"In response to continued revelations of government-funded 'journalism' - ranging from the purported video news releases put out by the drug czar's office and the Department of Health and Human Services to the recently uncovered payments to columnists Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher, who flacked administration programs - Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) will introduce a bill, The Stop Government Propaganda Act, in the Senate next week," reports Brian Orloff.

"One day after President Bush ordered his Cabinet secretaries to stop hiring commentators to help promote administration initiatives, and one day after the second high-profile conservative pundit was found to be on the federal payroll, a third embarrassing hire has emerged," reports Salon. "Michael McManus, a marriage advocate whose syndicated column, 'Ethics & Religion,' appears in 50 newspapers, was hired as a subcontractor by the Department of Health and Human Services to foster a Bush-approved marriage initiative." Like Maggie Gallagher, McManus "championed the plan in his columns without disclosing to readers he was being paid to help it succeed." McManus was paid $10,000 through the Lewin Group, a health care consultancy, for trainings and presentations. An HHS official said, "We live in a complicated world and people wear many different hats. ... The line has become increasingly blurred between who's a member of the media and who is not."

"There is near universal agreement that public diplomacy is broken and something must be done and done quickly to fix it," states a new report from the Public Diplomacy Council. The Council suggests establishing a U.S. Agency for Public Diplomacy within the State Department, quadrupling the federal public diplomacy budget to $4 billion, and increasing overseas staff three-fold. Their report also "ridicules recent initiatives such as the creation of Radio Sawa to beam American pop songs to the Middle East." While young people are "the future decision makers," the report calls for "substantive news and feature programming," to Middle Eastern youth, elites and current decision-makers.

At a recent conference, the publisher of South Korea's OhmyNews described "the collaboration between Korean citizens and the online newspaper. ... Eight hours before the start of voting, another candidate who had been supporting [reform candidate Roh Moo Myun], withdrew from the campaign. The conservative newspaper ... was quick to call Korean voters to follow this example and withdraw their support for Roh." However, "the online community of Korean netizens who were backing Roh sprang into action." OhmyNews covered their actions, becoming "the epicenter of reform-minded citizens." Instead of such dynamic coverage, U.S. media "was filled with negative campaign ads" in the months before the U.S. elections.

The Bush administration "spent $250 million on public relations contracts during its first term, compared with $128 million spent for President Clinton between 1997 and 2000," including $88 million in fiscal year 2004, according to a report by the Democratic staff of the House Government Reform Committee. "While not all public relations spending is illegal or inappropriate, this rapid rise in public relations contracts at a time of growing budget deficits raises questions," stated the report. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services spent the most on PR over the past four years, $94 million, and the largest recipient of government PR contracts was Ketchum, at $97 million.

In October 2004, "a study was published in The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, concluding that about 100,000 civilians had been killed in Iraq since it was invaded" in March 2003. "Public-health professionals have uniformly praised the paper for its correct methods and notable results," but "many American newspapers and television news programs ignored the study or buried reports about it far from the top headlines." The timing of the paper's publication, days before the U.S. election, "opened the study to charges of political propaganda." The study's lead author "blames the American news media for being embedded not only with the military but also with the military point of view," but also faults himself for not managing the media better.

China's Communist Youth League has a new partner: the New York advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide. In an "unlikely marketing joint venture" called Red Force, "programs organized by the 70 million-member league are coaching young people in today's paramount ideology: capitalism. ... At a Beijing session last month, Ogilvy staff taught the entire two-day seminar, beginning with a lecture on communication and personality style, as well as an overview of mantras of Ogilvy corporate culture: 'Deliver your brand to the last mile,' repeated Ogilvy executive Jeffrey Wu." Hong Kong Disneyland hired Red Force "to hold six storytelling sessions with children in southern China," in preparation for China's first theme park.

The "top three advertisers of packaged-foods to children," General Mills, Kellogg and Kraft Foods, along with the Grocery Manufacturers of America and several advertising associations, "have created a lobbying group to defend the right to advertise to kids." The new group, the Alliance for American Advertising, states, "There is not a correlation between advertising trends and recent childhood obesity trends." The Alliance hopes to avoid federal regulation, using tactics that echo "earlier efforts by the tobacco and alcohol industries." In other food news, a "U.S. appeals court ruled that McDonald's must face a suit by New York teenagers" who blame the fast food giant for their obesity and health problems.

Syndicated columnist and Institute for Marriage and Public Policy president Maggie Gallagher received $41,500 from the Bush administration in 2002 and 2003, to promote Bush's $300 million initiative encouraging poor couples to marry. Although Gallagher repeatedly praised the initiative in her columns and during interviews and television appearances, she never mentioned receiving government funds. After being questioned by the Washington Post, Gallagher filed a column saying she "had no special obligation to disclose this information" but would have done so anyway, "if I had remembered." One contract with the Department of Health and Human Services was for conducting briefings, writing brochures and ghostwriting articles for officials. Another with the Justice Department was for writing a report titled "Can Government Strengthen Marriage?" President Bush reacted by ordering his Cabinet secretaries not to hire commentators, saying, "Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet."

What do the Committee on the Present Danger and the Natural Resources Defense Council have in common? They both endorse Set America Free, an "energy security" plan put forward by the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security and other conservative think tanks. Now, "many of the leading neoconservatives who pushed hard for the Iraq war are going green." Prius owner James Woolsey and bio-fuel enthusiast Frank Gaffney, among others, "want to weaken the Saudis, the Iranians, and the Syrians while also strengthening the Israelis. Whether these ends are achieved with M-16s or hybrid automobiles doesn't seem to matter to them."

"Jonathan L. Snare has been named to head the Occupational Safety and Health Administration," writes Molly Ivins. "He used to be the lobbyist for Metabolife, the ephedra diet pill that attracted so much unpleasant attention. Ephedrine was finally barred in 2003 after the Food and Drug Administration decided it had caused 155 deaths. I guess we're lucky Bush didn't put Snare at the FDA." Snare is the second industry insider appointed to a high-level OSHA position by Bush, according to Ivins. "The assistant secretary is John Henshaw, a former health and safety chief for the chemical company Monsanto. In 40 months on the job, Henshaw axed three dozen proposed regulations."

For years, marketers have known that "sociable, influential early adopters," or connectors, can drive sales. In California this month, "100 of Silicon Valley's top venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, lawyers, bloggers and promoters will begin receiving cool new stuff for free. ... These movers and shakers promise to sample the products and offer feedback to their manufacturers. The companies hope that, if the mood strikes, the Silicon Valley 100 will chat up, blog on, or just plain recommend the products to friends and colleagues, generating that most invaluable of currencies: buzz." Journalist and blogger Dan Gillmor calls the organized buzz effort "oddly creepy" and asks for disclosure.

The Edelman PR firm's annual eight country survey found that "pressure groups and charities have overtaken governments, media and big businesses to become the world's most trusted institutions." The trend was most pronounced in the United States, where trust in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) climbed 20 percent since 2001. The Economist says that NGOs' push for corporate social responsibility (CSR) shows that they don't understand capitalism. "The human face that CSR applies to capitalism goes on each morning, gets increasingly smeared by day and washes off at night." Pressure from NGOs resulted in a total PR victory against business, but "CSR reflects a mistaken analysis of how capitalism serves society."

"Most Western reporters have determined that their only option is to turn to the U.S. and British embassies for transportation help," writes the Los Angeles Times' Alissa Rubin from Iraq. "The embassies, with the power to commandeer military helicopters, armed with gunners and personal security details, allow journalists to leapfrog the ring of danger around Baghdad and visit the rest of the country. ... But with the mobility come some hindrances. Western government officials exert control over the journalists' itineraries, set up interviews, and decide who and what will be seen." The Independent's Robert Fisk recently decried "hotel journalism," writing, "Rarely, if ever, has a war been covered by reporters in so distant and restricted a way."

"For PR bloggers especially," writes Jay Rosen, the Armstrong Williams cash-for-commentary scandal "was a moment for them to shine and for the most part they did not show up." The story of Williams and his $240,000 deal with the Ketchum PR firm has been "nearly invisible to PR bloggers, who, aside from a few mentions here and there, have neglected this juicy and far-reaching story."

"In all of Iraq, Jumana Hanna was the bravest witness to the horror of Saddam's regime, telling the Americans of torture, rape, and mass murder," writes Sara Solovitch. Paul Wolfowitz recounted her story to the Senate Foreign Relations Commitee. Her suffering was described in agonizing detail in a Washington Post story by Peter Finn. But when Solovitch signed on to write a book about Hanna, she discovered that her story was fiction. The woman lionized as a brave survivor of Saddam Hussein's prisons was apparently a homeless prostitute who successfully scammed U.S. officials into giving her a new life in the United States. "Far from being a story about the indomitability of the human spirit," Solovitch realized, "Hanna's tale now seemed to open a window on the coalition's naivete - the willingness of its leaders to believe almost anything that fit their agenda." (Faced with Solovitch's revelations, the Washington Post has retracted its original story.)

The British government "is using taxpayers' money to hire a PR agency to extol the virtues of (European Union) membership and explain why the European constitution is a 'success for Britain.'" The London-based firm Geronimo PR received a £40,000 ($US74,900) contract to mount an "extensive communications campaign," prior to a public referendum on the constitution, likely in 2006. The British Foreign Office said the campaign is to inform, not persuade, the public. However, a Foreign Office memo obtained by the Financial Times said that rejecting the constitution would "jeopardise our position in the EU. ... It would marginalise and isolate us."

In 2003, two companies in the Manchester neighborhood, Valero Refining and Lyondell-Citgo, "ranked among the top dozen in the Houston area for accidental releases of air contaminants." But "the men and women who live there rarely complain," writes the Houston Chronicle, perhaps because of the "free car washes, donated computers, elementary school essay contests and Easter egg hunts" the companies sponsor. Valero's annual car wash "began in the late 1990s when the plant accidentally sent a plume of fine dust over the neighborhood's tiny, bungalow-filled streets." A Valero spokesperson said, "That's not a payoff, it's a gesture," but "community activists say the company handouts definitely influence how neighborhoods react when the plants' actions aren't so favorable."

A "rare mailing" sent to 100,000 homes within 10 miles of "the oldest commercial [nuclear] reactor in the country," New Jersey's Oyster Creek plant, informed residents that "radiation is everywhere - in the air, in the soil and even in their bodies." AmerGen, which owns the plant, said the mailing "help[s] the company meet federal requirements mandating that reactor owners teach the public about radiation and its effects." The Asbury Park Press writes that the mailing "coincides with a push by AmerGen," as it prepares "to apply for a 20-year license renewal in July." AmerGen is also holding an information fair, "to calm fears surrounding nuclear power through education and to convince the public that AmerGen can live up to its motto: Safe, Clean and Reliable."

Media training has increased for U.S. forces going to Iraq, reports Editor & Publisher, "becoming mandatory for Army troops since October" and taking "higher priority" for Marines. The training involves "one or two hours of briefings by public-affairs specialists." Soldiers "are urged to speak with the press as a way of promoting the positive elements of the operation, but not to lie or speak about issues with which they are not familiar." Soldiers are also given regularly updated, wallet-sized "talking point" cards, "to keep up with the conflict's changing issues and the proximity of embedded reporters." The North Carolina News & Observer reported that one talking point given to troops at Fort Bragg was, "We are not an occupying force."

Sir David King, the British government's chief scientific adviser, has been "aggressively targeted by American lobbyists trying to discredit his view that man-made pollution is behind global warming." King said, "You have a group of lobbyists, some of whom are chasing me around the planet. ... And these lobbyists stand up after I've given an hour's talk and say, 'There are scientists who disagree with you.' I always say, 'Which bit of science that I've just presented to you are you challenging?' I don't get an answer." Myron Ebell, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Cooler Heads Coalition, called King an "alarmist with ridiculous views who knows nothing about climate change."

With "regime change" in Iran receiving renewed attention in Congress, "new exiled Iranian opposition groups backed by some of Washington's neoconservatives are springing up in the hope of seeing large doses of U.S. funding," reports the Financial Times. One such group, the Alliance for Democracy in Iran, is "strategically located in the heart of the capital's think-tank quarter," admires the American Enterprise Institute, is partners with the Hudson Institute, and enjoys support from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's Jerome Corsi. (In the New Yorker, Seymour Hersh writes that it's possible U.S. belligerence might be "part of a propaganda campaign aimed at pressuring Iran to give up its weapons planning.")

"Our military commanders and political leaders must be careful that in using language to deceive the enemy, to propagandize or to persuade, they do not obscure their own thinking," warns Michael Keane. "Before the coalition's recent attack on enemy forces in Fallouja, the American commander there changed the rules of engagement from 'capture or kill' to 'kill or capture.' ... And there are the changing names for the enemy in Iraq. U.S. military spokesmen first referred to them as 'dead-enders' or 'Baathist holdouts.' When the insurgency turned out to be undeniably widespread and well organized, its members were 'former regime loyalists.' Then, when it was pointed out that 'loyalty' generally has a positive connotation, the term mutated to 'former regime elements.'"

"Talk about free advertising," exclaimed Forbes. "Cadillac's first 'customer' for its redesigned, 2006 DTS will be President George W. Bush, who will ride in a black limousine version of the new car during his inaugural parade on January 20." Deville marketing manager Keith Spondike said that Bush's use of the DTS will reinforce Cadillac's image of "appealing to and transporting high-profile people."

"Last week's release of the much-anticipated new federal dietary guidelines," developed with assistance from the Porter Novelli firm, "is just the beginning of some major PR work from both the government and the food industry," reports PR Week. McDonald's, which is increasing its 2005 PR budget by 20 to 25 percent, will promote the guidelines on its tray liners. McDonald's is continuing its Go Active! campaign, with celebrity trainer Bob Greene; Dean Ornish will promote a "balanced-lifestyle message" for the fast-food giant. The Sugar Association is working with Marriner Marketing Communications to downplay the new guidelines' recommendation to limit added sugars, and with Qorvis Communications to challenge ads for Splenda that say the sweetener is "made from sugar."

Project Evergreen, a "trade association formed by pesticide makers, applicators, garden centers and mower manufacturers," will launch a "national public-relations campaign this spring touting the health and lifestyle benefits of thick, green lawns." The campaign is partly in response to pesticide restrictions passed by 70 cities and one province in Canada. One Project Evergreen ad reads, "Legislation and regulations have been throwing the green industry some rough punches. ... We're about to start fighting back." The president of Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment, a pesticide-industry lobbying group, said, "Local communities generally do not have the expertise on issues about pesticides to make responsible decisions." The environmental group Beyond Pesticides plans a counter-campaign.

Revelations about U.S. government attempts to shape the news by paying pundits and producing video news releases have fueled a debate "about whether news reports and opinion pieces provided to media outlets" that "were developed and paid for by government agencies" should be disclosed as such, reports Newsday. More money might enter the system in 2005, according to PR Week. "Factors such as a shrinking news hole and increased competition have prompted companies to explore other ways to get VNRs aired. ... Most broadcast PR companies are now encountering requests to ensure placement in a non-traditional way for the PR industry - by paying for it." Popular VNR topics include healthcare, technology, "fluff" pieces and behind-the-scenes stories.

British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has admitted accepting £15,000 ($US28,000) from Heinz as part of a product placement deal in which he agreed to include an up-market version of baked beans on toast on the menu at his restaurant. "I should have been brighter," Oliver told The Independent. The success of Oliver’s television cooking program, The Naked Chef, has led to three books and a follow up television series. Oliver also featured in a pre-Christmas advertising campaign for retail chain Sainsbury's defending the consumption of farmed salmon as "healthy because the loch is so cold." Environmentalists and chefs have criticised Scottish farmed salmon because of its impact on wild salmon and contaminants in the fish. Celebrity chef Clarissa Dickson Wright described Oliver as a "whore" for appearing in the advertisements.

"White House allies are launching a market-research project to figure out how to sell" privatizing Social Security, while "Republican marketing and public-relations gurus are building teams of consultants," reports the Washington Post. The effort, led by Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman, "will use Bush's campaign-honed techniques of mass repetition, never deviating from the script and using the politics of fear to build support." Groups including Progress for America, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Republican Jewish Coalition are also advocating for privatization. Progress for America's TV ads, which include images of Franklin D. Roosevelt, have been protested by FDR's family. His grandson wrote, "My grandfather would surely oppose the ideas now being promoted by this administration and your organization."

"The United Nations is looking for a well-connected Washington figure to head its information office," reports the Financial Times, "as part of a wide-ranging image makeover to improve relations with Congress." The "makeover" began earlier this month, when Kofi Annan named Mark Malloch Brown, former PR consultant to Corazon Aquino and the Government of Colombia at the Sawyer Miller Group, as his chief of staff. "The UN had previously resisted following the 'revolving door' model of Washington lobbying," but now hopes to recruit "an influential advocate with Capitol Hill experience who 'understands how Washington works, can make calls, and get those calls answered,'" to defuse strong congressional criticism.

"In a newspaper opinion piece signed by President Bush and offered to newspapers around the globe" by the State Department, "a White House eager to lessen anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world is trumpeting U.S. efforts to help tsunami victims," reports Associated Press. The piece, which ran in Asian, European and Caribbean papers, stressed U.S. cooperation. "In consultation with key allies and with the United Nations, the United States launched one of the largest humanitarian relief operations," Bush wrote. The U.S.-funded Arabic TV station Al Hurra interviewed former presidents Clinton and Bush on private fundraising efforts. Clinton said, "People ask all the time, 'Will people like America better?' and the answer is, we don't know, but that's not why we are doing it."

The "start of a coordinated effort to build public support" to privatize Social Security "and pressure Congress to act" included a Washington DC town hall with the president and six "carefully selected participants." One was a Seattle-area businessman who, after being contacted by the White House, got a call from the conservative lobbying group FreedomWorks, "offering to pay his expenses." FreedomWorks flew in 80 people, allowing Congress to "hear from average Americans, who understand that Social Security is in trouble." In New York, Treasury Secretary John Snow visited "Wall Street securities firms to rally support," while the vice president, the Office of Management and Budget director and the White House Council of Economic Advisers chair are readying Social Security speeches.

"For the first time in its 43 years, a Wal-Mart CEO is publicly responding to detractors." The giant retailer launched a national PR blitz, including interviews with its CEO, an open-letter ad in more than 100 newspapers, and a new website, walmartfacts.com, that promises the "unfiltered truth." CEO Lee Scott said that criticisms of Wal-Mart had grown to "urban legend" status, while critics' "lifestyle doesn't change when the price of fuel changes, or if they keep a Wal-Mart store out of their area." When asked why walmartfacts.com doesn't mention the ongoing class-action sex discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart, Scott replied, "There are so many things that we deal with and aspects of society that you couldn't possibly put them all in." O'Dwyer's reports that Hill & Knowlton is working on Wal-Mart campaign, helping Scott and handling local media.

Despite the bankrupty of his company, former Enron CEO Ken Lay apparently still has some money to spend on spin. "The former chairman's computer-literate litigation team is making use of 'sponsored links,' which appear prominently in searches for a word or name in an Internet search engine," reports Mary Flood. "It's one of the ways the search engines make money and one of the ways Web sites can be sure they'll be noticed." Searching the internet for terms such as "Enron scandal" or "Ken Lay" will produce a page with a sponsored link to www.kenlayinfo.com. Lay pays 5 to 12 cents each time someone clicks on the link. Click early and click often!

A National Academy of Sciences report says up to 20 parts per billion (ppb) of the rocket fuel chemical perchlorate in drinking water could be considered "safe." Perchlorate affects thyroid function, with children believed to be especially vulnerable. The Environmental Protection Agency previously set 1 ppb as the "safe" perchlorate level; the Defense Department suggested 200 ppb. The Natural Resources Defense Council says the NAS report was compromised by "a brazen campaign" by White House and Defense Department officials and defense contractors "to downplay the hazards" of perchlorate. Through the Freedom of Information Act, NRDC obtained documents suggesting politically-driven pressures on the scope of the NAS investigation, the composition of the NAS panel, and the report. Similar influence was exposed, when a member of the industry's Perchlorate Study Group edited an article on adult perchlorate exposure, without the author's knowledge. The original version of the article, which appeared in Environmental Health Perspectives, a journal of the U.S. government's National Institute of Environmental Health Services, was deemed "potentially very damaging" by the group.

Nicolle Devenish, the new White House communications director, was "once fired for being too nice to reporters," writes the New York Times' Elisabeth Bumiller. Devenish's goal is "to improve the contentious relationship between a secretive White House and the press." She was previously the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign communications director, the White House regional press head, and Florida Governor Jeb Bush's press secretary. "Now her job is to free up [presidential counselor Dan] Bartlett to do more long-term planning and, of course, spin reporters." CJR Daily critiques Bumiller's profile of Devenish, writing, "Bumiller's fawning wouldn't seem so objectionable if her subject wasn't someone who she has a clear interest in cultivating as a source."

Canada confirmed its third case of mad cow disease, just two weeks after its last case and after the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced plans to normalize cattle and beef trade with Canada. Now, the USDA "is looking to withdraw a plan to allow imports of young live cattle from Canada," reports Reuters. Last week, the Senate Agriculture Committee unanimously approved USDA Secretary nominee Mike Johanns. "Committee members spent little time discussing Johanns' qualifications ... and instead spent the majority of the hearing airing renewed concerns about the impact of mad cow disease on the U.S. beef industry," writes J.R. Pegg. But Burson-Marsteller and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association are finalists for PR Week's 2005 awards, for "Protecting Consumer Confidence in U.S. Beef: An issues management success."

"There is certainly no shortage of story angles to choose from," writes Laurie Spivak, about the revelation that Armstrong Williams was paid to promote the Bush administration's education policies. "This isn't just a story about a self-serving pundit 'entrepreneur,' or the erosion of public trust in the media, or hypocrisy, or using covert propaganda to sell controversial Bush programs. ... Armstrong Williams, Karen Ryan and Ketchum PR are all bit players in what is a big budget, major studio production. ... The real story here is about the conservative movement and the ways that that movement - primarily through the marketing of conservative ideas - has molded and continues to mold public opinion in America."

Christian Science Monitor reporter Tom Regan writes, "The Internet is increasingly being used by special interest groups to try and influence media to change the way they cover a subject, or in some cases not to cover it at all." Regan focuses on the Monitor's on-line polls, which, although not scientific, "encourage deeper involvement in a story and issue." A poll accompanying a story on the U.S. Presbyterian Church's vote to boycott companies doing business with Israel resulted in a "coordinated e-mail bomb campaign." Regan summarizes, "The great concern of those who e-mailed and those who organized the e-mailing: public perception." But "e-mail bomb campaigns are easy to spot, and often easy to ignore. ... Just one thoughtful, well-written e-mail or letter can often have far more impact than the hundreds of cut-and-paste e-mails sent during these attacks."

Colin Powell said U.S. aid to tsunami-stricken countries "does give the Muslim world and the rest of the world an opportunity to see American generosity, American values in action. ... I hope that, as a result of our efforts, as a result of our helicopter pilots' being seen by the citizens of Indonesia helping them, that value system of ours will be reinforced." The editor of Beirut's The Star disagreed: "To think that aid would make people overlook all the other reasons to criticize the U.S. - it's naive, it's racist, it's almost insulting." In the Indonesian province of Aceh, "Australian journalists who witnessed a confrontation between Indonesian soldiers and alleged separatists ... were ordered to leave the area and warned not to report on the incident." One commander told the journalists, "Your duties here are to observe the disaster, not the conflict."

The National Association of Manufacturers, whose political action committee BIPAC mounted a massive get-out-the-business-vote drive last year, is forming two new groups to support the Bush administration. NAM's Alliance for Worker Retirement Security is "leading the charge for business interests," calling for Social Security privatization. NAM's American Justice Partnership will launch "a multimillion-dollar campaign to aid the White House in its quest to win approval for conservative judges," reported the Los Angeles Times. NAM head John Engler said, "There has been too much of a tendency ... to cast these judgeship battles as a social debate about abortion or gay rights. In fact, there are very few of those cases in contrast to those dealing with the tort system and the rights of individuals and companies."

For the second time, the Government Accountability Office "scolded the Bush administration for distributing phony prepackaged news reports," or video news releases. The VNRs were produced by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, featured former reporter Mike Morris, and were aired, at least in part, on 300 news shows. The GAO's Susan Poling said, "What is objectionable ... is the fact the viewer has no idea their tax dollars are being used to write and produce this video." A spokesperson for the Drug Control office, which paid $155,000 for the VNRs, said, "Our lawyers disagree with the GAO," but the office would avoid the "appearance of a problem" by ending the practice. The GAO earlier faulted the administration for VNRs promoting the new Medicare law.

The Bush administration paid $240,000 to prominent African-American pundit Armstrong Williams, to "build support among black families for its education reform law," No Child Left Behind, reports USA Today, citing documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. The contract required Williams "to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts," and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige. The Ketchum PR firm, on behalf of the Education Department, also "arranged with Williams to use contacts with America's Black Forum, a group of black broadcast journalists, 'to encourage the producers to periodically address' NCLB." The arrangement was part of a $1 million contract with Ketchum, which also produced video news releases touting NCLB. Williams, who also runs the Graham Williams Group PR firm, said he agreed to the contract because NCLB is "something I believe in." The Public Relations Society of America said Williams' failure to disclose the payment "does not describe the true practice of 'public relations.'"

"President Bush's political allies are raising millions of dollars for an election-style campaign to promote private Social Security accounts, as Democrats and Republicans prepare for what they predict will be the most expensive and extensive public policy debate since the 1993 fight over the Clinton administration's failed health care plan," reports Jim VandeHei. According to Stephen Moore, head of the conservative Club for Growth, "It could easily be a $50 million to $100 million cost to convince people this is legislation that needs to be enacted. It's going to be expensive" because "it's the most important public policy fight in 25 years." Blogger-journalist Joshua Micah Marshall has been dissecting a leaked memo detailing the White House strategy for selling the plan, which the memo describes as a way to "transform the political and philosophical landscape of the country." And the Columbia Journalism Review's CampaignDesk has been fact-checking ways that journalists have been screwing up the Social Security story.

"In April 2004," writes Mariah Blake, "a former U.S. Special Forces soldier named Jonathan Keith Idema started shopping a sizzling story to the media. He claimed terrorists in Afghanistan planned to use bomb-laden taxicabs to kill key U.S. and Afghan officials, and that he himself intended to thwart the attack. ... By late June, he claimed to have captured the plotters, and started trying to clinch a deal with television networks by offering them 'direct access' to one of the terrorists who, he said, had agreed to tell all." His story unraveled after the Afghan police "raided his headquarters and discovered eight prisoners, some of them tethered to chairs in a back room, which was littered with bloody cloth. The men later told reporters that they had been starved, beaten, doused with scalding water, and forced to languish for days in their own feces. Afghan authorities determined that none of the detainees had links to terrorism and set them free." It turns out that this isn't the first time that Idema has sold colorful and deceptive stories about terrorism to the mass media. In January 2002, CBS broadcast sensational footage, quite likely staged by Idema, which purported to show an Al Qaeda training camp in action. "Idema also served as an expert military commentator on Fox News ... And he fielded hundreds of interviews with major newspapers, television networks, and radio stations. ... He claimed to have uncovered a plot to assassinate Bill Clinton; that bin Laden was dead, and that the Taliban was poisoning the food that the United States was air-dropping to feed hungry Afghans. ... Idema’s career as a media personality reached its peak during the final breathless weeks of the run-up to the war in Iraq. Much of the information he provided during that period echoed the Bush administration’s hotly contested rationale for war. ... Few in the media questioned Idema’s claims, much to the alarm of some who knew him."

PR Watch has reported in the past on the story of Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, two former investigative reporters at Fox TV's affiliate station in Tampa Bay, Florida who say the network ordered them to broadcast false and distorted news reports regarding the Monsanto company's genetically-engineered bovine growth hormone. Now Akre and Wilson are petitioning the Federal Communications Commision to reject the station's request for license renewal on grounds that it is not operating in the public interest.

An American Prospect article on Rick Berman of the front group Center for Consumer Freedom notes, "Berman's strategy turns on a simple rhetorical gimmick: By employing the language of consumer freedom, he protects his client industries by demonizing (and, hopefully, discrediting) their critics." Berman "stands out, if only for the sheer, unparalleled audacity with which he's straddled his dual roles as consumer 'advocate' and industry lobbyist. ... In addition to running the Center for Consumer Freedom," Berman is "the founder and president of an influential Washington lobbying firm, Berman & Co." The firm "has performed for-profit lobbying for - you guessed it - many of the same industries served by the center," including restaurant chains and alcohol companies.

The American Society of Newspaper Editors and other media organizations are organizing "Sunshine Week" in mid-March, to encourage print, broadcast and online media outlets "to address the issue of a more open government through news coverage, editorials, commentaries, and editorial cartoons." The organizations are "alarmed by a trend toward secrecy at all levels of government." A similar effort, OpenTheGovernment.org, has been launched by dozens of organizations "to advance the public's right to know and to reduce secrecy in the government." The managing director of the PR Consulting Group, which is promoting OpenTheGovernment.org, said, "As Americans concerned about the erosion of our constitutionally protected freedoms, this is a very important client for us."

The "first permanent communications war room for Democrats on Capitol Hill," the Senate Democratic Communications Center, has been launched. The SDCC's 15 staff members are led by Jim Manley, Senator Edward Kennedy's press secretary, and Phil Singer, former Kerry-Edwards campaign spokesperson. Manley said the SDCC's goal is "to amplify the Senate Democratic agenda," conceding, "the Republicans have been successful ... with a unified set of talking points." Senior Fleishman-Hillard partner Jon Haber also noted the Republican Party's "message discipline," and said Democrats are trying "to position themselves as helping individuals, families and workers." SDCC plans include a dedicated website and regular media outreach.

"The United States government's primary strategy with the Arab media has been to create its own outlets - the satellite-news station Al Hurra and Radio Sawa - at a cost of $100 million, rather than engage aggressively with existing Arab media," notes the New York Times, in an in-depth article on Al Arabiya, a privately-owned TV news station established as "a more moderate alternative to Al Jazeera." One station executive said, "To my surprise, the [Iraqi] opposition is doing better, P.R.-wise, than the official Americans and Iraqis, who are not as readily available for comment. ... The militants are ready with a video of masked men and a person available for comment a half-hour after the story breaks."

"Over the past month, the biggest scoops in the news business have come from ... an organization that's not in the news business," writes Eric Umansky. "Using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the American Civil Liberties Union has uncovered thousands of government documents detailing torture of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay." So how did the ACLU beat the nation's top news organizations to the punch? To begin with, it bothered to file a FOIA request. The only news organization to do so was the Washington Post. For another thing, the government has been stalling on the requests it has received. The Post is still waiting for a response to the request it filed last spring, and the ACLU only got its documents because it took the government to court and won (something that none of the newspapers did). "But even that has been just a partial victory," Umansky notes. "The Pentagon has held onto many documents - 'There are far more documents that haven't been released than have," says the ACLU's Jameel Jaffer - and the CIA insists that it doesn't even need to confirm whether the requested documents exist, let alone release them. Even in the memos and e-mails that have been let loose, there's a generous use of whiteout. One series of e-mails from the Defense Department has the subject header, 're: potential torture involving Iraqi detainees.' The whole thread adds up to four pages, and with the exception of the subject headers, all are now blank."