Philadelphia Weekly profiles Brian Tierney, the public relations and advertising executive who will be heading Philadelphia's former Knight-Ridder papers. As a PR man, "when reporters called his customers," Tierney "called the reporters -- and their editors." Reviewing Tierney's often-heated arguments with reporters on their coverage of the Philadelphia Orchestra, banking executives, and -- most infamously -- the Catholic Church, Steve Volk writes, "The most disconcerting thing about his taking control of the [Philadelphia] Inquirer and Daily News may not even be Tierney's noted conservative tilt, which is considerable. ... What really has some people quaking is Tierney's unique diet, which for a time included journalists. For breakfast, lunch and dinner." Former Inquirer reporter Ralph Cipriano, whose story on the Catholic Diocese's questionable spending was squashed by the newspaper after Tierney's repeated contacts, said of Tierney, "He doesn't understand what reporters do, and more important, he doesn't think it should be done."

"Telecommunications companies are spending serious green on advertising in recent weeks," as several telecom-related bills, including on network neutrality, come before Congress. A study by Arlen Communications estimates that the U.S. Telecom Association, which "represents the majority of the Bell telecommunications firms," has spent $250,000 a week over six weeks. And SBC/AT&T has spent some $600,000 a week, according to Arlen. A U.S. Telecom executive would not comment on the numbers, but said TV ads have been effective in "the campaign to allow telecom companies to compete with cable companies for TV service." Ads on the network neutrality issue, which criticize "proposed legislation that would block telecom and cable companies from charging preferred customers higher rates for high-speed Internet access," are more recent. These ads have appeared "anywhere a congressional staffer is likely to be -- including the Washington area transit system" and "at Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport," and direct people to sites like Handsofftheinternet.com.

"APCO Worldwide is supporting Merck's PR efforts for the controversial" -- and deadly -- "arthritis drug Vioxx, which was found to increase heart attack risk in patients," reports O'Dwyer's. The PR boost comes as the pharmaceutical company "acknowledged that it misidentified a statistical method used in the study that led it to pull Vioxx from the market," reports the Wall Street Journal. The admission calls into question Merck's claim that patients were only at risk if they took Vioxx for 18 months or longer. Doctors who oversaw the study "are planning to release new data" that "show risk as soon as four months after taking the drug," according to O'Dwyer's. More than 11,000 Vioxx-related lawsuits have been filed against Merck. The company had retained Burson-Marsteller for a $20 million "image campaign," after withdrawing Vioxx in 2004.

British American Tobacco (BAT) has suffered a major legal setback after a Sydney judge found that the company's "document retention policy," under which sensitive documents were shredded, had been developed "in furtherance of the commission of a fraud." In a case before the New South Wales Dust Diseases Tribunal, Justice Jim Curtis heard uncontested evidence from former BAT solicitor Fred Gulson that the policy was designed so that the company could shred potentially damaging documents. Curtis said that the policy created "the pretence of a rational non-selective housekeeping policy." The case before the tribunal will hear argument on whether BAT should bear part of the compensation costs of a lung cancer victim who was a smoker and was exposed to asbestos. BAT has been directed to produce relevant documents within two weeks for a trial that commences on June 26.