Melissa Sweet, a freelance Australian health journalist, reports that she recently received an email from a staffer with the private intelligence company Hakluyt. In it, she was asked if she would like to become part of a "network of well-placed individuals around the world who are able to provide us, very discreetly, with intelligence on specific commercial or political issues that may arise." In particular, they were seeking her assistance for an anonymous "financial institution" client, on "a new project on the new Australian government's healthcare policy -- how realistic their reform ambitions really are," "the role of the private sector" and other matters. Sweet responded by pointing out that she was a journalist, not a consultant. Undeterred, the Hakluyt staffer responded that as a journalist, she was likely to have "dozens of well-placed sources in the field" and that the company already works with "a number of quality, usually specialist journalists." In 2001 Hakluyt was outed for infiltrating Greenpeace in Europe.

Readers of the book "Toxic Sludge Is Good for You" may remember the name Mary Lou Sapone -- a corporate spy who, while secretly in the employ of U.S. Surgical, infiltrated animal rights groups. More recently, Sapone has been active with gun control groups, while secretly working for the National Rifle Association. As Mary McFate (her maiden name), she volunteered with numerous local and regional gun control groups, even running (unsuccessfully) in 2005 for a board position with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "In a 2003 deposition, Tim Ward, who had been president of the Maryland-based security firm Beckett Brown International, said that the NRA had been 'a client' of Sapone's," reports Mother Jones. "Recent emails indicate that in 2007 and 2008 Sapone was working" with a former NRA staffer who was lobbying on behalf of his old employer. Sapone's / McFate's friends in the gun control community were shocked to learn of her true identity. Sapone was "well-positioned for many years to provide the NRA -- or any other gun rights groups -- the plans, secrets, and inside gossip of practically the entire gun violence prevention movement." For example, Sapone pushed U.S. groups to take part in a United Nations meeting on gun control earlier this year. Their participation allowed Sapone "to learn what the anti-gun forces were planning for the UN session -- including the delegates they intended to lobby, and the arguments they would highlight."

When China submitted its bid to host the 2008 Summer Olympics, it promised that journalists would have "complete freedom to report" from the country. However, "sites such as Amnesty International or any search for a site with Tibet in the address could not be opened at the Main Press Center [in Beijing], which will house about 5,000 print journalists when the games open Aug. 8," reports the Associated Press. Now, it turns out that International Olympic Committee (IOC) officials "negotiated with the Chinese that some sensitive sites would be blocked on the basis they were not considered Games related," reports Reuters. A spokesperson for the Beijing Olympics organizing committee said, "We are going to do our best to facilitate the foreign media to do their reporting work through the Internet." Access to websites about groups like the banned Falun Gong will remain blocked, he said, because "Falun Gong is an evil, fake religion." The Chinese government is also requiring hotels to "install and run the Security Management System," reports the Los Angeles Times. U.S. Senator Sam Brownback says the system will actually be used for "invasive intelligence gathering" during the Olympics, according to hotel documents.

It's an "open secret of lobbying," writes Jeffrey Birnbaum. "Public relations firms regularly solicit authors of opinion-page articles, draft the pieces for them and place the articles in publications where they will have the most impact -- all for a fee." Recently, an op-ed criticizing a bill that would reduce credit card fees appeared in Southern newspapers, attributed to Charles Steele Jr., the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The column -- which neither Steele nor his office authorized -- complains that the bill "would boost the profits of Wal-Mart," an SCLC sponsor. Steele's attorney blamed "the K Street public relations shop LMG" for the mix-up. LMG admitted that it had "reached out through its contractors" to send "advocacy materials" to the SCLC and "urged the group to go public with opposition to the bill." Among LMG's clients is the Electronic Payments Coalition, a group of credit card and financial companies that opposes the legislation. The SCLC investigated and concluded that "the wrong draft of the op-ed" had been sent to papers. "The correct draft should not have referenced Wal-Mart or Home Depot," another SCLC sponsor.

Ed Morales takes the 110th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Puerto Rico as an opportunity to talk about its status. "The United States invaded the island on July 25, 1898, and claimed it as booty after the Spanish-American War. Long since obsolete as a strategic outpost in the Cold War, the Caribbean island is America's best-kept secret: an unfree state within the land of the free." The island has never seriously been considered for statehood, often for racist reasons. A portion of Puerto Rico's Vieques Island was routinely used as a bombing range by the U.S. Navy. The island of nearly four million inhabitants "is an 'unincorporated territory,' which means that the island is subject to the authority of the U.S. Congress, which can overturn any action by the island's legislature." Puerto Ricans are not able to vote in U.S. presidential elections, nor do they having voting representatives in Congress. While there is often a misperception that Puerto Ricans receive certain rights without paying taxes (which is mainly false), Morales has this take: "Puerto Rico's commonwealth status was a dry run for the free trade practices of the last 15 years, where profit -- and the potential for local investment -- is extracted from a weaker economy by rampaging multinational corporations. Today, Puerto Rico is suffering from a failing economy with high unemployment rates, a fall-off in tourism due to the gas crisis, overdependence on government entitlements like food stamps and a failing public education system."

For the U.S. Army it's "an innovative way to reach a new audience" and "an opportunity to shape their tastes." The "Virtual Army Experience," a multi-million dollar videogame and traveling exhibit, has been making stops at amusement parks, air shows and county fairs over the past year and a half. One lieutenant colonel said of the exhibit, "There's no sales going on here. ... It's another way to tell our story." That's in addition to collecting the "age, address, phone number and email" of the young people who play the game. At the end of the videogame -- in which players protect "international aid workers" from "genocidal indigenous forces" -- an Iraq veteran talks to the players. The president of the marketing company that helped design the Virtual Army Experience said the post-game discussion is key, because that's when players "tend to be more receptive to the message the Army is trying to send them." When the Army brought the game to Milwaukee's annual music festival recently, many people complained. The Army compromised by modifying the game, "its images of dark-skinned 'terrorists' replaced with 'inanimate targets,'" according to the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice.

Zoriah Miller, a freelance photojournalist who published images of marines killed in a June 26 suicide attack in Iraq, has been forbidden to work in Marine Corps-controlled areas of the country and may be barred from all United States military facilities throughout the world. His case "has underscored what some journalists say is a growing effort by the American military to control graphic images from the war," write Michael Kamber and Tim Arango. "News organizations say that such restrictions are one factor in declining coverage of the war, along with the danger, the high cost to financially ailing media outlets and diminished interest among Americans in following the war. By a recent count, only half a dozen Western photographers were covering a war in which 150,000 American troops are engaged." Miller, who took the photos while embedded with a Marine unit, explains that "the extreme dangers of working in Iraq" make embedding necessary because "it is impossible to for a independent journalist to move freely from place to place without an incredible amount of security and financial resources. ... Without the option to embed, journalists would have to pay literally thousands of dollars a day for security and transportation. To lose the ability to embed is the equivalent of losing your ability to report from Iraq. This is the reason it is important to fight for the rights of embedded journalists to document freely."

On parliament's last day before its summer break, the British government publicly released thirty ministerial statements, including one listing the salaries of "special advisers," one detailing the siting criteria for new nuclear power stations and another detailing the guests entertained at Prime Minister Gordon Brown's official residence, Chequers. The document dump was dubbed by some as "take out the trash day," after an episode of the fictional television series on the White House, the West Wing. Mike Granatt, a former head of the British government's Government Information and Communications Service and now a partner in the PR firm Luther Pendragon, explained to PR Week, "You shove everything out on one day and you hope the volume of it means there's only a certain amount of room in the papers and on TV and radio, so that squeezes it. And, secondly, you take the hit at once."

The normally staid FactCheck.org has posted an unusually blunt critique of the latest campaign ad for John McCain, which attempts to blame Barack Obama for rising prices at the gas pump and claims that offshore drilling will "rescue our family budgets." Using McCain's own words and voting record, FactCheck's Viveca Novak disproves every point in the ad, pointing out that by the federal government's own estimate, "if the moratorium on offshore drilling were lifted today, it would be 2030 before we'd see a noticeable effect on supply and prices." Moreover, she writes, "The notion that Obama is singlehandedly, or to any significant degree, or more than most other senators, to blame for the high cost of gas is absurd in too many ways to count here. ... Obama has been in the Senate only since 2005. McCain himself said earlier this month that the problem has been decades in the making."

While the closing of 600 Starbucks stores is bad news for the 12,000 baristas who will lose their jobs, it's an economic plus for others. The coffee giant is ramping up PR efforts to shape its message about its contraction. Edelman has been the company's firm of record for several years, and their offices in Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, Austin, Atlanta, New York and Seattle (Starbucks' home town) are all engaged to work with local media for Starbucks. Besides Edelman, "Starbucks is relying on a PR roster that currently includes The Frause Group (Seattle), The Limtiaco Company (Honolulu), Eiseman PR (Chicago) Airfoil PR (Detroit), Cone (Boston), Brotman Winter Fried Communications (Falls Church, Va.), and rbb PR (Coral Gables, Fla.)." Grey Worldwide handles Starbucks' PR in Canada, which is fielding questions about any plans for closing stores there. All in all, it's an intensive PR effort. Bridget Baker, communications program manager at Starbucks said, "We couldn't be doing this without them all by our side."

Most everyone admits that minimizing junk mail would save a lot of trees, but because of the profits it generates, it isn't about to go away. So a group of direct marketers have teamed up with corporations like Microsoft, Washington Mutual and OptimaHealth to form a new coalition called the Green Marketing Coalition (GMC) to encourage greener practices in the direct mail industry. GMC suggests direct marketers use chlorine-free recycled paper, proof their marketing materials using Adobe PDF files instead of hard copies, and maintain good "list hygiene," or cull from mailing lists the names of people who are deceased or otherwise unlikely to respond. The U.S. Postal Service, which is endorsing the effort, has trademarked the term "environMAIList," and plans to use it to refer to marketers who adopt GMC's suggested green practices. But progress for the campaign could be tough to gauge; neither the Postal Service nor the Green Marketing Coalition have specified any quantifiable milestones or target dates by which they can measure the effectiveness of their effort.

Monsanto, Dupont, Archer Daniels Midland and the PR giant Burson-Marsteller are some of the corporations behind the Alliance for Abundant Food and Energy. No doubt feel-good ads from this front group will soon fill the airwaves, especially in Washington DC. The Washington Post reports, "A group of the world's biggest agribusiness companies announced it will use lobbyists on Capitol Hill and national ads to build the case for fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel, even as grain prices climb worldwide. The biofuels industry has blossomed under federal mandates requiring the United States to increase alternative fuel usage by 2009. The mandates are under attack from groups who blame the new industry for rising food prices that have sparked riots and hoarding in several countries. ... The alliance has a budget of several million dollars for the campaign, but it did not disclose the exact amount."

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 look at the poor being used as fronts, product placement on the news and battling ad buys. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we look at the pro-drilling front group "Americans for American Energy." 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!

Worst EU Lobbyist Awards 2007Nominations are now open for the Worst Lobbying Awards for 2008 in Europe. Sponsored by Friends of the Earth, Corporate Europe Observatory, LobbyControl and Spinwatch, the contest invites people to make nominations in two categories: a "Worst EU Lobbying" award for "the most deceptive, misleading, or otherwise problematic lobbying tactics," and a "Worst Conflict of Interest" award for the European official "whose background, side-jobs or other liaisons with special interests raise the most serious concerns about their ability to act in public interest." Last year's Worst EU Lobbying award went to German car makers BMW, Daimler and Porsche for "their misleading and scaremongering lobby campaign to water down EU curbs on CO2 emissions from passenger cars."

"Washington's largest lobby, the pharmaceutical industry, racked up another banner year on Capitol Hill in 2007, backed by a record $168 million lobbying effort," reports M. Asif Ismail. The spending, from companies and trade associations including Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and the Biotechnology Industry Organization, jumped 36 percent over the previous year. Much of the increase went to Democrats, after they became the majority party in Congress. "In the current election cycle so far, for the first time on record, the pharmaceutical and health products industry has given slightly more money to Democrats than Republicans," Ismail notes. Just two years earlier, "Democrats received only 31 percent of the contributions from the industry, while the Republicans received 67 percent." The industry's lobbying successes have included "thwarting congressional efforts to restrict media ads for prescription drugs," "blocking the importation of inexpensive drugs from other countries," and "ensuring greater market access for pharmaceutical companies in international free trade agreements."

"Media coverage of climate change is at a crossroads, as it moves beyond the science of global warming into the broader arena of what governments, entrepreneurs, and ordinary citizens are doing about it," reports Cristine Russell. She points out that the growing global warming beat offers "countless" angles for reporters to explore "on a story that is only going to get bigger and more complicated in the decades (yes, decades) ahead." Journalists, she writes, "will play a key role in shaping the information that opinion leaders and the public use to judge the urgency of climate change, what needs to be done about it, when and at what costs. It is a vast, multifaceted story whose complexity does not fit well with journalism’s tendency to shy away from issues with high levels of uncertainty and a time-frame of decades, rather than days or months."

Daniel Troy served as chief counsel for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from 2001 to 2004. Starting September 2, 2008, he will be head counsel for the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline. Before his stint at the FDA, Troy "fought the agency on behalf of the right to use medical-journal articles to suggest off-label uses for drugs and medical devices." He was also an active litigator who worked against consumer interests. "Representing the Washington Legal Foundation, an industry-supported business think tank, Mr. Troy argued for the protection of commercial speech. ... He was also part of the winning team representing Brown & Williamson in a suit against the FDA regarding tobacco advertising." At the FDA, he was known as a loyal friend of the very industries the regulatory agency is charged with monitoring. "Under Mr. Troy, the agency began filing amicus briefs opposing lawsuits against drug and medical-device makers, saying that having met the FDA's approval and labeling standards, manufacturers should be protected from state-based suits for damages." His move to GSK is another example of the revolving door between government and industry. GSK said of Troy, "His wealth of experience in the regulatory legislative area will be of enormous benefit to us, and ultimately to patients."

Human rights and labor activists protested outside the Washington DC offices of Public Strategies, Inc., claiming that the public relations firm helps the Bridgestone / Firestone Tire Company "deflect attention away from the company's long history of exploiting workers and the environment on its rubber plantation in Liberia." The protest comes shortly after the publication of a report from a Liberian-based organization that alleges that Firestone works with "former President [Charles] Taylor's Anti-Terrorist Unit and other militia forces ... to curb illicit tapping. Some members of this group are allegedly harassing and torturing community members in the name of curbing illicit tapping" of rubber trees. The report also faults Firestone for paying low wages and placing unreasonable quotas on its Liberian workers, among other problems. The head of the Firestone Agricultural Workers' Union of Liberia said there are "ongoing union-management contract negotiations" to address "issues relating to work quota, and also issues relating to occupational health and safety, issues relating to education as well as issues relating to salaries and wages."

"It's hard to take the airlines seriously when they try to play the pity card with consumers," opines Advertising Age. The trade publication's biting editorial comes in response to a public relations push by the Air Transport Association of America (ATA). ATA's "Stop Oil Speculation" campaign and website are "attempting to divert consumer anger directed at airlines for nickel-and-diming them and instead make oil speculators the bad guys," reports AdAge. As part of the ATA campaign, 12 major airlines are emailing their frequent fliers, asking them to contact legislators about high oil prices. According to ATA's David Castelveter, "nearly 1 million messages were sent to Congress the first two days of the campaign." He added, "We're not asking our customers to help us. ... We're asking them to help themselves." As AdAge's editorial noted, Delta Air Lines recently "showed off its deep concern about high fuel prices by offering select New York City customers free helicopter rides from Manhattan to John F. Kennedy International Airport." That's not to mention airlines' "customer abuse and high prices," and the industry's reliance on "government subsidies and government bailouts."

Both the Democratic and Republican conventions are bringing in millions of dollars in corporate sponsors, but there is no reporting requirement for either the political parties or the companies. There are a reported 146 organizational and corporate donors, but less than a quarter have chosen to disclose information about their donations. Some of the lead donors are telecom companies that just weeks ago received retroactive immunity from Congress for participation in the Bush spy program. AT&T is such a large scale donor that their logo is placed prominently on the attendees' welcome bags. Other identified donors include Motorola, Coca-Cola, Google, Qwest Communications, Comcast, and nuclear energy giant Xcel Energy. Stephen Weissman of the Campaign Finance Institute, explained that "to have that speech come off well, to have the lighting and the rigging and all of the sound and the Broadway producers who do it, to have the production and the setting look just right, to have specially built podiums and so forth, that will earn gratitude."

On July 15, "an unlikely alliance" rallied in Washington DC to "stop the war on the poor" by increasing U.S. domestic oil and gas production. The rally was organized by the self-described civil rights group Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the pro-drilling front group Americans for American Energy and the conservative group High Impact Leadership Coalition. Rally speakers stressed "the need to expand domestic oil and gas production with the goal of reducing fuel costs for low-income households that feel a disproportionate pinch from rising energy prices," reports Jenny Mandel. Signs at the rally included "My family needs affordable energy" and "Environmental groups don't feed my family." CORE has received funding from ExxonMobil. CORE's Niger Innis said the group favors "government spending on oil shale, coal and drilling on the continental shelf and throughout Alaska," because "when these resources are developed ... that is going to have a direct impact on the price of fuel." While some rally attendees told Mandel about their difficulties "budgeting around today's gasoline prices," others "backed away from a reporter with a notebook. ... One woman, who declined to give her name, said she was demonstrating at her boss's behest."

"Two cups of McDonald's iced coffee (BUY!) sit on the Fox 5 TV news desk" during Las Vegas station KVVU's morning news show, writes Abigail Goldman. It's a "punch-you-in-the-face product placement" that will last six months. KVVU's news director says the "nontraditional revenue source" won't impact his station's reporting. But an executive with the marketing firm that negotiated the deal, Omnicom's Karsh/Hagan, said "the coffee cups would most likely be whisked away if KVVU chooses to report a negative story about McDonald's," reports the New York Times. McDonald's has similar product placement arrangements with "WFLD in Chicago, which is owned and operated by Fox; on KCPQ in Seattle, a Fox affiliate owned by the Tribune Company; and on Univision 41 in New York City." Other stations owned by KVVU parent Meredith Corporation, "including WFSB, the CBS affiliate in Hartford, Conn., and WGCL, the CBS affiliate in Atlanta -- are also accepting product placements on their morning shows." The Writers Guild of America West recently urged the Federal Communications Commission to require "real-time disclosure" of product placements and to ban video news releases, calling VNRs "an attempt to trick the viewer to think that a paid advertisement is actually news."

Ads from groups weighing in on the U.S. presidential campaign "have begun getting sharper and more numerous," reports NPR's "All Things Considered." The conservative pro-war group Vets for Freedom has already spent $1.5 million on ads in such "key presidential states" as Michigan, Ohio, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Virginia, with plans to "spend exponentially more." Their ads show military veterans supporting Senator John McCain's stance on Iraq, claiming, "The surge worked." Ads from the AFL-CIO labor union also feature veterans, who express respect for McCain's war record while questioning his plan "to keep spending $10 billion a month in Iraq." Religious groups are also getting into the act. The Chicago-based political action committee Matthew 25 Network is supporting Senator Barack Obama with ads on Christian radio stations, which tend to draw conservative listeners. On the other side, the Christian Defense Council is distributing a poster that calls Obama the "abortion president."

Asked why people like Patrick Moore and Stewart Brand, who made their name as environmentalists are now nuclear power advocates, the highly regarded energy efficiency analyst Amory Lovins was blunt: "I think they haven't done their homework. And I keep asking for their analysis and not getting it, because I don't think they have one." Nuclear power, he argues, is no solution to global warming. "If you buy more nuclear plants, you're going to get about two to ten times less climate solution per dollar, and you'll get it about twenty to forty times slower" than efficient use of electricity, renewables and micropower, he said. Lovins is also dismissive of claims that a "nuclear renaissance" is sweeping the world. "It's a very carefully fabricated illusion. And the reason it isn't happening is there are no buyers. That is, Wall Street is not putting a penny of private capital into the industry, despite 100-plus percent subsidies," he told Amy Goodman.

The Swiss drug company Roche has been suspended from the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) after adverse findings over its promotion of the weight-loss drug Xenical. The Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority, the body created by ABPI to handle complaints over its self-regulatory code of conduct, found that an agreement by Roche to invest £55,000 in a weight loss clinic that would prescribe the company's drug "brought discredit upon, and reduced confidence in, the pharmaceutical industry." The authority also found that by selling Xenical to the clinic owner, who posed as a pharmacist, Roche "had sold a prescription only medicine to a member of the public." The complaint was brought by Ryta Kuzel, the former head of UK regulatory affairs for Roche, who argues that she was fired because the company feared she would blow the whistle on the Xenical scandal.

"The Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, a recently created front group for pharmaceutical interests, has been churning out industry-funded propaganda that demonizes evidence-based medicine, universal health care, the government, and all critics of pharma while attempting to portray industry as a selfless provider of cures and education," write Norman Kelley and Adriane Fugh-Berman. CMPI's Peter J. Pitts has written opinion pieces for publications including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, which fail to mention that Pitts is a senior vice president at Manning, Selvage and Lee (MS&L), a leading PR firm for the pharmaceutical industry.

Smoking was officially banned July 1 in Dutch bars and cafes. Since then, smokers have started flocking to a new religious movement in the Netherlands known as the "The Only and Universal Smokers Church of God," or the "Smokers Church." Michiel Eijsbouts, who founded the church in 2001, insists that the new smoking law does not apply to members of the Smokers Church. He says church members have a right to express their religion and they do it through smoking. Members of the Smokers Church profess to believe in a trinity of smoke, fire and ash, and their holy rite to their god is honored by smoking. People who sign up to join the church pay three British pounds and get a card that proves their religious affiliation to authorities. So far, the church boasts over 2,000 members, and over 100 bars and cafes have recently applied to the church to be considered "religious institutions." Mr. Eijsbouts said, "Converting people was not easy until the smoking ban, but now people are flocking to the church."

The New York Times editorial board supports a proposed federal shield law for journalists that is currently in the Senate. The bill, which would provide journalists with protections against having to reveal sources in federal court, also makes allowances for genuine needs on the part of law enforcement and security concerns. Despite those exceptions, the bill faces "near hysterical opposition from the Bush administration. ... The White House, as ever, is playing the fear card, orchestrating a barrage of warnings that the law would 'wreak havoc' on national security and 'completely eviscerate' the ability to investigate terrorism." But not all Republicans agree with the President. Indiana Representative Mike Pence countered, "The only check on government power in real time is a free and independent press." Nearly all of the States' Attorneys General have endorsed the bill, as have both John McCain and Barack Obama. A similar bill passed the House last autumn.

Members of the Oxford Climate Action group protested at the London offices of PR firm Edelman to draw attention to the greenwashing done on behalf of its energy client E.ON UK. The group said that the demonstration aimed to "highlight the insanity of investing in new coal power stations such as Kingsnorth in the face of human-caused climate change." The activists protested in front of the firm's building, unfurled a banner from the roof, and even gained entrance to the company's offices. Edelman's UK CEO Robert Phillips posted a video blog in response to the protest. He said that he regretted that the group chose a demonstration over a conversation with him, and that the police and other public services had better things to do than be on call for the protest. The Public Relations Consultants Association (PCRA) agreed with Phillips. Their Director general, Francis Ingham, said, "These people should stop childishly ranting against things they disagree with, and start talking."

Kool Menthol Ad c. 1975: "The longer you smoke, the more you'll like Kool Super Longs"Harvard School of Public Health researchers combed through tobacco industry documents to find out why the industry adds menthol to cigarettes, and why cigarette brands have differing levels of menthol. Researchers found that tobacco companies use menthol's anesthetic effect to mask the harshness of the smoke and ease throat pain for beginning smokers. Once smokers are addicted, according to documents, they seek cigarettes with increasing levels of menthol to maintain the sensory effects. Tobacco companies respond by making cigarette brands with low levels of menthol for starters, and brands with higher menthol levels for veteran smokers. R.J. Reynolds calls the Harvard study propaganda, and says it is aimed at promoting a federal ban on menthol. The study was published online ahead of print at the Web site of the American Journal of Public Health.

The Army National Guard is launching a new recruiting campaign, called the "Rock Star Hero Challenge." Developed by RedPeg Marketing, the effort focuses on venues where the Guard expects its target demographic to be: music festivals, NASCAR events, and fishing tournaments. Using a tour bus to be a presence at at many as 50 events that will draw 50,000 to 100,000 attendees each, the campaign will draw in potential recruits with "52-inch touch screen displays that allow potential recruits to see and participate in virtual missions. Interactive kiosks where visitors can pose with images of rock bands will sit outside the buses, tying into the musical nature of the events and emphasizing the figurative 'rock star' quality of Army National Guard members." LTC Joseph Day, chief of the Army National Guard's strategic actions and marketing, said that the National Guard is currently on track to meet its recruiting goal for 2008 and that "The interactive nature makes the 'Rock Star Hero' different and will appeal to our demographic's thirst for technology."

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 look at rock star Guard members, protection for journalists and a bizarre "honor" for Jesse Helms. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we look at Senator Elizabeth Dole. 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!

Attendees at the Netroots Nation conference in Austin were offered the latest Nation magazine with a cover article by Christopher Hayes. He writes, "This year, MoveOn turns ten. ... Capable of dominating a news cycle with a single ad and raising millions of dollars with a lone e-mail, MoveOn pioneered an entire approach to conducting politics through the Internet that has been replicated and spun off across the country and around the globe, an approach that, as the Obama campaign has dramatically demonstrated, has permanently transformed the landscape of American politics. ... Perhaps the most damning criticism leveled at MoveOn is that by creating a clear and easy outlet for people's frustration and angst, the organization delivers people a false sense of accomplishment. In other words, MoveOn can be tremendously successful without being effective." CMD's John Stauber is one of MoveOn's critics interviewed for the piece.

Republican Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina submitted an amendment to name an HIV/AIDS relief bill after the late Jesse Helms. Helms, Dole’s predecessor in North Carolina, was notorious for being a "strident foe of HIV/AIDS prevention, research and treatment." In 1988, while vigorously opposing the Kennedy-Hatch AIDS research bill, Helms said, "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy." Later, in 1995, in opposition to refunding the Ryan White Act, he argued that "the government should spend less on people with AIDS because they got sick due to their 'deliberate, disgusting revolting conduct.'" In 1991, seven activists from the group Act Up famously put a giant condom on Helms' Arlington home that said, "Helms Is Deadlier Than A Virus." Helms did announce in 2002 that he’d changed his mind about AIDS funding in Africa; however, his change-of-heart did not extent to American gays, saying that homosexuality "is the primary cause of the doubling and redoubling of AIDS cases in the United States."

The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless plans to hand out free movie tickets, free passes to the Zoo, Denver's Museum of Nature and Science and other cultural attractions to homeless people during the Democratic National Convention August 25-28. They will even provide free bus tickets for the homeless to visit attractions that are beyond walking distance. Day shelters will stay open extended hours during the Convention, and some shelters will set up big-screen TVs so patrons can watch the event. Supporters of the plan say it's going to help the homeless avoid protests and large crowds that will likely fill their usual places, and say it is a "more sanitary and humane" way to take care of the homeless during the Convention. But not everyone is buying that explanation. Some citizens think the plan is an effort to hide the city's homeless during the convention. Some homeless people have shown little enthusiasm for the plan. Denver panhandler Ronnie Wand says he'll believe the free tickets when he sees them, and expects to do time in jail for vagrancy during the convention.

A U.S. House of Representatives committee has released a report investigating the White House's media management efforts over the death from friendly fire of Army Ranger Pat Tillman and the rescue from an Iraqi hospital of Private Jessica Lynch. The report noted that Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan had e-mailed the White House’s Director of Strategic Initiatives, Peter Wehner, recommending that he "find out what faith Tillman practiced and have the president go by that church and light a candle or say a prayer." In response to an email from Associated Press (AP) reporter Ron Fournier, Karl Rove asked "How does our country continue to produce men and women like this". Fournier replied "the Lord creates men and women like this all over the world. But only the great and free countries allow them to flourish. Keep up the fight.'" Fournier told AP that he regretted the "breezy nature of the correspondence." Former White House spokesman Taylor Gross delivered the first official White House comment on Tillman's death on April 26, 2004. Gross went on to do PR for the pro-war lobby group Vets for Freedom.

Former George W. Bush adviser Karen Hughes wrote in an introductory email to her new colleagues at the global PR firm Burson-Marsetller about how "excited" she was to join B-M and "become a 'Burson person!'" Hughes explained in her email that "today's leaders in business and government face the challenge of thinking globally and acting locally, developing broad umbrella themes that shape perceptions of their industry, brand or product, while also customizing those messages for many different customers and cultures." Hughes failed dismally to reverse America's poor global reputation in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion in her role as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Despite her track record, Hughes is upbeat about the prospect of "advocating on behalf of our clients". Last week the Wall Street Journal reported (sub req'd) that Hughes "is expected to bring in a chunk of new business, headed up by Republican-leaning chief executives who know her from her political life" and will "focus on issues from energy to health care."

Two years ago, an editorial in the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) referred to the dream run that Patrick Moore and Christine Todd Whitman were getting in the media representing the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition. CJR noted that few journalists were disclosing that the group was created by the Nuclear Energy Institute with assistance from Hill & Knowlton. "Part of the thinking, surely, was that the press would peg them as dedicated environmentalists who have turned into pro-nuke cheerleaders, rather than as paid spokespeople. And the press came through." They still do. Jay Hancock, a business columnist for the Baltimore Sun, wrote in his blog that "Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore has decided that the risks of nuclear energy are lower than the risks of continuing to use carbon energy." Hancock is not the only journalist not to disclose Moore's nuclear industry ties to his readers. The week before his post, a CanWest News Service story simply described Moore as an "avid proponent of nuclear" power.

The cover of the upcoming issue of the New Yorker magazine bears a satirical cartoon that incorporates practically every jab the right wing has taken at Barack Obama and his wife Michelle: the couple is pictured standing in the White House Oval Office dressed in Muslim garb. Barack is wearing a turban, Michelle has an "Angela Davis"-type afro hairdo and is shown toting a machine gun. An American flag burns in the fireplace as the couple engages in a "terrorist fist-bump." A portrait of Osama bin Laden hangs over the fireplace. The cover is titled, "The Politics of Fear." Both presidential campaigns quickly condemned the lampooning cover as "tasteless and offensive." Jeffrey Goldberg, a blogger at the Atlantic.com laments the whole situation as "the death of humor."

Nuclear advocates often point to France as a success story, with 80% of the country's electricity coming from nuclear power. But a recent leak at the Tricastin plant in Bollene, near Avignon, has raised concerns about health, safety, and transparency. The site houses both a nuclear reactor and a radioactive treatment plant. "Approximately 30 cubic metres of liquid containing unenriched uranium spilled from an overflowing reservoir at the Tricastin facility, which handles liquids contaminated by uranium, into the ground and into the Gaffiere and Lauzon rivers." The public was not warned of the breach until the day after it occurred, nor was the government notified in a timely fashion. The French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) inspected the Tricastin plant after the leak and "found that existing prevention measures were deficient." Until more testing can be done, "People in nearby towns have been warned not to drink any water or eat fish from the rivers ... Officials have also cautioned people not to swim in the rivers or use their water to irrigate crops." An anti-nuclear non-governmental organization is planning legal action against the plant's operator, Societe Auxiliaire de Tricastin (Socatri), over its delay in informing the public.