As gas and food prices rise, so does scrutiny of industry profits. But "food and energy companies have learned a lot since the 1970s about how to deal with public indignation," writes George Anders. In 1980, "Congress hit the energy industry with a windfall profits tax" that lasted until 1988. While Congress is holding hearings now, oil executives "are better at deflecting attention from their own companies, arguing that state-owned, foreign oil companies control most of the world's reserves, and that financial speculators" drive price fluctuations. As they prepare to announce their first-quarter 2008 earnings, Exxon Mobil executives are "hammering out possible responses to questions ... about the sheer size of the company's profit." The largest U.S. ethanol producer, Archer Daniels Midland, is holding conference calls decrying the "misguided attacks on biofuels," to "avoid being portrayed as the villain in rising farm-product prices." Oil companies "have hired plenty of lobbyists and supported trade groups, such as the American Petroleum Institute. ... Food companies may soon find themselves redoubling similar efforts of their own."

The post-Abramoff lobbying disclosure reforms have started -- and so far, they're underwhelming. "Confusing shortcuts are already being mapped and loopholes mined," reports Jeanne Cummings. "Among the information that is supposed to be available to the public now is a listing of the financial backers of the shadowy coalitions with apple-pie-sounding names," like Americans for American Energy, the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition and Americans for Prosperity. But most weren't listed in either the House or Senate disclosure database, and the few that were didn't "list the paying members of their coalition." Part of the problem is that Congress "exempted the financing of grass-roots lobbying from the law. That created a giant loophole for all advocacy organizations to exploit." In fact, Cummings found more on these groups, "culled from media reports, websites, press releases and Internal Revenue Service documents," on CMD's very own SourceWatch site.

The Center for Public Integrity has begun a five part report on the stunning impact of big money advocacy groups in electoral politics, from MoveOn to Freedom's Watch. "Their names roll off the tongue with a patriotic cadence: Freedom’s Watch, Democracy Alliance, Citizens United, Progress for America, Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America. These are the new giants of American politics, the well-funded groups organized behind a veil of secrecy to influence the voters’ choice for president of the United States in 2008. Financed by many of the nation’s wealthiest investors and business leaders, as well as millions of small donors, these organizations are responsible for a flood of political attack advertising. ... With their identities hidden under stunningly misleading names and legal technicalities, many offered questionable facts and unproven charges intended to confuse voters or appeal to their worst prejudices."

The Pentagon program's Ken Allard on MSNBCAuthor Glenn Greenwald notes, "It has now been more than ten days since the New York Times exposed the Pentagon's domestic propaganda program involving retired generals and, still, not a single major news network has even mentioned the story to their viewers, let alone responded to the numerous questions surrounding their own behavior." Greenwald helped prod NBC's Brian Williams into at least blogging about this issue, but "the essence of Williams' response [is] he did absolutely nothing wrong. Nor did any of the military analysts used by NBC News. Nor did his network. ... Just consider what is going on here. The core credibility of war reporting by Brian Williams and NBC News has been severely undermined by a major NYT expose. That story involves likely illegal behavior by the Pentagon, in which NBC News appears to have been complicit, resulting in the deceitful presentation of highly biased and conflicted individuals as 'independent' news analysts. Yet they refuse to tell their viewers about any of this, and refuse to address any of the questions that have been raised."

An April 7, 2008 citizen journalism task asked people to investigate tobacco industry brainstorming documents at the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library. That request led to a marvelous blog titled "The Sick and Crazy Science Tobacco Companies Pursue to Get You Hooked," posted on Alternet by Scott Thill, in which he describes some of his finds, including a bizarre research project to investigate the effect of a chemical in cigarette smoke called nitric oxide on cat penises. From nacho cheese-flavored cigarettes to on-pack contests to win everything from Clearasil to used celebrity underwear, tobacco industry brainstorming documents contain an untold number of bizarre marketing, advertising and product design ideas. Thill's blog praises TobaccoWiki's Brainstorming documents page, as well as citizen journalism and the new ways that research wikis are allowing people to compile and share information.

A recent Wall Street Journal editorial claimed that a landmark environmental liability case against Chevron was being judged by "Ecuador's kangaroo courts." Ecuador's Ambassador to the U.S., Luis Gallegos, responded that Chevron had filed 10 affidavits before U.S. federal judges "praising the fairness of Ecuador's court system," in order to get the case out of U.S. courts. "Happily, its PR efforts have been frustrated by the fact that Ecuador no longer has 'banana republic' institutions that can be controlled through extrajudicial pressure," he wrote. When the two Ecuadorians leading the legal case against Chevron were awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize, the company turned to crisis management adviser Sam Singer for advice. Chevron's counter-attack included a San Francisco Chronicle opinion column. Chevron's ham-handed PR inspired cartoonist Mark Fiore to satirize the company's "Human Energy" campaign.

"Being socially and environmentally responsible should be an issue for leading PR companies," said Greenpeace activist Mariana Paoli. The group's new report, "Burning up Borneo," links deforestation and loss of orangutan habitat in Indonesia with Unilever suppliers producing palm oil for Dove brand soap. After demonstrating outside of Unilever's UK headquarters, Greenpeace activists moved on to three of the Dove brand's PR firms: Lexis PR, JCPR and Ogilvy. The activists, including some dressed as orangutans, delivered copies of the report and asked the PR firms "to put pressure on Unilever to change its practices." Paoli remarked, "I was a little surprised at how defensive the agencies were, although they probably are not used to having orang-utans arriving in their offices." A Unilever spokesperson said the company's "two key messages" in response to the protest are its commitment "to finding a solution for the palm oil problem," and its "sympathy to Greenpeace's cause."

"Suppose, for example, that you own a company that sells bottled water," which is "shipped, in its little plastic bottles, ten thousand miles from the bottling plant to the consumer," writes Steve Burns. "Could you possibly 'brand' such a product as eco-friendly?" If the company is FIJI Water, you'll try. FIJI's new ad campaign, "every drop is green," calls the bottled water "carbon-negative," because of the carbon credits the company buys. To dismiss concerns about the sustainability of shipping bottled water around the world as the "food miles 'myth'," FIJI uses a study co-written by a New Zealand agribusiness representative. But, as Burns points out, "what choice do they have? If your entire brand identity is built around 'water from Fiji,' then the water has to come from Fiji, no matter the cost to the planet."

Five days after its military analyst program was exposed by the New York Times, the Pentagon announced that "briefings and all other interactions with the military analysts had been suspended indefinitely pending an internal review." Pentagon spokesperson Robert Hastings "could not say ... how long this review might take. 'We'll take the time to do it right,'" he told Stars and Stripes. Hastings, who just became the principal deputy assistant secretary of Defense for public affairs last month, also said "he is unaware of the Defense Department's past activities with retired military analysts." The Pentagon's promise to investigate, without clarifying its standards or timeline, is great crisis management. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman later told Reuters the suspension is "temporary" and "he does not think the program violated any laws."

How does a mother explain to her children why she's having a breast augmentation, a tummy tuck or a nose job? Help is on the way -- a new book for kids about plastic surgery, My Beautiful Mommy. The story features a handsome, musclebound, superhero-type male doctor and a Mommy who says that as she got older, she couldn't fit into her clothes any more. Mom explains to her child that the doctor is going to help her fix all that. Mom comes home after surgery looking slightly bruised and bandaged, but with fuller, higher breasts. The text of the book doesn't mention breasts, though; only Mom's "tummy." Michael Salzhauer, the plastic surgeon who wrote the book, said, "The tummy lends itself to an easy explanation to the children: extra skin and can't fit into your clothes. The breasts might be a stretch for a six-year-old."

David Lewis, a University of Georgia professor and former Environmental Protection Agency scientist, is suing officials at his university for publishing allegedly fraudulent research funded by the federal government. In court documents, Lewis claims that university researchers, who were paid more than $1.5 million in federal grants, intentionally distorted toxic substance amounts in the sludge from wastewater treatment plants in Augusta, Georgia, by collecting samples only during droughts, when levels would be "misleadingly low." Last month U.S. District Court judge Anthony Alaimo ruled that sludge treated in Augusta's facilities had metals concentrations thousands of times over allowed toxicity levels, noting that the University of Georgia's report on those facilities was "faulty and incomplete." Lewis has investigated the harmful side effects linked with the sludge since 1998 and argued in 2005 that his research led to his firing from the EPA. (We examined the sludge issue in our 1995 book, Toxic Sludge Is Good For You.)

Amy Bennett Williams, following up on her previous article reports, "As the Coalition of Immokalee Workers prepares to deliver more than 60,000 petitions to Burger King headquarters in Miami today, the daughter of Burger King's vice-president Stephen Grover confirmed her father is responsible for online postings vilifying the coalition. The Immokalee-based group is asking Burger King to improve tomato harvesters' working conditions and pay a penny more a pound for tomatoes, which could add about $20 to a daily wage of $50, workers say. ... [O]ften during the past year, when articles or videos about the coalition were posted on YouTube and various Internet news sites, someone using the online names activist2008 or surfxaholic36 would attach comments coalition member Greg Asbed has called 'libelous.' ... [E]arlier this year the alliance had been infiltrated by Cara Schaffer, who said she was a student at Broward Community College interested in organizing campus events in support of farmworkers. In reality, Schaffer owns Diplomatic Tactical Services, a Hollywood, Fla.-based security and investigative firm that advertises its ability to place operatives in the ranks of target groups."

"Green" Toyota Prius adAs a manufacturer of gas/electric hybrid cars, Toyota has enjoyed a public image as an environmentally responsible company. Toyota runs television ads playing up the "green" appeal of its Prius hybrid. So it was particularly disappointing to find that Toyota has been nominated to Corporate Accountability International's 2008 Corporate Hall of Shame for being substantially less green than the automaker has led the public to believe. Toyota has been quietly lobbying against a proposal to increase vehicle fuel efficiency standards to 35 miles per gallon by 2020. The company also belongs to the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, two trade groups suing to stop a new California law to reduce greenhouse gases. Toyota has also opposed bills in several states that would require cars emit less pollution, and that would require a percentage of cars sold to be low or zero-emission vehicles. And thanks to models like the Tundra, a gas-guzzling pickup truck that gets an average of 14 miles per gallon, Toyota's fleet-wide fuel efficiency standards are actually lower now than they have been in two decades.

As part of their campaign to demand a Congressional investigation of the Pentagon pundit scandal, FreePress has produced several YouTube videos providing analysis and coverage of the scandal that the TV networks themselves have largely ignored -- not surprisingly, since the scandal documents the networks' unethical journalistic practices. For years now, people have been talking about the potential of citizen journalism to challenge the power of the broadcast media behemoths. This scandal is the perfect opportunity to see how far we've come in achieving that goal. Let's make sure the TV networks don't get away with burying this story. Email the video link to your friends, and make sure they sign the petition!

At an inquiry into the problems facing cash-strapped public hospitals in New South Wales, Australia, neurologist Dr Suzanne Hodgkinson explained that doctors sought financial support of drug companies. "I had insufficient clerical support and so as to try and remedy that I approached a company to help me with that on a temporary, part-time basis. ... Quite a few senior doctors do try to raise money to help with the provision of services," she said. Hodgkinson raised A$20,000 for the position, but would not name the drug company funder. The president of the New South Wales branch of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Andrew Keegan, said the practice was common, especially for administrative roles. "I would assume it is happening in every major hospital, especially the teaching hospitals," he said. Opposition health spokeswoman Jillian Skinner said that "if it’s happening in our hospitals, there are ethical questions that need to be answered."

A review article published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) suggested that tanning at the beach or an indoor tanning booth can help avoid the dangers of vitamin D deficiency. However, the NEJM didn't disclose that the article's author, Michael Holick, has received more than $150,000 in research funding from the artificial tanning industry. Martin Weinstock, a dermatologist at Brown University and an expert on the link between tanning beds and skin cancer, says he informed NEJM Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Drazen about Holick’s industry connections prior to the article's publication, adding that "the quality of evidence" behind Holick's recommendations was "poor." The Indoor Tanning Association (ITA) has also hired Berman & Co., a notorious Washington, D.C. PR firm, to develop what ITA called "an aggressive media relations and public relations campaign." Berman, who has created numerous web-based front groups for the food, alcohol and tobacco industries, created a new site called SunlightScam.com. He's also running advertisements that attack medical groups, calling the Skin Cancer Foundation and the American Academy of Dermatology part of the "sunscam industry" and dismissing as "hype" their warnings of the link between tanning and melanoma.

From the UCS reportThe Union of Concerned Scientists' new report, "Interference at the EPA: Science and Politics at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency," calls the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency "an agency under siege from political pressures. On numerous issues -- ranging from mercury pollution to groundwater contamination to climate change -- political appointees have edited scientific documents, manipulated scientific assessments, and generally sought to undermine the science behind dozens of EPA regulations." The study found the White House Office of Management and Budget to be the worst culprit. A stunning "889 scientists (60 percent of respondents) personally experienced at least one incident of political interference during the past five years," while "among EPA veterans (scientists with more than 10 years of experience at the agency), 409 (43 percent) said interference occurred more often in the past five years than in the previous five-year period." One EPA scientist warned: "Do not trust the Environmental Protection Agency to protect your environment. Ask questions. Be aware of political and economic motives. Become politically active. Elect officials with motives to protect the environment and hold them accountable."

Soybean plantThe biotechnology industry has invoked the need for genetically modified (GM) crops to meet the growing global food crisis. For example, Archer Daniels Midland called itself the "supermarket to the world" in its ads. But a recent study carried out on soybeans in Kansas found that GM crops produced significantly less food than their conventional counterparts. A GM soybean from Monsanto produced 70 bushels per acre, compared to 77 per acre for a virtually identical unaltered soybeans. Even after adding extra nutrients that Monsanto's weedkiller, Roundup, seems to block, production was only brought up to the same level as the non-engineered plants. An earlier study in Nebraska found similar results. Monsanto said "it was surprised by the extent of the decline found by the Kansas study, but not by the fact that the yields had dropped. It said that the soya had not been engineered to increase yields, and that it was now developing one that would." Others are skeptical. Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, said that "the physiology of plants was now reaching the limits of the productivity that could be achieved." The International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development has also "concluded that GM was not the answer to world hunger." And, "when asked if GM could solve world hunger," the chief scientist at the British Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Professor Bob Watson, said, "The simple answer is no."

Sludge keeps rearing its ugly head. Scientists used federal grant money to "spread fertilizer made from human and industrial wastes on yards in poor, black neighborhoods to test whether it might protect children from lead poisoning in the soil." The residents were not alerted to any harmful ingredients in the sludge, and were assured that it posed no health risks for their families. In exchange for participating in the 2005 study, nine families were given food coupons and a free lawn by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Freedom of Information Act requests by the Associated Press produced grant documents, but none showed any medical follow-up with the homeowners. The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture conducted similar research in East St. Louis, Illinois, another impoverished and predominantly African American community. "Thomas Burke, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says epidemiological studies have never been done to show whether spreading sludge on land is safe. 'There are potential pathogens and chemicals that are not in the realm of safe. What's needed are more studies on what's going on with the pathogens in sludge - are we actually removing them? The commitment to connecting the dots hasn't been there.'"

A British county has been using an anti-terrorism law enacted in 2000 to spy on minors for petty crimes like using cigarettes and alcohol. The Staffordshire County Council in Britain's Midlands region has been using Britain's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) for a host of non-terrorism-related applications, like monitoring underage liquor and tobacco sales, recording the movements of farm animals and tracking counterfeit DVD sales. Brandon Cooke, Staffordshire County Council's Fraud and Community Safety Manager, defended the Council's use of surveillance under RIPA by saying the operations were crucial for "combatting antisocial behavior."

CAMERA, a lobby group that campaigns against criticism of the Israeli government in U.S. media, had a campaign to impact Wikipedia's coverage of Israel and Palestine issues. In emails, CAMERA's Gilead Ini stressed that the effort should be secret, and counseled members to avoid "picking a user name that marks you as pro-Israel, or that lets people know your real name." He also instructed members to "always log in" under their user names, so that Wikipedia would not "record your computer's IP address." While directing CAMERA members to certain articles on Israel and Palestine, Ini cautioned that new Wikipedia users should "avoid editing Israel-related articles for a short period of time," so as not to develop reputations as "one-topic editors." A long-time Wikipedia editor, "Zeq," advised CAMERA on its plan. Zeq suggested that some CAMERA members "stay away from any Israel realted [sic] articles," until building up enough support to become nominated as administrators, who help resolve controversies. "We will go to war after we have build [sic] our army," Zeq wrote. After the emails were published, Zeq was banned from editing Wikipedia for one year, for -- in the words of one Wikipedian -- "recruit[ing] meatpuppets from off-wiki to push POV," a point of view. CAMERA responded by "temporarily or permanently" ending its Wikipedia email group, "in hopes that members' personal contact information will not be made public."

The program's Ken Allard in actionIn addition to helping research the "Pentagon's pundits" on SourceWatch -- those retired military officers who took part in the Pentagon program to promote Bush Administration talking points on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Guantanamo detention center and wiretap surveillance programs -- there are other ways you can push back against what one participant called "psyops on steroids." Noting that the program wouldn't have worked without "the enthusiastic participation of the corporate media," FAIR is encouraging people to contact broadcast and cable news executives, urging them "to ensure that the news will no longer serve as a conduit for Pentagon talking points passed off as independent analysis." Free Press launched a campaign to press Congress to investigate the Pentagon program and "determine whether these acts violate federal law prohibiting 'covert propaganda.'"

Pro-Tibet groups plan protests when the Olympic Torch procession gets to Canberra, the Australian capital, but the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) has taken pre-emptive steps to minimize unfavourable media coverage. Paul Maley reports that "only a small clutch of media would be allowed to travel with the torch inside the security corridor." The Australian Capital Territory government's director of communications, Jeremy Lasek, said BOCOG "stipulated" that "the host broadcaster for the TV and radio rights gets a slot" in the media vehicle accompanying the torch. The national president of the Council for Civil Liberties, Terry O'Gorman, countered that there's a "clear conflict of interest" in giving preference to media companies with broadcast rights to the Games. "They've got an interest in promoting the Games and minimising any negative impact that the protests would have on the Games coverage," he said. Hill & Knowlton has the PR contract with BOCOG.

On Sunday, the New York Times outed the Pentagon's "military analyst program," an extensive effort to cultivate retired military officers as "message force multipliers" or "surrogates" spouting Bush administration talking points on Iraq and other hot-button issues. We've compiled a list of known participants, and started SourceWatch profiles on each. Can you help us uncover more about the Pentagon's pundits? What did they say, on what news programs? Do they also lobby on behalf of defense contractors? More information on the program is here. The list of participants is also repeated here, with tips on how to investigate each. 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. Thanks for your help!

If they thought this was safe to breathe, what would it take for them to think something is dangerous?
A federal appeals court in Manhattan has ruled that Christine Todd Whitman, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, cannot be held personally liable for false reassurances that she gave about the air quality in New York City following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. As we reported previously, reassurances from Whitman's EPA encouraged rescue workers to dig through the rubble, often without face masks or other respiratory protection, in their frantic search for survivors. Hundreds of firefighters and other rescue workers subsequently became disabled from "World Trade Center cough" linked to asbestos and other deadly dust caused by the collapse of New York's Twin Towers. In defense of her handling of the crisis, Whitman says that "Every statement I made was based on what experts, who had a great deal of experience in these things, conveyed to me." (Whitman now works as a spokesperson for the nuclear power industry, which is also safe according to their experts.)

Plastic bag wasteThe Progressive Bag Alliance, the American Chemistry Council and Wal-Mart Stores were among the parties who successfully lobbied Democratic Pennsylvania State Representative Lisa Bennington to weaken a bill she introduced that would have phased out the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags at large grocery stores. The business and industry groups convinced the legislator to water down her bill, so that retailers are only required to offer bag recycling programs. The change fits a lobbying strategy used repeatedly by the Progressive Bag Alliance, a front group for plastics and polymer manufacturers. Wal-Mart quietly lobbied against this bill while greening up its public image. The giant retailer announced new "Earth-friendly" products like organic disposable baby wipes, and ran "Earth Month" TV ads featuring people standing in forests, grassy fields and by streams, while promoting Wal-Mart products.

NEI coasterSwiss auto racer Simona De Silvestro isn't only "the second woman in the 34-year history of the Cooper Tires Presents The Atlantic Championship Powered by Mazda to win a race with her victory in the Imperial Capital Bank Atlantic Challenge of Long Beach." Believe it or not, there's another sponsor involved -- the U.S. nuclear power lobby group the Nuclear Energy Institute. "It was a very tough weekend, especially on Friday, but we got everything together," De Silvestro said about her recent win. "For the race, I was pretty confident, because the car felt really good. ... I also need to thank the Nuclear Energy Institute for supporting me. I am proud to be a brand ambassador for the Nuclear Clean Air Energy Initiative."

NBC Universal and Omnicom's Media Group Digital are partnering to create online videos "that help advertisers sell their products." The first "Digital Studio" programs will include "a science-fiction series starring Rosario Dawson called 'Gemini Division' and a quirky comedy about a college-aged zombie called 'Woke Up Dead,'" reports AP. Initial advertisers include Intel, Cisco Systems and Microsoft. Omnicom's Matt Spiegel said the collaboration provides "a unique way of giving brands a seat at the table with writers and producers in developing episodic programming that ties directly to brand needs." The videos "will be broadcast on NBC Universal's digital properties, such as Web sites."

Victoria "Torie" ClarkeIn early 2002, as "detailed planning for a possible Iraq invasion" began, then-Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Victoria Clarke launched the Pentagon military analyst program as "the main focus of the public relations push to construct a case for war," reports David Barstow. The gist of the program was the recruitment of "key influentials" to help sell a wary public on the war. The former Hill & Knowlton executive and her senior aide, Brent Krueger, signed up more than 75 retired military officers, who appeared on television and radio news shows as military analysts, and/or penned newspaper op/ed columns. The Pentagon referred to the military analysts as "message force multipliers" or "surrogates," and held weekly meetings with them, which continue to this day. The Defense Department also paid for some analysts to travel to Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, encouraging them to counter negative press with Pentagon talking points. Former NBC military analyst Kenneth Allard called the effort "psyops on steroids." Many of the analysts were also lobbyists for defense contractors, and boasted of their Pentagon access to potential clients. This financial conflict discouraged the analysts from questioning or criticizing the Pentagon's claims. The Pentagon also tracked what the analysts said, via a six-figure contract with Omnitec Solutions, as William Cowan learned. He was fired from the Pentagon analysts group after saying on Fox News that the United States was "not on a good glide path right now" in Iraq.

An audit review (pdf) of over $507,000 (Canadian) contributed to two University of Calgary "research accounts" has revealed that C$123,427 was routed to Friends of Science (FoS) -- a group lobbying the Canadian government against taking action on global warming. The audit, which was prompted by persistent inquiries from a volunteer SourceWatch editor, revealed that over C$100,000 was paid to APCO Worldwide for "strategic communications services." In addition, Morten Paulsen Consulting, the firm of lobbyist Morten Paulsen, invoiced FoS for over C$25,000 for developing radio advertisements and purchasing air time in five Ontario markets during the 2006 Canadian election. Additional amounts of over C$25,000 were also paid to Paulsen's current employer, the PR and lobbying firm Fleishman-Hillard, and the video production company Directors Chair. In a press release, the University noted that it had "advised Elections Canada and Canada Revenue Agency of its concerns regarding the accounts Friends of Science and the ongoing auditor’s review."

The Associated Press reports, "Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are walking a delicate line as they promise to aggressively tackle global warming while trying to assure voters that they continue to believe in the future of coal," the energy source responsible for "nearly 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, each year. ... 'They keep using the term clean coal. They absolutely are pandering the coal industry's propaganda; there's no such animal as clean coal," said Brent Blackwelder, president of the environmental group Friends of the Earth. AP notes that Obama and Clinton's love affair with Big Coal pleases the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a coal industry front group formed on April 17 by the merger of Americans for Balanced Energy Choices and the Center for Energy and Economic Development.

A recent New York Times story describes the Republican-linked pro-war group Freedom's Watch as "beset by internal problems" and unclear on "what kind of role, if any, it will actually play this fall" in the U.S. presidential elections. Freedom's Watch is currently running ads in Louisiana which claim that the Democratic candidate in a special Congressional election supports higher taxes. The ads prompted a formal complaint from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, accusing Freedom's Watch of illegally coordinating with the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). The Democrats point out that the "metadata" of the ad script file identifies the NRCC as the originator, and that former NRCC employee Carl Forti -- who now works for Freedom's Watch -- was the last person to edit the script. They note that the Freedom's Watch ad and an NRCC ad for the same race use the same graphics and similar scripts, and the Freedom's Watch ad debuted the day after the NRCC stopped airing its ad. Patrick McCarthy, who wrote the ad for Freedom's Watch, said "an innocent mistake caused the document to appear as if it came from the NRCC," reported the Washington Post. McCarthy, a former NRCC employee, "said he pulled up an old ad template from his NRCC days and wrote the Louisiana ad script over it."

Reed Pence of MediaTracks Communications wants his fellow public relations professionals to know there's nothing wrong with "guaranteed placement" -- paying to have radio or television stations air fake news. "Many PR pros face the challenge of acquiring coverage for a product that isn't newsworthy," he writes in a letter to PR Week. "Some believe that [guaranteed placement] is just advertising," but it's not, he claims. "For example, when presented as part of a nationally syndicated radio news program, an audio news release might only have news content surrounding it. Selecting this vehicle eliminates the 'situated among advertisements' concern that listeners might tune the message out." Though Pence suggests using guaranteed placement for "stories with less news value," he also claims that stations air the guaranteed spots "not because they are paid to do so, but because the programs provide a service to listeners."

Two studies of internal Merck documents concluded that the pharmaceutical company had "violated scientific-publishing ethics by ghostwriting dozens of academic articles, and minimized the impact of patient deaths in its analyses of some human trials." The internal documents surfaced during litigation against Merck, by people who had taken the painkiller Vioxx and suffered heart attacks or other problems. Five of the six authors of the studies, which were published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, "served as paid consultants to plaintiffs' lawyers in Vioxx lawsuits." One study found that medical papers on Vioxx "were often prepared by unacknowledged authors and subsequently attributed authorship to academically affiliated investigators who often did not disclose financial support." The other study concluded that Merck "neither provided to the FDA nor made public in a timely fashion" evidence that Vioxx use was linked to increased risk of death. A Merck researcher called the findings "false and misleading."

"In a public relations coup for the coal industry," the Australian Coal Association is working with "two prominent environment groups, WWF and the Climate Institute, and the miners' union, to call on the Rudd Government to set up a national task force to develop 'Clean Coal,'" reports Marian Wilkinson. Australia's Green Party and other environmental groups are calling the new alliance "a greenwash for the coal industry over its response to global warming." Greens senator Christine Milne said the government shouldn't give the coal industry more subsidies. "If you believe the polluter should pay, the coal industry is the classic case," she said. "For the last 100 years it had made massive profits at the expense of the atmosphere and the climate and now is the time for them to pay for their own research." WWF's Greg Bourne said his group joined the industry effort because "we need to know quickly" whether "clean coal" technology can work. "If it's not going to work we need to know even more quickly," he added.

"Mywireless.org," a group that's "working hard to kill a cell phone reform bill at the Minnesota legislature," describes itself as "a non-profit consumer advocacy organization" formed to protect cell phone users' "freedom, value, security and mobility." But it's "staffed almost entirely by telecommunications industry executives, drawn mainly from the ranks of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association," reports Andy Birkey. The group claims that the Minnesota Wireless Telephone Consumer Protection Act would increase cell phone charges. It's hired corporate lobbyists and run ads against the bill, and is encouraging people "to send a canned and misleading e-mail message condemning the bill to their legislators." The bill actually "would guarantee customers accurate information about billing and service area coverage." One state legislator who received the Mywireless.org-generated emails responded, "It is no more expensive to make the terms of a [cell phone] contract transparent than to hide billing and pricing practices. ... The wireless companies lied to the public, convincing many to oppose a bill they would support if they saw the legislation."

Often readers and citizen journalists will come across a name of a group that seems a little at odds with the policy message they are promoting. Some of these names were added to the SourceWatch page on front groups with the intention of returning to create an article on that at a later date. Others were emailed to us by citizens, journalists or activists wanting to know if we knew anything about them. So if you would like to help investigate some of the groups that have been flagged as warranting further investigation, here's your chance. All the names are here on this page with some basic tips on how to investigate a group and create a SourceWatch page on them. If you like, you can also add names to the list. 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. Hold onto your hat, have fun, and thanks for your help!

GreenwashBack in 1970, Earth Day started out as a "green" event that encouraged people to decrease their consumption, but as more companies jump on the greenwashing bandwagon, Earth Day has become a marketing event that corporations use to paint themselves green while pushing ever more products and services on consumers. Now many Earth Day promotions actually encourage consumption: Fairmont Hotels is promoting its new "Lexus Hybrid Living Suites" that feature organic sheets and mini-bars stocked with "local biodynamic wines"; Mattel has introduced "Barbie BCause," a line of green Barbie accessories that Mattel describes as "playful and on-trend"; and consumers can participate in Macy's "Turn Over A New Leaf" campaign by making a $5 donation to the National Park Foundation to get discounts on Macy's merchandise during the weekend after Earth Day. Steven Addis, CEO of a branding firm, tells how to spot the greenwashers: "I call it the 95-5 rule. Five percent of somebody's business is green, but 95% of their PR is green."