avitational pull of the stock market. Invariably, high- fliers get good coverage; laggards get criticized."13 All this makes busi- ness news more entertaining, but it also explains why CEOs should no more depend on the media to be their primary means of communi- cating with stakeholders than depend on the media to run their board meetings. Go Direct One of the most common mistakes executives make is to confuse in- termediaries such as the media, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), financial analysts, and other luminaries with people who have a real stake in a company. They are not the same. The media, for example, are interested in a given company as long as it is making news, and they are not immune from the strains of hysteria infecting the markets. Nongovernmental organizations' inter- Don't Dance to the Music of Your Own Buzz est ebbs and flows with issues that may not even be central to a com- pany's operations. Financial analysts put everything about a company through their own proprietary mathematical model, which may or may not reflect the real drivers of the company's success. Such intermediaries can sometimes provide insight into the think- ing of a company's primary stakeholders-its customers, employees, and investors and the communities in which they live and work-but they often skew stakeholders' views toward their own agenda. They can also be convenient channels for reaching primary stakeholders, but they will almost always add their own spin to your message, and occasionally they will ignore your message entirely. This is not an ar- gument for dissing the media, analysts, and NGOs. You ignore them at your peril. They set the agenda for public discourse and define the environment within which you live. But a CEO's goal should be credi- bility, not celebrity. This often means being more boring, less news- worthy, and even less available than the media would sometimes like. Companies are better served by communicating directly with their primary stakeholders. In AT&T's case, this was a challenge. We