of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly success- ful in telling its readers what to think about."II The media's agenda setting also has another effect: Studies show that the volume of cover- age dedicated to a subject seems to have an impact completely sepa- rate from the substantive content of that coverage. In addition to giving a topic salience, heavy media coverage can heighten the atti- tudes associated with the topic. The sheer volume of coverage rein- forces first impressions. When we spoke out on the rumors of our discussions with SBC, FCC Chairman Hundt said that we "broke the first rule of Informa- politics. Don't go first."I But from our perspective, we were not going first. We were trying desperately to refocus what had already become a raging debate. Our goal was not SO much to win anyone over on the merits of an AT&T/SBC merger as to change the subject, shifting the argument to the admittedly complicated public policy issue of opening local markets. We wanted to make AT&T's position on local competition crystal clear SO that rumors of the merger discussions with SBC didn't further complicate our efforts to enter local markets or allow the Bell compa- nies to slip through into long distance. And we were willing to do this at the possible expense of the merger discussions themselves, since we knew that if our arguments gained traction publicly, they would be easier to argue privately at the negotiating table. On the other hand, if they fell on deaf ears in the public arena, it didn't matter how success- ful we were in San Antonio. We were relatively successful in reordering the public agenda. When the merger talks broke down, most of the media blamed their failure on SBC's unwillingness to open its local markets. Unfortu- nately, we did not succeed in correcting the impression that AT&T was acting out of desperation, from a position of weakness. Our public policy message was too esoteric and too complicated. The subtlety of legal arguments may work in a courtroom or in the qu