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 (long version here, short version here). This week, we cover Microsoft's new front group, "local" radio news from afar, and the fight against government secrecy in Australia. We also feature a "Win Against Spin" -- Comcast being fined for fake TV news -- and in "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we tell you how Microsoft gets support from beyond the grave. The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

"As controversy rages over forthcoming federal Real ID requirements, state officials should be plotting public relations strategies to counteract the well-publicized rebellion," suggested speakers at the Government ID Technology Summit in Washington DC. More than 30 states have introduced or passed measures that reject or criticize the Real ID requirement for federally approved, "machine readable" personal identification cards. Civil liberties, privacy and immigrant rights groups have also criticized Real ID. Former Transportation Department official turned private consultant Betty Serian told state and federal officials that "it's a classical textbook case of good communications planning ... and working that into your implementation plan for Real ID." To decrease public opposition, Serian suggested using such pro-Real ID messages as "it's a way to do the right things for the right reason," and "it will help prevent identity theft." Serian stressed "the time is definitely now" to plan Real ID messaging, and outreach through direct mailings, public service announcements and paid advertising.

The coal industry front group Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC) is seeking public relations help "in targeting the public, politicians, interest groups, and the media" on the national level, and also in Pennsylvania and Nevada. ABEC promotes coal as an "essential, affordable and increasingly clean" source of electricity. The National Journal recently reported that ABEC's budget for PR, advertising and "grassroots" organizing will nearly quadruple, from $8 million to $30 million a year. "Two words sum up why" the coal industry and its allies "opened their checkbooks," wrote the Journal -- "global warming." ABEC notes that "Nevada is perhaps one of the most volatile states in the west regions for ABEC's industry," so its PR work in the state will include issues management, as well as presidential candidate outreach and identifying "cities and communities critical to helping shape policy at the grassroots level." The Pennsylvania campaign will be less intense, involving "regulatory / legislative communications," "grassroots assistance," and various types of media outreach.

The U.S. State Department is upgrading "foreign policy to Web 2.0 interactivity for the new electronic information age," with its first-ever blog, "Dipnote." The department "has already vastly expanded its Web presence and ... has set up a State Department YouTube channel." Meanwhile, the department's Digital Outreach Team is monitoring Middle Eastern blogs and Internet forums, sometimes adding comments. "The team concentrates on about a dozen mainstream Web sites such as chat rooms set up by the BBC and Al Jazeera or charismatic Muslim figures like Amr Khaled, as well as Arab news sites like Elaph.com," reports the New York Times. The sites are chosen for "high traffic and a focus on United States policy." Members of the Digital Outreach Team, which includes two Arabic speakers, "always identify themselves as being from the State Department." Topics they frequently comment on include the abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, President Bush's having called the fight against terrorism a "crusade," and anti-Muslim comments by "prominent Americans from talk-show hosts to politicians ... of the 'bomb Mecca' variety."

In early September, "major newspapers reported the alarming news that suicides among young people were on the rise because of a precipitous drop in the use of antidepressants," writes Alison Bass. The academic study the news articles were based on concluded that new safety warnings for young people using antidepressant drugs had discouraged doctors from writing prescriptions for depressed youths. But there's a hole in that argument: "while there was indeed an upturn in suicide rates among youths ... the number of prescriptions for antidepressants in the same age group remained basically unchanged." Bass points out that the pharmaceutical companies that make antidepressants might "benefit from the latest alarm about an apparent upturn in youth suicide rates. ... These companies have an enormous stake in reversing the current FDA warnings." Pfizer, which makes the antidepressant Zoloft, did provide $30,000 for the academic study, and the study's lead authors have ties to Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. "This isn't the first time that suicide rates have been trotted out as a public relations weapon," Bass adds. "Proponents of psychotropic drugs have long argued that suicide rates ... fell after" such drugs were introduced, though the decline began well before the drugs were widely prescribed.

"President Vaclav Klaus is getting help from a right-wing U.S. think tank ... to spread a message many see as anti-environmentalist and some Czechs say reflects badly on their country," reports the Prague Post. The Heartland Institute's new $1 million advertising campaign declares "Global Warming is Not a Crisis" and features pictures of Klaus and Al Gore. "Vaclav Klaus will debunk global warming myths at the UN Sept. 24," claims the ad, which ran in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Times. Klaus told the Czech News Agency that the UN conference on global warming "will be a gathering of Gore-ites, so they're going to be shocked that they invited me 'by mistake.' ... I'm going to give a very tough speech." Heartland PR director Thomas Swiss called Klaus "a great defender of freedom" and someone who "really gets the potential damage that big government regulations can cause." Czech environment minister Martin Bursik and other national politicians have criticized Klaus' stance on global warming.

Faced with opposition to increasing government secrecy by Australia's Right to Know, a coalition of Australian media companies and the journalists' union, the Australian Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, has announced a review of the freedom of information (FOI) laws. The review, to be undertaken by the Australian Law Reform Commission, prompted a scathing response from the country's leading expert on FOI laws, Professor Rick Snell. "We have had 11 years of inaction and now, on the eve of an election campaign, the Government announces an inquiry," he said. Matthew Moore and Jonathan Pearlman report in the Sydney Morning Herald that "in 1995, the law reform commission made 106 recommendations to improve the law," but "the Government has ignored those recommendations." Channel 7 FOI editor Michael McKinnon noted that Ruddock's announcement "contained no mention whatsoever about improving public access under FOI."

What is "acetoin," and what is it doing in cigarettes? Tobacco companies inform the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (but not the public) about the 599 potential additives they can put in cigarettes. We've got that list, but we don't have any explanations about what these chemicals are. Acetoin is on the list, but we don't know what it is, or why they put it in cigarettes. Help us find out, so everyone can know: Go to Tobaccowiki, scroll down to "Tobacco Topics," click on "Additives," then on "acetoin"; click the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library search button. Browse through the documents you get back, and look for information about acetoin. Add the information you find to the TobaccoWiki article on acetoin.

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!

Alarmed at its rival Google's proposed purchase of the internet marketing firm DoubleClick, Microsoft is seeking to stoke opposition to the deal through its PR firm, Burson-Marsteller (B-M). B-M sent emails "to a number of top UK businesses," reports The Observer, urging board members "to raise the issue of Google's dominance of search engines with politicians, regulators and the media." The email, from B-M director Jonathan Dinkeldein, also invited companies "to join a new organisation -- Initiative for Competitive Online Marketplaces -- which in the next few weeks will make a series of announcements on Google, internet privacy and copyright." Dinkeldein later admitted that the group was formed by Microsoft, though his email did not disclose Microsoft's role. In the U.S., B-M pitched cautionary stories on the Google-DoubleClick deal. The Wall Street Journal received an email from B-M warning about "what is not known about Google's handling of personal data and their related privacy practices." The email, which also didn't disclose the Microsoft connection, went on to say "it would be a powerful consumer service to delve into these issues with journalistic vigor."

Patrick Michaels (Source: Cato Institute)"Patrick J. Michaels, one of the global warming skeptics most often interviewed by news media, withdrew as an expert in a high-profile Vermont court case rather than disclose his funding sources," reports the Society of Environmental Journalists. Michaels is a University of Virginia professor and Cato Institute fellow who edits the "World Climate Report," a web publication "heavily funded by coal and electric utility industries with a large financial stake in preventing regulation of greenhouse emissions." In the Vermont case, automakers challenged the state's right to regulate greenhouse gases, and hired Michaels as an expert witness. Michaels told the court that he was dependent on income from his firm, New Hope Environmental Services, and that some of his clients require their funding to be confidential. When auto industry lawyers told Michaels that his financial information might be made public, due to the environmental group Greenpeace's request for disclosure, Michaels withdrew as a witness in the case. In court filings, Michaels blamed 2006 news reports naming the Colorado-based coal-burning utility Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA) as one of his clients with the loss of funding from IREA and another utility, Tri-State Generation & Transmission Association.

If you like sound, boy do we have a treat for you. The Center for Media and Democracy is launching the "Weekly Radio Spin," an audio report on the stories behind the news. Radio programmers and podcast fans, rejoice! The Weekly Radio Spin will build on the information you receive in the Weekly Spin emails, including such fun segments as "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," which looks at the many connections between media manipulators. Each Weekly Radio Spin will include longer (around four minutes, click here) and shorter (around two minutes, click here) versions, and is freely available for both personal and broadcast use. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks, and enjoy our inaugural Weekly Radio Spin!

An academic study of "outsourced" radio news -- when "big-city radio stations produce and package local news stories for sister stations in distant markets" -- concluded that the practice has drastically changed the news landscape. University of Colorado journalism professor Lee Hood found that more than 40% of radio stations now do news for stations outside their own market. "The 'hub and spoke' system enables large radio conglomerates to employ fewer people and cut costs, but authenticity, regional nuances and topical public affairs reporting are lost in the process," according to a UC press release. Denver's KOA Radio used to outsource news to Omaha, NE, and Cleveland, OH, used to provide news to Milwaukee stations. Cleveland stations still outsource news to Pittsburgh. "To have somebody who may not even have been in your community ostensibly deciding what's news in your community, well, I think that's alarming," stated Hood.

BP advertisement from 2004"Energy giants ConocoPhillips and BP have brought their 'green' environmental campaigns to central New Jersey," reports Ryan Tracy, "funding research ... and, most recently, sponsoring a 'Conversation on Energy' forum." Conoco's corporate communications director explained, "We hope to reach out to the American public. ... Opinion polls ranked [oil and gas corporations] dead last in industry credibility, even below tobacco." Princeton University's Environmental Institute has a "Carbon Mitigation Initiative" that has received $15 million from BP and $5 million from Ford Motor Co. Other companies have funded other research programs. ExxonMobil gave $100 million to Stanford University's Global Climate and Energy Program, and ConocoPhillips gave $22.5 million to Iowa State University for biomass fuel research. Environmentalists called the Conoco forum in Trenton "greenwashing," but the director of Rutgers University's Energy Institute, which co-sponsored the forum, called it a "good first step" for the oil company.

A new public relations firm, After50 Marketing, was launched "with the expressed purpose of targeting baby boomers and senior consumers," writes PR Week. The firm will specialize in healthcare, adult living, legal and financial areas. By 2015, 45 percent of the U.S. population will be 50 or older, according to After50. The firm also estimates that the household net worth controlled by baby boomers is $19 trillion. After50 president and founder Kelly Kroll says that, due to her target demographic's "experience making decisions about their valuable resources," her firm will provide "more honest content and feedback." After50 is a sister firm to Marketing Renovations, which has offices in New York, Washington and Detroit.

Peggy O'Mara, the editor of Mothering Magazine, reports that "in addition to the inaccurate information on breastfeeding" by the media, the "marketing practices of the formula companies continue to undermine breastfeeding." She notes the existence of several "stealth" websites "that appear to be grassroots advocacy sites, but are actually mouthpieces for the formula industry." One of the websites, MomsFeedingFreedom.com, is campaigning against proposed restrictions on the free bags of infant formula being given to new parents by hospitals. The website, which was registered by the web-based marketing company ENilsson LLC, is funded by the International Formula Council and run by Kate Kahn. "A sister site, Babyfeedingchoice.org, is licensed to Kellen Communications, a public relations firm whose clients include the International Formula Council," O'Mara writes. BantheBags, which supports a ban on free samples, argues that the "sites use classic formula company strategies, paying lip service to benefits of breastfeeding even as they promote formula."

"The mining industry is confronted with a very challenging environment," said Kraig Naasz, the new head of the U.S. industry lobby group National Mining Association (NMA). In response to high-profile mining disasters, increased rates of black lung disease, and concerns about climate change, among other issues, the NMA will likely "dramatically increase its lobbying and advertising budget." Its overall budget will increase from $15.6 million for 2007 to $19.7 million for 2008. NMA's two political action committees, CoalPAC and MinePAC, "are moving towards a more even split" between the two major parties, after years of giving nearly 90 percent of its PAC money to Republicans. NMA is also "looking to add a Democratic consultant to its list of outside lobbyists," which includes the Alpine Group and the Nickles Group. NMA is also hiring four more in-house lobbyists and "two additional regulatory experts." Among other bills, NMA opposes the Miller-Rahall bill, which would strengthen safety regulations and "apply royalty fees to hard rock-mining operations" on federal lands.

"Lobbyists for a business group close to the crooked government of Azerbaijan have scheduled what looks to be" a National Press Club event for a front group, according to Harper's Ken Silverstein. The event features members of the "Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan" (ACSDA), and was organized by the lobbying firm Bob Lawrence & Associates. The firm, according to Silverstein, "promotes the interests of President Ilham Aliyev but is paid by a cut-out: Renaissance Associates, a pro-government business group based in Baku, the Azeri capital." ACSDA has conducted polls purporting to show more support for President Aliyev, more political freedom, and less concern with corruption than independent polls have found. ACSDA vice-president Vali Alibayov, who's heading the delegation to the U.S., is also a member of the International Association for Public Relations. A 2006 lobbying report lists defense, foreign relations, oil & gas pipelines, tourism and trade as the issues that Bob Lawrence & Associates lobbied on for Azerbaijan, on behalf of Renaissance Associates.

David Case reports on Rick Ness, an employee of the Colorado-based Newmont Mining Corporation who the Indonesian government has accused of dumping dangerous waste into a shallow bay in Sulawesi. "Since 2004," Case writes, Ness "has waged a full-time PR and legal campaign to clear his name, with Newmont backing him up at a burn rate of up to $1 million a month." When an infant's death was blamed on the pollution, Ness and Newmont employed "textbook crisis communication. Ness did media interviews and spoke before sympathetic audiences such as the American Chamber of Commerce. He mocked the [Indonesian] government's evidence as 'junk science.' He extolled studies that he said supported the company's argument -- one conducted by the Australian lab CSIRO (and funded by Newmont). ... Meanwhile, Newmont threw its full legal weight at the critics," including independent and government scientists. Ness was acquitted by a provincial court, but the case is now before Indonesia's Supreme Court.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allowed an ExxonMobil employee "to peer review the science behind the agency's proposal to deregulate incineration of some industrial by-products," reports Integrity in Science, a project of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The peer review was overseen by an EPA contractor, Syracuse Research Corporation (SRC). The ExxonMobil employee, Thomas Parkerton, told SRC that his "current employer (and the chemical industry in general) would benefit from" the proposed rule, yet he was allowed to review it, in an apparent breach of EPA guidelines. The rule would allow more than 107,000 tons of hazardous waste burned annually in specially-designed incinerators to instead be disposed of in industrial boilers or municipal incinerators. Consumer and environmental groups decried the "undue agency tolerance of conflicts of interest in its rulemaking process," and urged the EPA to "re-review the science and, if necessary, rewrite the proposed rule."

Barbour, Griffith and Rogers, a Republican law firm with close ties to the White House, has registered as a lobbyist on the issue of registering the Juaneno Band of Mission Indians in California as a federally recognized tribe, but Jerry Reynolds writes in Indian Country Today that it's not clear "whether BGR is lobbying for or against Juaneno recognition," and it's also not clear who is paying them. "A third question is the extent to which prospective gaming revenues drive BGR's commitment," Reynolds writes, "because ancestral Juaneno territory in current Orange County, Calif., extends 'a little into Los Angeles County,' in the words of vice chairman Fran Yorba. The Juaneno, if federally recognized as a tax-exempt tribal government, are widely held to have potential for drawing from the nation's most populous untapped gaming market."

Two years into its "Ecomagination" environmental campaign, General Electric "continues to sell coal-fired steam turbines and is delving deeper into oil-and-gas production. Meanwhile, its finance unit seeks out coal-related investments including power plants. ... Yet these limitations haven't stopped GE from making a big marketing to-do of its commitment to the environment," notes Kathryn Kranhold. "The primary focus of the conglomerate's marketing efforts these days is a $1 million-a-year campaign to publicize its search for 'innovative solutions to environmental challenges.'" As part of Ecomagination, GE says it will sell $14 billion of "self-described environmentally friendly products" in 2007. It also claims to have reduced "its own greenhouse-gas emission by 4% between 2004 and 2006," though GE does not count emissions from many power plants part-owned by the company. Kranhold describes the discounted emissions as "an unknown but unquestionably significant amount."

Nuclear Energy Institute coaster"If we are going to seriously address our energy needs as well as our concerns about global climate change, one source stands out -- nuclear," writes Christine Todd Whitman in the San Francisco Chronicle. It's one of two recent op/eds by the former EPA administrator (the other was in BusinessWeek) that fail to disclose that Whitman is a paid consultant for the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). Patrick Moore, Whitman's co-chair of the NEI-funded "Clean and Safe Energy Coalition," has also been busy, promoting nuclear power in Michigan. "Nuclear energy is the key," Moore told a Grand Rapids audience. Meanwhile, in Britain, environmental groups have dismissed a public consultation on nuclear power as a "public relations stitch-up" by the pro-nuclear government. This is the second consultation on the issue; Greenpeace won a legal challenge against the first. Liberal Democrat Sir Menzies Campbell accused the UK government of "making up its mind on nuclear power long before this latest consultation had even begun," reports the BBC.

"Americans for American Energy," a front group for oil and gas companies, sent around an email incorrectly claiming that Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal supports its agenda. Freudenthal, who previously supported some "public education efforts" of AAE, told the Casper Star-Tribune that the group's recent email was "highly inappropriate" and "contains a description of initiatives which I wholeheartedly disagree with on a number of levels." AAE opposes environmental regulation of extractive industries, and the AAE website attempts to link environmental concerns to terrorism. A petition on its website states, "America is at War! And The U.S. Naval Oil Shale Reserve is Under Attack! While Americans fight overseas defending America's access to vital energy supplies, we are under attack here at home. Liberal lawyers and environmental extremists are attacking the U.S. Naval Oil Shale Reserve, trying to prevent America from producing American energy there."

Media Matters for America, the liberal media watchdog organization, has conducted a systematic study of the commentary sections in U.S. newspapers. "The results show that in paper after paper, state after state, and region after region, conservative syndicated columnists get more space than their progressive counterparts," they conclude. "Sixty percent of the nation's daily newspapers print more conservative syndicated columnists every week than progressive syndicated columnists."

Democracy Now! reports: "President Bush's prime time address before the nation tonight culminates a carefully orchestrated public relations campaign to win support for the continuation of the war in Iraq. The campaign began in August when a group called Freedom's Watch headed by President Bush's former spokesperson Ari Fleischer began airing pro-war television commercials. Then, President Bush flew to Iraq for an unannounced visit where he met with Iraqi leaders at a U.S. military base in Anbar province. On the eve of Sept. 11th, General David Petraeus and Ambassador David Crocker testified before Congress. Then they appeared exclusively on Fox News in what the network described as a 'briefing for America.' To talk more about the Bush administration's public relations campaign, John Stauber, founder of the Center for Media and Democracy and PR Watch, joins us in Madison, Wisconsin." To listen, click here. To view the inteview on YouTube, click here.

Ben Goldacre, a London-based doctor and writer, was a little "surprised" by a recent offer posted in an email on a science writers' mailing list. "It was from the Aspirin Foundation, a group funded by the drug industry, and it was offering -- on behalf of Bayer HealthCare -- to pay expenses for journalists to attend the European Society of Cardiology's conference in Vienna." Goldacre contacted some of his peers and discovered that it is "extremely common for journalists to take money from drug companies." Some reporters dismissed the suggestion that such perks could affect how they reported an event. Drug companies, Goldacre noted, "wouldn't pay for journalists to attend their events if they didn't think it would affect media coverage of their product. After all, a journalist's article is far more credible than a paid advertisement, for anybody's money, and more likely to be read by potential consumers."

Nic Careem, a London-based "public affairs consultant", recently proclaimed his interest in helping raise the profile of the President of the Maldives, Abdul Gayoom, on the issue of global warming. While Gayoom's government has been widely criticized for human rights abuses, earlier this year Careem gushed that he was "impressed with the humanity shown to prisoners." In response to recent criticism of his defense of the regime, Careem wrote that the "penal system" is "as good as anything in the western world" and explained that murders occurred in his own London suburb. In a pointed letter to the editor, a reader objected to the comparison: "Does Mr Careem know that we too have murder cases in the Maldives? The police torture and kill detainees to perpetuate the regime in this country." Last year, Tim Fallon from Hill & Knowlton's London office, was deluged with critical comments after defending his company's work for the Gayoom regime on his blog.

Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, recently had firsthand experience with search engine optimization (SEO) techniques that companies are using to suppress negative stories about themselves on the Internet. A company called "DONE! SEO" claims that it can "Displace -- push down -- the negative listings with favorable ones and ones that you can control or influence" to "make sure that your company and key executives are being portrayed favorably online by burying the negatives and maintaining a positive online image." One of the "problem sites" where it promised to perform this service was ConsumerWebWatch.org, the Internet arm of Consumers Union. Another company, called "Reputation Defender," offers what it calls "Google insulation," padding the web with friendly-sounding content about its clients and then pushing that content to the top of Google results so that negative information is harder to find.

The Gallup polling organization marked the sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks by publishing a thoughtful analysis challenging the assumption that "religious fanaticism fuels extremism and therefore replacing Muslims' worldview with Western liberalism is the path to victory against terrorism. ... As a starting point, Muslims do not hold a monopoly on extremist views. While 6% of Americans think attacks in which civilians are targets are 'completely justified,' in both Lebanon and Iran, this figure is 2%, and in Saudi Arabia, it's 4%. In Europe, Muslims in Paris and London were no more likely than were their counterparts in the general public to believe attacks on civilians are ever justified and at least as likely to reject violence, even for a 'noble cause.' After analyzing survey data representing more than 90% of the global Muslim population, Gallup found that despite widespread anti-American sentiment, only a small minority saw the 9/11 attacks as morally justified. Even more significant, there was no correlation between level of religiosity and extremism among respondents." Rather than religion, extremists are motivated by the belief that "occupation and U.S. domination" is threatening their societies. "The real difference between those who condone terrorist acts and all others is about politics, not piety," writes Dalia Mogahed.

In May of this year, the drug company Eli Lilly announced that it would post details of "all educational grant funding and other monetary contributions provided to U.S.-based organizations" into an online database. Tucked away amongst the numerous grants made in the first six months of 2007 are details of funds provided to patient groups, various research centres and a sprinkling of political groups. So, to save citizens and journalists from having to sift through the whole report, we have a created a page to make the highlights a little easier to find. If you'd like to help dig out the nuggets, just head over to the SourceWatch page for the project, where there are complete instructions, a couple of examples of interesting grants and an email hotline for support. If this is your first time editing on SourceWatch, you can register here, and learn more about adding information to the site here, hereand here. Have fun, and thanks for your help!

An important New York Times/CBS News survey finds that six years after the terror attacks of 9/11, "33 percent of all Americans, including 40 percent of Republicans and 27 percent of Democrats, say Saddam Hussein was personally involved." In reality, of course, Saddam and Iraq had absolutely no connection to the terror attacks. 1/3 of Americans believe the Big Lie propaganda tactics employed by the pro-war lobby. Only 5 percent of Americans "most trusted the Bush administration to resolve the war, the poll found. Asked to choose among the administration, Congress and military commanders, 21 percent said they would most trust Congress and 68 percent expressed most trust in military commanders. That is almost certainly why the White House has presented General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker as unbiased professionals, not Bush partisans."

Rob Zaleski, columnist with Madison's Capital Times, has written a profile piece on CMD's founder John Stauber. "In the beginning, it was just Stauber and his buddy Sheldon Rampton, a local typesetter and Princeton University grad Stauber recruited to help produce the first issue of PR Watch. ... Fourteen years later, the center has 10 staffers and an $800,000 budget. And nobody is more surprised, or proud, by its growth and success than Stauber, who at 54 says he's more determined than ever to expose the powerful corporate and government spin machines and diminish their impact. 'I could walk in front of a bus today and, while the center would hiccup, it would continue to survive and thrive,' he maintains, 'because we have an amazing staff, and the work we do is absolutely unique.' "

Babies that are not breast fed suffer higher rates of health problems including sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), diabetes, lymphoma, leukemia, Hodgkin's disease, obesity, high cholesterol and asthma. Unfortunately, many parents are still unaware of these risks, thanks to the infant formula industry. In 2003, the industry hired a former chairman of the Republican National Committee and former agriculture secretary Clayton Yeutter, who lobbied the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to yank an attention-grabbing advertising campaign that would have warned of the risks. Yeutter told HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson the ads should be pulled because they would create "guilty feelings" in women who fail to breastfeed. HHS replaced the original ads with a watered-down advertising campaign, which was so ineffective that breast-feeding rates actually dropped during the period when it was broadcast. In an interview with PR Week, Mardi Mountford of the International Formula Council disputed accusations of undue industry influence.

52 year old furniture salesman and nonsmoker Wayne Watkins suddenly found himself getting short of breath while golfing and singing in the choir. From his symptoms, doctors at Denver's National Jewish Medical & Research Center deduced that Watson had indulged excessively in an entirely different behavior that over time had reduced his lung capacity by 50%: eating microwave popcorn. Mr. Watson admitted to eating 2-3 bags of microwave popcorn a day for years, making a point of inhaling the fumes that come from the steamy bag of popcorn when it is first opened. His condition, bronchiolitis obliterans, is also known among food workers as "popcorn lung," and strikes food manufacturing employees who work around popcorn. The illness is caused by diacetyl, the chemical companies add to popcorn to make it taste buttery. Orville Redenbacher, Act II, Pop Secret and Jolly Time all use it. Jiffy Pop, which gets popped on the stovetop, doesn't. Popcorn workers' plight aside, just one day after the story about Wayne Watson's condition was printed in the Denver Post, all four of the above companies agreed to immediately remove the chemical from their popcorn.

James L. Horton of the Robert Marston & Associates PR firm is worried about Wikileaks, a new website that provides a means for people to share information about unethical behavior by governments and corporations. Wikileaks says it "is developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and participatory analysis. Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we expect to be of assistance to peoples of all countries who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations." On his blog, Horton says this "statement of purpose is chilling. ... The site has been successful already in revealing the misbehavior of an African leader. If it endures, it is a matter of time before whistle-blowers use it elsewhere. I suppose one can look at it as a full-employment reason for crisis PR practitioners."

Last week we started a new participatory project to expose the government agencies, corporations and lobbying groups that have been censoring, whitewashing or otherwise spinning Wikipedia. (See CMD Senior Researcher Diane Farsetta's great blog post for some background on this sordid tale.) So far we've logged several attempts at spin into the respective SourceWatch profiles, including:

• Chevron deleting the article on "Biodiesel";
• Military contractor Raytheon deleting information on them spying on their competitors and the U.S. Air Force;
• Republican-friendly broadcaster Clear Channel adding allegations of plagiarism to Democratic Senate Candidate Al Franken's profile;
• PR firm Hill & Knowlton removing descriptions of the political repression by the government of the Maldives, an H&K client;
• Amway parent company Alticor removing descriptions of the company's use of "Google bombing" to drive down the search engine rankings of Web sites critical of the company;
• Electronic voting machine company Diebold removing descriptions of the controversies surrounding their machines' failures and glitches;
• Conservative news network Fox News changing Keith Olbermann's profile (and not in a good way - see Olbermann's reaction on this video);

The information here is obviously very important and, thanks to SourceWatch's high rankings in Google searches, easily accessible to citizens, journalists and policymakers checking out the record of these politically active and high social-impact organizations. There are many dastardly edits left, however, and we need your help to make sure they aren't lost to history. There's no need for technical expertise, just head over to the SourceWatch page for the project, where there are complete instructions, examples and an email hotline for support. If this is your first time editing on SourceWatch, you can register here, and learn more about adding information to the site here and here.

Although supporting U.S. soldiers has been a constant theme in American political rhetoric, their needs and rights when they return home and readjust to civilian life have gone largely ignored. Journalist Aaron Glantz is attempting to fill this gap with a new website, WarComesHome.org, which features first-person accounts of US veterans. Soldiers profiled include Corporal Phillipe Louis Jean, who was thrown into an immigration prison after serving a tour in Iraq; Sergeant Todd Bowers, who returned from a second tour in Iraq to find his student loans had been sent to collection; and Specialist Joshua Casteel, who became a conscientious objector after working as a US Army interrogator at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. "Too often the American media covers the Iraq war like it's a political wrestling match between President Bush and Democratic leaders in Congress," says Glantz. "But those of us who've seen the violence up close know the focus ought to be on the war's human costs. The Iraq war is really a story about people. Understanding their stories is the only way to unlock the truth."

"DLA Piper, which has repped Afghanistan on a pro bono basis for the past five years, wants some cash from its client to cover the 'critical work that lies ahead,'" reports O'Dwyers. The Afghan government will pay the law and lobby firm $10,000 per month; expenses over that amount will be waived by the firm. The document (PDF file) that Piper filed with the U.S. Justice Department says that the firm with "work with the Embassy and the government of Afghanistan" to strengthen U.S.-Afghanstan ties, build "new investment opportunities in Afghanistan with the U.S. business community," and increase "the knowledge base about the government of Afghanistan in Washington, D.C."

Thanks to WikiScanner, more PR firms are coming under fire for making anonymous edits to Wikipedia that favored their clients. "Freud Communications' London office was caught making edits" on articles about Pizza Hut and Carphone Warehouse, reports PR Week. Freud Communications' Oliver Wheeler said the edits were "very factual" and "perfectly justifiable." Ketchum's vice-president of new media strategy, Gur Tsabar, said his firm advises clients to edit discussion pages only (not articles themselves), and to disclose their affiliations. The Center for Media and Democracy has used WikiScanner to track edits made on computers at Hill & Knowlton's UK office. The edits whitewashed human rights abuses by the government of the Maldives, which retained the firm in 2003. CMD has also found Wikipedia activity by other PR firms. See how you can join in the fun on our "Tracking attempts to spin Wikipedia" project page on SourceWatch.

Mark Penn, the CEO of the PR firm Burson-Marsteller, was tight-lipped when asked about his role as "chief strategist" for Hillary Clinton's campaign to be the Democratic Party nominee for president. "Both by custom and by contract, it is confidential," he said. Penn has co-authored a new book, "Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes." New York Times reporter Deborah Solomon asked Penn whether he'd "be more credible" if he disclosed who his corporate clients were. "I've worked for hundreds of clients. It's a false notion that my views are related to that. I'm not selling anything in this book," he responded. However, in May 2007, Bloomberg News reported that Penn wrote in a blog post that one of the benefits of "mixing of corporate and political work" was that it was "helpful in cross-pollinating new ideas and skills." "And," he added, "I have found it good for business."

This bit of PR whitewashing comes very close to a literal definition. From a Japanese press account quoted in the "Telstar Logistics" blog: "China Airlines has painted over its name and logo on the wreckage of a passenger jet that exploded in flames at Naha Airport in Okinawa moments after passengers slid down emergency chutes to escape. The airline painted over the name 'China Airlines' on the left-hand side of the aircraft and the company's logo on the plane's tail fin. After the accident, photographs and video footage of the jet continued to appear in news reports, and the company apparently painted over the name and logo to limit further damage to its image." The full account (with pictures) is at Telstar Logistics, a blog described as "an ongoing experiment in corporate phenomenology, urban camouflage, and brand development."

"David Horowitz," Rick Perlstein writes at the Campaign for America's Future blog, "recently relayed to me the happy news that his David Horowitz Freedom Center had received a 'request from the head the FBI-California Highway Patrol Joint Counter-terrorism Task Force who called this week to ask if their group could use our flash video What Every American Needs to Know About Jihad as a training film.'" The problem, Perlstein points out, is that he received a statement from the task force that: "The California Highway Patrol's head of the FBI-California Highway Patrol, Joint Terrorism Task Force did not request a copy of the video. While an employee of this Department did request a copy, the video was not used nor will it be used for training purposes." This and other grand claims by the Marxist-turned-Right Wing Crusader can be found on the SourceWatch article, to which you can add more information. In the meantime, decide for yourself if the FBI-CHiP Joint Terrorism Task Force is missing out on vital intel by watching Horowitz's movie.