 With that agreement in place, getting Business Week to buy in was easy. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal followed. Huey, now editorial director for all Time War- ner publications, later told me: "If I think a competitor is going to get something and I can get it first, I'll go after it even if I don't want it."I Competition between publications is nothing new. No one likes to get scooped, and even a paper of record like the Wall Street Journal will often ignore or bury a good story if a competing publication has beaten it to that story. However, our self-control was not always SO resolute. When AT&T announced the spin-off of its equipment businesses in 1996, Fortune magazine was looking for an angle that no one else had explored. It decided to profile the executive who was in the lead to succeed Bob Allen as CEO of AT&T: Alex Mandl, who had joined the company just five years earlier as CFO and was then running the long-distance business. We wished Fortune well, but told them that their angle was premature. Bob Allen wasn't going anywhere. Fortune's editor, though, knew someone who knew Mandl. "All they want to do is take your picture," she said. "They're going to run the story whether you help or not." When you hear those words, take them as your cue to be unavail- able. I have never seen a story change direction because its subject cooperated. The occasional modest improvement-usually a defensive quote that is promptly rebutted later in the story-seldom compen- sates for the greater credibility and prominence that you give the story by cooperating. It's far better to entrust a knowledgeable lieutenant with providing factual information and keeping tabs on the reporter's progress. Save yourself for stories you want to tell; don't spend your time rebutting someone else's. In Mandl's case, Fortune did more than take his picture. While he was under the lights, Fortune's editor engaged him in small talk about where he went to school, what it's like for an outsider to work at AT&T, and general Wall Stre