The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street in the Last Year or So

2. Oh, Kagan You See, by the Dawn's Early Light

Meanwhile, the hardest-working telecom commentator in America is still going strong. But not as strong as we predicted.

Back in February, to refresh your memory, we marveled at the astounding ubiquity of Jeff Kagan, a telecommunications industry analyst with a remarkable talent for getting himself quoted in stories about phone companies.

Kagan, we wrote, "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."

Given the rate at which Kagan's comments were showing up in print publications, we forecast in February that Kagan would finish 2003 with, for him, what would be a record number of press mentions: 698, up 8% from the prior year's record tally of 638.

Unfortunately, it's not to be so. When we counted Kagan's press mentions in late December, we calculated he was on track for 584 mentions in 2003, down 9% from our freshest 2002 tally.

Ringing In the New Year

*Figure for 2003 is as of Dec. 29, 2003. Source: Factiva

But you try telling Kagan he's off his pace. "It's busier than ever," he says. "My phone rings more, not less, than it did a year ago. And that's the way it has been every year since the middle '80s."

As for what he's talking about to all these reporters, Kagan says the theme he's hammering home is that the industry isn't as bad off as some folks would have you believe. "The future of telecom is as bright as ever and as competitive as ever," he says. Pessimists who fixate on declining long-distance revenue and access lines are ignoring the huge opportunity in voice over IP. And they're forgetting that entrenched companies can indeed adapt. "IBM (IBM Quote) went from typewriters to computers," says Kagan. "They changed."

Separately in February, we pointed out that while most telecom reporters seemed friendly with Kagan, the hardworking scribes at USA Today seemed especially close, having quoted him seven times in the prior two months.

After our piece, however, their relationship seemed to cool off, with Kagan banished from the paper for nearly six months. "I think they looked at that and decided they needed to diversify a little bit," says Kagan. "You probably had a good point there."