For decades, the tobacco industry has poured advertising dollars into boosting smoking among women, running ads linking smoking to themes that appeal to women, like fashion, equal rights, ethnic pride, and success in friendships and the workplace. Their efforts have been a wild success, as evidenced by the skyrocketing rate of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) now being diagnosed among women. COPD, which results from smoking and takes decades to develop, has quadrupled among women since 1980. Now more women than men are hospitalized and die from it. With more women than ever dying from cigarettes, tobacco companies like R.J. Reynolds forge ahead, targeting special brands towards women, like Camel No. 9, marketed in packs colored with hot-pink fuschia and minty-green teal, and marketed with the slogan, "Light and luscious." Mmmm, good -- if you like lung disease.

Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, we cover mysterious anti-merger messages, the PR around the Writers Guild of America strike, and how to make science policy without input from scientists. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we tell you how many steps it takes to get from a popular Democratic politician to an industry group stonewalling environmental policies. The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

"You can only hear that the sky is falling so many times," said Kentucky Representative Jim Gooch, explaining why he only invited global warming skeptics with no scientific background to address state legislators on climate issues. Gooch, the Kentucky Democrats' chief environmental strategist, is "a longtime ally of the coal industry." His invitees were James Taylor, a fellow with the Heartland Institute, a think tank partially funded by ExxonMobil; and Lord Christopher Monckton, an adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who once suggested that HIV / AIDS patients "be locked up for life." During the Kentucky hearing, "Monckton quoted the Bible and quickly recited math formulas as he accused [Nobel laureates Al] Gore and IPCC scientists of lying to make warming seem worse than it is." Taylor claimed that "most scientists don't believe in global warming," and that hotter weather would allow "our children" to "enjoy an Earth with far more plant and animal life." After protests by legislators, Gooch allowed "two environmentalists in the audience talk about global warming ... for about five minutes each."

When the Washington Post tried to contact 60 people who were listed as having "sent e-mails to the Federal Communications Commission opposing the proposed merger between the satellite radio networks XM and Sirius," the paper found "mostly unanswered phone calls and recordings saying the phones were disconnected." Only ten people "whose names were attached to identical, anti-merger e-mails instigated by the National Association of Broadcasters, a major opponent of the merger," could be reached. Of the ten, "nine said they never sent anything to the FCC, and only one said she remembered filling out something about Sirius but did not recall taking a position on a merger." A National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) spokesperson said his group recorded "the name, date, postal address and numerical Internet address" of the e-mailers, who "had to physically type in their name and address." While online campaigns are common and "it is not unusual for e-mailers to forget what they have -- or have not -- clicked on," one e-mailer told the Post she actually supported the merger. XM and Sirius have called the e-mails "suspicious." The FCC is expected to rule soon on the merger.

From a November 2005 Greenpeace action"After public opinion polls found lukewarm support for new nuclear power plants in the state," California State Assemblyman Chuck DeVore withdrew his ballot initiative on nuclear energy. The initiative, which was slated for the June 2008 ballot, would have "overturned a 1976 state law prohibiting construction of new nuclear reactors until a permanent solution for the storage of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel is found." DeVore "got permission to begin gathering signatures to place the initiative on the ballot" in October, but "no signature gathering was done," because polls found 52 percent of Californians support new nuclear plants, while 42 percent oppose them. "If we pushed this thing to the ballot, we were likely to lose," said DeVore. "You want to be in the mid-60 percent range before you start on something that controversial." Instead, "he plans to submit a bill next year that would lift the nuclear moratorium legislatively." A similar bill, also by DeVore, was killed in committee in April 2007. On the website of his pro-nuclear group, Power for California, DeVore writes, "Eventually, California will catch up to reality." The Fresno Nuclear Energy Group also supported the failed legislation and ballot initiative.

Reporter Nikki Finke, who has been closely covering the ongoing Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike, reports that the studio owners' group, the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP), "during the first days of the strike ... went out and hired Hill and Knowlton, the controversial global public relations and public affairs giant." Finke writes, "Remember that full page ad that ran November 15th in the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times? That unsigned ad, titled 'An Open Letter', that was so different in tone from the strident pre- and post-strike statements issued in the name of AMPTP president Nick Counter? ... That ad was not just Hill & Knowton's brainchild, it's the firm's bread and butter." Finke compares the AMPTP ad to the tobacco industry's infamous 1954 "A Frank Statement," which was developed with Hill & Knowlton's John Hill. WGA slammed the AMPTP ad as "misleading," "patronizing," and "guilty of what most charitably could be called sins of omission." Finke asks, "Did Big Media know that it was mimicking Big Tobacco?" In an update, Finke writes, "I received a very strange call today from Hill and Knowlton denying that they're working for the AMPTP even though the CEOs group previously confirmed it to me." Finke also reports that both AMPTP and WGA "wanted to hire former Clinton White House press secretary Joe Lockhart as their official mouthpiece." Lockhart, who's now with the Glover Park Group, declined to work for either side.

On Congresspedia we are continuing to profile important votes this year in Congress as a way of building the same kind of "permanent records" for members of Congress that school kids used to get threatened with. You can help keep Congress accountable by taking five minutes to add information on how your senators or representative voted to their Congresspedia profiles, thus ensuring that the tens of thousands of people who come to the site every day get a chance to know what it is that their elected officials are doing in Washington.

Following on the previous featured participatory projects to record the votes on the scuttled Children's Health Insurance Program expansion and the Senate's controversial confirmation of Bush's nominee for Attorney General, this week we are turning to this year's important votes on immigration. For help we enlisted the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, which selected two votes this year on immigration for its middle class scorecard at theMiddleClass.org. The first was a vote to strip this summer's comprehensive immigration reform bill of its provisions to provide paths to citizenship to undocumented immigrants, leaving only enforcement measures in place (something opposed by DMI). The second was last month's vote to quash the DREAM Act, which would have granted a path to permanent residency for young undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children but would like to attend college or serve in the U.S. military (supported by DMI).

No matter what you think of these bills, these votes were on dramatic changes in our country's immigration policies and deserve to be recorded. And, to make sure that all perspectives were covered, we've also included criticisms from bill opponents like the Heritage Foundation.

No policy or technical expertise is necessary - just click here for full instructions on how to easily add this information to your Senators' permanent records. Thanks and have fun!

When the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) held a fake news conference in October, with FEMA staffers asking their boss softball questions about the California wildfires, Homeland Security Department Secretary Michael Chertoff strongly condemned it. However, "on Feb. 3, 2006, an official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement asked a question during a news conference in San Antonio, Texas." The earlier incident came to light during the Department's investigation of the FEMA incident, which has not been made public. Homeland Security is the "parent agency" of both FEMA and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). According to the Associated Press, "the ICE public affairs official was standing with about 12 reporters but did not identify herself when she posed the question." She had been "advised against asking the question, but asked anyway." After the incident, she was "verbally reprimanded." According to the Associated Press, "San Antonio reporters knew she was a public affairs official at the time."

ConocoPhillips's Bob Ridge visited San Antonio, Texas recently, as stop number 32 of a 33-city "Conversation on Energy" tour. "It becomes obvious fast that Bob isn't in San Antonio to make any great promises," writes local reporter Greg Harman, who attended the event. "He tells our group straightaway that the next 30 years belong to oil, natural gas and coal. In the meantime, ConocoPhillips will be 'keeping a watch on global climate change and our water resources.'" (Shell Oil and Chevron have held similar public events.) A flyer distributed at Ridge's presentation encourages San Antonians to become "more involved in the Conversation on Energy," by serving on a local "advisory committee," helping to "inform ConocoPhillips about energy issues and events in my community," participating in online discussions, or communicating with "local groups, organizations, officials, and media." Harman concludes, "Bob is not here to find out what we think about his company. What he wants is permission to function through us. Or, barring that, to delay or diffuse potentially damaging outbursts to our representatives in Congress."

Concerned that the U.S. public "does not understand or appreciate how expensive it is to keep the nation's engines running," the American Petroleum Institute (API), Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell "have reached out to a conservative band of bloggers," reports Reuters. API "paid for seven bloggers" to take two trips in November, one to Houston and Corpus Christi, Texas, and one offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. API required the bloggers to disclose that the industry group had funded the trips, but otherwise "placed no restrictions" on them. API's "new media advisor," Jane Van Ryan, admitted that the bloggers chosen -- for the Texas trip, Ed Morrissey, Bruce McQuain, Brian Westenhaus and the National Association of Manufacturers's Carter Wood -- "have not been particularly critical of the industry." While API's blogger "outreach effort" is new, "reporters who cover the energy industry are often invited by companies to visit offshore drilling rigs or production platforms," notes Reuters. API is currently discussing plans for 2008 junkets.

An anti-abortion group, Colorado for Equal Rights, is gathering signatures to get a constitutional amendment on the 2008 statewide ballot. The amendment, called the "Definition of a Person Act," would confer full legal rights upon fertilized human embryos. Other anti-abortion groups are simultaneously advancing similar measures in other states under different names. In Michigan it is called the "Personhood Amendment" and in Mississippi the "Ultimate Human Life Amendment." Abortion rights supporters warn that these amendments would lead to banning abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and a wide range of birth control methods that make a woman's womb environment hostile to egg fertilization, like intrauterine devices, oral contraceptives and the morning after pill. Despite their vast potential ramifications, these deceptively simple proposed amendments contain no mention of abortion, stem cell research, birth control or any other wording that indicates their ultimate intent.

A report written in 1959 by Mark May, a Yale University professor and expert on psychological warfare, detailed the extensive operations by the United States Information Service (USIS) in Japan after the end of World War II. The report was recently uncovered in the National Archives in Washington by Kenneth Osgood, an assistant professor of history at Florida Atlantic University. The report reveals that 23 of 50 USIS-sponsored programs were not publicly identified as U.S. funded projects. USIS sponsored radio news and commentary programs "which are tape-recorded and utilized by commercial stations, yet the listening public is unaware of the source of these programs," May wrote. Other programs funded movies and conservative academics. One of the aims of USIS was to reduce anti-nuclear sentiment in Japan in the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. May reported that the promotion of the civilian "Atoms for Peace" nuclear power program resulted in the number of people equating the word "atom" with "harmful" falling from 70 percent in 1956 to 30 percent in 1958.

Andrew Stroehlein, the director of media and information at the International Crisis Group, reflects on why the English language version of Al Jazeera's television news operation "remains unavailable to most Americans." The quality of reporting from what is perhaps the best-funded television news network, he argues, is not the problem. "The hurdle for some [cable companies] is a lingering fear of a public relations backlash -- that some customers might get agitated by their cable company offering a channel whose sister station in Arabic has a reputation for being anti-American," he writes. However, he points out that key administration officials and former White House press secretary, Tony Snow, have given interviews to the station. "If it is worthwhile enough for them to spend their time giving interviews to Al Jazeera English, no one could seriously argue that the American public should not watch it," he writes.

Blackwater USA is a private military contractor facing a federal U.S. grand jury investigation for the shooting of Iraqi citizens. The company recently hit the headlines after its personnel opened fire on Iraqi civilians in September, killing 17. Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that the company has "hired a bipartisan stable of big-name Washington lawyers, lobbyists and press advisers" including, for a short time, the PR company Burson-Marsteller. Blackwater's main lobbyist is Paul Behrends, from the Washington DC lobbying firm C & M Capitolink. Blackwater "has paid his company $300,000 since last year," John M. Broder and James Risen reported. Mark Corallo, the founder of Corallo Media Strategies, quit working for Blackwater last year. "The reason they get the caricature that’s been created is that they do have a few cowboys in their midst," he said.

Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, we cover greenwashing the Olympics, when a Nobel prize doesn't count for much, and why human waste by any other name is still ... you know. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we tell you how many steps it takes to get from a corporate apologist to a perennial thorn in industry's side. The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

Do your civic duty -- vote for your favorite Falsies!

At the end of each year, CMD issues the "Falsies Awards," to recognize the people and players that take spin and propaganda to new lows. We need you to help identify the worst of the worst hard at work in 2007. We have put together a juicy selection of nominees -- but we need you to vote and tell us who deserves the Falsies this year.

Follow this link to fill out your ballot. Celebrating Thanksgiving? Get your friends and family to vote too! The deadline for entries is 5:00 p.m. CST on Friday, November 30, 2007, so vote today!

The United States Senate Committee on Finance has released a damning staff report titled The Intimidation of Dr. John Buse and the Diabetes Drug Avandia. The report reviews how in 1999 SmithKline Beecham, known after the merger with Glaxo Wellcome as GlaxoSmithKline, reacted when Buse, a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina, raised concerns about the potential for increased heart attacks associated with Avandia. Internal company documents, the report states, "reveal what appears to be an orchestrated plan to stifle the opinion" of Buse, in part to reassure stockmarket analysts. The report provides a powerful case study of an attempt by a corporation to stifle scientific dissent. If you would like to help build a SourceWatch article on this, the instructions are here. If this is your first time editing on SourceWatch, you can register here, and learn more about adding information to the site here, here and here. Have fun, and thanks for your help!

Former Bush administration political advisor Karl Rove has signed on as a columnist for Newsweek magazine, with his first column titled "How to Beat Hillary (Next) November." Charles Kaiser notes the irony in Rove's decision to join the mainstream media: "In public, Rove is one of dozens of conservatives who assiduously bash the press. Last summer, channeling Agnew, Rove told Rush Limbaugh that 'the people I see criticizing [Bush] are sort of elite effete snobs.' But at the same time, Rove was constantly massaging big-time Washington journalists over long lunches at the Hay Adams Hotel."

The Heartland Institute website accuses Gore of a "snowjob" on global warming.Chicago Sun-Times Business Editor Dan Miller, who previously used his editorial position to promote the writings of corporate pollution-apologist Steven Milloy, is now lending his name to a bit of global warming skepticism disseminated by the Heartland Institute, a corporate-funded think tank where he used to work. Miller's cover letter accompanies a mailing to journalists in which Heartland public affairs director Tom Swiss trashes Al Gore's documentary about the issue, "An Inconvenient Truth," as an "alarmist or kind of an extreme example" of reporting on the issue, while "The Great Global Warming Swindle," which takes the opposite view, is praised as "a European documentary by Martin Durkin that won a lot of awards." (Evidently Swiss didn't think to mention Gore's awards, which include an Academy Award and the Nobel Prize.) Bob Steele, an ethics scholar at the Poynter Institute for media studies, sees some problems with Miller's eagerness to flack for anti-environmentalist causes. "He is actively urging a particular examination, and I would suggest a point of view, on a substantive public policy issue," Steele said. "He's also pitching it in a problematic way to other journalists, using his journalistic connections in doing so."

"The basis of the whole thing was, 'we're going to go into Iran and what do we have to do to get you guys to go along with it,'" said Laura Sonnenmark, a participant in a recent focus group apparently funded by the Republican-associated lobbying group Freedom's Watch. Sonnenmark, a "focus group regular," said the moderator "used lots of catch phrases, like 'victory' and 'failure is not an option.'" She added, "I've never seen a moderator who was so persistent in manipulating and leading the participants." The final questions of the session were: "How would you feel if Hillary [Clinton] bombed Iran? How would you feel if George Bush bombed Iran? And how would you feel if Israel bombed Iran?" Neither the firm involved, Martin Focus Groups, nor Freedom's Watch would confirm that the organization funded the focus group. But focus group participants were handed a flier with a Freedom's Watch logo, and the group has advocated for confronting Iran, organizing forums on the "threat" posed by the country, and running ads calling the Iranian president a "terrorist."

After two Smithsonian Institution board members questioned the appropriateness of accepting oil industry funding for its "Ocean Initiative," the American Petroleum Institute (API) withdrew its $5 million funding offer. "Circumstances within the Smithsonian have changed, to say the least," said an API spokesperson. It's not the museum's only contentious exhibit. A 2006 exhibit on the Arctic was changed to add "the idea of scientific uncertainly about climate research," reports the Washington Post. "You know that I am not an alarmist," one NASA scientist who objected to the changes wrote, "but I will say that a museum can't do an honest exhibit about what is happening in the Arctic without causing people some serious concern." Exhibit plans were reviewed by Bush administration political appointees. The exhibit's title was changed from "Arctic Meltdown" to "The Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely." Its sequence was changed, so that "the more dramatic temperature changes in the past 50 years" were "moved farther back." And its script was changed, deleting sentences like: "If you want to see what the rest of the planet is going to see in the next generation, watch out for the Arctic in the next five to 10 years."

A public relations trade publication has editorialized in favor of video news release (VNR) disclosure ... sort of. "The Federal Communications Commission is correctly serving the US citizens' right to know where footage originates," writes PR Week. "And no amount of rhetoric will change the fact that a corporate-produced video is less likely to be critical of a particular subject than an independent, news-produced video." The magazine suggests that "broadcasters and news producers" agree on "a universal VNR disclosure standard. ... The news organizations must realize either through proactive means or via the brunt force of the FCC, tomorrow's VNRs will be broadcast with labels." In other words, the PR and broadcast industries still might be able to forestall independent oversight if they promise, once again, to do a better job of policing themselves.

Human rights, environmental, health and labor campaigns around the Beijing 2008 Olympics that seek to change China's behavior are increasingly targeting Olympic sponsors. "Companies operating in China are 'absolutely focused' on minimizing their potential exposure to issues such as Darfur and Tibet during the Olympics, says Richard Edelman, president and chief executive of Edelman Public Relations," whose clients include Olympic sponsors General Electric and Coca-Cola. Some sponsors "appear to be hoping to avoid the red flags by going green, focusing on environmental projects in China. ... Coke is playing up its water-conservation efforts on the Yangtze River," and has also partnered with World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace. "Since March, Volkswagen has been planting thousands of trees in Inner Mongolia. GE is touting its role selling ecofriendly products such as solar-power and water-filtration systems for the Olympic venues." Edelman calls it a "win-win" strategy, saying the companies avoid addressing difficult issues while currying the favor of the Chinese government.

"Two years ago, Wal-Mart chief executive H. Lee Scott Jr. outlined ambitious goals to turn the world's largest retailer into a more environmentally friendly company," reports the Washington Post. "Wal-Mart yesterday released its first report on its progress in meeting those goals, and showed mixed results." Among Wal-Mart's supposedly "significant gains" was "selling 22 seafood products that have been certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council" (MSC). But, as the Center for Media and Democracy's Bob Burton has written, the MSC's environmental record is questionable. One independent review, "commissioned by three U.S. foundations, concluded that MSC's claim to certify 'sustainable' fisheries 'in most cases is not justified,' and fisheries 'that are not in compliance with the law can be, and have been, certified,'" states an excerpt from Burton's new book, "Inside Spin."

Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, we cover U.S. military interrogators, the importance of asking where questions come from, and the "My Black is Beautiful" marketing campaign. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we tell you how many steps it takes to get from supporting the troops to sending them overseas. The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

Spending on word-of-mouth marketing "has increased from $76 million in 2001 to $981 million in 2006 and is expected to grow to approximately $3.7 billion by 2011," according to a report by PQ Media. Still, word-of-mouth marketing accounts for just 0.4% of the estimated $254 billion spent on all marketing services, which includes direct marketing, branded entertainment and public relations. The new report defined word-of-mouth marketing as "supported by research and technology that encourages consumers to dialogue about products and services." Word-of-mouth may be more effective than traditional advertising. Nearly 80 percent of those polled in a recent Nielsen Global Survey ranked "recommendations from consumers" as the most credible source for product information. Newspapers were ranked second-most credible.

Why would the John Locke Foundation, a "conservative North Carolina-based think tank" launch a "series of scathing attacks" against the Center for Climate Strategies (CCS), a Pennsylvania-based "nonprofit group of scientists, engineers, business strategists and policy experts who guide states in figuring out how to best reduce greenhouse gas pollution"? Sue Sturgis follows the money, and finds that Locke "received at least $126,500 from outfits with ties to the fossil-fuel industry between fiscal [year] 2002 and 2005." Locke funders include DCI Group, Atlas Economic Research Foundation and Reason Foundation. In September, Locke and the Heartland Institute (which has received funding from ExxonMobil) hosted a conference call on CCS's alleged "hijacking of climate policy." During the call, Locke's Michael Sanera suggested discrediting "CCS's Sponsoring Organization (State environmental bureaucracy)" and demanding "cost-benefit analysis by academic economists." Later, Locke released a "peer review assessment" of CCS's methods, drawn up by the Beacon Hill Institute. Not disclosed was the fact that Beacon's clients include several oil industry-funded climate change skeptics, such as DCI Group, Heritage Foundation and Pacific Research Institute.

In Canada, "a leading toxicologist has called for an urgent study on the potential health hazards posed by biosolids -- or human sewage sludge -- that is being spread on farming fields in Northumberland County." The sludge is offered as a free fertilizer by the local water and waste treatment plant. About 120,000 tons of sludge are spread on 6,000 acres of farmland in Ontario. Toxicologist Dr. Anne Mildon is treating four couples who live near fields sprayed with sludge. "They're all non-smokers are were in very good health until this past year. Then suddenly they get very sick and their blood tests show incredibly high levels of various metals," said Dr. Mildon. "Without a scientific study, you cannot definitely link their health problems directly to the biosolids but I have a growing sensation in my stomach that they are probably connected," she added. The affected families, who have experienced sudden weight loss, headaches, reduced kidney function, respiratory and other illnesses, have stopped using their properties' well water. They are petitioning their local and regional governments.

"If we can't get our own people to release public documents, why should we expect the military to cooperate?" asked the Europe bureau chief of the military newspaper Stars and Stripes. He and other bureau chiefs have called on the paper's acting publisher, Max Lederer, to resign, "saying he has refused to release information on the extent of the paper's relationship with America Supports You," a Pentagon PR campaign. The Defense Department Inspector General's Office recently widened its investigation of America Supports You (ASY), which was initially focused on ASY's fundraising, to include ASY's apparent funneling of funds through Stars and Stripes. The newspaper "issued a $499,000 purchase agreement for the public relations firm Susan Davis International" for ASY work, and "awarded a $311,650 contract for Semel Media to develop and design Web sites" for ASY and the Defense Department (DOD). Stars and Stripes' managing editor echoed the bureau chiefs' concerns, saying "any involvement between Stripes and DOD public affairs that are outside the newspaper's core mission of providing editorially independent news to the troops" should be fully disclosed.

After a November 6 speech at a biodiesel plant in Iowa, Senator Hillary Clinton took questions. But "some of the questions from the audience were planned in advance," reports Patrick Caldwell. Grinnell College student Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff said that "one of the senior [Clinton campaign] staffers told me what" to ask. She said that "staffers prompted Clinton to call on her and another [person] who had been approached before the event." Gallo-Chasanoff's question was: "As a young person, I'm worried about the long-term effects of global warming. How does your plan combat climate change?" Clinton responded: "You know, I find as I travel around Iowa that it's usually young people that ask me about global warming." A campaign spokesperson told FOX News, "A member of our staff did discuss a possible question. ... However, Senator Clinton did not know which questions she was calling on during the event. This is not standard policy and will not be repeated." In related news, CBS has obtained a picture "of the now infamous fake FEMA press conference held during the California wildfires." The press gallery seats are occupied by "high-level agency employees."

Michael Mukasey was confirmed as the Attorney General of the United States by the Senate last week in a contentious 53-40 vote. Mukasey's nomination gained controversy with Democrats as he largely endorsed the Bush administration's policies in the War on Terror and refused to say whether waterboarding violated anti-torture laws, though he said he found the procedure "repugnant."

You can help keep Congress accountable by taking five minutes to record the votes of your senators in their "permanent records" - their Congresspedia profiles. Congresspedia's high traffic and search engine rankings mean that hundreds or thousands of your fellow citizens will find out how they voted. The instructions are here and if this is your first time editing on SourceWatch/Congresspedia, you can register here, and learn more about the site here. Have fun, and thanks for your help!

Update on the last project (SCHIP): Quite a few citizens turned out to record their representative's votes on the State Children's Health Insurance Program. To see how your represenative voted, find them on your respective state portal or look them up by zip-code. If your representative's vote isn't there, here are the simple instructions for adding it.

It's that time of year -- time to vote for your favorite Falsies!

2007 was a year full of deception, manipulation, prevarication, and Orwellian spin. But now it's payback time! Every day, we at the Center for Media and Democracy are up to our ankles (and sometimes higher) in the corporate spin and government propaganda that PR firms keep churning out. We are all too familiar with the many ways that our information environment gets polluted. We have our "favorites," to be sure -- but now we want to hear what YOU think!

At the end of each year, CMD issues the "Falsies Awards," to recognize the people and players that take spin and propaganda to new lows. We need you to help identify the worst of the worst hard at work in 2007. We have put together a juicy selection of nominees -- but we need you to vote and tell us who deserves the Falsies this year.

You'll see that it was a tough year for women, with breastfeeding under attack, mercury-laden fish being pushed, and disease-mongering to sell a controversial vaccine. Fake news also continued to elbow its way onto your TV screens, and war propaganda was even harder to avoid than last year.

Follow this link to fill out your ballot. The deadline for entries is 5:00 p.m. CST on Friday, November 30, 2007, so vote today!

Procter & Gamble, the largest U.S. advertiser, has officially launched its multi-brand, multicultural marketing campaign called "My Black Is Beautiful." The campaign "began with P&G research that showed black women were frequent users of beauty products, spending at three times the rate of the general female population." But P&G insists "it's a movement, not just advertising." The campaign includes a video-rich website, "a special advertising section in the Essence December issue," upcoming "store and community promotions," along with "plans for a multi-city 'conversation tour,' and grants to community organizations to support young black women." The campaign will promote P&G's Olay skin care, Pantene shampoo, CoverGirl cosmetics, and Always and Tampax products. Associated Press reports, "Mass marketers generally have been slow to target a black female population that is increasing in income, education and professional advancement."

Image from the adA recent Supreme Court decision that ended the ban "on political advertisements by corporations, including nonprofit groups, within 30 days of a primary and 60 days of a general election," together with increased scrutiny of "527 groups," may "push more spending on the 2008 [U.S. presidential] election out of the glare of public disclosure." A new South Carolina nonprofit called "Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America" is an early example. The group is running ads in support of a veterans' healthcare bill that enjoys "nearly unanimous, bipartisan support in Congress." The ads include "glowing images of Senator John McCain," whose presidential campaign is "banking on a South Carolina victory." The group was "set up and financed" by McCain supporters, including Rick Reed, the co-producer of the 2004 "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" ads. Unlike 527 groups, the new nonprofit "is allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts from individuals without any disclosure, as long as it can argue that it is more concerned with the promotion of an issue ... than the election of a candidate." McCain, who co-sponsored campaign finance legislation, has asked the group to stop running the ads and is discouraging his supporters from donating to the group. Meanwhile, MoveOn's Tom Matzzie has moved over to run a Democratic Party soft money machine called Campaign to Defend America "that will rival or eclipse what they created in 2004" says the Washington Post.

According to a "privately contracted interrogator working for American forces in Iraq, near the Iranian border," U.S. intelligence activities in Iraq are skewed to find incriminating evidence against Iran. Micah Brose told The Observer that U.S. officials "push a lot for us to establish a link with Iran. They have pre-categories for us to go through, and by the sheer volume of categories there's clearly a lot more for Iran than there is for other stuff. Of all the recent requests I've had, I'd say 60 to 70 per cent are about Iran. ... We're not asked to manufacture information, we're asked to find it. But if a detainee wants to tell me what I want to hear so he can get out of jail ... you know what I'm saying." Meanwhile, the New York Sun reports that the $75 million U.S. program to aid dissidents in Iran has been moved to the State Department's Office of Iranian Affairs. The controversial program, which used to be under State's Middle East Partnership Initiative, has funded "training for Web site operators to evade Internet censorship, political polling, and training on increasing recruitment for civil society groups." The program's former director said that the move has "effectively killed" the program.

"Burson-Marsteller, the PR/lobbying firm run by Hillary Clinton's chief strategist, Mark Penn, is handling crisis management for the owner of Aqua Dots, the bead toys with an adhesive coating that too easily turns into the date-rape drug, GHB," reports Marc Ambinder. "A source directly familiar with the arrangement confirms that Aqua Dots' manufacturer, SpinMaster, based in Canada, has turned to Burson Marsteller for help. Several children who swallowed Aqua Dots lapsed into comas, promoting a worldwide recall."

Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, we cover threats against Nevada teachers, blacklisted flacks, and ExxonMobil's interest in polar bears. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we tell you how many steps it takes to get from "Army of One" to the anti-poverty campaign "One." The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

The Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA's) internal investigation into last month's fake news conference found that FEMA press secretary Aaron Walker "directed aides to pose as reporters, secretly coached them during the briefing and ended the event after a final, scripted question was asked," reports Spencer Hsu. Walker submitted his resignation this week, at FEMA chief R. David Paulison's request. "Six minutes before the briefing was to start, Walker sent an e-mail telling members of [FEMA's] external affairs staff to be prepared to fill chairs and 'to spur discussion' in the absence of reporters. Walker specifically told Mike Widomski, deputy director of public affairs, which question to ask first and assigned press aide Ali Kirin to ask a sixth and final question. Off camera, Walker encouraged staff members in the room to continue asking questions, even as he pretended to cut off discussion, interjecting at one point, 'Two more questions.'" FEMA deputy director Harvey Johnson, who gave the fake briefing, said "he does not recall being advised that staff would be asking questions." Walker "did not apologize for his actions and said he had planned since September to leave FEMA to seek private-sector work in Utah."

Iowa Senator Charles Grassley (Republican-Iowa) is investigating reports of lavish spending by Christian televangelists, including Joyce Meyer, Kenneth Copeland, Eddie Long, Paula White, and Creflo Dollar. Many of the TV preachers are proponents of prosperity theology, which teaches that financial wealth is evidence of divine favor -- thus explaining why they dip into the donation box to buy themselves multi-million-dollar homes, luxury cars, private jets and other "blessings from God." Faith healer Benny Hinn, another televangelist targeted in Grassley's investigation, is using Ronn Torossian of 5W Public Relations as his spokesman. Torossian, who also represented Hinn earlier this year when he came under investigation by the IRS, stated that his client is obeying all relevant laws.

The British government's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled that an advertisement by Royal Dutch Shell promoting its waste recycling breaks rules with regards to "truthfulness" and "environmental claims." The print ad claimed that Shell has "creative ways to recycle. We use our waste CO2 [carbon dioxide] to grow flowers, and our waste sulphur to make super-strong concrete." The environmental group Friends of the Earth challenged the ad's claims, lodging a complaint with the British government. The ASA agreed that, "in the absence of qualification, most readers were likely to interpret the claim 'We use our waste CO2 to grow flowers' ... to mean that Shell used all, or at least the majority, of their waste CO2 to grow flowers, whereas the actual amount was a very small proportion." Shell defended its ad as "a creative and striking way of drawing attention to the problem of waste disposal." The ad ran "last spring in newspapers in Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany," reports Associated Press. "The Dutch advertising watchdog also called the ad misleading, but complaints were dismissed by regulators in Belgium and Germany."