PR Watch, Fourth Quarter 2006, Volume 13, No. 4

Flack Attack

According to the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA), CMD is "an organization that is unrelenting in its hostility to the principles of free speech and a free press. . . . And in a linguistic twist that would have earned the admiration of George Orwell himself, this group refers to itself as the Center FOR Media and Democracy."

Still Not The News: Second CMD Investigation Reveals TV Stations Overwhelmingly Fail to Disclose VNRs

by Diane Farsetta and Daniel Price

Television news audiences are still routinely deceived by false TV news, according to our second report this year on video news releases (VNRs).

CMD's VNR Catches: Four Case Studies

by Diane Farsetta and Daniel Price

The following are a few examples of VNRs from our new report. The entire report, including VNR footage and video of the newscasts that used them, is available at stopfakenews.org.

Case Study One

"Oil Lobbyist's 'News' Denies Inconvenient Truth:
WTOK-11's Hot Air Misleads Viewers"
Client(s): TCS Daily
Released: May 2006

Congresspedia Keeps Growing (And Now It's Your Turn!)

By Conor Kenny

Since CMD's co-launch with the Sunlight Foundation of Congresspedia, the "citizen's encyclopedia on Congress," our new site has quickly become one of the most valuable resources on the web for constituents to learn about their members of the U.S. Congress.

Reviews and Interviews about "The Best War Ever"

Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber's new book, The Best War Ever (Tarcher/Penguin), was published in September 2006. The following is a sample of reviews and press coverage the book has received.

Catching Up With Eric Schlosser: A CMD Interview

Eric Schlosser

By Jonathan Rosenblum

Fast Food Nation: the Movie

By Judith Siers-Poisson

John Stauber and I attended a special pre-release campus screening in Berkeley, CA of "Fast Food Nation," the film based on Eric Schlosser's groundbreaking 2001 bestseller. In the book, Schlosser documented the links between exploitation of migrant workers, the meatpacking industry, fast food consumption, and the manipulation and outright toxicity of much mass-produced food.

Mortality Combat: The War Over Counting the Dead in Iraq

By Sheldon Rampton

Mourners in Sadr City, August 2005 (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

Saving General Washington

By Judith Siers-Poisson

I spoke with author J.R. Norton in June about his book, Saving General Washington: The Right Wing Assault on America's Founding Principles. The following excerpts are from my interview with him on "A Public Affair" on WORT (89.9 FM), community radio in Madison, WI, and from a follow up in-person interview.