lisha sent a letter to the Journal rebutting Keller's October 1997 page-one story on the board's decision to "make a change at the top," the paper's managing editor, Paul Steiger, asked his ace reporter to drop by. "Bring your notes," he said. When Keller reached Steiger's office, he was directed to a nearby conference room, where the top editors had all gathered to pick his story apart line by line. For a solid hour, they challenged Keller to back up every assertion in the story by citing his sources and reading from his notes. When it was done, Steiger thanked him, and that was the last he heard of it. The paper ran Elisha's letter the next day just as he had written it, except for the last sentence: "Your reporter should be ashamed of himself." Shortly after the TCI acquisition, Keller left the Journal to take a position with the Spencer Stuart executive search firm. His AT&T beat was assigned to a different editor and several other writers. But Leslie Cauley continued to cover the cable industry, and, since AT&T was now one of the biggest players in cable, the company fell into her crosshairs. Hindery had already figured that out, and, by giving her one of the biggest business scoops of the year, he not only ingratiated himself with her but established himself as a trusted source within the highest councils of AT&T. Furthermore, he helped significantly enhance Cauley's position with the Journal's editors. Her coverage of the company over the next three years never failed to reflect Hindery's point of view, and when it was all over, he returned the favor- Hindery chose Cauley to write his memoirs, The Biggest Game of All. Of course, we anticipated none of this when we issued the news re- lease announcing the AT&T-TCI merger early on the morning of June 24, 1998. When the Wall Street Journal posted the merger story on its Web site shortly after midnight, editors in newsrooms across the country Tough Calls dragged reporters out of bed to write their own take for the next morn- ing's editions. Their Day One stori