The State Department Inspector General has released a report finding that Kenneth Tomlinson, the head of the agency overseeing most government broadcasts to foreign countries has used his office to run a “horse racing operation” and that he improperly put a friend on the payroll. Tomlinson was ousted from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting last year when another inquiry found evidence that he had violated rules meant to insulate public television and radio from undo political influence. Congress is currently considering Tomlinson’s renomination to a new term as chair of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the State Department office that oversees foreign broadcasts, including the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe.

The U.S.-led military force in Iraq is asking for bids on a two-year, $20 million PR contract. The goal is "to effectively communicate Iraqi government and coalition's goals, and build support among our strategic audiences." The work includes monitoring "Iraqi, pan-Arabic, international and U.S. national and regional markets media in both Arabic and English," including U.S. TV, wire services and newspapers like the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. News of "security, reconstruction activities, 'high profile' coalition force activities and events in which Iraqi security forces are 'in the lead'" will receive special attention. An anonymous PR practitioner told the Post that military commanders want news "to be received by audiences as it is transmitted ... they don't like how it turns out." O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports that the contract is currently held by the Rendon Group, and "appears to mirror efforts initially handled by the Lincoln Group."

"It seems what young student journalists would be 'learning' from this experience is how to take a free trip and meals from one of the company's larger corporations," wrote University of North Carolina business journalism professor Chris Roush. He had just received an email from one of General Motors' PR people, asking for help in promoting GM's "First College Journalists Event," in Las Vegas on September 9 and 10. "GM will pay for travel, hotel and meals for students that attend," GM's Diedra Wylie wrote. "While in Las Vegas the college journalists will have the opportunity to meet with professional journalists and GM executives." The event might be an extension of GM's previous efforts to buy favorable news coverage. Three of the 36 video news releases tracked in the Center for Media and Democracy's "Fake TV News" report were from GM, making it the most frequent fake news client of the report.

Tell the FCC: No fake news!

Do you want more quality journalism? Are you concerned about the consolidation of media ownership? Do you think important issues don't get enough air time? Is your community fairly represented in the media? If you live in Wisconsin, in a few days you can tell the Federal Communications Commission directly! The Center for Media and Democracy is organizing a September 5 workshop on FCC issues in Madison, and is co-sponsoring a September 7 "Town Meeting on the Future of Media" in Milwaukee. At the town meeting, members of the public will share their media concerns with FCC Commissioners Copps and Adelstein. CMD is also organizing buses from Madison to the Milwaukee town meeting; see our website or Free Press' website for more information.

Victorian Supreme Court judge Justice Bernard Bongiorno has struck out the third statement of claim in a SLAPP suit by the Australian logging company Gunns. In December 2004, Gunns initiated the legal action against 20 environmentalists and environmental groups, over their campaign against the logging of old-growth and wilderness forests. Bongiorno has set a deadline of October 19, if the company wants to file another claim. The chairman of Gunns, John Gay, told ABC radio that "we will never take ... anyone to court that is purely a pure demonstrator or has a different view of the company." One person being sued by Gunns is a doctor who raised concerns about the health impacts of a woodchip pile. Gunns is also suing Australian Greens Senator Dr. Bob Brown, who will be accepting an award from the Rainforest Action Network in San Francisco on October 19.

While Hill & Knowlton are often coy about who they do work for, this week they issued a media release stating that they didn't work for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. "At Hill & Knowlton, we work hard to protect the reputations of our clients. Accordingly, our own reputation is of great importance to us," they solemnly stated. Several weeks ago, the organizers of the Gulf Coast Reconstruction and Hurricane Preparedness Summit were contacted by someone stating they were from Hill & Knowlton, who told them HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson wanted to make a major announcement at the summit. Andy Bichlbaum, from the "identity correction" group, The Yes Men, told the conference that the department's mission was to ensure the availability of affordable housing for those who needed it. "This year, in New Orleans, I'm ashamed to say we have failed," he said.

 

While scant serious attention is paid to mad cow disease by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and others responsible for keeping the food supply safe, some people are worried – the Idaho Bureau of Homeland Security. TheTimes-News in Twin Falls, ID reports that the threat of agroterrorism through the introduction of Mad Cow or hoof and mouth disease would have tremendous repercussions. “It’s not very likely, but if it was to occur, it would be the one (terrorist strike) that would have the most impact economically,” said Clint Blackwood, Jerome County disaster services coordinator. “It would devastate the livestock industry,” said Terry Bingham, acting area field officer for the Idaho Bureau of Homeland Security. Center for Media and Democracy staffers Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber wrote about Mad Cow disease in their 1997 groundbreaking book Mad Cow U.S.A.: Could the Nightmare Happen Here.

Technological advances in a refurbished White House Press Room open the door (or wall, actually) to daily presidential video news releases, says Professor Robert Thompson of Syracuse University. "The equivalent of press releases could go out without interruption or analysis," Thompson said of the new "video wall" that likely will be added to the press room when it reopens next year. The Wall Street Journal reports that the new press room will take its design from Defense Department and political convention displays and quotes a senior White House official as saying that the room will have the capability to include everything "from flags waving in the breeze [to] detailed charts and graphs." The White House has also described the refurbishing as a safety matter in a cramped space, with President Bush playing with a line from his predecessor by telling reporters, "We felt your pain." But S. Robert Lichter of the Center for Media and Public Afffairs points out, "These new toys will aid the administration in setting the agenda by giving them more time, more video evidence, and a larger profile."

Saturday's conference of the Society of Professional Journalists featured a presentation on "software, hardware and other tools revolutionizing journalism," with useful tip sheets provided by Amy Gahran and Jeff South. We've been building our own list of tools for citizen journalism at SourceWatch, our wiki-based encylopedia that anyone (including you) can edit. If you'd like to help add to the list, please visit SourceWatch.

According to a recent survey conducted by two Michigan universities, 91.7 percent of Iraqis now oppose the presence of U.S. troops in their country — a nearly 20 percent increase since 2004. A big majority (76 percent) thinks the U.S. is in their country for the oil. The survey also found "a growing sense of powerlessness, pessimism about the future and insecurity. Among Iraqis as a whole, 59 percent of those surveyed in 2006 strongly agreed with the following statement: 'In Iraq these days life is unpredictable and dangerous.' That compares to 46 percent who strongly agreed in 2004." The University of Michigan's news release announcing the findings oddly omitted the statistic showing Iraqi opposition to the U.S. troop presence, choosing instead to highlight an increase to 41 percent in the number of Iraqis who support separation of religion and politics. According to sociologist Mansoor Moaddel, this means Iraqis are "moving closer to American values."

Wal-Mart's new television ads promote "its health care plans, charitable contributions and positive impact on the American economy" in "unusually detailed terms." In one ad, the narrator says, "Our low prices save the average working family $2,300 a year. Which buys a lot of things -- and a whole lot of freedom." Wal-Mart's Robert McAdam stated, "These ads are more direct than anything we have done before." The New York Times' Michael Barbaro compares them to political campaign ads. One spot shows "Sam Walton's first five-and-dime store" while the narrator says, "It all began with a big dream in a small town." To Barbaro, the ad "evokes Bill Clinton's 'A Place Called Hope'" message in 1992. Wal-Mart's new spots were created by Edelman's ad agency, Blue Worldwide. The campaign-like feel may come from Edelman, which hired "former political operatives to develop a public relations strategy for the retailer."

 

Through September 7, 2006, Slate.com is offering daily excerpts of The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón. Using actual passages from the 9/11 Commission’s report and with a forward by Commission Chair Thomas H. Kean and Vice-Chair Lee H. Hamilton, the book’s message is powerful and accessible. The duo brings a long history in graphic novels and the comics industry to the project. Sid Jacobson was the managing editor and editor in chief for Harvey Comics, where he created Richie Rich, and was executive editor at Marvel Comics. Ernie Colón has worked at Harvey, Marvel, and DC Comics. At DC, he oversaw the production of Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Blackhawk, and the Flash and at Marvel, Spider-Man. An interview with Colón and Jacobson on NPR’s Talk of the Nation is available here.

"Agencies across government are under increasing pressure to sway public opinions -- either to win funding from Congress, to satisfy customers, to recruit new employees, to educate the public about new programs, to minimize fallout from controversial policies," writes Mollie Ziegler. With more U.S. federal agencies "applying sophisticated public relations tools and tactics," government spending on PR and marketing services skyrocketed from $39 million in 2001 to more than $400 million for 2006 to date. For example, the Federal Aviation Administration "hired a PR consultant last year to help it put a more positive face on its decision to outsource 2,500 jobs, the biggest outsourcing deal yet by an agency." The Defense Department hired consultants to survey college students, to improve their branding and recruiting materials. And agencies are still putting out video news releases, though the Government Accountability Office ruled that segments that don't make their government source clear are illegal covert propaganda.

Joseph Turow summarizes how marketers are using new technologies to make it "harder than ever for audiences to escape, and resist, their advances." One practice, "seeding," blends "publicity, product placement, and public relations." Seeding can involve hiring actors for "clandestine campaigns that 'may consist of seeding chat rooms, blogs and forums with paid-for messages,'" as one marketer explained. A Weber Shandwick executive described the goal as to "enlist, equip and harness the power of trusted, informed and credible messengers." Another tool, "behavioral targeting," allows marketers to customize online ads, depending on Web pages visited and searches performed. Soon, "registration data, your movements on their site, and even information about you that they've purchased from a third party" will also be available to marketers. Offline examples of behavioral targeting include customizable cable TV commercials and convenience store coupons.

"Scores of Washington [Democrats]" are "ensconced in firms working to advance corporate agendas that don't look that different from policy we see emanating from the Bush administration," writes Russ Baker, summarizing a report released by his Real News Project. Many of the politicians Baker mentions are at PR firms, such as Mike McCurry, who at Public Strategies, Inc. heads the telecom-funded astroturf group Hands Off the Internet. Several former Clinton officials now work at Glover Park Group, such as Joe Lockhart, Carter Eskew and Michael Feldman. As detailed in SourceWatch, Glover Park clients include the Asbestos Study Group and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. But wait - there's more! Jack Quinn is at Quinn Gillespie, Mark Penn at Burson-Marsteller, Mike Berman at the Duberstein Group, and Leslie Dach was recently hired away from Edelman by Wal-Mart Stores.

From General Mills' video news release promoting "Pancake Week"

General Mills "is simultaneously launching two separate PR campaigns targeting African-American and Hispanic communities," reports PR Week. The African-American campaign, headed by the firm Circulation Expertí, is called "Serving Up Soul." The promotion centers around a contest, judged by "lifestyle expert" B. Smith, "to find a woman 'who serves up soul [food] in the most creative way,'" according to the firm's Tenley-Ann Hawkins. The Hispanic campaign, headed by Hispania Public Relations, is called "Que Rica Vida" ("What a Rich Life"). The promotion centers on mural contests for children, held in Houston, Miami and Los Angeles. The contests "will be supported by a substantial promotional component called 'retailtainment' events, where the agency hands out goody bags." It also includes a Que Rica Vida magazine, with "sections on nutrition and home life."

The electronic voting machine company Election Systems & Software (ES&S) "agreed to a $750,000 settlement that resolves complaints filed after its software caused delays for some Indiana voters and election officials during the state's May primary," reports the Associated Press. The state's complaint, filed before the primary, charges ES&S with "providing defective equipment and services." ES&S vice-president John Groh said the company "had compiled a 'bible' of lessons learned from the Indiana situation and was changing some of its business practices." ES&S has retained the PR firm Fleishman-Hillard, according to O'Dwyer's. Fleishman-Hillard's Ken Fields told AP that ES&S does business in 46 U.S. states.

PR Week's "Toolbox" column provides tips on how to increase the effectiveness of various PR techniques. But in the August 15, 2006, issue, the feature hints at union-busting techniques. The question is how "to reduce the level of acrimony, improve communications, and facilitate a more pleasant outcome" to labor disputes. James Lukaszewski of The Lukaszewski Group advises "talking about moving forward into the future." He says, "The question to ask is, 'Are you a force for yesterday or a force for a better tomorrow?' The choice is yours. ... If given the chance, your employees will choose happiness and candor over anger, fear of the unknown, and the regimentation third-party membership requires." And lower pay and benefits over collective bargaining? Lukaszewski also suggests managers "eliminate all negative words" when speaking of labor issues.

Robert Greenwald, the director of last year’s influential "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price," has a new film coming out in October, titled “Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers.” The film will expose the hidden truth of rampant profiteering in Iraq through the stories of soldiers, whistleblowers, survivors, and families of loved ones lost to corporate greed. The filmmakers are organizing screenings in homes, churches, businesses and schools. You can visit the Iraq for Sale website now to sign up for a screening or pre-order the DVD.

The Institute for International Research notes that it is transmitting information about its September 2006 corporate social responsibility meeting in Dubai solely via the web in order to conserve paper. But one of IIR's sessions--the "CSR Bazaar"-- might lead some to wonder if the organization sees the forest or only the trees. The Dubai meeting, scheduled for September 17-20, 2006, features a "CSR Bazaar" (their choice of titles) at which corporate presenters will each take five to ten minutes to tell other companies about their corporate social responsibility efforts. Symposium speakers include Hill & Knowlton's Middle East director, Coca Cola, and a primary sponsor is Shell Oil. Advance literature for the events, which also include presentations by United Nations officials, states: "...[C]ontroversy and doubt" about CSR "are also increasing; the media are now suspicious of all corporate activity that claims to be driven by more than sheer short-term profit and 'feel-good PR.'" Perhaps "selling" others on CSR initiatives in five to ten minute snippets has something to to with the public impression that CSR is becoming one more corporate sales pitch rather than a genuine commitment to improvements in labor standards, the environment and human rights.

"With nearly 50 years in marketing, Keith Reinhard knows when a brand is in trouble," Christopher Lee writes in the Washington Post. "Even before the war in Iraq bred new resentment of the United States abroad, the country had developed an image problem, says Reinhard," who in 2004 founded Business for Diplomatic Action, to get U.S. corporations involved in public diplomacy. "We're trying to change visa policies and the entry attitudes," Reinhard says. "For example, we have offered Disney to help orient customs and immigration agents. Disney handles large crowds, long queues and still has a way of making people feel welcome." Reinhard says "it is in the best interest of business to address this problem," because tourism to the U.S. is down and U.S. brands are less popular overseas.

By placing iPods and computers in films and TV shows, Apple makes sure that its products are recognizable.

Product placement in movies and on television is expected to triple by the end of the decade according to a report issued by PQ Media. The market, estimated as worth $2.21bn (£1.2bn) in 2005, is projected to reach $7.6bn (£4bn) by 2010, with TV dramas, sports broadcasts and reality shows the most popular venues. The U.S. is the largest market for product placement, with Brazil and Australia coming in second and third thanks to lax restrictions. France ranks fourth due to placements in its sizeable film output, and Japan rounds out the top five. Currently product placement is banned on television in the European Union, but there are efforts underway to loosen those restrictions. Consumer advocate groups like The European Consumers' Organization want a total ban on product placement instead of the EU Commission's suggestion that the ban affect only children's shows and news programs.

Play ball!

USA Basketball is in a slump, suffering more losses in 2004 "than the team had in its entire Olympic history." To inspire the players, managing director Jerry Colangelo and coach Mike Krzyzewski turned to U.S. "soldiers maimed and crippled by the war in Iraq," arranging a televised meeting between the veterans and the athletes. Using soldiers wounded in "a deeply unpopular war from which, according to a recent Zogby poll, 72 percent of troops want to escape ... feels more like exploitation than motivation," writes Dave Zirin. Colangelo has a history of "using sports to project his politics." In 2003, he designated a Phoenix Suns game as "Arizona Right-to-Life Day." Colangelo also co-founded Battin' 1,000, "along with other baseball executives and ex-players." The campaign "uses baseball memorabilia to raise funds for Campus for Life, the largest antichoice student network." Battin' 1,000 opposes "all abortions, even in the case of incest or rape."

As the Center for Media and Democracy noted previously, British government funds were used "to campaign in favour of Tony Blair's new nuclear power programme." Scotland's Sunday Herald reports on the more than £15,000 spent on "Nuklear21," a "campaign group that brings together workers from five trade unions at nuclear plants across the UK to lobby for new reactors." The money covered "airfares, hotels, dinners and 'refreshments'" for union members to lobby ministers, members of parliament and trade union leaders. The labor lobbyists say they are "defending our jobs, our livelihoods and our communities." However, one union leader criticized the lobbyists for compromising their independence by "get[ting] into bed with the employer." A Greenpeace anti-nuclear campaigner commented, "They have a right to fight for their jobs, but they are using illegitimate means -- taxpayers' money."

Pat Thomas writes that the breast cancer drug Herceptin "prolongs a few lives for an average of four months at a cost of £400,000 per life extended, and for the majority of women for whom it does not work there is an increased risk of severe heart damage and the spread of their cancer to the central nervous system." Yet, the British press has declared it a "miracle cure," thanks to savvy PR. On behalf of drugmaker Roche, a Ketchum employee called reporter and cancer patient Lisa Jardine, offering her "the chance to ... do paid talks at Roche seminars and ... help find[ing] funding for her own use of Herceptin. ... 'She said she would make it worth my while,'" Jardine said. An employee at another of Roche's PR firms, Porter Novelli, volunteered her services to the group Women Fighting for Herceptin. The group successfully promoted many "unhappy women who couldn't get their hands on the drug, [who were] willing to tell their stories to TV, radio and the newspapers."

Andrew Young, the former civil rights leader turned chair of the front group Working Families for Wal-Mart, resigned from the pro-Wal-Mart group, after making remarks he now calls "demagogic" and "racist shorthand." During an interview with the Los Angeles Sentinel, Young said Wal-Mart should cause small local stores to go out of business, because "those are the people who have been overcharging us. ... First it was Jews, then it was Koreans and now it's Arabs." Wal-Mart PR head Mona Williams said the retail giant was "appalled" by Young's remarks. A Financial Times overview of Wal-Mart's response to its increasing inclusion in political debates reveals that, on August 15, the company "sent 18,000 'voter education' letters to its employees in Iowa, pointing out what it said were factual errors made by politicians who had attacked the company. The group is to dispatch similar letters to its staff in other states."

Nuclear Regulatory Commission chair Dale Klein "said he supports the 'groundwater protection initiative,' a self-policing effort proposed in May by the Nuclear Energy Institute trade organization. 'I think as a nation we need to be cautious about putting unneeded regulations in place,' Klein said." He spoke at the Braidwood nuclear power plant in Illinois, "where tritium in groundwater spread beyond plant boundaries, sparking state and federal legislation, three lawsuits and an Exelon cleanup effort being monitored by state and federal agencies." Tritium contamination of groundwater has been found at at least 10 U.S. nuclear plants, most recently Wisconsin's Kewaunee and California's defunct San Onofre plants. Tritium is a low-energy nuclear isotope readily cleared by the body, though in high concentrations it has been linked to cancer and birth defects.

When considering the practice of embedding journalists with U.S. military units in Iraq, the question is not whether they "can provide neutral reporting," but "whether embedded reporters had the access or opportunity to talk with people other than the soldiers." That's the conclusion of a Penn State study that reviewed nearly 750 print articles in major outlets by more than 150 journalists -- some embedded, some reporting from Baghdad hotels, and others reporting independently. Embedded reporters relied heavily on soldiers for information; 93 percent of their stories featured soldiers as sources. Only 43 percent of independent reporters' stories featured soldiers as sources. Iraqis were sources in just 41 percent of embedded reporters' articles, compared to 73 percent for independent reporters. The study also found that "articles by embedded reporters were both more prominent and more widely available than other types of reporting." From mid-March to May 2003, 100 percent of USA Today's Iraq articles came from embedded reporters.

"'Conservative commentator' is not an appropriate label, by itself, for someone in her position, even if she is not speaking on government time or is speaking for herself and not the department," PBS ombudsman Michael Getler wrote of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor Karen Czarnecki. Czarnecki is a regular commentator on the PBS show "To The Contrary," but her position in the Bush administration is not disclosed to viewers. She receives $100 for each PBS appearance. Czarnecki's dual role as government official and TV pundit was first reported by Al Kamen in the Washington Post. Kamen noted that Czarnecki has also appeared on Fox News, identified only as a "conservative strategist." Her TV appearances have been cleared by Labor Department ethics staff, but "the quick appearances are supposed to be freebies." Think Progress pulled out some of Czarnecki's quotes, including, "Intelligent design doesn't equate religion with science. It is based on scientific premise." Czarnecki has also worked at the Heritage Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council.

The Washington Post reports, "The Federal Communications Commission has sent letters to 77 television broadcasters, asking whether their stations had properly labeled 'video news releases' ... before broadcasting them. ... The FCC inquiry follows an April study by the watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy that found that 77 stations had aired video news releases without properly labeling them. ... The survey's 'fake news' spots, as the center calls them, were produced by corporations, such as Panasonic Corp. and General Motors Corp. and trade groups. ... '[T]he investigation is really important because otherwise stations won't take seriously the disclosure laws that are already on the books,' the study's co-author, Diane Farsetta, said in an interview. 'The current practice is such a flagrant breach of the disclosure laws, we're happy that it looks like the FCC is putting some teeth in them.'" The ongoing fake TV news scandal is being widely covered in print press such as Bloomberg, Reuters, Ad Age and others. (Maybe TV news outlets are waiting to receive a VNR about the FCC investigation?)

Numerous climate change skeptics have spent most of the two decades denying increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations were anything to worry about. Donald J. Boudreaux, the chairman of the Department of Economics at George Mason University and an Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute, takes a different tack. Referring to a recent New York Times report on increasing human longevity, Boudreaux attributes the change to the economic productivity of "capitalism." Turning to climate change, he argues that "it's a perfectly legitimate stance for truly reasonable people to conclude that the best policy regarding global warming is to neglect it -- and let capitalism continue to make us healthier and wealthier."

It "was one of the most vicious attacks I have ever seen on the integrity of a scientist," says one scientist on how the energy industry used to treat federal global climate expert Ben Santer. Santer's "heresy" was a 1995 report, known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Second Assessment and the following words: "The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate." At that time, more than 70 groups from the American Petroleum Institute to Union Carbide, painted their target (and rhetoric) on Santer. The Global Climate Coalition set an early standard for front groups and astroturf, and accused Santer of "scientific cleansing" when the world was reeling from Bosnia's "ethnic cleansing." Now the GCC is defunct and Santer's work has been afffirmed by sophisticated new testing, models and technology. Santer reflects: "I was a messenger bearing news that some very powerful people did not want to hear. So they went after the messenger. ... I just happened to get in the way and had to be discredited." Today, says Santer, "All of us--policymakers, public, media, and scientists--have important roles in [climate change] debate. Let's hope it takes place sooner rather than later."

BP is the most successful oil company at greenwashing its own image. Unfortunately for BP, the recent news about its massive oil leak in Alaska and the shutting down of its corrosive pipelines have revealed the truth -- it really is all about oil profits. In the New York Times , a BP adman admits that even he was suckered. John Kenney writes, "Six years ago I helped create BP’s current advertising campaign, the man-in-the-street television commercials. I can’t take credit for changing the company’s name from 'British Petroleum' to 'beyond petroleum' (lower case is cooler); my boss at the time came up with it. ... I believed wholeheartedly in BP’s message, that we could go -- or at least work toward going -- beyond petroleum." Now Kenney sees it differently: "They didn’t go beyond petroleum. They are petroleum."

Amid the growing media attention surrounding the Israel-Lebanon-Hezbollah conflict in the Middle East, dozens of independent blogs are providing eyewitness accounts and describing what life is like in the middle of a war. Crawford Kilian offers a rundown of a number of blogs whose views range from pro-Hezbollah to pro-Israel. According to Lisa Goldman, the war in Lebanon may be "the first conflict to be blogged from day one" and "the first time that residents of 'enemy' countries engaged in an ongoing conversation while missiles were falling."

Back in March, Common Cause released "Wolves in Sheep's Clothing," which detailed the activities of nine groups masquerading as think tanks and public interest organizations when in fact they were front groups for telephone and cable companies in the net neutrality debate. Now they've added another five groups to the list: "For example, Hands off the Internet sounds like activists wanting to protect the Internet. Actually, it's a telecommunications industry-backed organization that was spending $20,000 a day on television commercials aimed at eliminating long-standing net neutrality protections so that telephone and cable companies can maximize profit and minimize competition on the Internet."

Vets for Freedom is a 527 committee managed by Republican public relations and political consultants, including Taylor Gross, attempting to defeat candidates who advocate an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The Wall Street Journal reports that in Connecticut, "An organization of mainly Republican veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is working with Republican strategist Dan Senor to boost Joe Lieberman's efforts to win re-election as an independent. Mr. Senor is working in an unpaid capacity for Vets for Freedom, which plans to kick off its pro-Lieberman push with a full-page ad in Monday's Hartford Courant that praises Mr. Lieberman for 'integrity, leadership, and unwavering commitment to America's troops.' The organization hopes to run other print and radio ads in the fall, and is also planning on campaigning door-to-door for Mr. Lieberman and holding a public rally on his behalf. 'These vets are grateful to Sen. Lieberman for not letting politics compromise his positions, and they wanted to express that,' Mr. Senor says." Senor previously did media work for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.

Faced with a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the payment of approximately $A300 million in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's government, in breach of the United Nations' Iraq Oil-for-Food Program, the Australian wheat trader AWB Limited hired crisis management guru Peter Sandman to help it draft an apology. The Australian inquiry released e-mails between Sandman and AWB, which reveal that Sandman's proposed confessional statement was watered down by ABW's other PR adviser, Ian Smith from Gavin Anderson & Company. "The less you blame yourself, the more the public will blame you. You aren't blaming yourself nearly enough in this draft," Sandman wrote in one e-mail. Sandman's original three-page statement was eventually pared back to only one page. However, AWB executives decided not to make a public apology at all. The inquiry resumes public hearings in two weeks.

GlaxoSmithKline breached the British drug industry's own self-regulatory code of conduct by promoting ropinirole to treat restless legs syndrome before the drug had been approved for that use. The Sunday Times reports that GSK ran ads between September 2004 and November 2005 directing sufferers to the website of the Ekbom Support Group. The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry's complaints panel, the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority, ruled that "GSK was, in effect, directing patients to a website that contained misleading messages about the safety of ropinirole, which might indirectly encourage patients to ask their doctors to prescribe it." Some doctors have cited "restless legs syndrome" as an example of disease mongering, where the prevalence of a condition is exaggerated as a way of increasing the potential market for related drugs.

During August, U.S. McDonald's is teaming up with GM to include a model of the gas-guzzling Hummer in its "Happy Meals." The New York Times notes that McDonald's "appears not to have gotten the message" about rising petrol prices. In an attempt to gain mainstream media coverage for its "Hummer of a Summer" marketing campaign, McDonald's organised a lunch-hour parade down Chicago's Michigan Avenue featuring Ronald McDonald on the hood of a Hummer. In support of its promotion, McDonald's released an electronic press kit, including B-roll video footage for use by television stations or websites. Shannelle Armstrong, McDonald's U.S. communications manager, told PR Week that the company evaluates how "overall store sales are affected when we do a push, and not just for Happy Meals."

"To make up for the diplomatic damage done by the Iraq war and to try and leave the U.S. better positioned to respond to -- and possibly even pre-empt -- conflagrations of the future," the Bush administration is trying to make foreign-service officers "more agile and less hemmed in by the high walls and bureaucracies of the traditional embassy." Currently, "a fifth of all U.S. diplomats are in Europe, which contains about a tenth of the world's population." As part of the new push, "100 or so positions [are] being moved from European capitals to China, India and a few other developing countries." In Afghanistan, "senior-ranking diplomats ... work on democracy projects among U.S. military forces." In Indonesia, Egypt and southern Sudan, the U.S. has "low-infrastructure, one-man 'presence posts'"; similar posts are planned in Venezuela, India and China.

TV Marti logo

Following news of Cuban President Fidel Castro's illness, "the United States beefed up its television transmissions to Cuba ... through its Miami-based TV Marti station," reports Associated Press. "The Office of Cuba Broadcasting unveiled a new G-1 twin turbo propeller plane, which will increase the transmissions from one afternoon a week to six." The 2006 U.S. budget includes $10 million, "to develop airborne TV broadcasting and counter the Cuban government's mostly successful efforts to jam the transmission." Cuban officials may crack down on satellite dishes, which are illegal, saying that "a good part of the programming ... is destabilizing, interventionist, subversive." Castro's death "could be the first step toward ending the decades-long U.S. embargo and opening the country to U.S. corporate interests," writes PR Week. "Most PR firms interested in the Cuban market already have an idea of what they will do when Castro is out of the picture." Burson-Marsteller's Latin America president called setting up Cuba operations "one of the biggest challenges ... but the opportunity is there."

"Cell phones and land lines across Lebanon have been ringing with automated, recorded messages -- part of a propaganda war being waged along with Israel's assault on Lebanon," reports Associated Press. "The Israeli army has refused to confirm that is is behind the phone calls. But few Lebanese have any doubts." One call asks, "Who is using you as human shields?" Similar messages appear on leaflets dropped by Israeli planes and in Israeli radio broadcasts into south Lebanon. The Los Angeles Times reports that "during three recent TV broadcasts, Israel has hacked into Hezbollah's Al Manar channel. ... The Israel Defense Forces had confirmed that the hacking was the work of the army's intelligence corps." Professor Charles Harb at the American University of Beirut called the approaches "a classic psychological ploy" meant to make Lebanese civilians feel closer to their government and more distant from Hezbollah.

On his CNN TV program, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post interviewed Thomas Ricks, the Post's Pentagon reporter and author of the book Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. Ricks told Kurtz, "One of the things that is going on, according to some U.S. military analysts, is that Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon, because as long as they're being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon." Kurtz responded, "Hold on, you're suggesting that Israel has deliberately allowed Hezbollah to retain some of its fire power, essentially for PR purposes, because having Israeli civilians killed helps them in the public relations war here?" Ricks replied, "Yes, that's what military analysts have told me." Kurtz remarked "that's an extraordinary testament to the notion that having people on your own side killed actually works to your benefit in that nobody wants to see your own citizens killed but it works to your benefit in terms of the battle of perceptions here." Ricks replied "It helps you with the moral high ground problem, because you know your operations in Lebanon are going to be killing civilians as well."

Source: Australian Conservation Foundation

In a feature in the weekend magazine accompanying the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, scientist Tim Flannery extolled nuclear power as the solution to global warming. Flannery's book, The Weather Makers, was underwritten by businessman Robert Purves, the president of WWF Australia. Clive Hamilton, the Executive Director of the Australia Institute, a centre-left think tank, is critical of Flannery's reliance on individual responsibility and nuclear power as solutions to climate change. Flannery's reliance on individual responsibility "is music to the Government's ears," Hamilton writes. "Alone among Australian environmental advocates, he has declared his support for the development of a nuclear industry. The Prime Minister, John Howard, now regularly buttresses his nuclear push by saying that even some environmentalists 'like Tim Flannery' support nuclear power," Hamilton writes. WWF Australia's CEO and former BP executive, Greg Bourne, has also backed an expansion of uranium mining and nuclear power.

Drug company funding for the Mental Health Council of Australia to run lobbying and disease awareness campaigns, The Age reports, raises "questions about whether the agendas of a consumer group and that of a multinational drug company are the same." Some of the companies that have funded the council include Pfizer, Janssen-Cilag, Eli Lilly and Bristol-Myers Squibb. "Disease awareness campaigns are very important in countries like Australia where direct-to-consumer advertising is prohibited," said Melissa Raven, adjunct lecturer in public health at Flinders University in Adelaide. A spokesman for the peak drug industry lobby group, Medicines Australia, defended patient groups working with drug companies. "Patient groups and pharmaceutical companies have common goals, including treating and managing disease," the spokesman claimed. Others disagree. "The strategy is all about growing markets and increasing sales," says Dr Jon Jureidini, the chairman of the global watchdog on drug industry marketing, Healthy Skepticism.

"Who made the edit?" asks Evan Hessel in his Forbes "OutFront" column. "The edit" in Wikipedia's entry on McDonald's Corporation erased a link to Eric Schlosser's highly critical assessment of McDonald's in Fast Food Nation, and replaced it with a link to a more academic tome. Schlosser, who is now coming out with a book and movie critical of the fast food industry aimed at younger audiences, has also driven the industry to create its own ongoing self-defense website, Bestfoodnation. Hessel, like the Wall Street Journal reporter who recently discovered that the DCI Group concealed itself in a YouTube video to mock Al Gore, traced the Wikipedia "citizen journalist" Internet Protocol address to none other than...McDonald's. Hessel points out that, these days, "neither promotional fluff nor libel lasts long" on Wikipedia. The Schlosser link was quickly restored. McDonald's told Hessel that it has no policy regar