The U.K Public Administration Committee, which has launched an investigation into the lobbying industry, will visit Washington D.C. in October to research the U.S. system for regulating lobbying. The vice-chairman of the PR company Edelman Europe, Michael Burrell, is wary of the U.K. government emulating the U.S. regulatory standards. "I think that our self-regulatory system works remarkably well," he told PR Week. The U.K. inquiry is seeking to investigate "the transparency of the lobbying industry, the effectiveness of recent attempts at self-regulation, and whether the rules for those in Parliament and government should be changed."

"For consumers of news and searchers of information, these are heady times," writes Steve Outing. "Most of us are adding new news sources to our information diet all the time." However, "there's a huge downside to this abundance: How as consumers do we know if we can trust what we read? How do we know if it's balanced, or serving someone's narrow agenda?" One new option is NewsTrust, "a social network model which uses the intellect of the masses to rate all manner of news content and news sources. ... In beta now and due out in early 2008, Newstrust will not only be a stand-alone site where consumers can come to find the best journalism as ranked by an army of volunteer media reviewers, but more importantly it will (we can hope) be deployed over all manner of online news sources so that readers will on any news-related website see an objective rating of that site's quality and of specific news content."

Based on the survey results of 300 public relations firms around the world, The Holmes Report estimates that the industry is "generating at least $7 billion in fee income annually, employing in excess of 50,000 people, and growing by at least 8.5 percent a year." The newsletter notes that 1,500 firms did not respond to the survey, which makes their estimate a "best guess." "The way in which most large communications holding companies have chosen to interpret Sarbanes-Oxley regulations makes it almost impossible to secure accurate and verifiable information about the size and performance of their individual operating units," the newsletter states. The survey did not include PR professionals employed by government agencies, trade associations, non-profit groups or corporations.

Solid Energy protest: Source: Happy Valley CoalitionThe New Zealand Government-owned coal mining company, Solid Energy, has had only a limited win with the legal action it launched over a spoof corporate social responsibility report. Initially, the company aimed to suppress the entire report, produced by the Save Happy Valley Coalition, and sought damages for defamation and injurious falsehood. It later changed tack and simply sought the removal of its trademarked logo from the report. Last week, High Court Justice Lester Chisholm ordered that the company logo and name be removed from the report cover. The coalition has subsequently re-issued the report. Solid Energy has become renowned for its hardball tactics. In 2005 the company unsuccessfully sought $NZ379,342 against two environmental groups who challenged the approval of a new mine in a planning tribunal. Earlier this year, it was revealed that Solid Energy had hired a private investigation company to infiltrate the Save Happy Valley Coalition.

The New Jersey rapper, Sudden Death, has launched a free-to-play track which mocks the drug industry's direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA). The song, titled Pillagers, describes the experience of a man taking two dozen pills for various conditions being prescribed the notional drug Liquiplox that "relaxes the lining of your throat making it easier to take pills". "Liquiplox isn't for everyone. People without health insurance or who otherwise may be unable to pay should not take Liquiplox. Do not stop taking any of your other medications without consulting your doctor as this may cause an unsafe drop in our profit margins," a fictional drug company rep states in the song. A November 2006 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office report stated that drug companies spent $4.2 billion in 2005 on DTCA in the U.S.