"Future generations may look back on this as the Century of the Spokesperson," comments Washington Post reporter Linton Weeks. "The Mouthpiece Millennium. The Night of the Living Flacks. Only a year and half into the 2000s and already we've seen: Marina Ein for Rep. Gary Condit and lawyer Billy Martin for Chandra Levy's family. Elizabeth Quigley for the family of confessed child-drowner Andrea Yates. William Shatner for Priceline.com. Cheryl Ladd for Presbyopia Awareness Month. And Tiger Woods for everything else."

Anxious to avoid another public relations calamity, the Italian government has agreed to allow a parliamentary inquiry into the horrific police violence that injured 240 protesters during recent globalization talks in Genoa. The violence included the secret torture of arrestees in police cells. "I heard my ribs break, like snapping matchsticks. I thought, my God, this is it, I'm going to die," said Mark Covell, one of the journalists injured when police attacked the school where he was staying. Splinters of rib punctured his left lung; 10 teeth fell from his mouth. Blood obscured Covell's view as the police charged past him and he collapsed. "The last thing I heard was a lot of screaming. Then I lost consciousness."

Coca-Cola, which was ranked as the world's most valuable brand for the third straight year by Omnicom Group's Interbrand unit, apparently has seen little harm to its brand reputation from a recent lawsuit for human rights abuses. The Corporate Crime Reporter writes that the United Steel Workers Union and the International Labor Rights Fund filed suit against Coke and Panamerican Beverages Inc. in federal court in mid-July. The case was initiated by Sinaltrainal, a trade union that represents Coca-Cola workers in Columbia. Sinaltrainal says that Coke maintains open relations with death squads which have been responsible for the murder of union leaders as part of a program of intimidation. Meanwhile, when asked how to minimize negative PR resulting from being associated with the Beijing Olympics, Coke PR manager for global sports Kelly Brooks told PR Week, "I think it's important to remind people that business and politics have distinctly different aims. ... The only role I can imagine for Coca-Cola in helping to minimize negative publicity about China is to tell our own story -- that we have been operating there successfully for more than 20 years and have built strong and treasured relationships with the Chinese people."

The Wall Street Journal reports that Yahoo and Sony have signed a multi-year pact to cross promote each other's products. They will also develop a "co-branded" website called "Sony on My Yahoo," which will be the default page for Sony's internet-access service, Sony Style Connect. No financial details about the deal have been released.