accurate, every other reporter in town would know that we had leaked it, and it would make our ongoing relationship with them more difficult. And if the main news were out before our formal announcement, the rest of the media would have no choice but to expand their analysis rather than simply repeat already known facts. "No way," I said. "The story is too complicated. We need to have first swing at telling it without depending on a reporter who will bring her own biases to it." Unexpectedly, this "eccentric" man, whose net worth the Times that very day had pegged at $70 million, which would surely soar if this deal went through, readily agreed. "I never thought of that," he said. Discussion over. I went back to trying to understand the convoluted deal itself. AT&T was not simply acquiring TCI; it was combining it with its long- distance and wireless businesses to create a new company that would be known as AT&T Consumer Services (ACS). ACS would have revenue of about $33 billion and would not be simply a division of AT&T-it would be a separate tracking stock that would trade in its own right, reflecting its own economic performance separate from AT&T's, just as Hughes Electronics traded separately from General Motors. The theory was that ACS tracking stock would be attractive to investors who were more interested in growth than in current earn- ings. That happened to describe a lot of the people who owned TCI and, following the merger, would end up with AT&T stock. Plus, it described the kind of business that AT&T Consumer Services would Tough Calls become: One that was focused on turning TCI's cable TV lines into broadband pipes carrying digital entertainment, high-speed Internet, and any-distance communication services. AT&T would finally have a direct connection to the 33 million homes that were passed by its own cable systems or those of compa- nies in which it had a stake. It could reach the rest of its long-distance customers through fixed wireless, by leasing the Bells' lines, or through partnerships with