"War," observed German general Karl von Clausewitz, "is the continuation of politics by other means." In today's world, however, military theorists use the term "fourth generation warfare" to describe the growing tendency for war itself to be waged "by other means." Terrorism is one example of 4GW, in which "war and peace blur and intermingle, decisive wars are fought with little or no armed conflict, and operations on the moral and mental battlegrounds determine victor and vanquished." Defense and the National Interest, a web site whose contributors are mostly current or former military officers, provides an overview and a number of thought-provoking essays about the social, political and technological changes that are driving this trend.

"Hollywood is churning out one war flic after another," notes Bill Berkovitz. "VH-1 recently premiered 'Military Diaries,' a first person POV series on life in the military; Country-Western stars are popularizing 'kick ass' patriotic songs; Iran/Contragate figure, Oliver North, is hosting 'War Stories' on the Fox News Channel. Welcome to America's escalating militarization -- designed by the Bush administration, in cahoots with defense contractors, and aided and abetted by America's culture mavens." Now the U.S. Army is getting in on the action with a new "America's Army" videogame paid for by $6.3 million in taxpayer dollars.

Canada's Liberal government in British Columbia has fired its entire communications division - 300 unionized civil servants - and replaced them with 180 non-union political appointees in order to ensure that government information providers are "committed to the goals of the Liberal administration." Union president George Heyman says Premier Gordon Campbell is "using reorganization as an excuse to lay off workers and replace them with political hacks. If the premier wants partisan spin doctors instead of communications professionals, then the Liberal Party of B.C. should foot the bill, not taxpayers."

Shortly after George W. Bush was selected president, the Onion joked that "our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is over." Now Bush is making the same joke himself and using it as an excuse for breaking his campaign pledge to avoid defecit spending. "You know, when I was running for president, in Chicago, somebody said, would you ever have deficit spending?" Bush says. "I said, only if we were at war, or only if we had a recession, or only if we had a national emergency. Never did I dream we'd get the trifecta." But as MSNBC's David Neiwert points out, Bush's favorite joke about 9/11 is not only in bad taste, it's a lie.

Someone who calls himself "Fred Curran" has been creating "parody" websites attacking environmental groups including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Pure Food Campaign. Curran's parodies, at greenpiece.org, earthfiends.org and purefoods.org, say that Greenpeace "has no credibility," FoE is supported by "thousands of suckers," and the Pure Food Campaign is a "propaganda machine" running an "organic con game." But what about the credibility of "Fred Curran"? His domain name registration lists his address as 1800 M St NW, Washington, DC, which happens to be the address of a U.S. Post Office station and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Curran lists his phone number as 202-728-7510, which rings at the office of SpiralHeart, "a non-profit organization dedicated to providing education & training in the Reclaiming Tradition style of Witchcraft." Have we got a witch at the USDA, or is Curran using a fake name, a fake address and a fake phone number? If there's a whistleblower out there who would like to expose his real identity, contact editor@prwatch.org.

Martha Stewart's involvement in insider trading allegations may finally ring in corporate reforms, according to Kevin McCauley at O'Dwyer's PR Daily. "The names of Dennis Kozlowski (Tyco), Bernie Ebbers (WorldCom), John Rigas (Adelphia Communications), Dave Komansky (Merrill Lynch) and Gary Winnick (Global Crossing) don't ring a bell to those who skip the financial pages when reading their morning papers," McCauley writes. "Martha Stewart. Ding dong. That's a bell-ringer. ... Her high name or brand recognition is why Martha will deserve credit, if reforms are made to restore credibility in the financial markets."

"We've believed from the start that the perception of these negative items has been overstated," PR Week reports WorldCom CEO John Sidgmore telling shareholders at the company's June 14 annual meeting. "We must convince customers, employees, and investors of that fact." Sidgmore, who took the CEO job in April, was referring to WorldCom's growing debts, stock price plunge, and recent layoffs. But less than two weeks later, the Wall Street Journal reports that WorldCom may have on its hands "what could be one of the largest accounting frauds in history, with the discovery of $3.8 billion in expenses improperly booked as capital expenditures." It's unclear whether WorldCom's "new commitment to PR," which included "a major customer tour and investment road show," will continue as planned.

"Greenpeace, which is urging a boycott of ExxonMobil because of its anti-global warming treaty stance, has been sued by the energy giant in France for trademark infringement. That has provided a rich PR opportunity for the media savvy environmental group," O'Dwyer's PR reports. Greenpeace altered the Esso logo by replacing the "ss" with dollar signs. ExxonMobil says that the Greenpeace-altered logo resembles the insignia of the elite Nazi SS army and that it is a "repulsion." According to O'Dwyer's, ExxonMobil fears the E$$O logo "will drive consumers away from its brand."

"I have seldom been lied to so blatantly in my life," Amit Pal, editor of the Progressive Media Project, writes from Egypt. "On June 20, we had a lunch meeting with Nabil Osman, who is the chairman of the State Information Service here. He assured us that censorship was a relic of the past in this country, having disappeared after the 1970s, and that the press was free to criticize anything or anyone, including the president. The interior minister Habib Al Adly had, in a slip of tongue that morning, told us that the government could tell the press what to put in but couldn't tell the press what to take out." Pal is posting reports from his three-week trip in the Middle East and Central Asia. He writes from Saudi Arabia, "The U.S. and the Saudi P.R. machines attacked us in tandem. At a meeting with the American Business Group of Riyadh (with representatives of Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Bechtel present), one corporate executive (we were asked not to reveal specific names) told me, 'Saudis do not want democracy. It's not in the Saudis' best interests. They do things by consensus here.'"

The Canadian government, working closely with the biotech industry, is spending millions getting Canadians to accept genetically modified foods. Lyle Stewart describes the "spider's web of influence" that brings together the biotech and agri-food industries, large grocery distributors, the Hill & Knowlton PR firm, and industry-created front groups such as the Food Biotechnology Communications Network, and co-opted NGOs including the Consumers' Association of Canada.

"Phony earnings, inflated revenues, conflicted Wall Street analysts, directors asleep at the switch--this isn't just a few bad apples we're talking about here," writes Fortune magazine. "This, my friends, is a systemic breakdown. Nearly every known check on corporate behavior--moral, regulatory, you name it--fell by the wayside, replaced by the stupendous greed that marked the end of the bubble. And that has created a crisis of investor confidence the likes of which hasn't been seen since--well, since the Great Depression." And the crisis hasn't even peaked yet. According to the June 24 Holmes Report, a PR industry newsletter, "A majority of top corporate ethics officers predict at least a half dozen more major business ethics scandals will break during the next 12 months, and some of these executives expect more than 20 such cases."

"The Union of Myanmar, which is ruled by a ruthless military junta, has retained Washington, D.C.-based DCI Assocs. to improve its relationship with the U.S.," trade publication O'Dwyer's PR writes. "DCI is to brief members of the Bush Administration and Congress that the former Burma is now committed to democracy and human rights. It also wants to be considered a foot soldier in President Bush's so-called 'war on terror.' DCI received a $100,000 retainer from Myanmar in early April, which will cover work through July 15. It will then bill Myanmar $35K a month. ... DCI has been retained by Myanmar's State Peace & Development Council."

"During the 2000 election campaign, George W. Bush was able to get away with the nonsensical claim that private accounts would not only yield high, low-risk returns, but save Social Security at the same time. For whatever reason, few reporters pointed out that he was claiming that 2-1=4," notes New York Times economist Paul Krugman. "But when it came time to produce concrete plans, the arithmetic could no longer be avoided. Sure enough, the plans laid out by Mr. Bush's Commission to Strengthen Social Security, though presented as confusingly as possible, involve both severe benefit cuts and huge 'magic asterisks,' infusions of trillions of dollars from an undisclosed location. ... As the facts about Social Security privatization gradually emerge, the general strategy of the privatizers seems to be to keep the public confused as long as possible."

"Security guards, secret guest lists and silent sponsors were not what some participants were expecting when they turned up at a meeting in Sydney earlier this year to discuss new medicines. Billed as a 'Collaborative Forum' at the University of NSW, the invitation had been signed by three medical groups including Arthritis Australia. Academic kudos for the forum was provided by a major report prepared by the University of Canberra. What was missing from the invitation, the conference papers, the academic report and the high-profile media coverage was the name of a key sponsor who had helped orchestrate and fund the whole affair: Wyeth, the United States-based pharmaceutical giant," the Australian Financial Review writes. "The 'public' meeting and its accompanying report have subsequently formed part of a major campaign to have expensive new medicines more readily subsidised on the publicly funded $4.7billion Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.One of those medicines is Wyeth's rheumatoid arthritis therapy Enbrel, which, while effective, has a price tag of almost $20,000 per patient per year."

Entegra Corporation, a "provider of reputation risk management software," sponsors a daily email bulletin called "Today's Reputation Briefs" -- news items about "TODAY'S highly publicized issues and incidents that could affect your organization's reputation TOMORROW." To subscribe, send an email to subscribe@entegracorp.com.

During the recent meeting of the US Conference of Mayors, DuPont received special attention as a partner with the mayors in Cities United for Science Progress (CUSP). According to CUSP chair Orlando Mayor Glenda Hood, "CUSP blends financial support and scientific know how from DuPont with our community leadership to make our communities smarter, safer, and more secure." What is not mentioned is how DuPont has for decades knowingly manufactured dangerous products that now contaminate cities and has worked to undermine independent scientific inquiry and public policy when it runs contrary to DuPontis profits. CUSP's "Lead Safe ... for Kids' Sake" grant program awards a total of $500,000 from DuPont to four cities to help promote lead-safe neighborhoods.

A new study by Fairness and Accuracy in Media (FAIR) shows that 92 percent of all U.S. sources interviewed on the nightly network news in 2001 were white, 85 percent were male and, where party affiliation was identifiable, 75 percent were Republican. Big business, too, was overrepresented. In a year in which the country lost 2.4 million jobs, corporate representatives appeared about 35 times more frequently than did union representatives.

The Centers for Disease Control launch a $125 million advertising and PR campaign to encourage children to be more physically active. In an apparent effort to counter the dramatic increase in childhood obesity, the CDC begins airing paid advertising on TV and radio aimed at 9-to-13-year-olds. According to Ad Age, CDC decided to focus specifically on increasing physical activity and to not address another factor that contributes to childhood obesity, diet. The Publicis Group's Saatchi & Saatchi created the 15-second spot. Ad Age reports Saatchi has prior experience in marketing to children, handling several General Mills brands like Fruit Roll Ups and Go-Gurt. Publicis' Frankel, who also works for McDonald's, will handle promotional activities. CDC will use sponsorship of television shows on Nickelodeon and MTV to promote its "positive lifestyle" campaign. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports that food and beverage companies, "fearing they may be held responsible for the nation's expanding waistiline, ... are going on the defensive" through PR gestures such as giving exercise equipment to schools, while simultaneously lobbying vigorously against tax measures and labeling that would discourage consumption of high-fat foods.

"From a ground-floor office in a nondescript building in Washington, the US government's newest radio station is sending a message to the Arab world. ... This is the sound of three-month old Radio Sawa: 85 percent pop music, 15 percent government-generated news, slickly packaged with market research in hand. To counteract the anti-American diatribes on the Middle East's airwaves, a senior American radio executive has persuaded Congress to use the simple syntax of the young and lovelorn to sell the US to the youth of the Arab world. ... Norman J. Pattiz, chief executive of Westwood One, the largest radio company in the US, and chairman of the Mideast subcommittee of the US government's Broadcasting Board of Governors, has been the moving force behind Radio Sawa. ... He sees Radio Sawa as 'the future of the Voice of America,' the prototype for future government radio - and perhaps, eventually, television - broadcasts. The Voice of America's previous Arabic-language programming, which had been broadcast on shortwave, has been canceled; almost all the Arabic-language news staff has been dispatched to work at Radio Sawa."

"Despite the colder realities of the business, the gun industry packages firearms in the sepia tint of nostalgia, conjuring up the Western frontier, fathers and sons hunting at the turn of the century, and grand moments of martial history," writes Tom Diaz of the Violence Policy Center. "For decades, the gun industry has portrayed itself in this way as a repository and guardian of fundamental U.S. cultural values. Indeed it is difficult to think of another industry -- with the possible exception of professional sports -- that has so successfully transformed its image from profit-making business to national institution. But however grandly the gun industry may portray itself, the plain truth remains that the gun industry is simply a business ... scrapping over profit, not who gets the most credit for preserving 'heritage.'"

"Fast food companies including McDonald's and Coca-Cola are helping to fund a multimillion pound advertising campaign urging Americans to eat more healthily," reports the Guardian. Burger King, Heinz, Kelloggs, Kraft, Nestle, Pepsi, Procter & Gamble, Monsanto, and Unilever Bestfoods are also funding the $2.4 million campaign, code-named "Activate."

"I accuse the media in the United States of treason," says a State Department official in a Washington Post opinion piece. Dennis Pluchinsky, a senior intelligence analyst with the Diplomatic Security Service in the U.S. Department of State, goes on to propose that the American press be censored in its coverage of the war on terrorism. "If there were an 'Osama bin Laden' award given out by al Qaeda, I believe that it would be awarded to the U.S news media for their investigative reporting," he says. "This type of reporting -- carrying specifics about U.S. vulnerabilities -- must be stopped or censored. ... During World War II, there was a security slogan that went: 'Loose lips sinks ships.' Maybe the current security slogan should be: 'Prolific pens propagate terrorist plots.' The president and Congress should pass laws temporarily restricting the media from publishing any security information that can be used by our enemies."

Radio stations won't let environmentalists at the Sierra Club run a radio ad urging the US car industry to build more fuel efficient cars. The ad spot specifically names Bill Ford Jr. of Ford Motor Company, an executive who excels at greenwashing his company with rhetoric, while failing to 'walk the walk.' Ford gives lip service to fuel efficiency, but staunchly opposes laws that would require it. Radio stations doing business with Ford and running its car ads are refusing to run the Sierra Club's radio spot. The New York Times reports that "The Sierra Club intended to start running the radio spot in Detroit yesterday as well as Washington but has not yet found a local station willing to play the ad. 'We felt it was inappropriate for the Sierra Club to single out an individual and attack an individual in the ad,' said Rich Homberg, general manager of WWJ, a local news station owned by Viacom. Ford has been one of the station's advertisers, but Mr. Homberg said the decision was made on the merits of the ad. 'Singling out the C.E.O. of a major automaker, especially one who was in the forefront of the issue, seems inappropriate,' he said. 'We're one of the stations that sets the standard for journalism in this community. We didn't make this call lightly.' "

The news media is generally failing to report the historic verdict against the FBI in the 1990 bombing of non-violent environmental activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney. That would not surprise Judi, were she alive today. In her book Timber Wars she described how the news media eagerly parroted the FBI's lies and deception, casting Bari and fellow bomb victim Cherney as terrorists. "The news quickly went national, with newspapers across the country screaming about Earth First!ers carrying bombs. It was the only time we ever made the front page of the New York Times. The press ate up the police lies with a big spoon, instantly convicting us in their stories. ... 'Earth First! leaders hurt in a pipe bomb explosion have no one but themselves to blame for their injuries,' smirked the blow-dried talking heads on the TV news. This really hurt Earth First!'s image on a national scale." Meanwhile, Collin Levey of the Wall Street Journal opines today that "bomb or no bomb, folks like Bari and Mr. Cherney are the intellectual godparents" of eco-terrorism, in a mocking column headlined "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? An environmental extremist wins big bucks from the FBI."

"What's good for big business is good for the earth," proclaims the EarthSummit.biz web site, which is spoofing corporate greenwashing in the buildup to the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, scheduled for August of this year. EarthSummit.biz is accepting nominations for "Green Oscars" -- "the world's premiere awards for those acting green" -- to "dramatize the lack of real progress by the world's governments at two Earth Summits in holding corporations accountable for their environmental and social behavior."

"Greed and corruption have always lingered at the edges of Corporate America, from Civil War profiteers to inside-trading scandals of the '80s," observes Gary Strauss in USA Today. "Yet the new millennium has ushered in a wave of fraud, corporate malfeasance, investment scams, ethical lapses and conflicts of interest unprecedented in scope." Not coincidentally, more and more corporations are issuing feel-good reports about their achievements in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR). According to the KPMG accounting firm, the number of U.S. companies issuing reports on environmental and social issues has risen 14 percent in the past three years. "As the demand grows for corporate accountability and responsible behavior, many U.S. companies realize they must share their values - as well as their value - with their stakeholders," explains KPMG's Michael Radcliffe. According to Echo Research, an international reputation research firm, there is "an increased effort to manage CSR effectively and a greater and more positive profile in the media as a result." There is even a PR wire service, CSRWire.com, devoted exclusively to issuing news releases about corporate social responsibility.

A federal jury has awarded $4.4 million to Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney, two Earth First! activists who accused the FBI and the Oakland, CA, police of framing them for a 1990 bomb blast that severely injured them. Who really blew up their car? What was Hill and Knowlton PR's role in smearing Earth First! as eco-terrorists? Before Judi Bari died in 1997, she wrote about the bombing, the frame-up and the smear campaign in her book, Timber Wars. "It blew right through my car seat, shattering my pelvis, crushing my lower backbone ... The man in charge of my case was Richard Held, director of the San Francisco FBI office. Held has a 25-year history as one of the principal operatives of COINTELPRO. He was personally involved in the framing of [Black Panther and American Indian Movement leaders]. I cannot describe the cold terror of waking up in the hospital, crippled for life, and finding out that Richard Held was accusing me of blowing myself up with my own bomb."

The corporate media pay little attention to the growing grassroots movement seeking to do something about corporate power and propaganda run amok. All over the US groups of citizens are organizing meetings, discussions, conferences, protests, websites, initiative campaigns and other efforts focused on a common problem: corporate power's subversion of American democracy. The Democracy Revitalization Project is hosting its inaugural conference in Duluth, Minnesota, July 28 - 30. John Stauber of PR Watch is one of the presenters along with citizen activists, writers and academics including David Korten, Marjorie Kelly, John de Graaf, John Nichols, Monika Bauerlein, Ronnie Cummins, Mary Bottari and many others.

The stunning outbreak of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in Wisconsin's wild herd of one and a half million white tail deer is finally drawing some serious US media attention to mad cow-type risks in the US. A rural Wisconsinite, Jay Newman, was so upset by developments and the lack of information for average citizens that he launched a website that now provides the most timely information available. It's a great example of how an average concerned citizen can use the web to make a real media difference on a critical breaking issue. The mad deer epidemic is a national crisis revealing the failure of the US government to adequately prevent mad cow-type epidemics in the US, as we explain in Mad Cow USA. The Maddeer.org website publicizes important information that state governments would rather downplay or deny, such as the possible risks to humans from mad deer disease.

Republicans are largely sticking to their plan to partially privatize Social Security. "When it comes to style, though, Republicans are running from the term 'privatization' as fast as they can," notes Ben Fritz.

As we report in our book Trust Us, We're Experts, 'peer review' is a process "in which panels of experts are convened to pass judgement on the work of other researchers. ... In theory, the process of peer review offers protection against scientific errors and bias. In reality, it has proven incapable of filtering out the influence of governmental and corporate funders, whose biases often affect research outcome." Lawrence K. Altman examined the issue in the aftermath of a recent meeting and "the news was grim. Researchers reported considerable evidence that many statistical and methodological errors were common in published papers and that authors often failed to discuss the limitations of their findings. Even the press releases that journals issue to steer journalists to report peer reviewed papers often exaggerate the perceived importance of findings and fail to highlight important caveats and conflicts of interest."

Ragnar Rylander, a respected Swedish scientist, has been doing research on the connections between environmental tobacco smoke and lung disease, research that has been secretly funded by the tobacco company Philip Morris. Rylander has been accused of manipulating his studies to suit tobacco interests, and of thus partaking in a "scientific fraud without precedent."

"The Pentagon has made a decision that threatens to keep the American public and Congress in the dark about how things are going with the Bush administration's high-priority missile defense program," says Philip E. Coyle III, a former U.S. assistant secretary of defense. "Equally disturbing," he adds, is the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency "new policy of withholding information from the Pentagon's own independent review offices, such as the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation. If independent review of testing progress is stifled, the Pentagon itself will be unable to make reasonable judgments about the program's viability."

Gary Winnick, the Global Crossing founder/chairman who is trying to raise $1 billion to rescue his once-mighty company from bankruptcy, has hired Rubenstein and Associates, the PR firm that specializes in "reputation management" for clients such as Rupert Murdoch, Donald Trump, Leona Helmsley, Adnan Khashoggi, Kathie Lee Gifford and the state of Israel. Rubenstein replaces Sitrick & Co., which is currently working to buff the image of the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles in the wake of the pedophile-priests scandal.

"CEOs, once admired as the bastion of ethical leadership, are today in decline and disgrace," writes PR counselor Fraser Seitel. "The unmistakable conclusion from the spate of recent damning disclosures is that the 'credible CEO,' like the 'trusted Catholic priest' or the 'entertaining Woody Allen movie,' is an endangered species." Seitel explains why faith in CEOs is at "an all time low" by pointing to examples of "the CEO species that cheats, swindles, steals or embezzles" including Tyco International's Dennis Kozlowski; Alfred Taubman, the billionaire former owner of the Sotheby's auction house; Adelphia Communications CEO John J. Rigas; and, of course, Enron's Ken Lay.

The growing US epidemic of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), the 'mad deer disease' that has begun a massive shooting of over 15,000 deer in Wisconsin to try to stop its spread, is finally drawing some excellent journalistic coverage to the threat of mad cow-type diseases in the US. Ever since Oprah Winfrey was sued for the "food disparagement" crime of examining US mad cow risks, the US media has been cowed into giving very little attention to this very serious disease issue. The spread of 'mad deer disease' is changing that. The Rocky Mountain News last week ran an excellent series on the issue, and today is editorializing about the need for state agencies to admit the possibility that mad deer disease might claim human lives, and to warn hunters and venison consumers appropriately. "Unlike mad cow disease, CWD is spread from animal to animal in nature, and perhaps through something as simple as nose-to-nose contact. So imagine if CWD did jump the species barrier into humans, and that the new version of the disease turned out to be as contagious as it is among deer. We're dealing with something that science at the moment simply doesn't fully understand. Total honesty with the public is the only responsible way to proceed."

"A series of revelations of corporate malpractice and number fiddling" have destroyed investor faith in Wall Street, reports the Economist. "Investors have not only lost patience with corporate America's greed and its inability to do what it says it is doing; they have also lost confidence in Wall Street's ability to act as an honest broker between them, the providers of capital, and the corporate users of it. 'There is an air of cynicism surrounding every institution that underpins our capital markets,' says Stanley O'Neal, co-head of Merrill Lynch, an investment bank that recently paid $100 million to settle a lawsuit over the integrity of its analysts when the Internet hype was at its peak."

Ben Fritz of Spinsanity.org analyzes the rhetoric in a recent New York Post column by John Podhoretz, who "frames the entire debate ... as a crude either-or proposition: we're either fighting ourselves or we're fighting the terrorists. ... Podhoretz would do well to remember, however, that questioning the performance of our government is not an act of treason. It's part of the process of open debate that is central to American democracy."

Tom Fox, publisher of the National Catholic Reporter, explains why it took more than a decade before journalists exposed the Catholic priest sex scandal. "We were seeing cases of this pedophilia stuff in a number of dioceses in a number of cities," Fox says. "The secular press wouldn't touch it because they didn't want to be seen as anti-Catholic, and the Catholic [press] wouldn't touch it because they weren't independent."

The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (ADTI), a libertarian think tank that gets part of its funding from Microsoft, has issued a new white paper that seems calculated to tell computer buyers, "If you are not with Microsoft, you are with the terrorists." Some government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Defense, are considering moving away from Microsoft's proprietary products toward open source operating software such as Linux. In a news release, the ADTI says, "Terrorists trying to hack or disrupt U.S. computer networks might find it easier if the federal government attempts to switch to 'open source' as some groups propose." This argument has drawn contempt from computer geek Thomas Greene, who points out that "the most significant holes, worms and viruses affect only Microsoft products." (Ironically, the ADTI website itself uses open-source Apache software.)

Maryland Public Television has hired PR crisis manager Levi Rabinowitz in an attempt to counteract the bad press it has gotten for firing Louis Rukeyser from its program, Wall Street Week. According to the Baltimore Sun's David Folkenflik, hiring Rabinowitz -- whose past clients have included "Linda Tripp, a promoter of questionable cancer cures and the owner of a South Baltimore factory where Legionnaires' disease broke out" -- is best known around The Sun newsroom "for writing overwrought press releases and solicitous e-mails, while trying to glean tidbits of intelligence for clients." On one occasion, "Rabinowitz pitched a story to an editor on The Sun's business staff about a rising entrepreneur who sold his company to Microsoft. An article was assigned and published by The Sun - but many key facts proved to be lies or exaggerations, forcing the paper to write another article acknowledging the first one's shortcomings. As another consequence, The Sun's business reporters have been told to disregard any story pitches from Rabinowitz."

The Fleishman Hillard PR firm secretly tape-recorded the sessions of an anti-tobacco group as part of an effort in the 1990s by the tobacco industry to get materials about public health groups under false pretenses, according to a report in the June issue of the American Journal of Public Health. The Burson-Marsteller PR firm also participated in the spy operation for long-time client Philip Morris, while the Benchmark Research Group conducted a "major intelligence report" for R.J. Reynolds. Other tobacco PR strategies included publicly minimizing the effects of boycotts, painting health advocates as "extreme," identifying and exploiting disagreements, and planning to "redirect the funding" of tobacco control organizations to other purposes.

Tompaine.com has run an opinion page advertisement in the New York Times decrying the FBI's recent PR campaign to improve its image in the wake of now public disclosures that it dropped the ball in regard to the 9/11 terrorist attacks: "Americans are entitled to a full accounting of the problems at FBI headquarters -- Who is responsible? Who will be held accountable? Using public relations tactics to change the subject and to defuse the political consequences short-circuits needed reforms and does the nation a disservice."

Dave Itzkoff has written a confessional based on his two and a half years editing Maxim, one of the so-called "lad magazines" that cater to male interest in topics like beer, sex and gadgets. Itzkoff describes the magazine's formula as "unrealistically retouched photographs, patently invented pillow talk, obvious editorial concessions to advertisers and a pervasively smug attitude. ... We didn't do issue-oriented news features or authoritative first-person narratives, and hadn't published a proper profile in almost a year -- all hallmarks of basic magazine journalism. In fact, aside from the monthly true crime feature, we wouldn't run more than 1500 continuous words anywhere, as if our readers might be insulted if we asked them to, y'know, read. What we specialized in were headlines whose promises weren't quite fulfilled by the accompanying articles, boxes of text cropped to the point where they couldn't possibly convey any information and, by design, gratuitous girlie pix everywhere, at the rate of one every five or six pages. ... Now, belatedly, I understand the dilemma its success has raised, one that cuts right to the heart of this industry: Is a magazine supposed to engage, enlighten and edify its readers, or is it only intended to distract them as they flip from one advertisement to the next?"

New studies in the Journal of the American Medical Association have found problems in medical journals involving biases and conflicts of interest. Other problems originate in news releases put out by the journals themselves, which routinely fail to mention study limitations or industry funding and may exaggerate the importance of findings. Dr. Lisa Schwartz, the author of one of the studies, says part of the problem is journalists who are too quick to publish stories based on preliminary scientific work in progress, which may only involve small numbers of human subjects or be based solely on animal or laboratory studies.

"In an extraordinarily secretive maneuver, the Bush administration has subtly altered its position on global warming, officially admitting that there is a crisis while still declining to offer policies to combat it," reports the Guardian. "A government report to the UN says that global warming exists, that it is man-made, and that it will transform the environment - all points that the current US government, while never actually denying, has been reluctant to accept. However, the report suggests that the country will have to accept the changes, rather than take any action to try to avert them." The new position was posted last week on the EPA's website, but no press release was issued, and its existence only became widely known on June 3. According to the New York Times, the EPA report predicts effects in the U.S. including "disruption of snow-fed water supplies, more stifling heat waves and the permanent disappearance of Rocky Mountain meadows and coastal marshes." Conservative pundits like Rush Limbaugh joined industry-backed global warming skeptics like TechCentralStation in calling on Bush to "Say it ain't so, George." Kalee Kreider, global warming campaign director of the National Environmental Trust, had a different take. "It's good they've done a 180-degree turn on the science. Given the audience, they pretty much had to," Kreider said. "But we're still waiting for a plan that mandates pollution cuts." Bush himself tried to have it both ways, dismissing the report issued under his own administration as something "put out by the bureaucracy."

It's official: Bill Maher's TV show has been cancelled. Maher's program, Politically Incorrect, came under attack when Maher made allegedly "unpatriotic" remarks in the aftermath of September 11. But Matthew Nisbit points out that there's more to the story: Maher has been replaced by comedian Jimmy Kimmel, whose show appeals to young males with what it calls "a half-hour of joyous chauvinism ... each variety-style episode contains a whole truckload of man-fun. ... It's all the stuff you see on beer commercials. And every show ends with girls on trampolines."

"The similarities between what is shaping up to be the food wars and the tobacco wars are obvious: The food industry is accused of being a major contributor to a public-health crisis in much the same way as the tobacco manufacturers have for decades now," observes PR Week. "What is not so obvious is what PR tactics and lessons the food industry will borrow from the tobacco companies this time around." Indeed, tobacco lobbyist Rick Berman's Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) is cited in the piece as "the industry's main lobbying group" which "seems to be in a 'give no ground' mode that is reminiscent of the early days of Big Tobacco's fight." CCF's Mike Burita opposes nutritional labeling of restaurant foods, claiming that it would somehow interfere with consumers' right to choose what they eat. Asking the industry to put warning labels on foods, Burita says, "is like asking car manufacturers to place warnings that driving 80 miles per hour is very dangerous." (Apparently Burita has never noticed that streets and highways do post speed limits.) Tom Lauria, the former tobacco industry flack who went on subsequently to work for Berman, is also quoted in the piece, advising that food companies should, in the words of PR Week, "take some cues from Big Tobacco, and maintain a united front as the attacks heat up."

"To fabricate an alibi for his nonfeasance, and to cover up his department's embarrassing cut of the counterterrorism budget last year, Attorney General John Ashcroft - working with his hand-picked aide, F.B.I. Director 'J. Edgar' Mueller III - has gutted guidelines put in place a generation ago to prevent the abuse of police power by the federal government," writes conservative pundit William Safire. Mueller's nonfeasance is detailed with dry wit in a bombshell whistleblower memo from Colleen Rowley, legal counsel for the FBI's Minneapolis field office, which arrested terrorist suspect Zaccarias Moussaoui and was desperately trying to alert the national FBI office to the terrorist threat in the weeks prior to September 11. According to Rowley, the FBI headquarter's pattern of false statements following September 11 suggests that "someone ... had decided to circle the wagons at FBI HQ in an apparent effort to protect the FBI from embarrassment and the relevant FBI officials from scrutiny." Jane Hall calls Mueller's recent mea culpa a "classic example of public relations 'crisis management.'" Boston Globe columnist Thomas Oliphant points out that Mueller's new position marks the director's third public position on the FBI's relationship to the tragedy, not exactly a credibility booster."

Former reporters for the Taliban news service describe how they were ordered to inflate figures of civilian casualties from the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan. Casualty estimates today still range from a low of 1,000 to a high of around 3,000. Some of the former Taliban reporters are still at work, now for the new government. Mohammed Ismail Qanay "keeps a photo of himself from his days as a reluctant co-conspirator in the Taliban's propaganda factory, when he was required to wear the tunic and pantaloons, a turban and a flowing beard. Qanay is now cleanshaven, bare-headed and wears a gray pinstripe suit. He still covers the war and its aftermath. His dispatches are edited, he said, but they are no longer distorted or entirely rewritten. 'The government is our boss, and the government still decides what the news is,' Qanay said. 'Our only orders are to try to tell the truth.'" (Of course, that's probably what he would have said when the Taliban was giving the orders.)

A "PR makeover," explains communications consultant Fraser P. Seitel, is when "a caged and cornered public figure attempts a complete identity reversal." Seitel examines recent makeover attempts by FBI Director Robert Mueller, Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, and New Jersey Senator Robert Torricelli. "Changing one's image depends on a shocking release, startling revelation or completely unanticipated declaration - to confess to past lapses and promise future change," Seitel says. But are any of these conversions genuine? "Just as words mean little if there is no follow through, so, too, actions are hollow if they are not long lasting," he observes. In the meantime, "Don't hold your breath."

As we explain in our book Mad Cow USA, on June 3, 1997, the Associated Press circulated an outrageously inaccurate story claiming falsely that the Food and Drug Administration had "banned the use of virtually all slaughtered-animal parts in US livestock feed." Well, it's deja vu all over again, as this false and misleading AP story was featured today, five years later, in an AP column titled 'Today in History.' In reality, the FDA regulations have allowed the continuing feeding of billions of pounds a year of slaughter house waste to livestock. As Consumers Union pointed out five years ago, "the FDA has left the door open for a mad cow-like disease to circulate in the United States. ... The epidemic in the UK involved ten years of bureaucrats ignoring the warnings of scientists and underestimating the seriousness of the risks. The FDA seems bent on repeating those mistakes." Of course with such lousy reporting and bad history lessons from the Associated Press, who would ever know?

As Wisconsin and other states face a growing epidemic of Chronic Wasting Disease, also dubbed the 'mad deer' epidemic, many outdoor writers, veterinarians and wildlife biologists are stumbling badly, dishing out inaccurate and potentially deadly human health advice regarding the risks of eating animals infected with this mad cow-like Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE). In the St. Paul Pioneer Press writer Chris Niskanen claims that "The World Health Organization reports no evidence that humans who consume deer that have the illness can contract CWD or any related illnesses." Actually, there is scientific evidence that 'mad deer' might infect humans, and what WHO has emphasized is that no part of any animal infected with any TSE disease, including CWD, should be consumed by a person or animal. Robert Shull, the director of the state of Wisconsin's Veterinary Diagnostics Lab says that "the hunting population has almost been whipped into a frenzy about the need for testing on their animals. If I shot what looked to be a healthy deer, would I eat it? You bet I would." Really? That's a bad idea. It is impossible to test a live deer for 'mad deer disease' and a healthy looking deer could very well be infected. The State of Wisconsin is desperate that hunters continue to kill deer and buy licenses to fund state conservation programs, but misrepresenting the dangers of eating venison and sausage from infected animals is reprehensible.

The race for profits is undermining quality journalism, according to panelists at the annual conference of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE). As publications cut spending and staffing levels in newsrooms, "Quick and cheap celebrity gossip, gruesome snippets on accidents and crimes, and fluffy features about cute pets usually drive out costly, complex reporting on politics and economics, creating the media equivalent of a sugary, junk-food diet," reports David Armstrong. According to Los Angeles Times editor John Carroll, newspapers were once viewed as a public trust partially exempt from the rules that govern other businesses but are now simply businesses, akin to selling widgets or pork bellies. "The very best public-service journalism is probably as good it's ever been, maybe better," Carroll said. "But it's being done by fewer and fewer papers."

Paul Hawken writes that McDonald's recent 'Report on Corporate Social Responsibility' is "a low- water mark for the concept of sustainability and the promise of corporate social responsibility. ... This is ... a report about how a corporation that's been severely stung by bad publicity, poor service and declining earnings now wants to plead its case to its critics. ... The McDonald's Social Responsibility Report presupposes that we can continue to have a global chain of restaurants that serves fried, sugary junk food produced by an agricultural system of monocultures, monopolies, standardization and destruction, and at the same time find a path to sustainability."