A nasty fight between big cable companies and a pair of new and powerful sports networks provides yet another strong argument for cable a la carte, the simple idea that cable customers should be allowed to buy only the channels they actually want to watch. What a concept.

Let's not and say we did. That appears to be AT&T's newest tactic when it comes to letting consumers know about a bargain basement, $10 a month Internet service the company was forced to begin offering to gain government approval of its megamerger with BellSouth last year.

Instead of providing an unbiased and unvarnished examination of the critical issue of media ownership, it appears a set of just-released studies were carefully crafted by Federal Communications Commission officials to make a case for relaxing the agency's existing media ownership rules.