The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has tentatively determined that milk and meat from cloned cows are safe to eat and indistinguishable from non-cloned cows. The agency may complete approval procedures for consumption of the animals and milk before the end of 2007. The International Dairy Foods Association has conducted polls showing that unlabeled cloned products might turn customers away from all meat and dairy products. But the report prompted kudos from biotech firms and some farmers, who have created several hundred cloned cows. Dolly the sheep, born in Scotland in 1996, was the first such animal. PR Watch reported in 1999 that cloning for purposes of food consumption often has been promoted by industry at the expense of adequate scientific study. Seven U.S. Senators have written a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt seeking a "careful, deliberative and open process" before the government allows such animals into the U.S. food supply. The "no distinguishable difference" finding by the FDA currently prevents the agency from requiring labels, and biotech firms such as Monsanto have sued businesses that seek to differentiate natural products from synthetic ones.

Public relations consultant Alan Caruba, who runs the anti-environmentalist "National Anxiety Center," is anxious about the upcoming switch to Democratic Party control of the U.S. Congress, which he says "will pose the greatest challenge business and industry in America has faced since the days of the Clinton administration." Caruba is calling on corporate America to rally against what he calls the "global warming hoax" and other environmental initiatives. "The many corporate public relations professionals and agencies that provide services and counseling need to be on the front lines of a critical battle against the imposition of the bogus Kyoto Protocol on America," he writes.

Middle East studies professor Juan Cole has posted a transcript of the recent hearing by Congressmen Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul on civilian casualties in Iraq. The hearing included testimony by Cole and by the scientists who conducted the recent Lancet study which estimates that 650,000 Iraqis have died in the war. Cole explains why this figure is so much higher than figures compiled from news reports: "The press just isn't reporting very many of the actual deaths in Iraq," he states, citing examples from cities like Baqubah, where "no newspaper or wire service is reporting dozens of daily deaths. ... News-gathering in contemporary Iraq is extremely dangerous and difficult. The collection and publication of social statistics has been affected by the violence and the anxieties that it spawns."

In November, the New England Journal of Medicine pulled an opinion column by Dr. Robert Steinbrook that was critical of ties between the National Kidney Foundation and drug companies. The column was to accompany the publication of two studies cautioning that the use of the drug erythropoietin (EPO), as recommended by the foundation, appeared to increase the risk of heart failure and kidney problems. Instead, the journal published a softer editorial by Julie Ingelfinger, a deputy editor at the journal, but without disclosing that she has close ties to the foundation. Steinbrook's article was published in The Lancet. He noted that of the 18 members of the foundation's group that formulated the EPO guidelines, two-thirds had financial ties to the drug's manufacturers or marketers. In 2005 the foundation, David Armstrong writes in the Wall Street Journal, "received $4.1 million from Amgen Inc. and $3.6 million from Johnson & Johnson's Ortho Biotech, the current marketers of EPO in the U.S."

"Public opinion experts say Americans are sending President George W. Bush a clear message as he considers his options in Iraq: Bring the troops home," reports Ron Hutcheson. "Polling experts say the overall sentiment is clear. A majority of Americans think the war was a mistake, don't think it will make America safer and don't think the United States will win. Large majorities want to see the troops come home by early 2008." Bush, however, seems bent on sending up to 30,000 more troops into Iraq.

Concerned about consumer backlash, the World Diamond Council (WDC) has pumped $15 million into a public relations and education campaign to respond to the new movie "Blood Diamond." The film, starring Leonard DiCaprio, opened to generally good reviews and ranked among the top ten in popularity during the holiday season. It is set in 1999 Sierra Leone, but, a multimillion dollar illicit trade in diamonds from African conflict zones (proceeds from which are used to fund criminal activity) continues in countries such as Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo. WDC created a website, DiamondFacts.org, asserting that the industry successfully participates in monitoring that all but eliminates blood diamonds. WDC also hired the PR crisis management firm, Sitrick and Company, to create an education campaign to neutralize the movie's potential impact. The stakes are high: "The film makes its debut during the heaviest-selling season for the $60 billion-a-year worldwide diamond industry, and the U.S. accounts for nearly half of diamond-jewelry purchases," writes T.L. Stanley.

Channel One, the controversial advertising-funded TV network that reaches 7 million secondary schools, faces declining revenue and its owner, Primedia, is looking to sell. The station has been especially hit by marketing pullbacks on food and beverage ads aimed at children, the subject of increasing criticism by prominent members of Congress and, most recently, the American Academy of Pediatrics. The home page of ChannelOne.com has featured U.S. Army "All American Bowl" football ads, as well as Pepsi products.

U.S. safety regulations for produce have been relegated to the far reaches of government bureaucracies, tucked into an under-funded combination of U.S. Food and Drug Administration oversight and state agriculture bureaucracies. Despite significant increases in 2006 of reported produce-related illnesses compared to previous years (ranging from a deadly spinach E.coli outbreak to Taco Bell's unsolved, but eventually controlled, East Coast E.coli outbreak in December), growers are lobbying for an industry-funded system of regulation. The approach is known as "marketing orders" in which farmers would pay for Department of Agriculture oversight through its "Agricultural Marketing Service," which does not traditionally work in food safety. At the FDA--where budget cuts have reduced inspections--an official has endorsed the new approach. But there is widespread disagreement on the most effective path to produce safety. The Center for Science in the Public Interest has petitioned the FDA and the State of California to set mandatory safety standards for fruit and vegetables. Researchers suspect that the deadly E. coli strain resulted from industrial livestock production methods, including force-feeding grain and antibiotics to cattle.

Late last month, NewsTrust went live. This non-profit online news rating service aims to help people identify quality journalism - or "news you can trust." The project is led by Fabrice Florin, a former journalist and a digital media pioneer at Apple and Macromedia. The concept is simple -- NewsTrust members submit articles, then read and rate them based on key journalistic principles such as fairness, balance, evidence, context and importance. The ratings are compiled and each article is given an overall "grade." Based on the positive reception it has so far received, NewsTrust plans to launch its full service in 2007.

The week before Christmas is often a time when government's try to bury a controversial decision, safe in the knowledge that most people aren't all that focused on politics. This week, President George W. Bush appointed Warren Bell to the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The CPB, which is funded by Congress, makes grants to public radio and television stations in the U.S. such as PBS. Bell, a former television sitcom producer and contributing writer to the National Review, describes himself as a "a not-so-secret conservative." Bell was originally nominated to the position in June 2006 but was opposed by Democrat members of the Senate Commerce Committee. Bush's recess appointment means that Bell's term will run until a permanent nominee is approved.

Charlie "was a hip-hop artist, very 'street.' ... He started a blog, alliwantforxmasisapsp.com, where he mused in urban patois about how his cousin Pete really, really wanted a Sony PSP for Christmas." The website was a "flog," or fake blog, launched by Sony to market the game system. "Sony's admission ... comes less than two months after it was revealed that Wal-Mart's public relations firm, Edelman, had been behind the blog 'Wal-Marting Across America,'" notes Sam McManis. "Flogs aren't rampant -- yet," but "marketers often turn to alternative forms of advertising. ... For several years now, marketers have paid 'real people' to talk up products ranging from cell phones to hair gel on city buses, at sporting events or in bars. Procter & Gamble, for instance, has 'sponsored' more than 200,000 teenagers to use products and recommend them to friends." The company PayPerPost offers companies a "network of bloggers" to promote their goods. Following the Wal-Mart / Edelman incident, PayPerPost "developed a disclosure policy for bloggers to 'accelerate transparency.'"

After reviewing "two University of Chicago economists' findings about the political slant of American newspapers," reporter Chris Adams concludes that the study "has structural flaws." For instance, the study counted the Washington Post's mentions of "real estate tax" as "estate tax," a phrase identified as Democratic (as opposed to its Republican counterpart, "death tax"). Many of the Democratic-leaning phrases the study found in the New York Times, such as "bring our troops home" and "tax cuts for the rich," appeared not in news reports, but in opinion pieces or letters to the editor. Moreover, the "partisan phrases" used the most by the New York Times -- which the study gave a partisan score similar to "a fairly liberal congressperson" like Senator Barbara Boxer -- were "credit card" and "Justice Department." The study's supposedly-Republican phrases include "assistant secretary" and "urge support." Adams further cautions, "Among the most liberal newspapers in the study: the Times-Picayune of New Orleans. Among the most Democratic phrases: 'Hurricane Katrina.'"

"Here is the redacted version of a draft Op-Ed article we wrote for The [New York] Times, as blacked out by the Central Intelligence Agency's Publication Review Board after the White House intervened in the normal prepublication review process," write Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann. Leverett, a former CIA analyst and National Security Council official, has accused the White House of using the CIA vetting process "to silence an established critic of the administration's foreign policy incompetence." The column accompanying the redacted op-ed includes citations of previous news articles, "to demonstrate that all of the material the White House objected to is already in the public domain. Unfortunately, to make sense of much of our Op-Ed article, readers will have to read the citations for themselves." Leverett and Mann vow to "continue to press for the release of the article without the material deleted," adding that "national security must be above politics."

TV Marti logo

"We believe we have the authority to do this," said a spokesperson for the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), regarding the airing of U.S. propaganda on domestic radio and TV stations. For six months, programs from TV and Radio Marti will be broadcast in South Florida, in an attempt to reach audiences in Cuba. U.S. government-run media is "prohibited by law from airing in the United States." But the BBG claims that the broadcasts are needed "to overcome significant signal-jamming by the Cuban government," especially at a time "when Fidel Castro, Cuba's longtime leader, is thought to be dying." The BBG "appears to be relying upon a paragraph in the law that terms dissemination in the United States illegal unless 'such dissemination is inadvertent.'" Critics say that South Floridians don't "inadvertently" turn to local stations; "they are the ... main audience." The Florida stations, Radio Mambi 710 AM and WPMF-38, are being paid $377,500 to air the Marti programming. "This is a fraud," said Joe Garcia of the New Democratic Network. "It certainly sounds like it's inconsistent with the spirit of the federal law," said the associate dean of Pennsylvania State University's College of Communication.

The new Congress is likely to put new and stronger emphasis on limiting junk food marketing, say aides to U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. Harkin becomes chair of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee in 2007. His aides report that food marketing to children "will be one of our top tier agenda items." In recent years, Harkin futilely has sought to push through legislation toughening Federal Trade Commission authority to regulate junk food marketing. Thirty years ago, attempts to limit ads to kids based upon concerns about tooth decay failed. Since then, obesity has become a high profile issue, with the rate of overweight children more than doubling. A coalition of food makers that controls about two-thirds of food and drink ads to children under 12 has announced voluntary advertising guidelines, but "half of the ads [are] still selling junk food," says Margo Wootan, nutrition policy director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

PR Week's "PR Toolbox" column has some helpful hints for placing audio news releases (ANRs), the radio cousin of video news releases (VNRs). "The use of guaranteed airings has become an attractive option for clients," says Christopher Sweet of VNR-1 Communications. With "guaranteed airings," Sweet explains, "spot time is purchased, but the ANR airs in its entirety during a prime-time news segment. The result is an airing which is sufficiently embedded in news programming and garners all the potential audience numbers the network of choice has to offer." Sweet suggests that interested companies hire "broadcast PR vendors with strong radio-network relationships" to find a "guaranteed airings system that suits your concept and budget." The column does not mention how to ensure listeners' right to know that such segments are sponsored PR material.

Former CIA analyst and National Security Council official Flynt Leverett has accused the White House of trying "to silence his criticism of Middle East policies by ordering the CIA to censor an op-ed column he wrote." Leverett said the CIA's attempt to remove already-public information about prior U.S. contacts with Iran from his op-ed is intended "to silence an established critic of the administration's foreign policy incompetence at a moment when the White House is working hard to fend off political pressure to take a different approach." A CIA spokesman said the agency's review of the op-ed is ongoing, and "more often than not the issues are worked out." An anonymous White House official dismissed Leverett's claims, saying, "There was nothing political here." Leverett's op-ed faults the administration for not taking Tehran up on a 2003 offer to "settle several disputes between the two countries," and predicts that "any deal that Washington made now would be on less favorable terms, because Iran had gained strength in the region and the United States was tied down in Iraq."

According to internal marketing documents, "Eli Lilly encouraged primary care physicians to use Zyprexa, a powerful drug for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, in patients who did not have either condition." Under U.S. law, companies can't promote "prescription drugs for conditions for which they have not been approved ... although doctors can prescribe drugs to any patient they wish." Yet documents leaked to the New York Times describe "a multiyear promotional campaign" called "Viva Zyprexa," in which "Lilly told its sales representatives to suggest that doctors prescribe Zyprexa to older patients with symptoms of dementia." One document states "dementia should be first message" for primary care doctors, since they "do not treat bipolar" or schizophrenia, but "do treat dementia." Three months after its launch, the Zyprexa campaign "led to 49,000 new prescriptions. ... In 2002, the company changed the name of the primary care campaign to 'Zyprexa Limitless' and began to focus on people with mild dipolar disorder who had previously been diagnosed as depressed -- even though Zyprexa has been approved only for the treatment of mania in bipolar disorder, not depression."

Video news releases (VNRs) aren't just for television anymore. "Hurt by public criticism of VNRs, possible Federal Communications Commission oversight, and a shrunken news hole," broadcast PR firms "are looking for ways to survive -- and making the Internet a bigger part of their offerings could be the answer," writes PR Week. "We have to utilize different tools to reach consumers on multiple platforms," explained MultiVu's Beverley Yehuda. "Podcasting is becoming perhaps a greater-use element of [VNRs] than broadcasting," according to Jack Trammell of VNR-1 Communications. "Broadcast is about reaching a massive audience," while websites allow "meaningful interactions" with thousands of people, explained Medialink Worldwide's Larry Thomas. VNRs and B-roll videos are being posted to video-sharing sites like YouTube, company websites, and news outlets' websites. "There is more usage of video by news organizations than ever before, whether broadcast or online," said The NewsMarket's Shoba Purushothaman, adding that "newspaper Web sites are hungry for video content."

The Canadian Nuclear Association's $1.7 million ad campaign touting nuclear power as "clean, reliable and affordable" is the target of a false-advertising complaint filed by a coalition of environmental, health and church groups. "Our concern is that the nuclear industry's advertising budget and approach distorts objective decisions ... about the future of [Canada's] electricity system," explained Julia Langer of WWF-Canada. The formal complaint, filed with Canada's Competition Bureau, says that presenting nuclear power as "clean" is misleading, given hazardous byproducts "from the mining of uranium fuel" and the radioactive waste generated by nuclear reactors, which "remains dangerous for thousands of years." Dennis Bueckert reports, "Canada still lacks a plan for permanent disposal of nuclear waste although the problem has been under study for many years." The Competition Bureau "receives 40,000 complaints a year," and does not investigate every one.

The Save the Internet Coalition has released a new video explaining the issues at stake in the net neutrality debate. CMD's own recently-released Falsies Awards gave the telecom industry a Bronze Falsie for its deceptive use of more than a dozen industry-funded front groups to oppose net neutrality.

The spin-driven restaurant and beverage industry front group, the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), has created a grass roots compilation of city, county and state efforts to ban added trans fats in restaurant food. From Boston's Health Commissioner to Cleveland's City Council to Washington State's Board of Health, various government agencies nationwide are sponsoring ordinances, regulations and laws to forbid partially hydrogenated oils. "We know that trans fat consumption leads to serious health problems and we believe that it's government's role...to do what we can to encourage people to consume healthy food," CCF's "Daily Headlines" quotes Boston Public Health Commission executive director John Auerbach. CCF also notes budding Chicago action and quotes Alderman Edward Burke--once famous for stalling progressive ordinance proposals under the late Mayor Harold Washington--calling trans fats "cruelty to human beings." CCF calls New York City's landmark December 2006 ban "outrageous" and derides all the anti-trans fat lawmakers as "having nothing better to do."

 

A full-page ad in Variety magazine (the trade magazine of the entertainment industry) calls attention to the odd, front-and-center placement of a pack of Marlboro cigarettes in the movie "Bobby," a fictionalized account of the 1968 assassination of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy. At a time when cigarette brand identification in movies is finally getting rarer, the Marlboros are displayed prominently in the hand of an actress in a long, 30-second, two-angle, center-screen shot. The placement is even weirder considering that Bobby Kennedy's leadership helped finally push cigarette ads off the airwaves for good over 35 years ago. Real-world smoking rates have declined tremendously in the last 40 years, but smoking in the movies has mysteriously skyrocketed back to levels not seen since the 1950s, when smoking was considered alluring. Nothing happens by accident in the production of a high-dollar motion picture, which leads us to believe we smell the stench of product placement.

"Large American nonprofits spend at least $7.6 billion per year on marketing and public relations," according to a consulting firm's analysis of U.S. tax data. "$7.6 billion annually in spending for advertising, communications, public relations and branding ... is not an insignificant business sector," writes Tom Watson. "Total spending on public relations in the U.S. reached some $3.7 billion last year. ... So while corporations are increasingly tying their brands to nonprofit causes, the nonprofits themselves are -- in a way -- increasingly competing with corporations for consumer attention, and consumer dollars. Clearly, causes sell. ... According to projects sponsorship consultancy IEG, Inc., cause-marketing spending will rise 20.5% this year to $1.34 billion -- that means cause-marketing sponsorships are now outpacing sports sponsorships." While Watson sees this as good news for both nonprofits and marketers, Huffington Post readers seem less enthusiastic. "Couldn't that money be used to directly serve people?" one commenter asks. "In the end, the corporate-allied nonprofits wear out their welcome," warns another.

The 2008 U.S. presidential race is already taking shape. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rudy Giuliani "are lining up on opposite sides of their home state's debate over a controversial nuclear power plant," reports The Hill. Giuliani, "whose security firm works for the plant's owners," supports the Indian Point plant's re-licensing bid. Clinton has called for "an independent safety assessment," while "three House Democrats and Gov.-elect Eliot Spitzer (D-N.Y.) have called for Indian Point's closure," due to radioactive leaks and the 9/11 Commission's finding that "al-Qaeda members considered hitting Indian Point on their way to the World Trade Center." But what about campaign advertising? Sen. John McCain "will likely be lining up with Mark McKinnon, who headed the Bush Maverick Media ad team," reports Advertising Age. Gov. Mitt Romney will turn to Alex Castellanos of National Media, Inc., and Sen. Sam Brownback will use Wilson Grand Communications. Clinton "looks to be aligning with Mandy Grunwald," while Sen. Barack Obama "is expected to go with David Axelrod's AKP Media & Message," and Sen. Joe Biden will likely tap Joe Slade White.

As the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing approach, "the Chinese government knows cameras and notebooks are just as likely to record angry farmers protesting, practitioners of the banned Falun Gong discipline clashing with police, or Hollywood stars campaigning for Tibet's independence -- if reporters have the access." While China has 31 journalists in jail -- more than any other country -- the government has "pledged to temporarily relax limits on foreign journalists" reporting on the Olympics. (China has declined to extend the new freedoms to domestic journalists.) For a gentler approach to media control, the Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee has put the PR firm Hill & Knowlton on retainer, while "Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide has been conducting training sessions for local governments." "I think it is a part of the process of reform for them," said the president of Ogilvy's China office. Sun Weide, the Beijing Olympics Committee's "message man" who "works extensively with Hill & Knowlton," stressed, "The Olympic charter says very clearly that the Games are about sports, not politics."

The U.S. Government Accountability Office "released a scathing report on the way the Food and Drug Administration handles direct-to-consumer prescription-drug advertising." The FDA "has just six reviewers on staff" to "screen, review and track the 10,000 pieces of advertising generated by drug makers each year in what has become a $4.5 billion-a-year industry." The FDA's response time for problematic drug ads has ballooned, from an average of two weeks in the years 1997 through 2001, to four months in 2002 to 2005, to eight months in 2004 and 2005. Senator Herb Kohl, one of three legislators who requested the GAO report, commented, "We need an FDA capable of reviewing DTC ads and taking swift action when necessary." For a rebuttal, Advertising Age quoted the head of the Coalition for Healthcare Communication, who said, "Better government oversight doesn't necessarily mean spending more money and adding more staff." However, AdAge neglected to point out that the "coalition" was formed by advertisers and publishing companies who rely on advertising dollars.

A doctor who featured in the PR plans of the drug company GlaxoSmithKline has been appointed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to a committee reviewing possible links between anti-depressant drugs and suicidality. In December 2004, internal GlaxoSmithKline documents revealed that Dr. Bruce Pollock had been identified by the PR firm Ruder Finn (RF) as one of four psychiatrists who could be approached to submit a letter to a medical journal downplaying withdrawal symptoms experienced by those who stopped taking the drug Paxil. Carl Elliot writes that a letter by Pollock, similar to RF's draft, was published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. "There was no disclosure, no mention of industry funding, no mention of 'editorial assistance,' and no mention of Ruder Finn," Elliot wrote. In 2004, Pollock stated that the letter was his work. However, he said that he "could imagine a scenario where a representative from the makers of Paxil said, 'Could you make this point?'"

Taco Bell has hired a safety expert, tested its produce, eliminated green onions, changed suppliers, and hired a PR crisis-response firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland. The firm's advice: publicize safety, which the company has done in big market newspaper ads. Still, with 69 reported East Coast cases of E. coli and no smoking gun, the restaurant chain faces what reporters Janet Adamy and Suzanne Vranica call "a difficult marketing challenge: how to convince consumers its food is safe when it doesn't know what has made people sick." The last reported case occurred on December 2, 2006. The outbreak has produced calls from lawmakers to establish new rules and regulations to prevent food contamination. The brand has also taken a shot from the Produce Marketing Association, which stated that Taco Bell is not a member of an industry safety coalition that investigated sources of contaminated California spinach that killed three persons and sickened 200 nationwide in September.

Citing instances where groups like Citizens Against Government Waste and Americans for Tax Reform have accepted corporate funding to lobby for their donors' causes, journalist Bill Adair explores whether greater disclosure by non-profit groups is warranted. Between them, the two groups have taken money from the tobacco industry, helped avocado growers and assisted in Jack Abramoff's lobbying efforts. The incoming Democratic Party chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, has flagged the need for change: "Nonprofits should not function as de facto lobbying firms." Current federal laws he said are "simply too murky." Frances Hill, a law professor at the University of Miami, agrees. "It seems to me we have to find a way to increase the disclosure of the contributors. I'm not talking about every church in America disclosing who gives money to their collection plate. But there's got to be a way to show who gives big chunks of money," she said.

The chief of the geriatric psychiatry branch of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Pearson Sunderland III, has pleaded guilty to accepting approximately $300,000 in undisclosed fees and expenses from Pfizer between 1997 and 2004. The NIMH is a part of the U.S. government's National Institutes of Health (NIH), which conducts and funds medical research projects. NIH staff are permitted to earn external income, subject to disclosure and approval from ethics watchdogs. Matthew Dolan reports that "in late 1997, representatives of Pfizer approached Sunderland about his agency joining a scientific collaboration" on indicators for Alzheimer's disease. Sunderland is only one of 44 NIH scientists that have had undisclosed financial deals with drug companies. However, he is one of the few to face charges with most either disciplined or retired from the agency. Sunderland's lawyer, Robert F. Muse, claimed that many NIH staff viewed disclosure forms as "a bureaucratic nuisance."

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission directed "companies engaging in word-of-mouth marketing, in which people are compensated to promote products to their peers," to "disclose those relationships." Otherwise, it could be deceptive marketing, as people are more likely to trust product endorsers "based on their assumed independence from the marketer," according to the FTC. While the FTC will examine potentially deceptive word-of-mouth marketing on a case-by-case basis, the agency rejected a request from the watchdog group Commercial Alert to review industry practices. The head of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) called the FTC's decision "an endorsement of the industry's efforts to police itself." Advertising Age reports that the FTC ruling "could lead to increased spending" on word-of-mouth marketing. O'Dwyer's PR Daily calls the ruling a victory for WOMMA, which had "urged the FTC to note the difference between buzz marketing, which it supports and promotes, and stealth marketing, which it opposes."

General Augusto Pinochet, 91, died on December 10, 2006, after nearly a decade of fighting prosecution on charges of gross violations of human rights. The charges stemmed from murders, tortures and disappearances of thousands of Chilean and other opponents during his 1974-1990 rule. In one of the general's most enduring images, he posed for a photograph in which he set a stark, sinister image behind sunglasses after a coup against the elected president Salvador Allende. In an interview for a 1999 biography, he explained the pose that obscured his eyes: "It was a way of telling things. Lies are discovered through the eyes, and I lied often."

"Across the country, half a dozen federal libraries are closed or closing," including several run by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA libraries helped "toxicologists assess health effects of pesticides and chemicals," and "federal investigators track sources of fish kills and identify companies responsible." The EPA's compliance office warned that the closures "could weaken efforts to enforce environmental laws." Regarding the Chicago EPA library's closing, one activist who conducted research there while campaigning against a proposed sludge incinerator said, "If I had known ... I would have chained myself to the bookcase." Also closing are libraries run by the General Services Administration, with information on "real estate, telecommunications and government finance," and by the Energy Department, with "literature for government scientists and contractors." "Officials say the cutbacks have been driven by tight budgets, declining patronage and rising demand for online services." Critics "fear that some publications will never be digitized because of copyright restrictions or cost," and say the loss of knowledgeable reference librarians will greatly hamper research efforts.

"Sir Richard Doll, the celebrated epidemiologist who established that smoking causes lung cancer, was receiving a consultancy fee of $1,500 a day in the mid-1980s from Monsanto," reports The Guardian. "While he was being paid by Monsanto, Sir Richard wrote to a royal Australian commission investigating the potential cancer-causing properties of Agent Orange, made by Monsanto and used by the US in the Vietnam war. Sir Richard said there was no evidence that the chemical caused cancer." Monsanto confirmed that Sir Richard worked for the company as recently as 2000, as "an expert witness for Solutia," a Monsanto spin-off. Sir Richard "was also paid a £15,000 fee by the Chemical Manufacturers Association and ... Dow Chemicals and ICI, for a review that largely cleared vinyl chloride, used in plastics, of any link with cancers apart from liver cancer -- a conclusion with which the World Health Organization disagrees." Colleagues defended the late Sir Richard, saying that he received the fees when "it was not automatic for potential conflicts of interest to be declared in scientific papers," and that he donated the money to Green College, Oxford.

U.S. Army soldiers in Mosul, Iraq

The Iraq Study Group's report states, "There is significant underreporting of the violence in Iraq" by the U.S. military. The too-high "standard for recording attacks acts as a filter to keep events out of reports and databases," as well as news stories, according to Editor & Publisher. Examples of unreported attacks include "a roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn't hurt U.S. personnel" and a "sectarian attack" by an unknown group. In addition, "a murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack." On one day in July 2006, only 93 violent acts were officially recorded, when some 1,100 actually occurred, according to the report. "Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals," it concludes. One recommendation is to "institute immediate changes in the collection of data about violence and the sources of violence in Iraq to provide a more accurate picture of events on the ground."

Only a small proportion of annual corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports -- perhaps 15 to 20 percent -- provide "very thorough" accounts of real ethical problems faced by companies. Even that measure comes from within the CSR report industry, in interviews with writers Andrew Brengle of KLD Research & Analytics and Jeff Erikson of SustainAbility Inc. The two consultants point to Nike as a company that faced such bad ongoing publicity that it revamped its reports to provide concrete details and increased reporting on labor abuses. (Brengle has been a voluntary reviewer of Nike's reporting.) But more typical, they say, are companies like Hess Corp., an energy company, which described chemical spill problems in a recent report but omitted a federal bribery probe stemming from international operations. "It's more of a hard sell to get a company that isn't a household name, that is more able to hide in the weeds, to produce a sophisticated and in-depth report because they don't have that public pressure," said Brengle. Recent studies by the Ethical Trading Action Group and Oxfam/Hong Kong to improve global labor rights reporting can be viewed, respectively, here and here.

Margot Mackay, a former PR consultant to the gambling company Aristocrat, has pleaded guilty to three charges of insider trading. Mackay, who headed her own company Margot McKay and Associates, used family members to buy almost $150,000 in shares ahead of announcements to the stock exchange that she wrote herself. Kate McClymont reports that McKay "was hired by Aristocrat in 2003 to clean up its corporate image after a series of scandals involving some of its senior executives." Mackay was prosecuted after Aristocrat reported her share-trading to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

As newspapers seek to cut costs in the face of sagging circulation and advertising pressures, some have started to ship jobs overseas to places like India. "More than two years ago, Reuters, the financial news service, opened a new center in Bangalore," reports Doreen Carvajal. "The 340 employees, including an editorial team of 13 local journalists, was deployed to write about corporate earnings and broker research on U.S. companies. Since then, the Reuters staff at the center has grown to about 1,600, with 100 journalists working on U.S. stories." Other publications are using the services of Hi-Tech Export, an Indian company with some 700 employees that offers proofreading, copy-editing and writing services to companies in the United States, France and Britain.

"Walmart used to annoy me with its horrible labor practices, draconian rules, and blatant manipulation of the media, but now it's gone past annoyance to bafflement," writes marketing consultant K.D. Paine. "The latest was the firing of their VP of Marketing because she allegedly went for rides in an Aston Martin and accepted dinners from Agencies pitching their business. ... Their message is: we're all about ethics. Which might be believable for a nanosecond, except that the agency behind the biggest ethics scandal to hit the blogosphere in awhile (and presumably the PR person who okay-ed those fake blogs) are still happily employed." Michael Deaver, a former chief of staff for President Reagan, is now helping to oversee the Wal-Mart account as a vice chairman at the Edelman PR firm.

The tobacco industry’s buddies in the bar and gambling businesses are at it again, suing to try and stop Nevada's new smoke-free law, which voters approved November 7 by a margin of 54% to 46%. The law bans smoking in bars that serve meals, slot machine sections of grocery and convenience stores, in video arcades, shopping malls, schools and day-care centers. Bar and casino owners are claiming the law is unconstitutional, and saying that it will hurt their businesses, while offering no proof that it has. A peer-reviewed study published in Tobacco Control journal in 2003 conclusively linked the tobacco industry to most of these lawsuits. The industry and its allies typically lose these "equal protection" suits, which are stimulated by the tobacco industry to undermine enforcement and long-term implementation of smoke-free laws.

A new survey undertaken by the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) finds that most think tanks in the European Union fail to disclose their funding sources, which is also kept secret by the large corporations that provide much of their financial support. A particularly problematic example is that of ExxonMobil, which "continues to fuel the work of climate skeptic think tanks and lobby groups in North America and Europe," while keeping much of its funding for these groups secret.

"With congressional Democrats readying probes into oil companies' profits and eyeing legislation aimed at curbing global warming, the American Petroleum Institute and its K Street allies are looking to assemble a $100 million war chest to rally policy makers and public opinion to their side," reports Peter Stone. "The image and education effort, much of which will be coordinated by the PR firm Edelman, will include expensive television, radio, and print ads, tours of oil patch facilities for lawmakers and opinion elites, and financial contributions to sympathetic think tanks and industry-friendly organizations." API has also been using the services of Wirthlin Worldwide, headed by former Ronald Reagan pollster Richard Wirthlin, as it scrambles "to salvage a reputation suffering amid high gasoline prices and concern about fossil-fuel dependence."

The American Academy of Pediatrics has become the latest organisation to call for a ban on the advertising of junk food during children's television programs. "Healthy foods are advertised less than 3 per cent of the time," noted Donald Shifrin, the chairman of the committee that produced the new policy, which calls for the removal of junk food ads during children's programs, along with restrictions on ads for tobacco, alcohol and drugs for erectile dysfunction.

SMT star Julie Edelman shills for five companies

As the Center for Media and Democracy illustrated in its April 2006 report, "fake TV news" includes satellite media tour (SMT) interviews. According to PR Week, "Generating interest in an SMT requires innovation and imagination, and maybe even a stunt. ... The art of the successful SMT is in its subtlety, where the subject -- the product, movie, or any other property being promoted -- is almost incidental." PR Week describes an SMT produced for Bank of America by KEF Media Associates that featured NASCAR star Kasey Kahne. Another SMT, produced for E&J Gallo Winery by KEF, sought to promote wine "to more blue-collar sensibilities" with a tailgate setting. The SMT showed "upscale tailgating, like wine and shrimp, not beer and hot dogs," explained KEF's Linda Buckley. An SMT produced for Del Monte by MultiVu "utilized a kitchen set with an array of foods," to promote the canned food company's "Healthy Fuel for School" campaign. Lastly, an SMT produced for GlaxoSmithKline featured "Desperate Housewives" star and migraine sufferer Marcia Cross, to promote the pharmaceutical company's headache remedy.

"If you briefly clicked by Al Jazeera International on television, you might mistake it for the BBC," the Project for Excellence in Journalism's Dante Chinni writes, citing AJI's "understated, clean graphics," "more-global view of the news," and its anchors' British accents. But AJI has "an Arab voice" and trumpets its "fearless journalism." "In a story the channel did about its own launch ... it happily pointed out that everyone criticizes Al Jazeera. The piece included clips of Saddam Hussein-era Iraqi officials saying Al Jazeera is spreading US propaganda, juxtaposed against soon-to-be-former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld calling the channel 'irresponsible.'" Chinni notes that when "a Lebanese cabinet minister was assassinated, and Syria renewed diplomatic relations with Iraq," AJI viewers had already been presented with "the broader news context of these regional events." It's too early to determine whether AJI will be "a mouthpiece for anti-American propaganda," he concludes. But it does "offer more in-depth coverage of the Middle East than anything else most Americans are going to see."

Bucking intense restaurant industry opposition, New York City has banned all added trans fats in restaurant food. The ban was passed by the city's Board of Health on December 6, 2006, and takes effect in July 2007. Donut makers get a one-year reprieve in order to find a substitute oil for the deep-fried dough. The board's action also included a requirement that restaurant chains post nutritional information. "We're not trying to take away anybody's ability to go out and have the kind of food they want in the quantities they want," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He said that health department estimates show that the ban on hydrogenated oils could save hundreds of lives annually. Dan Fleshler, spokesman for the National Restaurant Association responded, "We're deeply disappointed. We would prefer to do this voluntarily. Restaurants have been moving on their own in response to customer demand and eliminating trans fats." The Center for Consumer Freedom, a national front group for the restaurant and beverage industry, had vigorously fought the ban and immediately issued a statement headlined "Are Calories Next?", calling the ban "unprecedented in its paternalistic scope."