ed to rally our internal audience. We should have taken those facts directly to first-line supervisors and equipped those supervisors to communicate the facts to their people. This horizontal or lateral approach puts public relations in the role of facilitating communications, not dictating them. It means identify- ing influential rank-and-file employees and engaging them in an open-ended discussion about the company's performance: where we're winning, where we're losing, and what it all means. Supervisors needed to be trained to communicate with their work groups effec- tively, and they needed answers to the questions that their people were asking. The whole process needed to be monitored SO that it could be adjusted and fine-tuned based on front-line experience. Instead, AT&T's employees spent 2001 and 2002 under the dark clouds that hovered over the entire communication services industry, which was caught in a spiral of declining revenue and downbeat news. Companies that were once the darlings of the new economy, including Reimagine Your Company's Mission Global Crossing, Teligent, and Macleod USA, were filing for bank- ruptcy. At least five of the largest communications companies revised their earnings guidance. Regulators accused some telephone compa- nies of artificially inflating their revenue and subpoenaed their re- cords. Qwest fired its CEO, former AT&T executive Joe Nacchio. Even MCI WorldCom, which Fortune magazine once described as "the poster child for amazing growth," began to falter.4 Following the release of MCI Worldcom's first-quarter 2001 finan- cial results, some analysts questioned the quality of its earnings. In reaction, its stock price began a long slide. By summer, rumors began to fly that its chairman, Bernie Ebbers, might have to declare personal bankruptcy to get out from under margin calls on loans he had taken to purchase his company's stock. In February 2002, in the wake of the dot-com bust, MCI WorldCom had to schedule a conference call to fight off rumors that it was in danger o