n-spirited ideas about your rival." Kneale says there's room for "a silver lining" in some stories, but "if your client can be in Forbes and survive, then you've done a great job." Anyone who thinks he can beat those odds is too reckless to run a major corporation. That may, in fact, be why today's CEOs seem to metamorphose from prophet to pariah at an apparently accelerating rate. It's not that CEOs have enemies; it's that they make such great copy. Breaking the Code We thought we were being selective in the interviews Armstrong granted, but we didn't really break the code until late in the game. In 200I, when the controversy around AT&T was at a fever pitch, we wanted to present our story as forcefully and as broadly as we could. We knew that Armstrong was our strongest spokesperson, but we had long passed the point when reporters interviewed him in a search for understanding. He had become a fishing ground for quotes, and his quotes could not be too complex or nuanced because there was no space for it. We didn't want him entirely held hostage to the reporting and editing process. So we quietly let it be known that Armstrong wouldn't do exclusive interviews without a promise that big chunks would run as verbatim questions and answers. At first, the major business magazines resisted the idea. We weren't asking for editorial rights (although we did ask for an opportu- nity to review the Q&A to ensure that the context wasn't changed and that Armstrong's off-the-cuff statistics were accurate). Nor did we try to specify how much space was to be dedicated to the Q&A; we simply asked that it be "substantial" and left it to them to decide what that meant. But our ground rule made them uncomfortable, and they Tough Calls claimed that there was no precedent for it. Besides, as the then editor of Fortune, John Huey, told me, "You need us more than we need you." Huey was right, of course, but when I told him that my next call was to Business Week, his candor surprised me: "You said the magic words," he said. "We'll do it."