nies' shareowners. And knowing that the Day Two stories would inevi- tably look for winners and losers, I wanted to be sure that no space showed between Hindery's and Zeglis's shoulders. Hindery's appar- ent leak to the Journal didn't fill me with confidence on that score. The news conference went without a hitch once Malone and Arm- strong worked their way through a phalanx of photographers waiting for them outside the auditorium. Reporters noted that Malone, who had come out of semiretirement when TCI ran into financial difficul- ties eighteen months before, was more "effusive" and "bubbly" than they had seen him in recent years. Armstrong, seeing an opportunity to demonstrate the changes he was making in AT&T's culture, bragged that he got the deal done in only "eight days." Knowing that neither Armstrong nor Malone would toss any of the questions to anyone else, I told Zeglis to grab the second question no matter what the subject, answer it, and invite Hindery to add his own thoughts. Even that seemed to work. We kept all four of them tied up through the afternoon and evening in one-on-one interviews. Members of my staff kept everyone coordinated by using a wireless telephone confer- ence call that we kept open for twelve hours. An unnamed money manager was rumored to have said, "I'd stay away from anything Malone is selling or AT&T is buying. This deal has both curses." Nevertheless, the next day's media coverage was generally positive, with most stories emphasizing the consumer bene- fits. The Chicago Tribune credited Armstrong with "delivering on ex- pectations [of] turning lemons into lemonade." The Washington Times called the deal "a hookup for the millennium." Business Week pro- claimed, "At Last: Telecom Unbound." Time magazine said simply, Don't Let Plugging Leaks Become an Obsession "Gulliver has stirred." The chairman of the FCC declared the pro- posed merger "eminently thinkable." The New York Times even ran an editorial in its July 5 edition crediting the deal with ushering in an era of "better se