ons largely in terms of media relations. In fact, one senior PR counselor I know was frank in describing the job as ensuring that the CEO could read the Wall Street Journal at break- fast without developing indigestion. And AT&T's first foray into public relations, way back in 1903, was to hire the Publicity Bureau of Boston to "place nice little stories about the telephone" in the nation's media. The Publicity Bureau account executive, who later moved onto the Tough Calls company's payroll, was a former newspaperman who was not above paying editors to run his stories verbatim in their news columns. Nor was he unwilling to sabotage a competitor's news conference by salt- ing the audience with shills who would ask embarrassing questions and generally disrupt the proceedings. But in 1926, the chairman of AT&T, perhaps motivated by the still fresh memory of a bomb exploding outside the offices of J. P. Morgan a few blocks down the street, asked Arthur W. Page to take over the company's public relations department. Page had been the editor of The World's Work-that era's version of Business Week-and he told AT&T's chairman that if he was looking for a press agent, he could keep looking. Somehow, AT&T's chairman convinced Page that he needed some- one who could help the company navigate the crosscurrents of public opinion in an era of doubt and skepticism about big business. Not only did he hire Page and make him an officer of the company, he put him on the board of directors. Page's basic advice at the time rings just as true today: "All busi- ness lives by public approval and, roughly speaking, the more approval you have, the better you live." Of course, he also pointed out that "the fundamental way to get approval is to deserve it."7 You can advertise and publicize a "personality" or "image" for your company, but character arises from what a company does, not just what it says. Corporations have a moral obligation to serve their cus- tomers honestly, to give their employees an opportunity to develop and grow SO that