Armstrong Williams, the conservative black pundit who entered into a $240,000 contract with the Bush administration to promote the No Child Left Behind Act, says he has (1) recognized the errors of his ways, and (2) resents the way he was criticized. He's managed to resurrect his career, hosting a radio show in New York and writing a new book to come out this fall, titled The New Racists: How Liberal Democrats Have Betrayed Minority Americans. He also says he's bitter about how he was was treated by fellow conservatives during his payola-pundit scandal. "I had put everything on the line, defending the right, supporting the right. … None of the conservative [groups] came to my rescue. I was alone." Ironically, he notes that he received his most sympathetic treatment from the New York Times, a newspaper reviled by the conservative movement for its alleged liberal bias. "If it weren’t for The New York Times," Williams said, "it probably would have been over for me."

"The culprit behind the recurring clusters of plagiarism and fabrication scandals isn’t just irresponsible youth or a few bad apples or the temptations of the Internet," writes Lori Robertson, managing editor of the American Journalism Review. "It may be the newsroom culture itself. ... Many news organizations are demanding more bang for fewer bucks, as budgets are trimmed, training and mentoring are nixed, time for long, heady talks on attribution is nonexistent." And journalism has become "a profession that is viewed more and more like a business and not—as it so lovingly was post-Watergate—as a vital part of a functioning democracy."

"Election to Congress used to be an end in itself. Now, for nearly half of federal lawmakers, it is a steppingstone to a second career: lobbying," the Washington Post reports. According to a new study by LobbyingInfo.org, a project of the liberal group Public Citizen, 43 percent of Congressional members who have left office since 1998 have registered to lobby. “The revolving door is spinning faster than ever,” said Frank Clemente, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division. “When nearly half the lawmakers in Congress use their position to move into a job that pays so handsomely, it’s time to change the system.”

"Wal-Mart has begun a media relations and community outreach effort to improve its image [in New York City] as it seeks future sites for local stores," PR Week writes. "The retailing giant has begun advertising in community papers across the city and plans to expand those ads to the ethnic press, radio, and television." Working with the New York-based PR firm The Marino Organization, Wal-Mart has spoken with journalists from several NYC papers and "is seeking meetings with the presidents of New York's five boroughs and with other community leaders," PR Week reports. The company has hoped to open new stores in Staten Island and Queens, but so far as encountered community resistance.

The U.S. Navy spent over $1.6 million on PR work to influence a vote on whether part of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques would continue to serve as a bombing range, the Associated Press reports. Documents obtained by Judical Watch show The Rendon Group was contracted by the Navy in 2001 to "develop methods and tracking procedures to increase support among citizens in Vieques to support and vote in the 6 November 2001 referendum for the option of continued Navy training at Vieques." The Rendon Group has assisted a number of U.S. military interventions in nations including Argentina, Colombia, Haiti, Kosovo, Panama and Zimbabwe. Rendon's activities also include organizing the Iraqi National Congress in 1992 as part of a covert CIA plan to foment the overthrow of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The secretive firm has been paid over $40 million by the Defense Department since September 11, 2001.

"The Bush administration is retooling its slogan for the fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups," the New York Times reports. The administration's new spin emphasizes that the U.S. is waging a "global struggle against violent extremism" instead of a "global war on terror" and that the struggle is more than just a military campaign. The solution is "more diplomatic, more economic, more political than it is military," Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the National Press Club. "New opinion polls show that the American public is increasingly pessimistic about the mission in Iraq, with many doubting its link to the counterterrorism mission," the Times reports. "So, a new emphasis on reminding the public of the broader, long-term threat to the United States may allow the administration to put into broader perspective the daily mayhem in Iraq and the American casualties."

Al Jazeera International has retained Brown Lloyd James (BLJ), a PR firm with offices in New York, Washington and London, as its agency of record. Set to launch in 2006, Al Jazeera International will be the 24-hour English-language news channel run by the Qatar-base company. According to PR Week, BLJ will promote the channel to industry trade publications and may eventually target news "consumers." BLJ received $37,500 for work in 2003 to help build political support in Washington for Iyad Allawi in his bid to become prime minister of Iraq. BLJ clients include BBC, Disney and the Ford Foundation among others.

Following a July 24 car bombing in Baghdad that killed 25 people and wounded 33 others, the Pentagon issued a press release with a "quotation attributed to an unidentified Iraqi that was virtually identical to a quote reacting to an attack on July 13," CNN reports. "After questioning by news media, the military released the statement without the quotation." An army spokesman said the use of the nearly identical quote was an "administrative error" and that the military was looking into the matter.

"With rising rates of childhood obesity and diabetes, you might think that when the federal government convenes a meeting on how food companies market food to kids, talk of how to regulate industry practices might actually be on the agenda. But you'd be wrong," writes Michele Simon. Last week's government conference on food marketing to kids was dominated by the companies themselves. "By conservative estimates, a full two-thirds of the panelists—hand-picked by the FTC and HHS—had financial ties to either the food or advertising industries. To add insult to injury, from the chairman of the FTC on down, nearly every government official who had the chance made clear that regulation of junk food ads aimed at children was not on the table and wouldn't be anytime soon. ... Only a handful of panel slots were allotted to public health or children's advocates. Even then, their voices were drowned out by the likes of PepsiCo and Kraft, who were each given two separate opportunities to speak, an honor not bestowed on anyone else."

Judith Coburn has written a thoughtful, detailed report on one of the most glaring journalistic failures in Iraq. "Publishing or pronouncing the names of the American dead everyday without ever mentioning the names of the Iraqi dead offers a powerful message that only American dying matters," she writes. "But there's no way to count, protest American journalists. What they mean is that the Pentagon doesn't count for them. ... The lack of 'official' figures, however, shouldn't absolve the media—or Americans—from their blindness to Iraqi suffering, since available figures, incomplete as they are, are staggering for a guerrilla war." A recent study documented 25,000 civilian deaths in Iraq since the war began (almost certainly a low estimate). Baghdad's main mortuary "looks more like a bus station: dozens of minibuses line up as crowds of men stream in with empty wooden coffins, then out again bearing loaded ones on their shoulders, chanting prayers as they go." According to war correspondent Oliver Poole, "The people of Baghdad do not need statistics to tell them that they are living through terror unimaginable in the West. Every two days for the past two years more civilians have died in Iraq than in the July 7 London bombings."

Lawyers for the Defense Department are refusing to cooperate with an order from a federal judge to release 87 secret photographs and four videotapes showing human rights abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The images reportedly depict abuses more shocking than any the public has yet seen. After viewing them last year, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress that they were "hard to believe,” showing acts "that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane." Rumsfeld added, "If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse." The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit last year to demand public release of the additional photos. Pentagon lawyers argued that their release would only add to the humiliation of the prisoners, but U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein ordered the Pentagon to comply with the ACLU's request by July 23, after removing any identifying features from the images. In an eleventh-hour appeal, the government has entered a new legal filing opposing their release. The ACLU has joined the Center for Constitutional Rights and several other organizations to denounce what they called "the latest in a series of attempts by the government to keep the images from being made public and to cover up the torture of detainees in U.S. custody around the world."

"A scaled-back Senate Foreign Relations Committee showered praise Friday on Karen Hughes and put the former political adviser to President Bush on a fast track to confirmation as the State Department's top public relations official," the Associated Press writes. "The session barely delved into what Hughes will do about turning around anti-American sentiment in the world, part of her job if she is confirmed as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs." "If I had the opportunity to say just one thing to people throughout the world, it would be, I am eager to listen," Hughes told Republican Senators Richard Lugar and George Voinovich. "I want to learn more about you and your lives, what you believe, what you fear, what you dream, what you value most." The New York Times reports Hughes was interviewed as part of the federal grand jury investigation into who leaked Valerie Plame's identity.

"Burson-Marsteller's BKSH & Assocs., has been hired by The Lincoln Group, one of three firms selected last month by the U.S. Special Operations Command to wage psychological warfare on behalf of the Pentagon in Iraq and other hot spots," O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports. "BKSH has experience on the Iraqi front earned from work for Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress. Col. James Treadwell, director of the Joint Psychological Operations Support Element, said TLG was selected to develop 'cutting-edge types of media,' including radio/TV ads, documentaries, text messages, Internet spots and podcasts for the U.S. military. The Pentagon expects to spend $3M in the first-year as a 'test,' and could spend up to $300M over five years if the 'psyops' operations conducted by TLG, SYColeman and Science Applications International Corp are deemed successful."

Within 24 hours of George Bush's announcement of his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, Progress for America, a group with close ties to the White House, had an ad supporting John Roberts ready to roll. The 30-second spot, entitled "Brilliant," is airing on current affairs cable channels and during Sunday morning talk shows. "The ad's argument is that Roberts is not out of the mainstream and doesn't rise to the level of an extraordinary circumstance," the Associated Press reports. The ad is part of PFA's "initial one-week, $1,000,000 advertising, grass roots, and e-campaign to persuade opinion leaders in Washington, DC and across America that Judge John G. Roberts is a fair judge who deserves a fair up or down vote." Political observers say the ad marks a growing trend of year-round political campaigning. Liberal groups MoveOn.Org Political Action and People for the American Way also quickly launched campaigns countering Roberts.

"As the Army struggles to fill boots, the Pentagon is slicing and dicing data from enlistees and the U.S. Census to sharpen direct-marketing efforts for all the armed services," Advertising Age writes in an article offering insight on how "to get a piece of the $200 million U.S. Army account." The Department of Defense has already taken steps to better understand who is enlisting and why by establishing the Joint Advertising Market Research & Studies (JAMRS) program. A visit to JAMRS' website illustrates how the military is using marketing communication -- advertising, direct marketing, and PR -- and market research and studies for recruiting. According to Ad Age, JAMRS, using Claritas' ConsumerPoint software, can sort recruits and applicants down to the ZIP-code-plus-four level, broken into 66 different subgroups. "This information will help the Services reach targeted markets and assist in the development of more effective marketing messages and incentive policies," states JAMRS' website.

Recognizing Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Washington, ExxonMobil ran a quarter-page ad on the op-ed page of Monday's New York Times headlined "Saving Tigers." According to Exxon's website, the company has given more than $9 million since 1995 to efforts to save endangered tigers. Exxon has claimed the tiger as its brand mascot since the 1930s. While "preserving the endangered Bengal tiger" did make its way in to an early State Department press release on the summit, India's nuclear industry, the global war on terrorism and foreign investment in India were the dominate themes of the meeting. The agreement to help India further develop its nuclear energy capacity is part of a larger U.S.-India Energy Dialogue that also includes an Oil and Gas Working Group that "will endeavor to strengthen mutual energy security and promote stable energy markets." Several NGOs have targeted ExxonMobil, criticizing the company for violating human rights and destroying the environment.

"A leading Republican donor who once suggested that public broadcasting journalists should be penalized for biased programs is the top candidate to succeed the controversial chairman at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting," the Washington Post reports. Bush-appointee Cheryl F. Halpern has sat on the CPB board for three years and is slated to replace Ken Tomlinson, a close ally, as the agency's head. Besides being a top Republican financial supporter, Halpern has served - with Tomlinson - on the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees US international broadcasting services like Voice of America and Al-Hurra. Halpern sits on the executive board of the right-leaning think tank the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and is a board member of the International Republican Institute.

Jim Tozzi, the industry friendly lobbyist who helped create the little-known "Data Quality Act," is offering his assistance to medical marijuana advocates who are using the Act to undermine government claims that marijuana has no accepted medical value. Enacted in 2000, the Data Quality Act has been used by businesses to challenge government reports on such things as climate change and diet. The Los Angeles Times writes that Tozzi's support of medical marijuana "had more than just altruistic motives. Since its inception, the Data Quality Act has been under attack as a weapon of big business, a stealthy way to keep federal agencies tied in knots over what constitutes sound science. Eager to blunt such criticism and dash attempts to thwart his law in Congress, Tozzi has pushed public interest groups to start deploying the act against the bureaucrats."

"The Office of Research and Development at the Environmental Protection Agency is seeking outside public relations consultants, to be paid up to $5 million over five years, to polish its Web site, organize focus groups on how to buff the office's image and ghostwrite articles 'for publication in scholarly journals and magazines,'" the New York Times reports. But the non-profit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility has asked the agency's Inspector General to investigate the request for proposals. PEER questions the "appropriateness of using funds for image enhancement that would otherwise be available for public health and environmental research," citing current laws that prohibit the use of tax dollars "for publicity or propaganda purposes." The EPA has recently awarded two PR contracts totaling $150,000 for the writing and placement of "good stories" about EPA's research office in consumer and trade publications, the Times reports.

Drug companies have new top salesmen: doctors. According to the Wall Street Journal, hiring a doctor to speak about drug therapies to other doctors has proven to be a "highly effective" way for the pharmaceutical industry to market its drugs. "An internal study done by Merck & Co. several years ago calculated the 'return on investment' from doctor-led discussion groups was almost double the return on meetings led by the company's own sales force," the Journal reports. "According to the document, doctors who attended a lecture by another doctor wrote an additional $623.55 worth of prescriptions for the painkiller Vioxx over a 12-month period compared with doctors who didn't attend. Doctors who participated in the more intimate discussions wrote an additional $717.53 worth of prescriptions for Vioxx, which Merck pulled from the market last year over concerns about cardiovascular side effects. That compared to an increase of only $165.87 in Vioxx prescriptions by doctors who attended a meeting with a salesperson."

Australian forestry giant Gunns has suffered a major setback in its $A6.3 million SLAPP suit against 20 environmentalists and environmental groups. Last December Gunns filed a 216-page statement of claim against the environmentalists and then, earlier this month, submitted a redrafted 360-page version. Supreme Court Justice Bernard Bongiorno told the company that unless it submitted a "radically altered" version of its claim within 28 days the case would be struck out. He described aspects of Gunns revised claim as "embarrassing" and said that "it would be a singularly unprofitable exercise to attempt to describe every defect in it which needs correction." Responding to the decision Gunns Exective Chairman, John Gay, optimistically told reporters that "suggestions have been made for some redrafting."

The "high-stakes public-relations campaign" the Chinese state-controlled oil and gas company CNOOC launched "to focus its bid for U.S. energy producer Unocal on shareholder value and away from politics" has hit a snag. Representative Frank Wolf (R-Va.) sent a "strongly worded letter" to Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld, expressing dismay that they're representing CNOOC. "During the presidency of Ronald Reagan, no major law firm or lobbying organization would have represented the Soviet Union if it had tried to take over an American oil company," Wolf wrote. Akin Gump responded that lawmakers "should not be surprised" by its CNOOC work. In addition, Wolf is concerned that Bush intelligence adviser and Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board chair James Langdon "reportedly helped Akin Gump - where he also works as an energy lawyer - land the lobbying job for CNOOC." CNOOC has retained Public Strategies Inc., for its "general media plan."

"Coca-Cola will work with Weber Shandwick this fall to promote its new, seemingly selfless, Live It children's fitness campaign in schools across the country." The PR firm will "focus on generating local publicity for schools that participate in the week-long program." Kirsten Witt, Coke's "nutrition communication manager," said the $4 million Live It campaign would not address childhood obesity or encourage students to drink Coke, adding that "the company's logo will not appear on Live It materials." In addition to PR and marketing, Coke is paying for campaign "posters, pedometers, and nutrition education materials along with prizes to offer children who meet the program's exercise goal of walking 10,000 steps in a week." In other sugary news, the Center for Science in the Public Interest petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to require labels on sodas warning about "obesity, tooth decay and diabetes."

"Health reporters should not rely on prepackaged stories," writes Maria Dorfner, whose company NewsMD Communications produces health-related videos. "Physicians who migrate to television news ... lack actual reporting or producing skills." According to Dorfner, this results in their "relying heavily on prepackaged content. They quickly learn all they have to do is retrack the video with their own voice - and, presto, they've got a health story for the day." She calls this tendency "dangerous," since health-related video news releases "are press releases promoting a product or service." However, according to one online listing, NewsMD Communications also makes VNRs.

Readers of the Sierra Club's magazine know it runs glossy full-page ads from car companies selling hybrids. Now the Sierra Club is also mobilizing its members and launching a marketing campaign to help Ford peddle its latest SUV the Mercury Mariner, which has a reported fuel efficiency of 33 city, 29 highway miles per gallon. Has the Sierra Club's love of hybrids devolved to greenwashing Ford? The Club's Dan Becker says, "If we can work with Ford to make their Mercury Hybrid a hit, Ford will be convinced that you can make money and make a vehicle that's clean." But Rainforest Action Network (RAN) director Michael Brune counters in the New York Times, "It's a nice gesture, but we think it's more PR than progress." With the PR firm Fenton Communications, RAN and Global Exchange are cranking up their Jump Start Ford campaign, shaming Ford for having the worst fuel efficiency of any major car company.

The Yucca Mountain Task Force, "a national lobbying group that formed this spring" to advocate for long-term nuclear waste storage at the Nevada site, is traveling to the Yucca Mountain region, "to begin building ties" there. The task force includes "state utility regulators and nuclear industry executives, including the Nuclear Energy Institute." NEI also pays for "a consultant in Nevada, former governor Robert List." The trip's organizer is "the U.S. Transport Council, an organization of nuclear waste shipping firms and equipment manufacturers that plan to seek Yucca contracts." Opposition to Yucca is strong in Nevada, but some rural officials say they need to secure "jobs and other economic benefits," since the waste site may happen, "whether they like it or not." Nevada's coordinator of Yucca opposition said the task force is trying to "get the local governments pumped up" and "show the project is not dead."

"Consultants paid by the oil and gas industry have been volunteering to work for the Bureau of Land Management's Vernal [Utah] office for the past five months, expediting environmental studies to keep pace with a glut of drilling requests in the region," reports the Salt Lake Tribune. Five consultants paid by the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States are working through "a backlog of about 400 permits." The Vernal BLM office receives the second-highest number of drilling applications in the country. The office says there are "a series of safeguards ... to guarantee the work remains objective." But the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, which received details of the arrangement through a Freedom of Information Act request, compared the industry "volunteers" to "foxes guarding the henhouse."

"Business advocates are raising millions of dollars, plotting major lobbying campaigns, and quietly working to influence the president as he ponders a replacement for [retiring Supreme Court] Justice Sandra Day O'Connor," reports the Washington Post. Big business groups want favorable future rulings on pensions, taxation and product liability, among other issues. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been preparing for the past two-and-a-half years by giving White House staff private "in-depth analyses of decisions rendered by federal appeals court judges - the most likely pool of high court candidates." The reports run around 20 pages, for each judge. The National Association of Manufacturers will also "likely ask its lobbyists and its members back home to urge swing senators to vote for Bush's nominee." C. Boyden Gray, also of the Committee for Justice, "has become the unofficial liaison on judgeships between the White House and the corporate community."

"In 1987, Robert L. Earl told a grand jury that he had destroyed and stolen national security documents while working for Lt. Col. Oliver L. North during the Iran-Contra scandal," reports John Hendren. "Now, he sits in one of the most coveted offices in the Pentagon as chief of staff to Gordon R. England, acting deputy secretary of Defense. Earl has clearance to review the kinds of classified documents he once destroyed."

The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) has released the results of its year-long investigation into lobbying by the pharmaceutical industry, which found that the industry has spent more than $800 million since 1998 on lobbyists and political campaigns. In the past year alone, the industry hired nearly 1,300 lobbyists, including hundred of former public officials. "It is astonishing to learn that no other interest has spent more money to sway public policy in this time period," said CPI executive director Roberta Baskin. In addition to lobbying for industry-favorable policies domestically, the drug industry's trade lobby has enlisted the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to pressure pressure foreign governments into removing price controls on pharmaceuticals and restricting sales of lower-priced generic drugs.

"Ed Gillespie, who will help promote President Bush's future nominee to a vacancy on the Supreme Court, is a top-tier lobbyist who represents a host of clients with direct and indirect interests in the outcome of Supreme Court decisions." Gillespie's task is "to use the tools and techniques of a presidential campaign to put together a conservative political machine equipped to take on the alliance of groups on the political left." But his firm, Quinn Gillespie & Associates, "represents corporations and trade associations with strong bottom-line interests in court rulings involving corporate liability, tort reform, antitrust and securities issues." Clients include the American Petroleum Institute, Microsoft, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Gillespie refused to discuss "the conflict-of-interest rules that will govern his activities," but others say "he is likely to give up active representation of clients" while he works for the nominee's confirmation.

Australian Financial Review legal editor Marcus Priest notes that in "what some unionists are calling an unholy alliance," the giant Australian forestry company Gunns is "using industrial tort avenues employers have traditionally used against workers engaged in industrial action" against 20 environmentalists and environmental groups. Gunns' legal team comprises EMA Legal, a law firm that works only for employers, and two "well-known union barristers," Stephen Howells and Mark Irving, who defended the Forestry Division of the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union in a case brought by environmentalists several years ago. Gunns legal action is seeking A$6.3 million in damages from the "Gunns 20" activists for damaging its profitability by campaigning against the logging of Tasmania's environmentally important forests.

"Tune into the power of radio," writes Betsy Goldberg in Tactics, the Public Relations Society of America's newsletter. "Radio enables you to better target your audience and skip TV's high production costs." Her list of radio PR tools includes audio news releases ("These 60-second stories feature your message, narration and a sound bite from your client or supportive third party ... distributed to thousands of stations through networks such as the Associated Press"), interviews on airlines' in-flight audio ("a solid way to reach a business-oriented, higher-income audience. There are no surprises, because you script the questions"), and public service announcements (limited to nonprofits, "but nonprofits often need corporate partners"). Goldberg also touts "the potential of satellite radio." The two major satellite radio companies, with more than 5 million subscribers, "produce little original news or talk programming," she notes.

The 35 year-old National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which allows public input on environmental reviews of federal actions, "is facing strong challenges from the Bush administration, Congress and business interests who say the law has been holding up progress." The energy bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives "would exempt many oil and gas exploration projects from NEPA review." Representative Richard Pombo formed a NEPA task force that's holding public hearings, "with the stated intention of changing how the law works." NEPA "has been used as a stick in the spokes of the wheels of progress," said the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation's Russ Brooks. But law professor Bradley Karkkainen said, "the general thrust of the administration's proposals is not to produce information more efficiently but to produce less information."

"The Kurdistan Regional Government has hired Republican lobby firm Russo Marsh & Rogers to get 'free media' to promote the interests of the Kurds in the post-Saddam Hussein Iraq," reports O'Dwyer's. One goal of the Kurdish leaders is "the return of Kirkuk," an oil-rich northern Iraqi city populated by Kurdish and Turkmen people. O'Dwyer's notes that the head of RM&R, Sal Russo, is no stranger to international politics, having "worked on the campaign of Violetta Chamorro in Nicaragua." The Kurdish contract was announced as Move America Forward, a group RM&R helped found and whose "chief strategist" is Russo, is going to Iraq. Move America Forward's "Truth Tour" is bringing conservative talk radio hosts to Iraq, to "report the good news on Operation Iraqi Freedom you're not hearing from the old line news media."

Following the execution of Nigerian environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa and its attempt to dump the Brent Spar oil platform in the ocean, Shell appointed a dozen people to oversee its image overhaul. A decade later, Simon Longstaff, one of Shell's twelve and the director of Sydney's St. James Ethical Centre, lashed out at Shell. "The process we went through was thorough and exhaustive, but what concerned me was seeing the marketing arm of the company turn it into a PR exercise as soon as we had finished," he said. "It was a process that should have happened slowly and been led from the top for real change to occur. Leveraging it for advertising and then having the process betrayed by the man at the top sent a very confused message to everyone in the company that wanted real change." Longstaff's comments echo critiques of Shell's operations in Nigeria and apartheid South Africa.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist called drug ads "fuel to America's skyrocketing drug costs" and asked companies to wait two years before advertising new drugs. Bristol-Myers Squibb set its own one-year moratorium on new drug ads. Legislation with bipartisan support would create a new office within the Food and Drug Administration to "evaluate advertisements for new drugs and high-risk drugs and treatments." The American Medical Association is studying whether drug ads lead to "unnecessary prescriptions and higher health costs." All this has the pharmaceutical industry "scrambling to respond." The lobby group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America is "drafting new guidelines." Drug ads should "include a greater discussion of the risks," admitted PhRMA vice-president Ken Johnson. But if restrictions are placed on drug ads, "you'll probably see maybe more public relations" targeted to doctors, predicted Ogilvy & Mather's Michael Guarini.

"Saying their livelihoods are threatened, powerful forces that drive California's $27 billion agricultural economy are mobilizing to defeat a November ballot initiative to ban biotech crops in Sonoma County, and possibly even prohibit such county bans with new legislation in coming days," reports the Sacramento Bee. Sonoma County farm groups have raised $200,000 to fight the proposed "10-year moratorium on growing genetically modified crops." Their recent newspaper ad warned residents of anti-biotech groups' "scare tactics" and "fear and misinformation." Statewide groups "have launched a political organizing effort, campaign Web site and fundraising operation to confront anti-biotech groups." Three California counties have banned genetically engineered seeds. One state senator is trying to stop the Sonoma vote, by "stripping one of his air pollution bills of its language and inserting new language outlawing county bans on biotech seeds."

"There are many reasons why nuclear power is back on the agenda," reports Liz Minchin. There's global warming, and there's a "well funded and carefully planned international public relations strategy selling nuclear power as a 'clean, green and safe' solution to global warming." International conferences have been key to the effort, writes Minchin. At a 2002 nuclear PR conference in Prague, the head of "the industry's peak global study, the World Nuclear Association," called that year's World Summit on Sustainable Development "an enormous opportunity." Former ABC reporter Alan Tate said the nuclear industry first "inundated" international conferences in 1998, "lobbying fiercely ... including with what appeared to be a number of front groups like Students for Nuclear Power." But those early "fairly unsophisticated" efforts have become "much more polished performances" today.

In March 2002, Andy Gallagher, then the spokesperson for West Virginia's Department of Environmental Protection, drafted a media release to inform residents in Wood County that the toxic chemical C8 was being emitted from DuPont's local plant. But the statement was never released. A Freedom of Information Act request filed with the federal Environment Protection Agency revealed that, in response to Gallagher's draft statement, DuPont PR official Dawn Jackson contacted company lawyer Ann Bradley. Due to DuPont's lobbying, Gallagher edited and then withdrew the statement. Last year, as part of a class action suit filed by local residents, Gallagher said West Virginia state toxicologist Dee Ann Staats insisted that all statements relating to C8 emissions be vetted by DuPont.

Reviewing the language used by journalists used to describe legislative changes designed to marginalise Australian unions, Deirdre Macken writes that stories in Rupert Murdoch's News Limited publications and by the publicly funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation often use the term "workplace reform." A dictionary definition of "reform", she notes, is making something "better by removal of faults or errors." "Governments will always use the word reform in conjunction with legislative changes - think taxation reform, education reform, welfare reform - because it immediately gives them the moral high ground ... But the media should be more discerning. The first time they use the word 'reform', the debate is over," she writes.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved an amendment barring the White House and federal agencies for one year from contracting with PR firms and journalists to secretly promote policies through the use of fake news. "The passage of this amendment is a critical victory for the American people who, as a result of these secret government contracts with writers, broadcasters, and public relations specialists, have been unable to determine whether they are receiving real, objective news or government-sponsored propaganda," said Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), who chairs the Future of American Media Caucus and sponsored the amendment. "A properly functioning democracy depends on a news media that is free of any conflicts-of-interest, especially with the government that it is supposed to be holding accountable." For more information, visit our No Fake News page.