham that there's no way its ridiculous plan to build a hulking, snooty development at the northern end of Moody Street will be allowed to move forward in its current form. Northland was able to muster support from pro-development Councilor Gary Marchese, but everyone else on the council who took part in the vote rightly recognized that residents are fed up developers and the special benefits and zoning variances sent their way. From the News Tribune article:

"I have never in 18 years on the council, seen more opposition to a proposal," Councilor Robert G. Logan said. Indeed, before the meeting began, protesters lined the front of City Hall bearing signs that read "Save Our Common, Say NO to Northland."

You may also remember that Borderline wrote about Northland's development demands late last year, which actually drew criticism from a fan of the proposal, a reader named James. Good for James for putting forward an unpopular, contrarian view, but I have to ask, what made you think other residents of Waltham wanted this?

Thank you city councilors, for recognizing what a mistake this project would be, and not going along with the developers, as you have in past cases.

I would also like to give thanks to the News Tribune and the Boston Globe for attempting to cover both sides of this development-related issue. I've given the Globe a lot of crap lately, and have hammered both papers for sucking up to developers and big corporations (see " Boston Globe's news pages become free advertising for Verizon", Blackout, part II. Media misses the story at first, then gets it wrong", "Sloppy reporting on Waltham development", and "News-Tribune sucks up to the realtors ... again"). But this time reporters and editors at both papers showed some backbone, and made a point of covering the real grassroots anger over at out-of-control development in Waltham.

Now it's time to see if Northland comes back with something else. Larry G. and co., we're watching you, and we'll bite back again if you try to ram another monster development down our throats!

The Boston Globe Challenges Borderline; Proves It Really Doesn't Get Blogs

The Globe really doesn't like Borderline. I criticized the online version of the Boston Globe for calling their news-lite publishing experiment a "blog", and they huffily responded with this:

... Globe West Updates is clearly a "blog" according to the generally-accepted definition and we will continue to use the term ...

The Globe further challenged Borderline to look up this alleged definition, which I did. And lo and behold, almost all of the generally accepted definitions would exclude the Globe's effort. I responded with this:

Ralph: You mention the "generally-accepted definition" of a blog. Accepted by whom? Big Media?

I followed up your challenge to look it up. So I did. And the generally accepted definition I found supports what I have been saying all along. When I used Google to define "blogs" almost all the results stress personal thoughts and perspectives, comments, etc. as opposed to publishing news bits.

So Ralph, and your anonymous booster, you're WRONG. The Globe blog is not a blog. If you want to have a blog, it's not hard: Simply turn down the news, crank up the personality, get comments, and get a clue.

I'll add one thing here: I don't think the Globe was lying, and attempting to bluster its way out of a jam. They just don't get blogging.

What part of "blog" does the Globe not understand?

I've ranted about this before, but I am going to do it again: STOP CALLING THE GLOBE'S WESTWORD/WEST UPDATES A BLOG!

Reporters posting news articles and random news tidbits, without any real opinions or mechanism to comment, is not blogging. It's just typical MSM one-way reporting, albeit in an online-only medium.

And Ralph Ranalli, if you are reading this message, I am sorry to be so harsh, but the last time you left a comment on Borderline it was the summertime and you said comments would be enabled ASAP. If it's not going to happen, and the site will merely continue to report news rather than other things like freeform opinion, then please remove the word "blog" from this part of the Globe website. 'Cause it ain't a blog.

Boston Globe's news pages become free advertising for Verizon

How low can the local media go in bending over backwards for corporations? Pretty low, as evidenced by this morning's edition of the Boston Globe. The paper has printed an advertisement for Verizon in the Globe West section of the newspaper.

Now, advertisements are nothing new in the paper, but the problem with this ad is that it's disguised as a news story. Lauren K. Meade is listed as the author of "Verizon FiOS arrives" but it looks like it was written by someone working for Verizon's marketing department. Unfortunately, it's not possible for Borderline to determine whether this is actually a violation of the Globe's ethics policies, because these are apparently not posted on the website for the public to review.

In a way, the Globe's articletisement doesn't surprise me. Verizon has proved itself to be very adept at seeding the media with pro-Verizon coverage, and the Globe very pliant in printing it (See "Despite the Hynes/New Media Strategics fiasco, Verizon's master plan for Newton is working"). And while this case is extreme, Borderline would like to remind readers that the Globe has been manipulated by business interests before. Exampes include "Blackout, part II. Media misses the story at first, then gets it wrong" and "Sloppy reporting on Waltham development".

Borderline's love/hate relationship with WGBH

Boston has an extensive local public TV system, WGBH (aka Channel 2, and Channel 44). Borderline watches it a lot with the kids and Mrs. Borderline, and has some observations that need to be shared.

One is the fundraising pitch. I know it needs to be done to keep all this great programming coming to us, blah blah blah, but can we cut down on the bogus claims about commercialism? On channel 44 right now, people are pleading for money. Text superimposed on the screen reads:

"WGBH is non-commercial public TV"

Yet at the same time on channel 2, they have something that looks like an infomercial, an hour-long program called "The RealAge Makeover." What gives?

Don't get me wrong. Borderline loves public TV, especially some of the kids programming (except for Boobah) and the documentaries and Frontline. And the cooking programs. But jeez, don't claim its non-commercial, when there's an infomercial by some doctor or financial guru or new age mystic running on 2 or 44 every other night.

Also, while I'm on the subject of bad public TV programming, can someone at WGBH please take all of the tapes of that crazy Teutonic violinist Andrew Rieu and launch them into the heart of the sun? Classical music is great and all, but this guy is Frankly (get it? get it?) irritating as heck. He's on all the time, especially on weekends when there are fund raisers. If WGBH is going to do classical music on TV, why not videotape some of the live studio sessions that they play every day on WGBH radio? Why rockstar Rieu? Is he paying WGBH to show his programs, in order to sell more CDs or DVDs? Why not show video of some equally talented yet more obscure artist who really needs the exposure and would give more variety to WGBH?

Newton developers demand special zoning giveaway from Waltham

In the News-Tribune this morning, a story about how a Newton-based developer is getting ready to put a 7-story monstrosity at the intersection of Charles and Moody Street. It's going to block out light, dominate the small businesses and residences nearby, and make for more traffic. But hey, it will give the top floor tenants river views! Now the developer is asking for special treatment from the city. The article says:

Northland has asked the City Council to create a new zoning district, called Business D, to allow for the project. The proposed zone change is set for a City Council public hearing Monday.

The change would allow bigger buildings than those outlined in the developer’s informal proposal. Northland said it will build six stories on Main Street, and seven stories on Charles, where the ground slopes down toward the river, but the new zone would allow 90-foot-high buildings seven stories tall, across the block.

An artist’s rendering of the project, presented to the council this week, shows a building that appears smaller than the actual structure would stand at 77-plus feet. The new building appears to be just slightly larger than a building across the street that, at three stories, would be half the new building’s height.

A developer playing games, by trying to downplay the size of the building? Is anyone surprised?

Northland's chairman and CEO is Lawrence R. Gottesdiener. City councillors, please send Larry G a resounding message: NO WAY!

You can read the rest of the article at Building plan irks residents

Update

The Globe West has more information about the proposed project:

The plan calls for 350 luxury apartment units above 35,000 square feet of first-floor retail space on a 4 1/2-acre site at the corner of Main and Moody streets, opposite the common. ...

An underground parking garage. Plans call for 570 spaces.

Fast-food restaurants.

There's a public hearing at City Council tomorrow night (Monday, 8pm) to debate this project. Don't let it go forward!

Whittemore school rebuilding situation goes from bad to worse

Borderline has warned that problems with the Whittemore reconstruction process might lead to delays, and was greeted by resounding silence. No comments, no reaction -- perhaps because readers thought I was exaggerating the issue.

But now it looks like the South Side kids in this part of Waltham are being set up for an extra year in an inferior temporary facility, and more pain when they finally get their new school. The News Tribune reports that there was only one bid for the Whittemore reconstruction, and it came in at $5 million over budget. It's been rejected by the city. Now David King, chairman of the School Building Committee, realizes that there's a "problem of what to do next."

I'll say. Moreover, King's proposed solution to the problem is in itself a problem: Cut corners! I quote from the text of the News-Tribune article:

King described this as a process where costs could be cut without damaging the design of the building.

"The thought was that we could try to get some savings through value engineering without cheapening the building itself," King said.

"We agreed to not make Whittemore inferior and the goal is to make it comparable to other new schools," McCarthy said.

For example, King said mechanical rooftop units could be built with aluminum instead of steel. "We’re not sure if that’s appropriate, and some people probably feel it isn’t, but there could be substantial savings," he said.

Excuse me? The pols "agreed to not make Whittemore inferior" yet you're talking about cutting millions of dollars worth of corners? We got a little logic problem here, buddy. Or you're just blowing smoke.

The Whittemore community has a lot of other things to deal with besides the rebuilding issue, including lagging MCAS scores. The way things are shaping up, the school rebuilding project is going to be a lose-lose situation for the kids. The failure of the bidding process means the planned Sept. 2008 reopening of Whittemore is almost certainly going to be pushed into the future. How far remains to be seen. And, while the kids may be coming back to a new school, it will be inferior to what kids elsewhere in Waltham have received under the city-wide elementary school rebuilding plan.

One other thing that Borderline would like to say about this News Tribune article: The reporter really let residents down by not interviewing a single Whittemore parent. It's all about the spin put out by city officials. I expect this from the Globe (see Sloppy Reporting on Waltham Development), and am really disappointed to see this trend creeping into the News-Tribune. Don't forget your readers, Trib! For every minute you spend talking with or quoting the pols, you should spend at least one minute talking with the people impacted by their schemes.

Other Borderline rants about the Whittemore school:

What's up with Whittemore?

Whittemore budget problems, and a warning for Newton

Another reason to be worried about Whittemore

Plans for the Waltham Watch Factory: Worse than condos

Developers in Waltham. They just won't give up! From the Boston Globe:

Developers have applied for a special permit from the Waltham City Council that would allow them to create a 30-unit "apartment-hotel" at the site of the Waltham Watch factory complex on Crescent Street.

"It's kind of a new concept," said Andrew Albers, project manager for Colomba Brothers Development Corp. "It's for stays longer than in a hotel but shorter than a year's lease on an apartment."

Actually, Andrew, it's kind of an old concept, that Waltham has lots of experience with. Excecutive hotels, welfare hotels, long-term hotels, dormitories ... the type of facility aimed at people who have no intention of putting down roots here. Even condos would be better than this.

Borderline hopes our elected leaders don't suck up to the Waltham Watch Factory developers, like many of them did earlier this year to support development near Rte. 128.

Despite the Hynes/New Media Strategics fiasco, Verizon's master plan for Newton is working

Goal: Verizon wants to increase its business in Newton and other local cities where there are lots of rich people.

Problem: The law

Strategy 1: Get high-profile mainstream media outlets to parrot your PR and marketing lines, like this report from the Boston Globe does:

Verizon touts higher Internet speeds, more cable channels, a larger library of movies, and better quality -- all at prices that would be competitive with the town's only other cable provider, Comcast.

Strategy 2: Get high-profile municipal politicians on your side by using fake letter-writing campaigns, like this one, orchestrated by Verizon's Stephanie S. Lee and Santoro:

".... If you are interested in more competition, please send an email directly to Mayor Cohen to let him know you want cable choice. A sample letter is provided for your convenience. Please add personal information and comments to customize your letter, if you prefer. ...

Subject: Bring more cable choice to Newton

Dear [ Decision Maker ],

Verizon has invested millions of dollars in Newton by installing its advanced fiber optic network, which offers video, internet and phone services. Verizon not only offers us another alternative to cable, but will provide residents with a more robust channel line up, more HDTV offerings, and thousands of shows and movies on demand -- at lower prices than we are paying today.

The City of Newton has been a pioneer in fostering the spirit of cable competition. With the addition of Verizon's video service, we will be among the few municipalities in Massachusetts to provide consumers with three options for cable TV.

Today residents in nearly 20 Massachusetts communities are enjoying Verizon's FiOS TV. Newton residents also deserve the best technology available along with a superior choice for cable TV.

I am writing to ask that you move quickly to approve Verizon's application for a video license so that Newton residents can benefit from more competition and the capabilities of this advanced fiber network.

Strategy 3: Try to astroturf local blogs like Borderline.

Result: Success, probably, judging by page 3 of the Nov. 15 Newton Tab.

The type of ratings Arbitron gets for $1

Two weeks ago Borderline got a letter from a company called Arbitron. The envelope contained a letter, and a crisp $1 bill.

Wow! People demand money from Borderline all the time -- I'm used to getting dunned for unpaid bills a few times a week! But getting free money, unsolicited? What's going on here?

From what Borderline understands, Arbitron produces "ratings" for radio programs, which stations and networks use to make programming decisions and adjust advertising rates. For instance, the data that Arbitron gathers help determine how much WBZ can charge Subaru of New frigging England for running 30 second radio spots during our drive-time commute. There is another company, Nielsen, which does the same thing for TV programming.

Anyway, Borderline pocketed the dollar bill and threw away the letter without reading it. Some people actually like to reveal their innermost radio habits to a bunch of statisticians. But not Borderline. I don't know how they got my name, but I sure didn't volunteer for help-out-the-advertisers duty. I feel no obligation to take part in whatever schemes this company uses to make u- I mean gather statistics upon which multi-million dollar PR decisions are made.

Then the calls started.

Every night at dinner. Early in the morning on weekends. Late at night on weekdays. Borderline never answered. There were hangups, recorded messages, and sometimes, breathing from a real live stats-gathering human. They used legitimate caller ID most of the time, but a few times they didn't. I could still tell it was Arbitron, because of the area 410 code. Later Borderline looked at the caller ID list for these numbers, and they all led back to the same number:

(410) 312-8222

If you Google it, this weird mashup appears, that seems to be charting telemarketers and the like who are breaking the federal "Do Not Call" list. Borderline signed up for this "Do not call" registry service several years ago, to stop the flood of unwanted solicitations at dinnertime, but Arbitron apparently feels they are above federal law because they have a "business relationship" (an exception to the Do Not Call rules) with me. Yeah, that's right. Arbitron thinks that by virtue of the $1 bill they sent me, they now own me and my time.

So, yeah, I feel used. It's almost as bad as when Patrick J Hynes and New Media Strategics tried to co-opt this blog for some corporate lobbying purpose.

Anyway, now Borderline is torn between doing nothing, or answering the phone and giving these jerks and piece of mind, or answering the phone and lying about all the fringe radio programs I listen to on WBRS, AM talk radio, and the like.

But I'll probably end up doing nothing.

Arbitron sucks!

It's all about the Ws: The Herald confuses Waltham and Watertown

More sloppy reporting, this time in the Boston Herald. The news article is about a corporate whistleblower named Paul Carpilio, who used to work for a big mutual fund company named Putnam Investments. Carpilio apparently uncovered a scheme to overstaff a Putnam customer service center, which allegedly resulted in big bonuses for greedy Putnam executives.

Corporate bigwigs feathering their own nests through trickery and mismanagement? No surprise there. But the Herald made a slip as to the origins of Mr. Carpilio, which makes me wonder about the accuracy of the other "facts" listed in the article. Check this:

The Waltham native just traded his black double-breasted suits for chinos and a brown leather bomber jacket. This month he opened the deli in a Plymouth industrial park to keep the money flowing when he isn’t consulting for other companies - or shuttling his three kids to hockey or soccer practice.

Then, at the bottom of the article:

As for Carpilio, money, he says, is not what he’s after.

“Where I come from, it’s about respect,” the Watertown native says. “I give respect, and I expect to be respected back.”

Well, Mr. Carpilio, you just got disrespected big time. The Herald can't even get your hometown right!

Patrick Hynes and New Media Strategics: A pattern of deception, and a Romney connection

Well, Hynes is back in action at his Ankle Biting Pundits blog, so it's time to continue where I left off: Exposing Hynes' bogus activities.

Turns out that Hynes and his company New Media Strategics regularly use deception to manipulate the public online and in print, and hide the identity of his true paymasters.

In his home base of Portsmouth, NH, he has been busy writing letters to local newspapers and misrepresenting that he works for Calypso Communications (another one of his PR gigs). It's happened on more than one occasion, according to Drew Cline of the Union Leader. Read about it here, and here.

And then there are some deceptions on the national political scene. You can read what Jim Geraghty found out in his National Review post. Seems like Hynes is or was John McCain's hatchet man, trying to sabotage Gov. "Slick" Romney's presidential ambitions in typical New Media Strategics fashion -- hot air and deception. Hynes' cover was blown in a rather embarrassing manner. But least he owned up to who's paying him -- which is quite unlike the pro-Verizon, anti-Net Neutrality (and now defunct) Channel Changer blog, which he amazingly claimed was some kind of personal hobby.

Anyway, I don't know if Hynes/New Media Strategics is still on the McCain payroll, but if he's not, I'm sure Deval Patrick could use the help against Romney sidekick "whats-her-name" Healey.

More background on Hynes' attempted deception of Borderline can be read here.

Lies, cable TV, and Patrick Hynes

Note: Ten updates appear at the bottom of this entry - latest update 10/20/06 -- New Media Strategics and the Romney Connection ...


Borderline does not like being lied to or manipulated.

Borderline especially doesn't like being lied to and manipulated by national corporate interests pretending to be earnest locals with an axe to grind.

Yet that's exactly what has happened to Borderline in the last week. The lie was sent to me by a corporate interest, disguised in an email from an ordinary local college student supposedly concerned about cable TV. The message said:

I'm reaching out to Boston bloggers because I think that what's happening (or should be happening) in the Boston area with regards to cable competition is a pretty important topic.  Check out my recent posting on competition in Southern Massachusetts.  [link]  If you don't want to join my personal vendetta against the cable companies (due to an excess of sub par experiences), it's worth taking a look at the comment string on Broadband Reports message board (that I link to) to gauge how people feel.  Interesting topic ...

Anyway, hoping for a link and wonder what your take is.

I was immediately suspicious. "Personal vendetta" over cable television? C'mon. No one has a personal vendetta over cable television. I have complained about the high prices in Waltham before, but I just consider it a luxury that our family can't afford. No reason to get in a snit about it, or - gasp! - launch a vendetta.

But I became even more suspicious when I visited this guy's blog. Or, should I say, this student's blog. An English-majorin', guitar-playin' student, and a junior at a local college. Writing on a regular basis about arcane debates all across the country involving cable TV and Internet access, with posts titled Michigan Edges Toward Cable Competition and Video Choice Vs. Net Neutrality.

What's all this about? Well, if you've been reading the business sections of the papers over the past year or so, you've probably seen a few articles about this stuff. From what I understand, the debates involve delivery of television signals and other high-bandwidth content (i.e., Internet service) to people's homes. Cable TV has been the dominant player for the last 20 years, thanks to technological issues and municipal-level monopolies, but ISPs and telephone companies are positioning themselves for an era where the Internet is used to deliver paid television programming.

A related issue is how Internet traffic will be treated in the future. Currently the Internet isn't owned by anyone, but companies do own parts of it. Any network connection that's part of the Internet treats all traffic - whether email, Google searches, news, music, or video - equally, or relatively equally. From what Borderline has been able to fathom, some companies which own "backbone" connections (kind of like the superhighways of the Internet) as well as potential distributors of high-bandwidth programming -- want to be able to segregate traffic by type and price, so things like blogs or free video posted on local websites would be on the slow road with lots of traffic lights, while paid video channels would be on the faster toll road. "Net Neutrality" refers to the efforts to keep the Internet the way it is now, i.e., all traffic is treated in the same way, rather than paid programming getting higher priority.

In any case, do topics like this sound like the interests of a typical 20-year-old to you? A 20-year-old of the MySpace generation? No, of course it doesn't. It sounds like a 40-year-old lobbyist or PR person ... and you know how Borderline feels about PR people!

So I write back:

It is an interesting topic, and we've had a very unusual experience here in Waltham with cable and two carriers, Comcast and RCN.

I don't mind starting a dialogue or linking to grassroots political blogs, but I insist on transparency on the motivation for such blogs. Therefore, before I link to your blog, could you please confirm whether you are are in contact with any ISP, telco, satellite TV company, their PR agencies, or special interest groups? Are you receiving any money from anyone to post blog entries on this subject?

Borderline doesn't receive a reply. And there is no reply to a follow-up message a few days later. Why so shy, guitar-strumming, cable-hating guy?

In the absence of a response, I can only try to dig up information on my own. And the more I research these issues, the more angry I get. Someone is trying to play Borderline, but it's surely not a 20-year-old college student. So who might it be?

It doesn't take long to find out. Whenever Borderline wants to understand a blogger, he looks at the very first month's worth of posts, which usually reveal something about the motivations for posting. In the case of the Channel Changer blog, the first few posts from December of last year are not different than the posts from September of this year. I see More on Unbundling and Cable Rates on the Rise. Could it be that our young college student has been writing up the cable industry for the past 10 months?

No. From December 1, 2005, until August 14, 2006, all of the posts are written by someone named "patjhynes." After that, there was a period of a few weeks when someone named Matthew Wrotch contributed to Channel Changer, before fading out on Channel Changer (but still talking about these issues on his own blog, and sometimes linking back to Channel Changer). Then came the college student, for the past month or so.

But let's take a look at patjhynes. It takes just a few Google searches to figure out who it is: Patrick Hynes, a suit-and-tie kind of guy with a national political and media consultancy based in New Hampsha. Hynes created the Channel Changer blog, but eventually decided to change the public face of the blog. After all, a consultant doesn't seem like an authentic enough supporter of a grassroots issue. So he recruited a 20-year-old kid at a local college to be the face of Channel Changer to post the articles and contact people like Borderline, writing about being a fed-up consumer in an attempt to create legitimate grassroots support.

Hynes has an extensive online presence elsewhere. He is the founder and proprietor of the political blog Ankle Biting Pundits. He consults for Calypso Communications and owns New Media Strategics. On the New Media Strategics pages, Hynes says he "understands how bloggers receive and process information." Moreover, he understands "what energizes them and, just as import, what turns them off." He offers services like:

Target Sweep (tm) - Our technology and professional expertise allows for regular, detailed canvassing of the New Media to capture and analyze relevant chatter based on predetermined target words, subjects, sites, and content. Target Sweep (tm) is a reputation management tool that augments our Personal Brand Protection (tm).

Alliance Building - Our existing relationships with bloggers create powerful alliances to deliver your brand message and reputation through the New Media.

Rapid Response Swarming (tm) - Today's participatory news cycle allows for immediate reaction to negative and potentially damaging stories. In fact, it demands a rapid response. Through the power of the blogosphere, a single mouse click can counter negative press. When you multiply this power by scores, even hundreds of bloggers, you get a "swarm." Through our existing international network of blogging experts and the formation of new alliances, New Media Strategics uses Rapid Response Swarming(tm) to manage reputations. Beyond diffusing negative press, Rapid Response Swarming(tm) creates an outcome better than if the story had never broken.

Buzz Targeting(tm) - Often to persuade public opinion, you need to create a lot of noise to influence only a few people, sometimes only one person. Buzz Targeting(tm) uses blogging technology to reach decision makers and journalists with precision. Buzz Targeting(tm) is fast, effective, and measurable.

In other words, it's all about manipulation of the blogosphere to serve corporate clients. And while his trademarked methods may sound professional, as an attempted victim of his tactics, I feel they are deceptive and amateurish. Consider the following elements and actions that he is apparently selling to some company:

• A blog called the Channel Changer, that pretends to be a grassroots, citizen effort demanding increased cable competition, and playing down the Net Neutrality debate


• A 20-year-old college student pretending to get riled up about these issues, and lying to Borderline in an attempt to get me to post something that supports the "more competition" issue


• "Matthew Wrotch", a person who does not have any current or historical public listings in Zabasearch in the United States, yet blogs about the same issues and links back to the college kid and Channel Changer.


• Scattered comments on other people's blogs

And some client is actually paying money for this? Who could it be?

It's not hard to figure out who's probably buttering Hynes' bread. Read Channel Changer posts like About Verizon's Investment, or this one entitled Video Franchise Battles - First Local, Then National. There's a company that comes up again and again in Hynes' blogs and comments. A company that wants to compete with the cable franchises. A company that wants a tiered Web, with their traffic getting higher priority. A company that is desperately positioning itself for the post-DVD and cable TV world when all media programming is delivered over the Internet. A company that is trying to get better access to the Newton market. A company whose name starts with "V", ends with "n", and whose public voice was once the same dude that played Darth Vader in Star Wars.

Has anyone else been approached by the Channel Changer blog, or allied interests?


Note: Borderline contacted the Channel Changer blog a total of four times about the true motivations behind the blog. In the most recent two emails, sent over the past day and a half, I asked for any clarifications or responses to the specific issues listed above. There was no reply.

I am also leaving out the identity of the college student. He's a stand-in for Hynes, and he shouldn't take the heat for the misdeeds of Hynes and his corporate client. Hynes should recognize this, and remove the student's name and picture from the Channel Changer blog and replace it with that of the blog's true master - himself.

Update to this post

Well, thanks to links from sites like the Consumerist, Craig Newmark (the Craigslist guy ... yeah, that Craig!) and Universal Hub, there has been a huge spike in traffic to Borderline, and some very interesting questions and comments. Some interest from national media, too. Stay tuned ...

Hynes responds! (Second update to this post - 9/26/06 11 pm)

Patrick Hynes, the owner of the Channel Changer blog and Ankle Biting Pundits, has responded. Kind of. You can read it all here.

Interestingly, Hynes doesn't mention his blog manipulation consultancy, New Media Strategics. He is also very careful not to mention the name of the company that I suspect is responsible for this fake grassroots effort. Yeah, that's right, the company whose name rhymes with "horizon." He had a chance to deny this before I posted on Monday morning (I notified Channel Changer on Saturday, Sept. 23, that I was preparing a long entry on the subject) but he didn't answer. And he didn't mention the name in his last post, either, even though it would be the most convincing piece of evidence to back up his "weird" and "bizarre" claims.

He further distances himself from the "Network Neutrality" issue. No, no, he says. It's all about "my personal dislike for on particular cable company."

Really? Who might that be? Hynes occasionally criticizes major cable companies, but often in conjunction with praise for another company. Here's an example:

"Looks like a huge victory for consumers will be celebrated next week in Hillsborough County, Florida. More than 700,000 county residents will be allowed to choose between incumbent cable provider Bright House Networks and Verizon, which will roll out its FiOS cable offering after county officials approve a deal they made with the telecom powerhouse next week.

The Tampa Tribune predicts the outbreak of a possible price war. Why? Because Verizon will offer more channels for less money than the incumbent cable operator ..."

Sometimes, Verizon is fawned over, without ANY mention of that mysterious, evil cable company.

And check out the comment on that post:

It's getting closer! Now I've got competition right next door. I never thought I'd see the day when I would want New Hampshire to have something that Massachusetts has, but it's here. Bring it on up - competition that is.

Hmmm. Does that sound like a normal human being to you? Excitedly talking about "competition" in the cable market? And the name -- "Pablo Joven"? Sounds like one of those names you see in the "from" line of a spam message!

I'll finish off with a few responses to the other lies/half truths/exaggerations in his latest post.

Hynes quote:

"... The idea that I am "secretly" behind this blog is absurd, as I have never presented this blog as anything but my own."

BS, Patrick. You had a 20-year-old student as the face of your page until a few days ago. In the "About" section, there was no mention of you founding the blog, or supporting it while you had other writers contributing to the blog. The motto of the blog, which you removed in the last two days, was "One man's crusade for communications competition". There could be no other conclusion that the blog belonged to the college student.

Furthermore, that student emailed me, saying that he had a "personal vendetta" against cable companies. Vendettas are very personal. You can't transfer them from one person to another, unless the second person is personally affected ... or compensated.

Another Hynes quote:

"I generally try to ignore it when anonymous bloggers cast baseless aspersions at me."

"Baseless"? Please. I have presented evidence that identifies you as contributing to an astroturfing campaign.

And what's with the Victorian lingo? "Aspersion"? What is this, Wuthering Heights?

Earth to Patrick Hynes: You can't hide behind fancy language, a student at a local college, your children, or your ABP blog. You started Channel Changer for a reason ... and that reason is not that it's your hobby, or something to do with your "personal dislike" for a certain cable company.


Strategics vs. Strategies (Third update to this post - 9/27/06 8:45 pm)

I made an error involving the name of Hynes' black-hat PR firm. It's New Media Strategics, not -ies. My apologies to the legitimate, white-hat PR firm affected by the mixup.

Six Questions for Patrick Hynes (Fourth update to this post - 9/27/06 9 pm)

Now, onto other things. Patrick, it's time for you to come clean about the issues raised in this post. You've tried to spin yourself out of the mess that you've created, but I won't let it go. I'll make it easy for you, by posing a series of simple questions that you can answer by comment, email, or on your own Channel Changer blog:

1) What is the nature of your professional relationship with Verizon? Have you had any contact with Verizon executives, or Verizon-affiliated lobbyists/PR people in the past year?

2) Is Verizon, its PR firm, its lobbying firm, an industry consortium that it belongs to, or any other Verizon-associated company compensating you for services?

3) If yes, do those services include blogging or leaving comments on Internet message boards?

4) If no, are you being compensated in any material way for posting on the Channel Changer blog, or contacting local blogs like Borderline?

5) Did you write the posts that were ostensibly created by the BC student?

6) Is "Matthew Wrotch" really you? If not, do you have any contact with him outside of cross-linking?

Myself and the many other people visiting Borderline this week are looking forward to your replies.


Verizon's History of Astroturfing (Fifth update to this post - 9/29/06 7:45 am)

While we wait for Patrick Hynes to come clean about his Buzz Targeting (tm) campaign that attempted to snare Borderline, let's not forget about Verizon's likely role in this. Verizon has a history of astroturfing and comment seeding, along with other big telecommunications companies, apparently. Check out these posts:

Oh Look, Even More Astroturf

Do Broadband Providers Employ Blog Comment Shills?

Markey Attacks, Barton Defends, Telecom Legislation

Then there's this entry/definition from SourceWatch on Astroturfing:

Sometimes genuine grassroots organizations are recruited into corporate-funded campaigns. In June 2003, for example, the Gray Panthers participated in protests against WorldCom that were funded largely by the telecommunications company's competitors such as Verizon. According to the Gray Panthers, this reflected a policy decision that the organization made prior to and independently of its funding. However, an article in the Washington Post raised questions about failures to publicly disclose the corporate funding which paid for full-page advertisements that the Gray Panthers took out in several major newspapers that called on the federal government to stop doing business with WorldCom. The ads said they were paid for the Gray Panthers but did not mention that Issue Dynamics Inc. (IDI), a PR firm that specializes in "grassroots PR," had provided most of the $200,000 it cost to place the ads. Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe has declined to say how much the company is paying IDI, and Gray Panthers Executive Director Timothy Fuller has declined to say how much of the funding for its "Corporate Accountability" project comes from IDI. Notwithstanding the egregious nature of WorldCom's corporate crimes, the lack of transparency in these funding arrangements by WorldCom's corporate competitors raises the question of whether the Gray Panthers campaign should be considered genuine grassroots or astroturf.

The Beltway Takes Notice (Sixth update to this post - 9/30/06 10:07 am)

More blog buzz about Patrick Hynes. I didn't know that he had been "exposed as a hypocrite" earlier this year, or had also been engaged in unethical behavior with political blogs. But it's documented, check out this Beltway Blogroll edition for more.

Channel Changer no more? (Seventh update to this post - 10/3/06 6:00 am)

Uh-oh. Looks like Channel Changer is offline. I wonder what prompted that? A technical glitch? Or Patrick Hynes and New Media Strategics can't take the heat, and this is some sort of attempt to put out the fire?

Well, Patrick, you can run, but you can't hide from your online activities. Borderline made an archive of the original Channel Changer blog -- the pristine version, before you started removing information from the blog. If you're another blogger or news outlet and would like a copy of the Channel Changer archive to better understand the context of this post, email Borderline and I'll try to zip one over to you.

Moving onto Verizon ... (Eighth update to this post - 10/4/06 12:10 am)

Borderline is going to lay off Patrick Hynes for a while. His family has a newborn on the way this week. If you have kids, you know what it's like. I'll revisit him when he gets off of paternity leave and resumes posting on his Ankle Biting Pundits blog.

In the meantime, we'll cover a few items relating to the Verizon Corporation. They've apparently been carrying out some questionable activities in the Commonwealth. Borderline will relate some of them in the weeks to come.

Maybe a few things about Net Neutrality, too. Stay tuned ...

Verizon and the courts (Ninth update to this post - 10/8/06 9:00 pm)

Most of this post has concentrated on Patrick Hynes, but it's time to turn the focus to Verizon and its designs for world domination.

Well, maybe not world domination, but certainly market domination. And, Verizon has a checkered past in Massachusetts and other states, writes Bruce Kushnick, of a group called "Teletruth":

We filed a complaint in 1999 over the fact that in 1995 Verizon (then New England Telephone) made commitments to have 330,000 Massachusetts homes rewired with fiber optics. In exchange for these upgrades, the company was able to get the state public service commission, the Department of Telecommunications and Energy (DTE), to change state law to give the company more money in the form of higher phone rates and tax perks.

Here's a copy of our complaint, and the actual filing by Verizon, MA.

http://newnetworks.com/Masscomplaintsummary.html

And here's the filing from Verizon.

http://newnetworks.com/massfiberfailurepage1.htm

... this is not history. The current franchise fights throughout the US have the bells etc. not only making the same claims of deploying, but this time they want to own the networks, even though customers paid about $2000 a household in money for "OPEN" ubiquitous networks. --- And today, rates are still inflated because of the changes in law.

Bruce also pointed Borderline to some astroturf efforts by Verizon (in addition to the resources already noted by Borderline).

Now, one thing Borderline wanted to establish when Bruce contacted me was his own background. After all, after being an attempted victim of Hynes' deceptive blogging efforts, I don't want to be deceived by someone else on the other side. And, unlike Hynes'/Channel Changer's refusal to answer my questions about PR firms or payment for posts, Bruce was very direct in saying that he represents a group which has tangled with Verizon in the courts. There's no pretend games about being an ordinary joe or other astroturf B.S. -- Bruce was a telecom analyst, and Teletruth is involved in industry debates and legal action. Another way to put it: His group has an agenda, although he's not trying to cover it up. Here's what he had to say, when I asked him where he's coming from:

Teletruth is an experiment in customer advocacy, We are unfunded and for-profit, which means we lose money. Most of the services -- web stuff -- have been donated by Bway.net, on our board of advisors Teletruth does not receive money from corporations/industry/political groups. Instead, we've ended up have an active board who works together on projects. ...

Our income since 2002 has been a) the successful settlement of 2 class action law suits against Verizon, NJ. We helped to initiate these suits based on our phone surveys, and act as 'expert witness' --we settled out second case last month. b) phone bill auditing. LTC has an active auditing business, which Teletruth/NNI works with, c) the sale of the ebooks and licensing the book/data, d) a grant from the California Consumer Protection board in 2004 to study phone bills with UCAN, and e) occasionally donations.

The legal work was also done 'pro-bono' for our FCC, SEC, IRS filings, while we work with a law firm to take class actions.

Bruce also pointed me to one of his group's latest triumphs, "Verizon New Jersey Settles Class Action Alleging Overbilling for Special Circuits".

New Media Strategics and the Romney Connection (Tenth update to this post - 10/20/06 midnight)

This post really is getting too long, so I am continuing the discussion of Patrick Hynes, New Media Strategics, and his pattern of deception here.

The system is broken: Globe exposes the snakes that prey on the debt collection system

The Globe is doing a lot more investigative work these days, uncovering official incompetence, sleazy businessmen, and questionable court processes. If you haven't seen the Globe Spotlight investigation into Massachusetts' broken debt collection system ("Debtor's Hell"), you should check it out now. It will leave you fuming. Here's a sample from today's report on constables, who get paid to serve court papers. They are not trained in the law, have no oversight, and charge huge fees for their services, and have an incentive to screw the little people. Many even have criminal backgrounds:

In Boston alone there are 186 of them, and Mayor Thomas M. Menino has given arrest powers to every one, including (Kenneth) Dorsey and 87 others with criminal arrest records for offenses including firearms violations, indecent assault and battery on a child, and impersonating a police officer. Seven have been appointed in spite of guilty verdicts, among them one convicted twice in the last four years of beating his wife.

The other part of this series that was really scary was the second episode on how the small claims court system has been corrupted by lawyers and court staff who consistently favor business interests, even when these business interests accuse the wrong person or don't have evidence that someone owes them money. Disgusting.

These types of articles are traditionally more of the Herald's turf, but I am glad to see that the Globe is getting involved -- whereas the Herald often seems to lean toward sensationalism, the Globe investigative reports usually spends more time researching the problems and presenting more than one side of the story.