March 20, 2003
For Immediate Release
Contact:

Maryam Kubasek
Director of Media Relations
National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families
Religious Alliance Against Pornography
513/521-6227, ext. 111

The Religious Alliance Against Pornography and the National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families are celebrating AT&T's actions to remove itself from the pornography business.

A letter on behalf of David Dorman, chairman and CEO of AT&T, addressed to Jerry R Kirk at the National Coalition, confirms that the company completed the sale of its cable television business to Comcast Corp., which will discontinue the use of the AT&T brand; and ended its relationship with Liberty Media, thus removing itself from the programming business. "After more than two years of relentless activity on the part of religious and corporate leaders to persuade executives at AT&T that its involvement in pornography was a violation of the public trust, we are pleased and delighted by this announcement," said Jerry R. Kirk, co-chairman of RAAP and founder and chairman of the National Coalition.

Leaders from RAAP and the National Coalition engaged in face-to-face meetings with AT&T executives over a two-year period, trying to convince them that their choice to provide soft- and hard-core pornography, was a terrible example for a Fortune 500 company to set. RAAP and the National Coalition launched a petition drive and even met with Attorney General John Ashcroft to express their dismay.

"The bottom line is that AT&T did the right thing, and we praise and recognize them for it," said Rick Schatz, president and CEO of the National Coalition. He noted that General Motors, the world's largest automobile company, is still in the pornography business via DirecTV so the work is far from over.