Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, we look at CEO gas hogs, unlikely terrorists and how Mormons spend their money. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we look at General Motors. The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

Joel Makower of Greener World Media has a new book out, titled Strategies for the Green Economy, which tells the story of many (often failed) environmental marketing campaigns. Grist magazine gives the book a mostly favorable review, but points to the "question of Makower's myriad business interests. To his credit, he discloses obvious conflicts when they arise. Case in point: When writing about Clorox's Green Works cleaning product, he informs readers that he consulted with the company on the rollout. That's helpful, but I would have preferred that Makower disclose all business dealings he's had with companies mentioned in the book." (As we've reported previously, there is also some controversy over the deal that Clorox made with the Sierra Club to promote Green Works, which was recently highlighted as a marketing case study by Advertising Age.) In a recent interview, Makower says companies are "creating fairly sophisticated score-carding systems for developing their products" to meet environmental standards. ... But in large part we're treading water. Whatever improvements we're making are being offset by the sheer growth of the economy. Yes, we're seeing things happening on a much different level than even three years ago, but it's still really tinkering at the margins."

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (also known as the LDS or Mormon Church) is facing a public backlash following its heavy-handed support of Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriages in California, notes progressive PR pro Michael Fox. "For many years," he notes, "the LDS Church has been an active force in the anti-gay movement, most notably in regard to its sponsorship of the Boy Scouts of America, but these activities have mostly been below the media radar and opposition has been directed at the Scouts, not the LDS Church itself. ... Now that will change." A leaked internal memo shows how top church leaders egged on rank-and-file Mormons to donate more than $20 million to support Proposition 8, while members in Utah made political phone calls to Californians on behalf of the measure. In response, Fox says, "Gay and lesbian groups and their allies will challenge the Mormons everywhere, no doubt tapping into pre-existing anti-Mormon prejudice. ... And the Prop 8 boycott, if sustained, can have a serious impact on businesses owned by Mormons, such as the Marriott hotel chain, on the careers of LDS members, and even on the economy of the State of Utah."

In November 2005, activists from the Chesapeake Climate Action Network peacefully protested against the failure by then-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr to significantly curb pollution from coal-fired power stations in Maryland. After their protest, Maryland police categorized them as terrorists and added them to a federal database of people to be monitored. Lisa Rein and Josh White report that other groups spied on by an undercover police operation included those opposing the death penalty, the Iraq war, "the manufacture of cluster munitions, globalization and the government's expansion of biodefense research at Fort Detrick." The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, which has been acting for some of those spied on, commented that records made public so far reveal the "infiltration of activist meetings, dossiers on activists’ political affiliations ... and more spying on individuals who have never committed any crime and were never suspected of committing any crimes."

The Associated Press recently conducted a study of news consumption by young people which found that participants "showed signs of news fatigue; that is, they appeared debilitated by information overload and unsatisfying news experiences. ... Ultimately news fatigue brought many of the participants to a learned helplessness response. The more overwhelmed or unsatisfied they were, the less effort they were willing to put in." News nowadays, observes Bree Nordenson, "finds us in airport lounges and taxicabs, on our smart phones and PDAs, through e-mail providers and Internet search engines. ...Edward Hallowell, a Boston-area psychiatrist, believes many of us suffer from what he calls an attention-deficit trait, a culturally induced form of attention-deficit disorder." In an environment where people are bombarded with more information than they can possibly absorb, she argues, journalism needs to reinvent itself, not as the place where people simply obtain information, but as a source of "people to assimilate, understand, and make sense of it. ... The most valuable journalism is the kind that explains."

Analyst Meg White examines the "blitzkrieg of fear mongering and misinformation" being whipped up against President-elect Barack Obama. "One phalanx in the fight belongs to Grassfire.org. ... Grassfire sent out an e-mail designed to scare people into joining its 'army that is ready to take on Obama's agenda.' ... The e-mail lists nine 'threats to our liberties' presented by the incoming administration. The common thread through all of these threats is alarmism. ... Grassfire is anything but grassroots. The 501(c)4 is listed as a front group on the (SourceWatch) site, and SourceWatch notes that public relations for Grassfire are handled by Shirley & Banister Public Affairs, whose president, Craig Shirley, was part of the team that created the infamous Willie Horton ad. Shirley and Banister represent like-minded clients such as Ann Coulter, the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, and the National Rifle Association. Grassfire is one of many groups amassing armies to fight everything Obama tries to do, no matter where it falls on the political spectrum."

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is working to relax air quality rules and make it easier to build coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and other pollution-emitting enterprises near national parks and wilderness areas, even though half of the EPA's ten regional administrators have formally opposed the plan. The push to weaken the Clean Air Act involves changing the method used to measure air pollution near national parks so that pollution is averaged over much longer periods, effectively diluting large spikes and protecting polluters from violating the law. Mark Wenzler, who directs clean-air programs for the National Parks Conservation Association, remarked that "The Bush administration's staunch commitment to coal is so deep that they're willing to sacrifice our national parks on the way out the door." Jeffrey R. Holmstead, who served as chief of EPA's air and radiation office, helped initiate the change. Holmstead has since left EPA and now works at the power industry legal and lobbying firm Bracewell & Giuliani.

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Science reporting "is more and more the direct product of PR shops," according to Charles Petit, a veteran science reporter who runs MIT’s online Knight Science Journalism Tracker. Petit says information spoon-fed to reporters through news releases has "become a powerful subversive tool eroding the chance that reporters will craft their own stories." Cristine Russell reports that "institutional news offices from universities, government research agencies, and corporations are putting out large press packages that provide well-written press releases, graphics, and even video in a form that can be used directly by news outlets that are hungry for stories but lack the resources, time, and/or experience to do more thorough reporting. ... Institutional publicity operations are becoming more sophisticated at the same time that newsrooms are decimating the ranks of fulltime specialty science staff." Petit cited examples of clever press releases that have been recycled into news stories, such as a recent University of Utah press release titled “Living fossils have hot sex," which made its way into stories by Reuters, New Scientist, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.