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."