"The New York City Host Committee for the Republican National Convention has retained GCI Group to provide on-site media services for members of the press throughout the convention," PR trade publication the Holmes Report writes. "GCI Group will be working from the James A. Farley Building, which will house 10,000 members of the media during the convention. 'The advantage of having the media covering the convention in one location is that it allows the Host Committee to provide excellent services to the press,' said Host Committee president Kevin Sheekey.

"Conservative columnist Bob Novak has touted the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth book Unfit for Command without revealing that his son heads marketing and PR for its publisher," O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports. The New York Times writes that Novak has "lauded" the book in his syndicated columns and on CNN's 'Crossfire.' "Unmentioned in Mr. Novak's columns and television appearances, however, is a personal connection he has to the book: his son, Alex Novak, is the director of marketing for its publisher, the conservative publishing house Regnery," the Times writes.

The Swift Boat attack on Kerry uses a classic [third party] propaganda tactic: have PR professionals [such as Merrie Spaeth] organize and launch a well-funded smear attack, an ad hominem barrage against Kerry's integrity, and do it through a front group with enough separation from the Bush campaign to pretend independence. Then use the right-wing echo chamber to keep the issue alive and churning, spitting plenty of mud and confusion. It's a strategy that is virtually guaranteed to hurt Kerry in the polls.

Anglers on their way into the north woods of Wisconsin this Labor Day weekend won't be seeing one important message about the Bush administration's environmental record. This month Environment 2004 tried to place an advertisement on two billboards along a Wisconsin highway that declared, "Mercury. It's what's for dinner. Served up by the Bush Administration." The ads were refused by the billboard company, Lamar Advertising of Central Wisconsin.

"Don't expect to see the reverends Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson or Franklin Graham at the podium during next week's Republican National Convention, whose planners hope to keep fire, brimstone and the Christian Right offstage at Madison Square Garden. About the only big name Christians making prime-time noise at Madison Square Garden at next week's Republican gathering will be Third Day, a popular [pro-Bush] evangelical Christian rock band. .. . Some say the prominent role of Christian conservatives at the 1992 convention turned moderate voters away from the Republican ticket. This year, President Bush's campaign strategists have made extraordinary efforts to mobilize conservative evangelical and conservative Catholic voters -- hoping the president's stand against abortion rights and same-sex marriage will get them to the polls and into the Republican column. But the four-day convention that opens in New York on Monday will highlight moderate Republicans -- such as California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz."

The Daily Kos recently uncovered an astroturf (fake grassroots) initiative by the George W. Bush campaign, which generated ghostwritten letters to the editor that found their way into at least 60 newspapers. This isn't the first time that the Bush administration has tried this trick, as we've reported in the past. According to Editor and Publisher, however, the National Conference of Editorial Writers (NCEW) is now taking the issue seriously. "On its NCEW e-mail listserv, some 600 subscribers who are mostly editorial page writers and editors, can alert one another of suspicious letters," writes Charles Geraci. "In fact, this is the most consistent topic on the listserv." Meanwhile, the Columbia Journalism Review's Campaign Desk critiques the Washington Post's coverage of the topic, showing how an "obsession with 'even-handedness'" led the Post to falsely claim that the Kerry campaign is doing the same thing.

"A public relations firm with ties to the automobile industry has launched ads suggesting that a proposed California rule to cut carbon dioxide exhaust could cause more people to die in traffic accidents," the Los Angeles Times reports. "Starring 'Squeezy the Clown,' the radio and newspaper advertisements by the Sport Utility Vehicle Owners of America use humor to make a questionable claim: The regulation to combat global warming will compel auto companies to make smaller vehicles, forcing California families into diminutive cars and trucks that could endanger their lives. ... But SUV Owners of America is not a grass-roots organization. It is run by Strat@comm, a Washington, D.C., public relations firm whose clients have included General Motors, DaimlerChrysler and Ford, as well as the auto industry's two major trade groups."

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other civil rights leaders say the Republican Party is mounting a campaign to keep African-Americans and other minority voters away from the polls this November. "In recent years, many minority communities have tended to align with the Democratic Party," states a new report cosponsored by the NAACP and People for the American Way. "Over the past two decades, the Republican Party has launched a series of 'ballot security' and 'voter integrity' initiatives which have targeted minority communities. ...Voter intimidation is not a relic of the past, but a pervasive strategy used with disturbing frequency in recent years. Sustaining the bright promise of the civil rights era, and maintaining the dream of equal voting rights for every citizen requires constant vigilance, courageous leadership, and an active, committed and well-informed citizenry." (We've reported ourselves on efforts at voter suppression in our latest book, Banana Republicans: How the Right Wing Is Turning America Into a One-Party State.)

"I don't know what the news is from the rest of Iraq or even what's going on with the governor of Najaf," writes Chris Albritton, a freelance journalist who has been covering the fighting in Iraq. "I do know what's happening with the police department, however. They're raiding the Sea of Najaf hotel and rounding the 100 or so journalists at gunpoint and subjecting them to mass arrest." Albritton describes his recent experience, when police "raided the hotel and forced all the journalists out onto the street. We were terrified. The cops yelled at us and pointed their weapons toward us. Several large trucks were waiting and knew we would be loaded onto them. Then they started shooting. ... BANG BANG! They fired their weapons just over our heads forcing us to crouch." The reporters were hauled off to the police station, where they were treated to what Albritton describes as "the most bizarre press conference of my life." The police chief informed them that "The Shrine would be stormed tonight, ... and we would be allowed to get on a bus and go visit it tomorrow to see the damage the Mahdi Army had done to it. The Sistani protesters in Kufa were really Mahdi guys and they had to be killed. Oh, and thank you for coming." Albritton says the Najaf police are "like the old regime, only less disciplined. They're terrifying and they're the most dangerous element in this conflict. ... The police here have been engaging in a systematic intimidation of us for three weeks now. The governor of Najaf has reportedly threatened to jail journalists who don't write down exactly what he says when he says it in interviews."

Ludlow Music, a humor-challenged company that claimed to own the rights to Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land," has dropped its lawsuit against JibJab Media, the Web animators who adapted Guthrie's song to create a wildly popular parody of the U.S. presidential campaign.

While the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth may have a questionable grasp of the facts, it has been extraordinarily sophisticated in its manipulation of the media," observes the Columbia Journalism Review's Campaign Desk weblog. "To understand why this campaign has been hijacked by a small group of veterans bearing a thirty-year old grudge, it's worth examining the institutional susceptibilities of a campaign press corps that allowed the SBVFT's accusations to take on a life of their own. The SBVFT may have put themselves in the game, but it's a flawed media that made them stars. Campaign Desk has written many times about the perils of 'he said/she said' journalism, the practice of reporters parroting competing rhetoric instead of measuring it for veracity against known facts. In the wake of the first SBVFT spot early this month, cable news programs for the most part offered viewers two talking heads, one on each side of the issue, to debate the merits of the claims. Verifiable facts were rarely offered to viewers -- despite the fact that military records supporting Kerry's version of events were readily available. Instead of acting as filters for the truth, reporters nodded and attentively transcribed both sides of the story, invariably failing to provide context, background, or any sense of which claims held up and which were misleading. ... There have been dozens of press failures during this presidential campaign. But this one ... has to rank as a low point."

"Continuing a twenty-year trend that has seen advertising expenses skyrocket as traditional political party organizing has fallen by the wayside, the total for political ads this election year is estimated by most industry analysts at over $1.5 billion, $400 million of which will be spent by the presidential campaigns," report Sakura Saunders and Ben Clarke. "Over the last 24 years, broadcast TV advertising alone has increased from $90 million to over a $1 billion. At roughly the same pace that advertising revenue has grown, broadcast TV coverage of substantive electoral issues has dwindled. Network convention coverage, for example, has fallen from around 100 hours in 1980 to approximately 18 hours this year."

Last year we launched the Disinfopedia, a "wiki" website designed to mobilize hundreds of volunteers to help us investigate and expose front groups and propaganda campaigns. The Disinfopedia is an experiment in participatory investigative journalism, and the experiment seems to be succeeding. One recent example is the Disinfopedia listing for Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Not only is the Disinfopeda entry on the group extensive, up to date and well documented, it's being widely read by thousands daily and it appears at or near the top in Google. There will always be propaganda and deception, but Disinfopedia is proving a powerful tool for getting to the truth. We invite you to help us to research, edit and write the Disinfopedia; click here to learn how to get started.

Among the professions "less popular than journalism," notes Bill Hagerty, the "furtive world of public relations" is considered by many people to be "a black art, inferior only to child slave-trading or body-snatching." He cites a recent survey showing that British journalists hold PR people in especially low esteem. Nevertheless, he notes, "indications are that PR and publicists are becoming increasingly more influential and powerful."

After nearly three years of confinement at Guantanamo Bay, Australian national David Hicks goes on trial for alleged terrorism before a U.S. military court. "There'll be no pictures allowed of David Hicks, no audio from the courtroom, no pictures of the defence, prosecution or presiding officer entering the building, and military camera operators will choose what images are broadcast via closed circuit television to most journalists covering the hearing," reports the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. According to reporter Leigh Sales, some of the restrictions on press coverage "are bizarre and have no parallel. For example, journalists in the courtroom can't use phone lines to file stories during breaks in the proceedings. If you get up to go to the toilet, you are then barred from the courtroom for the rest of the day. ... Another restriction here, is that no sound or pictures whatsoever will be taken of the military commissions, even though they're one of the most important legal aspects of the Bush administration's war on terrorism, and the first proceedings of this kind since the Second World War."

Check out the new book SLICK by first-time novelist Daniel Price. SLICK's anti-hero protagonist, Scott Singer, works "in the field of perception management, although the less colorful term is 'media manipulation.' We're the CIA of PR, the sublime little gremlins who live just outside your senses, selling you products and concepts without you even knowing. ... I've conspired with the gun people, schemed with the liquor people, toiled for tobacco, and moiled for Monsanto. I've pushed polluters and promoted porn. I've shilled for Shell and lied for Tide. I've helped a major pharmaceutical company sell a drug that does nothing by promoting a disease that doesn't exist. And that's just the old stuff on my resume." Daniel Price is both a brilliant novelist and a sharp media critic who also publishes AbusedByTheNews.com, a website "dedicated to analyzing the tricks, kinks and quirks of America's corporate news media."

A study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine finds that Philip Morris attempted to influence media coverage of secondhand smoke. Citing internal industry documents, the study's author, Dr. Richard Hunt, says the company and its PR firm, Burson-Marsteller, made "a controversy out of secondhand smoke when there wasn't any." Hurt also said Philip Morris gave "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to training programs at the Herndon, VA-based National Journalism Center. "Hurt said the funds went to support speakers who would discount research on the dangers of secondhand smoke," PR Week writes. "They also backed an internship program to place reporters who supported the tobacco industry's position, Hurt said."

George W. Bush's re-election campaign has been accused of appropriating the Olympics for political means. A recent Bush/Cheney advertisement that links Iraq's and Afghanistan's participation in the Olympic games with the White House's "war on terror" is drawing criticism. "To the embarrassment of their media handlers in Athens, members of the Iraqi football team have reacted furiously to the news that their efforts are being used to aid Mr Bush's efforts to win a second term in the White House," The Guardian reports. The team's coach, Adnan Hamd, told Sports Illustrated magazine, "My problem is not with the American people. They are with what America has done; destroyed everything. The American army has killed so many people in Iraq. What is freedom when I go to the stadium and there are shootings on the road?" The Guardian is also reporting that Bush may be "planning to visit Athens later this week to watch some sporting events, including a potential gold-medal winning bid by the Iraqi football team."

"The launching of the 2005 Ford Escape Hybrid this fall marks an auto industry first: the coupling of a hybrid electric engine, containing the most energy-efficient fuel system available, with an SUV, the least efficient class of passenger vehicle," writes Geoffrey Johnson. The Escape Hybrid won't do much to improve the environment, and Ford isn't expected to make money on it either. Johnson concludes that Ford, which has the worst fleetwide fuel economy of any major U.S. auto manufacturer, is engaged in "a clear-cut case of 'greenwashing.' Ford hopes to mold a public perception that Ford has gone green, that the company is a model of corporate responsibility. ... In the end, the slick images and exaggerated claims of greenwashing by Ford and others divert our attention from the corporate-fueled environmental destruction taking place all around us. And that means that greenwashing, far from promoting a better world, is itself a serious environmental problem."

"Over the past few weeks of Presidential WrestleMania MMIV, the Bush campaign has fired off more than a dozen press releases about John Kerry's policies on energy, nuclear-waste storage, forest and water protections, and other environmental issues - a hodgepodge of smears, exaggerations, and obfuscations intended to besmirch Kerry's pro-environment reputation," Grist Magazine's Amanda Griscom writes. Polls indicate that swing-state voters are concerned about things like pollution and wilderness conservation, prompting the Bush campaign to "neutralize" the environment as an election issue. "They know they can't persuade voters that Bush is good on the environment, so they're trying to create enough confusion about Kerry's record that people decide it can't be the issue that decides their vote," said Carl Pope, Sierra Club executive director. "Most of the Bush team's environment-related releases rely on one of two tired claims - that Kerry is a flip-flopper, or that creating jobs and protecting the environment are incompatible goals," Griscom writes.

Condoleezza Rice admitted, "We are obviously not very well organized for the side of public diplomacy." The 9/11 Commission warned, "If the United States does not act aggressively to define itself in the Islamic world, the extremists will gladly do the job for us." Former State Department diplomacy head Margaret Tutwiler said, "Public diplomacy need[s] to be seriously prioritized on an equal level with an aircraft carriers." State Department Cultural Affairs head Patricia Harrison described ongoing efforts: "'good news' stories on reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan [for] American and foreign news," an Iraq sister-city program, support for the Iraqi National Symphony, and donating "thousands of wheelchairs to Iraq, Morocco, Jordan, Oman and other areas of the Arab world."

John Kerry called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group "a front for the Bush campaign." The New York Times' in-depth report on the group finds "a web of connections to the Bush family, high-profile Texas political figures and President Bush's chief political aide, Karl Rove. ... The group received the bulk of its initial financing from two men with ties to the president and his family - one a longtime political associate of Mr. Rove's, the other a trustee of the foundation for Mr. Bush's father's presidential library. A Texas publicist who once helped prepare Mr. Bush's father for his debate when he was running for vice president provided them with strategic advice. And the group's television commercial was produced by the same team that made the devastating ad mocking Michael S. Dukakis in an oversized tank helmet when he and Mr. Bush's father faced off in the 1988 presidential election. ... On close examination, the accounts of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth prove to be riddled with inconsistencies."

"Although we're not yet through the national conventions, 2004 is emerging as a snakebitten election for America's media 'Bigfeet' - our news organizations and TV's non-stop talking heads," writes Joel Connelly. "They've been wrong so much of the time already." During the Democratic primaries, the punditocracy erroneously anointed Howard Dean the frontrunner; more recently, they've largely ignored the worsening mess in Iraq while declaring that Iraq is putting Kerry on the defensive. Why are the big media doing such a poor job? Connelly says it's because "they're rich," "they pursue trivia," and "they're tempted" by a 24-hour news cycle that is driving journalistic standards out the window.

Iraqi soccer players at the Olympic games in Greece are angered at the Bush campaign for using the Iraqi Olympic team in Bush's latest re-election campaign advertisements. "Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign," said Iraqi midfielder Salih Sadir. Another player, Ahmed Manajid, had even stronger words: "How will he meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women?" Manajid said. "He has committed so many crimes." Sports Illustrated writer Grant Wahl interviewed the players. "To a man," he reports, "members of the Iraqi Olympic delegation say they are glad that former Olympic committee head Uday Hussein, who was responsible for the serial torture of Iraqi athletes and?was killed ?four?months?after the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq?in March 2003, is no longer in power. But they also find it offensive that Bush is using ?Iraq for his own gain when they do not support his administration's actions."

The U.S.-based "strategic market research firm" Penn, Schoen & Berland is under scrutiny in Venezuela. The firm's polling erroneously predicted that President Hugo Chavez lost a recall referendum; the opposition "insists [the poll] shows the results of the vote itself were fraudulent." Moreover, poll "results ... were sent out by fax and e-mail to media outlets and opposition offices more than four hours before polls closed," in violation of Venezuelan law. The fact that "members of Sumate, a Venezuelan group that helped organize the recall initiative, [did] the fieldwork for the poll," has also raised questions; Sumate received U.S. National Endowment for Democracy funding "to encourage participation in the referendum."

"In a PR appeasement attempt, NYC & Company, the city's official tourism-marketing organization, has offered incentives to Republican National Convention protestors who will protest peacefully," writes PR Week. Participating restaurants, museums, hotels and shops called the "Peaceful Political Activists" campaign "a good business decision." United for Peace and Justice, which is seeking a protest permit for Central Park, called it a publicity stunt. The director of the business consortium Sensible Priorities, who developed the campaign, said, "I'm afraid this Central Park thing is really going to blow up." Across from the press conference announcing the campaign, "four members of Code Pink, a women's protest group, were arrested for trying to dangle a 40-foot-long banner from their ninth-floor [hotel] window."

"For too long, rumors have been accepted as truth," says one of two new U.S. radio ads launched by Saudi Arabia, to highlight 9/11 Commission findings favorable to the country. "The ads don't address commission criticism of Saudi Arabia, which the report called 'a problematic ally in combating Islamic extremism,'" writes Associated Press. Fahrenheit 9/11 and the Kerry campaign have increased scrutiny of Saudi-Bush ties. Through PR firm Qorvis Communications, Saudi Arabia is disputing charges by Daniel Pipes that the Kingdom pays Middle East academic experts to speak on its behalf. But Qorvis is doing "ongoing education to communities around the country regarding the importance and value of strong U.S.-Saudi relations," including offering pro-Saudi speakers to universities.

"Worried that county bans on biotech crops could spread throughout the state, mainstream farm groups from the California Cattlemen's Association to the national Farm Bureau are marshaling their resources," reports the Sacramento Bee. The California Rice Commission is "developing a 'communications plan' to influence Butte [County] voters along with a backup litigation plan in case the [anti-biotech] measure passes." Following votes to ban biotech crops in California's Mendocino and Trinity counties, "biotech backers are widely rumored to be shopping legislation that would stop counties from regulating biotech crops. Even the U.S. Department of Agriculture ... reportedly is scouring county initiatives to build a legal case against them."

"The Data Quality Act -- written by an industry lobbyist and slipped into a giant appropriations bill in 2000 without congressional discussion or debate -- is just two sentences directing the [White House Office of Management and Budget] to ensure that all information disseminated by the federal government is reliable. But the Bush administration's interpretation of those two sentences could tip the balance in regulatory disputes that weigh the interests of consumers and businesses," the Washington Post reports in a 3-part series on the direction of regulatory action under George W. Bush. "Environmental and consumer groups say the Data Quality Act fits into a larger Bush administration agenda. In the past six months, more than 4,000 scientists, including dozens of Nobel laureates and 11 winners of the National Medal of Science, have signed statements accusing the administration of politicizing science," the Post writes. The New York Times also recently looked at the regulatory issue, writing, "Allies and critics of the Bush administration agree that the Sept. 11 attacks, the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq have preoccupied the public, overshadowing an important element of the president's agenda: new regulatory initiatives."

"Stung by criticism of its labor practices, expansion plans and other business tactics," Wal-Mart "has become a sponsor on National Public Radio," underwritten the "Tavis Smiley" talk show, and "plans to award $500,000 in scholarships to minority students at journalism programs around the country." A Wal-Mart spokeswoman said there's "no hidden agenda," but "we've really been in the spotlight and I think that's made us especially sensitive to the need for balanced coverage." NPR's ombudsman wrote, "Wal-Mart symbolizes values that some listeners believe to be antithetical to the values of public radio." Mounting opposition has rejected or stalled new Wal-Mart stores in California, Illinois and Louisiana.

"An event once notable for celebrating the spirit of amateurism has achieved an almost unimaginable level of crass commercialism," writes PR commentator Paul Holmes. The Olympics' organizers "are clamping down on anything that might allow TV audiences a glimpse of a non-sponsor's logo. People carrying bottles of Pepsi (or any bottled water not made by Coca-Cola) will have them confiscated ... people with a Nike logo on their T-shirts will be asked to turn the shirts inside out. Stewards ... have been warned about wearing footwear that isn't made by official sponsor Adidas." Holmes concludes, "I'd rather see the Olympic organizers worry about concerns that official merchandise is being made in sweatshops."

"Federal agents and city police are keeping tabs on people they say might try to cause trouble at the Republican National Convention, questioning activists, making unannounced visits and monitoring Web sites and meetings. ... The intelligence unit of the New York Police Department ... also has sought to infiltrate protest groups." An ACLU lawyer for three Missouri men subpoenaed by the FBI told the New York Times, "What's so disturbing about this is the pre-emptive nature - stopping them from participating in a protest before anything even happened." Her clients "got the message loud and clear that if you make plans to go to a protest, you could be subject to arrest or a visit from the FBI."

PR Week's Douglas Quenqua applauds "how effortlessly George Bush changed the conversation last week. Political debate ... had centered on the 9/11 Commission's recommendations." This was problematic, since "John Kerry unhesitatingly endorsed implementation of every recommendation - and quickly passed Bush's poll numbers on matters of national security." But Bush's nomination of Rep. Porter Goss for CIA director shifted attention to "Goss and what the Democrats were going to do to stop the nomination - something Bush had counted on." Newsweek reports that Goss' recently introduced "intelligence reform" bill "would enable the president to issue secret findings allowing the CIA to conduct covert operations inside the United States - without even any notification to Congress."

"The ascendancy of 'news' with an attitude - a spin, a bias - is undeniable," reports Newsweek, which cites Fox News Channel, Air America Radio, Fahrenheit 9/11 and the Drudge Report as examples. The director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press is worried: "If news choices are increasingly driven by partisanship, either because they're biased or because they're perceived to be biased, then I think the risk is that people will turn inward. They're going to be exposed to fewer things that may challenge their points of view. And it would make sense that this is not an especially good thing for a democracy."

"The far right's decades-long campaign to falsely brand PBS a leftist conspiracy - one that apparently included giving shows to such commies as William F. Buckley, Louis Rukeyser, Ben Wattenberg and Fortune magazine - has really hit pay dirt this year, first in creating a show around CNN's conservative talking head Tucker Carlson, and now, far more egregiously, in creating a program for the extremist editorial board of the Wall Street Journal," the Nation's Eric Alterman writes. "In a lengthy examination in the Columbia Journalism Review, Trudy Lieberman found six dozen examples of disputed Journal editorials and op-eds. She discovered that 'on subjects ranging from lawyers, judges, and product liability suits to campus and social issues, a strong America, and of course, economics, we found a consistent pattern of incorrect facts, ignored or incomplete facts, missing facts, uncorroborated facts.' In many of these cases, the editors refused to print a correction, preferring to allow the aggrieved party to write a letter to the editor, which would be printed much later, and then let the reader decide whose version appeared more credible. Almost never does the paper correct the record or admit its errors."

The Business Software Alliance's "copyright-crusading cartoon ferret" appears in "marketing campaigns to teach kids to be good cybercitizens," and its "antipiracy comic book and teacher's guide" is mailed to grade-school classrooms. The Motion Picture Association of America sponsored "an essay contest in which students competed to write the most creative plan to convince their peers not to download content illegally." Concerned by industry-funded "claims ... that far exceed what copyright is all about," the American Library Association is developing its own copyright issues classroom materials. The National Education Association applauded the ALA, saying students should not "parrot for some corporate agenda."

An internal Washington Post review found that, before the invasion of Iraq, "Administration assertions were on the front page. Things that challenged the administration were on A18 on Sunday or A24 on Monday. There was an attitude among editors: Look, we're going to war, why do we even worry about all this contrary stuff?" - in the words of the paper's Pentagon correspondent. Managing editor Bob Woodward said "groupthink" compromised coverage of weapons of mass destruction charges, but "we had no alternative sources of information." One reporter stated, "We are inevitably the mouthpiece for whatever administration is in power." A national news editor said, "Do I feel we owe our readers an apology? I don't think so." Editor and Publisher criticized the piece as having "more excuses than admission of mistakes" and lacking any "promise of corrective action."

The seminal PR work of Ivy Lee, sometimes called "the real father of modern PR," is currently on display in the Transit Museum in Grand Central Station in New York City. In 1908, Lee became the first publicity director for Pennsylvania Railroad, developing campaigns to influence public opinion in support of the railroad's lobbying efforts. Lee gain notoriety when he was hired by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. to turn public sentiment about the 1914 Ludlow Massacre. His work supporting turn-of-the-century robber barons earned him the nickname "Poison Ivy." NYC's Interborourgh Rapid Transit hired Lee in 1916. He created the Subway Sun newspaper as part of an effort to publicize New York's subway system. In the early 1930s, Lee was a consultant to a German company linked to Hitler, which, in part, led to the passage of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938.

"A Washington nonprofit group with ties to the Republican Party is airing radio ads ... asking if U.S. Senator John Kerry takes 'the black community for granted?'" The group, People of Color United, was founded last week by DC Parents For School Choice, which supports school vouchers. Major GOP donor J. Patrick Rooney gave $30,000 towards the ad campaign. Rooney, who is white, said, "For 21 years I have gone to an all-black church. ... I'm one of them. I don't know what it has to do with health savings accounts." Rooney's former and current firms specialize in health savings accounts, which "were created by President Bush's 2003 Medicare prescription drug legislation."

Eritrea "signed Alexander Strategy Group, a firm with strong Republican ties, to a contract worth more than $300K a year to improve its ties with the United States." According to Amnesty International, "torture, arbitrary detention, 'disappearances' and ill-treatment of political prisoners" are common in the Horn of Africa nation. Human Rights Watch reports, "The Eritrean government has lobbied the United States to use Eritrea's Red Sea ports as military bases in the war against terrorism." The contract "forbids the [Alexander Strategy Group] from discussing its work without the consent of Eritrea." The Alexander Strategy Group's other clients include the Nuclear Energy Institute, Blackwater USA and PhRMA.

The Republican National Convention's entertainment director, former Gospel Music Association president Frank Breeden, calls his part of the program "Preachers and Patriots." He explained, "Entertainment plays more of a prominent role in marketing messages today than ever before," and convention organizers want to use music and culture to sell their political philosophy "just like Cadillac uses Led Zeppelin." With limited network coverage, "we have to think like television, use a large pallet of creative ideas to convey the message." Breeden is also "competing with the many parties that are being held by politicians, elected officials, lobbyists and corporations. Many have booked performers who might otherwise have appeared at the convention."

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's new "Ready for Kids" program will "teach fourth- to eighth-grade kids the ABCs of emergency preparedness in the event of a terrorist attack," with help from "a mascot - an American shepherd dog - and instructions to bug parents to develop a family emergency plan." The program, part of "National Preparedness Month" in September, will include TV and radio ads, a website and partnerships with the Boy and Girl Scouts, Salvation Army and Chamber of Commerce. A December survey by GOP pollster Frank Luntz "showed that only 14% of Americans had created a family communications plan or emergency kit, despite much-higher numbers after 9/11."

The Democratic 527 group America Coming Together "is deploying thousands of supporters with PalmOne hand-helds to battleground states to play electronic ads individually for voters." The 15 state, $125 million get-out-the-vote effort's "canvassers were already using 2,000 Palms to track voters. ... [An] advertising consultant ... suggested that instead of just using the Palms to record information, the workers could also show voters state-specific political ads focused on an issue they care about." ACT's political consultant said, "The response has been tremendous. Who has ever been to someone's door carrying a PalmPilot and showing an ad? Nobody! In some cases people have never seen a PalmPilot up close before."

"To protect the people of Iraq and the interests of Iraq," Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi ordered the Al-Jazeera television network's Baghdad offices closed for one month. The closure "will give them the chance to readjust their policy against Iraq," said Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib. An Interior Ministry statement charged Al-Jazeera with "contribut[ing] to hindering the Iraqi reconstruction process by justifying kidnappings and killing of foreigners working here." Former U.S. ambassador to Qatar Kenton Keith said Al-Jazeera has a slant which "most Americans are not comfortable with," but the network is "no more [biased] than other news organizations."

Gary Frazer, the Interior Department's "senior career official in the Endangered Species Office, which has produced several scientific findings angering his political superiors in the Fish and Wildlife Service, was reassigned last week to a newly created post as his division's liaison to the United States Geological Survey." Frazer's perhaps least admiring superior, Julie MacDonald, has been accused of creating "an overly cozy relationship between regulator and regulated" after she provided information helpful to the California Farm Bureau's effort to end endangered species protections for the delta smelt fish.

As if it hadn't gotten enough bad press lately, PR firm Fleishman-Hillard "is taking a media hit for its failed campaign on behalf of Enterprise Rent-A-Car to defeat a ... car rental tax to help pay for ... a $250 million arena in downtown Kansas City." A mayoral aide suggested the firm "stay out of issue campaigning ... because they are incompetent." Fleishman-Hillard lost another vote in support of riverboat gambling in Missouri, but "launched a major consumer education effort spotlighting healthy food and beverage products" made by PepsiCo. "Pepsi, like many food and beverage companies, has been criticized for contributing to the nation's obesity epidemic," notes PR Week.

"Remember how the broadcast networks explained that they would cover only three hours of each of the four-day Democratic and Republican conventions because they are nothing more than infomercials?" asks Lisa de Moraes. Well, ABC and CBS will run "infomercials for products in which the networks have a financial interest" on their Friday newsmagazines. ABC will feature Victoria Gotti, of "Growing Up Gotti" on A&E, owned in part by ABC. CBS will feature Yoanna House, from the "America's Top Model" reality show on UPN, owned by CBS parent company Viacom. Fox will air a half-hour special on the "Alien vs. Predator" movie, from 20th Century Fox (although Fox News Channel, de Moraes notes, was "all over the convention").

"At this late stage, media companies have grown so large and powerful, and their dominance has become so detrimental ... that there remains only one alternative: bust up the big conglomerates. ... We've done this before: to railroad trusts in the first part of the 20th century, to Ma Bell more recently. Politically, big media may be on the wrong side of history," wrote Time Warner board member and Turner Broadcasting System founder Ted Turner, in an article for Washington Monthly magazine. Turner admits that he's benefited from media consolidation, but writes, "Yet I felt then, as I do now, that the government was not doing its job."

The U.S. Federal Election Commission unanimously dismissed Citizens United's complaint against the movie "Fahrenheit 9/11." The conservative group, which previously mounted a failed court challenge against the campaign finance reform law, sought to bar ads for the movie after July 30. Campaign finance reform prohibits companies and unions from running candidate-related ads 60 days before an election and 30 days before a convention. But Citizens United is requesting a media exemption for itself, so that it can "run election-time ads for a book called 'The Many Faces of John Kerry: Why This Massachusetts Liberal is Wrong for America' ... and a documentary film on [Kerry] and his running mate, John Edwards."

"A group of Vietnam veterans has bought television time in three swing states for an advertisement that attacks Senator John Kerry, accusing him of lying about his war record, including the circumstances surrounding his medals, and betraying his comrades by later opposing the war." The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is a 527 group that receives a significant amount of funding from Republican donors. The group worked with PR consultant Merrie Spaeth and Republican firm Stevens, Reed, Curcio & Potham; both were part of a nasty campaign against Senator John McCain during the 2000 primaries. McCain blasted the new ad, saying, "I deplore this kind of politics. I think the ad is dishonest and dishonorable."

"On the eve of the Democratic National Convention ... well-dressed politicians, corporate executives and their friends watched [fireworks] from a private party at a waterfront restaurant. ... Rick Rendon [was] the man in charge of the party," writes Pratap Chatterjee. Rick and brother John, senior staff for the secretive Rendon Group PR firm, present "two entirely different faces to the world while working out of the same corporation: Spin doctoring for the Colombian military's counter insurgency; encouraging citizens of Massachusetts to pay their taxes and recycle ... doing public relations for Jean Bertrand Aristide when he was being re-installed by the Clinton administration and for the citizen groups advocating the overthrow of Noreiga as the U.S. military invaded."

Cyndy Brucato recently returned as a news anchor on Minneapolis-St Paul's ABC affiliate - after nearly two decades of doing PR. "Brucato spun professionally for the likes of the Minnesota House Republican Caucus, the tobacco company Brown & Williamson, the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, and Koch Industries." She "remains the owner of a public relations firm - Brucato and Halliday - [but] says she is no longer involved in the day-to-day operations." Since her return, "KSTP aired one of its more peculiar offerings: a soft-focus feature about a suburban couple who were upset that Planned Parenthood is selling T-shirts emblazoned with the words, 'I had an abortion.' The story [was] apparently plucked from the Drudge Report."

"I think there are a lot of reasons to be critical of the media in America. I think that a lot of times the media sensationalize or magnify things that aren't - that really shouldn't be. I do think there's a big move away from actual reporting, trying to report facts. It's in newspapers and everything you read - that a lot more is opinion," said First Lady Laura Bush, in an interview with Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor."

"Organized by the World Bank, the International Emissions Trading Association and Koelnmesse (Cologne Trade Fair), Carbon Expo was supposed to be 'the Coming of Age of the Global Carbon Market,'" reports Chris Lang. At a journalists' workshop, World Bank Communications Advisor Sergio Jellinek said the Bank wanted to help journalists "in terms of getting the story right. You set the tone of the debate. It's a debate we want to be involved in," he stressed. "Carbon emission trading, a vehicle for development. Is this a story that's worth telling? I think it is."

Two new opinion polls show that Arab anger at the United States has deepened - "to such an extent that in Egypt - an important ally in the region - nearly 100 percent of the population now holds an unfavorable opinion of the country," reports the Washington Post's Dafna Linzer. The polls were conducted by Zogby International, which did similar polling two years ago. "In Zogby's 2002 survey, 76 percent of Egyptians had a negative attitude toward the United States, compared with 98 percent this year," Linzer writes. "In Morocco, 61 percent viewed the country unfavorably in 2002, but in two years, that number has jumped to 88 percent. In Saudi Arabia, such responses rose from 87 percent in 2002 to 94 percent in June. Attitudes were virtually unchanged in Lebanon but improved slightly in the [United Arab Emirates], from 87 percent who said in 2002 that they disliked the United States to 73 percent this year." As Middle East historian Juan Cole observes, this marks a significant change in attitude from the last year of the Clinton administration, when the U.S. favorability rating in some Middle Eastern countries was as high as 75%. "Even after the Afghanistan war, a third of Jordanians thought well of the US," Cole writes. "Now almost no one anywhere does. These changes in attitude (which greatly benefit al-Qaeda) are mostly the result of [the] war on, and occupation of Iraq."

"We Employ America, a national cooperative marketing and advertising campaign targeting the loss of American jobs to outsourcing," was launched by Milwaukee-based ad firm Catral Doyle Creative. WEA describes itself as "a market-driven, consumer focused program ... designed to pool the resources of enrolled American manufacturers to inform consumers that, by choosing to purchase products from WEA member companies, they are supporting American jobs and economic stability." To join WEA, "potential corporate members" must simply "demonstrate it has at least one product ... [with] at least 65% of the total cost of the components, manufacture and packaging incurred within the United States."

"A grassroots PR effort that included giving away American flags for the Fourth of July has helped Donald Trump win the right to build a new casino in Orange County, an economically depressed area in Indiana," reports PR Week. Competition for the casino license was fierce; Indianapolis PR firm MZD promoted Trump as experienced and caring. Trump "pledged to give $5 million each to refurbish two local resort hotels." MZD offered "to replace [businesses' and families'] worn-out American flags with new ones. One citizen at a public meeting mentioned [the free flags] as a sign that Trump truly cared."

"Gaining access to the Republican National Convention has become a tortuous struggle for a slew of local ethnic publications," reports a New York City weekly. In Arizona, a Bush-Cheney organizer "insisted on knowing the race of a ... journalist assigned to photograph Vice President Dick Cheney," saying the information was needed "to distinguish her from someone else who might have the same name" - which seems unlikely, since her name is Mamta Popat. In New Mexico, "Democrats who signed up to hear [Cheney] speak ... were refused tickets unless they signed a pledge to endorse President Bush." One media analysis company estimates that, with Iraq coverage dominating the news, "67 percent of stories on Bush were negative, while only 36 percent were negative for Kerry."

"It's amazing how far the reputation of electronic voting has fallen," writes Center for Media and Democracy researcher Diane Farsetta. On November 9, 2000, one company bragged, "If Florida had used an e-voting system, we'd know the winner already." But over the past few years, as "expert critiques of and troubling incidents with e-voting systems multiplied to the point of attracting major media attention," the multi-industry group Information Technology Association of America "urged e-voting companies to unite under a public relations banner." A longer version of this article ran in the Center's quarterly journal, PR Watch.