The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

1. Quoth the Telecom Analyst Evermore

What with all the fuss coming out of the Federal Communications Commission last week, we at the Five Dumbest Things Research Lab think it's high time to reveal one of the trade secrets of telecom journalism.

So here goes: What man is key to press coverage of the telecommunications industry? What man's disappearance would bring telco reporting to a grinding halt?

No, it's not FCC Chairman Michael Powell. It's not even Wall Street whipping boy Jack Grubman.

Rather, it's Jeff Kagan.

Never heard of Jeff Kagan? Well, obviously you don't read about the telecom industry. Because if you did, you'd have heard of him, all right.

See, Kagan is the go-to guy in telecom journalism. He's the man you depend on in the clutch. That's because Kagan, a telecom industry analyst, has that rare and beautiful quality reporters treasure: He returns your call promptly, and he gives you a quotable comment you can drop in your story when you're minutes away from deadline. He's what we like to call the quote-a-matic of telecom reporting.

"Every week I give dozens of interviews," says Kagan -- who, you can probably guess, returned our phone call promptly. "Half a dozen on a slow day. On a newsbreaking day, 15, 20, 25 or more. Those are the days I lose my voice."

Kagan certainly gives reporters easy access to that voice. They can call his cell phone. They can page him. They can visit his Web site. Or they can just use the ready-made quotes he emails them on days when news breaks. Kagan has hundreds of reporters on his email list, he says. When he started sending out those little quotes, he says, reporters would call him back for clarification. "Now, half the time, they'll quote right from it."