A glimpse into media politics

Modern day communication politics, writ large:

Hours after New Orleans officials announced Tuesday that they would deploy a city-owned, wireless Internet network in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, regional phone giant BellSouth Corp. withdrew an offer to donate one of its damaged buildings that would have housed new police headquarters, city officials said yesterday.

According to the officials, the head of BellSouth's Louisiana operations, Bill Oliver, angrily rescinded the offer of the building in a conversation with New Orleans homeland security director Terry Ebbert, who oversees the roughly 1,650-member police force.

City officials said BellSouth was upset about the plan to bring high-speed Internet access for free to homes and businesses to help stimulate resettlement and relocation to the devastated city. Around the country, large telephone companies have aggressively lobbied against localities launching their own Internet networks, arguing that they amount to taxpayer-funded competition. Some states have laws prohibiting them.

Beneath the shiny gloss of media companies "breaking down barriers" and "connecting people" lies a darker side: the thirst for profits from an aspect of human activity that, in the coming future, desperately needs to be framed as a public good if the world is to chip away at the growing "digital divide" that promises to make the planet an even uglier, unjust, unequal one.