After resigning from British Airways (BA) amidst an investigation into allegations of price-fixing in the airline industry, Iain Burns has been appointed as the head of Corporate Communications at Etihad Airways (EA). EA is the national airline of the United Arab Emirates. In June 2006 the U.K. government's Office and Fair Trading were alerted by Virgin Atlantic of approaches to agree on fuel surcharges with other airlines. At the time The Independent reported that BA was "seeking to distance its top management" from the controversy "by pinning the blame on the unauthorised actions of individual executives." The investigation has not been completed. Burns started out in PR with British Nuclear Fuels Limited before working for several airlines including BA. He subsequently joined the PR consultancy, Bell Pottinger, where he advised Dubai-based Emirates, before returning once more to BA.

Many of CMD's staff will be in Memphis, Tennessee, January 11-14, at the National Conference for Media Reform. Check out the extensive program featuring journalists, activists, FCC Commissioners, media watchdogs, national elected officials, and entertainers. The scores of notables include Bill Moyers, Amy Goodman and Helen Thomas. CMD's Diane Farsetta will speak about stopping Fake TV News, and executive director John Stauber will address propaganda and the press. If you want to meet us in Memphis, send an email to: editor AT prwatch.org (substitute the "@" symbol for the word "AT" in your email). There is still time to register.

Patrick Moore, a former environmental activist who left Greenpeace twenty years ago and is now a PR consultant, argues "it is now far more effective to work with governments and industries to encourage positive change." As a consultant, Moore has dismissed concerns about the impact of logging in the Amazon, supported Newmont Mining over controversies at its mines in the U.S., Ghana and Peru, defended the use of PVC in plastics and extolled the merits of genetically engineered crops. Since 2006 he has been a consultant to the Nuclear Energy Institute's front group, the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition. He is also listed as an "adviser" to New York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance, which is campaigning for a 20-year license renewal for Entergy's Indian Point nuclear power plant. In February he has also been invited to speak to the Fresno Nuclear Energy Group LLC, which aims to overturn California's moratorium on building nuclear power stations.

The Society of Professional Journalists is moving ahead on a joint venture with Market Wire, a PR industry firm that, among other services, distributes news releases. Columnist Michael Miner of the Chicago Reader exposed the deal last fall. For a $75,000 "curriculum development fee," Market Wire has exclusive rights for one year to present to PR professionals an SPJ-drafted program to "help people understand the tenets of responsible journalism and the profound importance of a free press." Miner notes that the original September 2006 discussion within SPJ focused on educating Market Wire's clients about "what journalists want and need" for their articles. SPJ's board (minus four dissenters) approved a deal in November reframing the relationship as one of "curriculum development," rather than helping Market Wire's paying clients receive valuable advice from journalists on how to better pitch them stories. Ten years ago, PR Watch reported on similar, continuing arrangements between individual journalists and PR flacks, brokered by Infocom Group, publisher of Bulldog Reporter, an intelligence report on journalists for PR specialists. SPJ ethics committee chair Gary Hill is "braced for a sour reaction from some of the pricklier members of his ethics committee," reports Miner.

Concerned at the implications of Google's attempt to build an online digital library, a splinter group called the Open Content Alliance has launched a not-for-profit effort to scan the collections of major libraries and make them available online. "You are talking about the fruits of our civilization and culture. You want to keep it open and certainly don't want any company to enclose it," explained Doron Weber, program director of public understanding of science and technology for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Google's proprietary approach has been met with lawsuits from authors and publishers concerned about infringement on their copyrights, which has in turn forced the company to place restrictions on its digital-book copies to ensure that "only small excerpts from the copyrighted material appear online."

As a reporter for Environmental Science and Technology (ES&T), a small industry trade publication, Paul Thacker discovered an entire industry built around spinning science for the purpose of confusing the public while benefiting big business. He wrote exposés documenting the tobacco and oil industry ties of Steven Milloy's junkscience.com, which purports to debunk bad science about issues such as global warming. He uncovered the $2.9 million media campaign behind "Project Protect," a front group for the timber industry that represented itself as an organization of concerned citizens in Oregon. But when he began writing about the Weinberg Group, an international scientific and regulatory consulting firm specializing in "product defense" for the chemical industry, he ran afoul of the American Chemical Society, which publishes ES&T. A few months later, after unearthing evidence that the White House tried to prevent scientists from speaking out about the link between climate change and the increasing strength of hurricanes, he was fired from his job.