Salon.com writer Jeff Stein investigates why the head of Ringling Bros.-Barnum & Bailey hired a former top CIA official to spy on and manipulate the life of a free-lance writer. The two-part series documents an eight-year campaign of dirty tricks played on Janice Pottker, a writer who tried to publish stories on child labor abuses in the circus and on Ringling Bros.-Barnum & Bailey Circus owners, the Feld family.

Procter & Gamble admitted that a company working on its behalf went through the garbage of rival company Unilever in an attempt to find out more about its hair-care business. According to the Financial Times, the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals in Alexandria, Virginia, however, wrinkles its nose at the mention of rifling through a competitor's rubbish in search of corporate secrets. "It's not professional," says Bill Weber, executive director of the society, which represents 6,000 corporate intelligence gatherers in 45 countries. Nonetheless, over the years many corporates have used the time-honored technique to spy on their competitors and enemies. The Financial Times warns, "Corporate spying can cause long-term damage to a company's reputation, as British Airways discovered in the 1990s when it hacked into the computers of its rival Virgin Atlantic."

Steven Milloy, the industry lobbyist and Cato Institute staffer who calls himself "the junkman" at www.junkscience.com, is going to be getting a lot of publicity in the coming months. He has a book coming out in September titled Junk Science Judo: Self-Defense Against Health Scares and Scams, which he is already promoting on the radio talk show circuit. Today on Wisconsin Public Radio's Tom Clark Show, Milloy flacked his version of sound science and scientific truth, attacking environmental and public health activists as politically motivated fear-mongers. At the end of the interview, Clark observed that Milloy seems to think "it's better to be sorry than safe," to which Milloy retorted, "a reasonable body of evidence consists of human studies." In other words, if you want to know whether something kills people, Milloy thinks the best way to find out is to test it on humans. PR Watch has previously reported at length on Milloy's antics, and his work is also discussed in Trust Us, We're Experts.

The American Medical Association is mounting a $1 million campaign to educate doctors about its ethics guidelines against accepting gifts from drug companies -- with most of the funding for the effort coming from drug companies.

The UK's Labour Party is offering "branding opportunities" to corporations during its annual meeting set for the end of September. A Party brochure obtained by the Guardian offers a price list for placement of corporate logos and messages to reach the conference's "captive audience". Up for sale were spots on ambulance service, relaxation zone, phone service, video screens, recycling bins, and gala dinner flower arrangements. McDonalds ponied up

U.S. Newswire, a for-profit press release distribution service, faxed the PR Watch office advising us of "numerous newsmaking opportunities." "You should be working now to position your organization as a key news source for media working on these and other stories," said the news release. "One of the best ways to do this is via U.S. Newswire. USN's direct wire service feed into newsroom computer systems allows you cut [sic] through the clutter and make sure that your releases, advisories, and statements are delivered to your targeted journalists' desktops in minutes, allowing them to see, access, edit and use your news releases in the same manner they use wire copy from the Associated Press." Of the upcoming events, USW highlights the World Bank/IMF Meetings: "More that 100,000 people are expected to descend on the World Bank/IMF meetings in nation's [sic] capital the last weekend in September to protest what they see as the negative effects on a global economy. In addition to the media coverage of the issues being protested, there will also be significant coverage on how the police handle the protests." View USW rates.

The Minneapolis weekly newspaper City Pages offers readers 13 Secrets of Crisis Management based on Allina Health System documents made public by Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch. The documents, stamped "trade secret" and "attorney client privileged," outline the tactics employed by crisis management consultants employed by Allina. The health care company is being investigate by Hatch for abusing its "nonprofit" status, spending too much money on corporate perks and PR consultants.

The U.S. Army Community and Family Support Center recently hired PR-firm Hill & Knowlton for a 5-year, $2-million-dollar contract to promote the Center's "morale, welfare and recreation (MWR) programs." According to a Center spokesperson, H&K's work on 250 various MWR activities will include concerts (Miller Genuine Draft Army Concert Tour), sporting events ("Bowl Hog Wild" tournament featuring a Harley-Davidson motorcycle as grand prize), theater, and social/health/education programs. MWR programs are designed to make life better for soldiers stationed in 90 Army installations throughout the world, including Macedonia, Saudi Arabia, Kosovo, and Bosnia. H&K is no stranger to international, military-related work. In 1990, they fabricated testimony in front of a fake "congressional hearing" as part of a campaign to help the government of Kuwait promote the Persian Gulf War. (For the details, see the pages 167-75 of Stauber & Rampton's, "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You.") H&K has offices in 30 countries and clients ranging from the International Olympic Committee to the Italian Trade Commission to Microsoft.

In their most recent issue, PR Week asks PR pros how to create greater communication between the IRS and the US public. Rowan & Blewitt managing director Hank Boerner suggests, "One thing to do is to enlist the aid of third parties to try and tell a fairness story. Thought leaders like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet could talk about how they feel about paying their fair share [of taxes] to help this country."

Atlanta-based paper company Georgia Pacific hired Edelman PR for a $20,000 campaign to teach children the health benefits of washing their hands. As part of the "Clean Hands Week" campaign, actors hired by Georgia Pacific went to five Atlanta schools where they recreated scenes from the book "Mike's Dirty, Yucky, Icky, Sticky Adventure," which was developed for the campaign as well and will be distributed to 400 Atlanta-area schools. Edelman staff, dressed as germs, appeared on CBS's The Early Show where they gave out website and 1-800 number information for the campaign.

Gary Condit didn't just "injure" himself in his August 23 interview with Connie Chung -- he immolated himself, says PR pro Fraser P. Seitel. Other PR pros agree with this assessment. His performance was so bad that Spaeth Communications has awarded him its "Bimbo Award" for telling Chung, "I don't think I'm stonewalling." Merrie Spaeth, former Director of Media for President Reagan, gives the Bimbo Award to people whose denials are so unconvincing that they actually reinforce the impression they are trying to dispel.

Commercial Alert and Obligation Inc. sent letters today to state officials in all 50 states requesting an investigation of an offer by Channel One, an in-school marketing company, to pay $500 to public school employees in exchange for convincing a school principal to enter into a contract to receive Channel One's product. The groups, which oppose the commercialization of schools, sent the letters to state attorneys general and chief state school officers in all 50 states, as well as to the heads of state ethics agencies.

A recent survey of politicians found that they are as frustrated as the rest of us with the corruption of modern politics. The University of Maryland interviewed 7,500 winning and losing candidates for election and found that most candidates want the focus of campaigning more on the substance of policy ideas and were frustrated by the media's tendency to focus on personal foibles and insider clashes. Pollster Dave Beattie found that new candidates were shocked to discover that "they could not communicate with voters through the press," and as a result were forced to increase their advertising budgets and the amount of time they had to spend raising money to pay for more ads. Analyst Allen Churchill agreed: "The severity of press criticism was surprisingly high, even among recent electoral winners who enjoyed newspaper and editorial support," he said. "What they were saying...is that the failures of the news media are making it extremely difficult for candidates to run positive, issue-oriented campaigns that engage the public and, in turn, can be held accountable to the public."

The National Association of Science Writers (NASW) is debating the ethics of a job advertisement sent to its members from Chicco Chandler, a PR firm that "works exclusively with the pharmaceutical/biotech industry" and boasts of past involvement in PR for Viagra, Celebrex and Zoloft, with clients including Agouron, Amgen, Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Novo Nordisk and Pfizer. Chicco Chandler's job ad sought a "freelance journalist to attend the EASD (European Association for the Study of Diabetes) meeting in Glasgow, September 9-13, 2001. ... Responsibilities include covering industry-sponsored symposia and scientific sessions. Journalist must be able to guarantee 2-4 placements in medical trade publications targeting general practitioners and/or diabetes specialists." Some NASW members, such as Boyce Rensberger, have pointed out that there is something wrong with having PR firms hire journalists to plant news stories favorable to their clients. "It is just plain wrong to deceive readers or viewers," Rensberger stated. "It is wrong to lead them to believe that the publication and the writer are exercising independent judgement if one or the other has been paid by a source or an agent for a source." Others, such as NASW board member Joel Shurkin, point out that "We have members who do these things and feel good about themselves in the morning, and they cannot be ignored. This practice has been going on for years." The debate appears in the August 2001 archives of the NASW listserve, under the subject heading, "Double-dipping and journalistic integrity."

The Omnicom Group is negotiating a deal with Viacom Inc.'s UPN network to arrange product placements on UPN's TV programs in exchange for Omnicom buying $30 million in TV ads. According to industry executives, part of the deal calls for McDonald's to be scripted into ''The Hughleys,'' a sitcom about an African-American suburban family starring comic D.L. Hughley. Other clients whose products will be scripted into UPN shows include Cingular Wireless, Gillette, Sony's PlayStation, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance and Vivendi Universal's Universal Pictures.

New research from Ohio State University sheds light on the cruel fate that awaited official scribes for Maya kings who had been conquered by rivals. "These scribes -- the rough equivalent of today's public relations writers -- would have their fingers broken and then be executed after their kings were defeated in battle," states an OSU news release. Kevin Johnston, an assistant professor of anthropology, explains the purpose of this practice: "By breaking the fingers of scribes, what they were really doing was muting the ability of scribes to write politically powerful texts for their defeated king."

Nature, England's leading scientific journal, has announced a new policy. Beginning in October, it will "be encouraging authors to declare any competing financial interests in relation to research papers." This is "a welcome and probably inevitable decision," reports the Guardian of London, noting that science has become "intimately linked with industry. ... Scientists go to agribusiness to finance research into plant science or genetic engineering; they go to pharmaceutical companies to back pioneering studies of promising molecules; they go to physics industries to finance experiments that could end with ever more amazing technology. And, increasingly, the scientists themselves are involved in start-up companies, the cash-generating, research-financing enterprises of tomorrow. Don't blame the scientists: blame the system."

Earlier this year, Utah State Attorney General Mark Shurtleff received two letters from dead people requesting that the state go easy on Microsoft. As it turns out, the letters are part of the computer giant's nation-wide astroturf campaign, targeting the offices of 18 attorneys general who have joined the Justice Department's antitrust lawsuit. The Los Angeles Times reports that in recent weeks, Microsoft has been refining its letter writing strategy so that no two letters are identical. The giveaway, however, is in the phrasing. Iowa's attorney general reports receiving four letters that include this sentence: "Strong competition and innovation have been the twin hallmarks of the technology industry." Three others use exactly these words: "If the future is going to be as successful as the recent past, the technology sector must remain free from excess regulation."

Democrats still reeling from the Bush v. Gore decision in December must have cringed when President Bush announced his choice for solicitor of the Labor Department: Eugene Scalia, the son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In his career to date as a labor lawyer, Eugene Scalia has specialized in representing management in labor disputes related to worker safety, especially the dangers of repetitive-stress injuries. He is the leading architect of the anti-ergonomics movement, referring to repetitive-stress injuries, which afflict 600,000 American workers annually, as "junk science," "quackery," and "strange." Joshua Green observes that "Scalia is a now familiar type in the Bush administration: a policy assassin who's built a career fighting a specific set of regulations and finds himself appointed to a top position in the very agency he's long opposed."

As the number of people sick from E. coli strain O157:H7 in Ozaukee County, Wisconsin, climbed past 150 last Friday, public officials hired the PR firm Zigman Joseph Stephenson to help with media and an anticipated crush of lawsuits. The outbreak is being blamed on children not washing their hands after visiting the petting zoo at the Ozaukee County Fair. The Ozaukee County Board's Administrative Committee approved hiring the PR firm for up to $12,000 in expenses. County Health Director Glenda Madlom's son is employeed by Zigman Joseph Stephenson and has been involved with the account.

Pacifica Radio has hired Westhill Partners, which previously handled crisis communications for Jesse Jackson and Bob Kerry, to help manage its PR problems as it faces lawsuits from former staffers and listeners and allegations of opposing union organizing efforts and gagging on-air discussions.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former Communist Youth Leader leader turned Russian billionaire with ties to the Russian mafia, is paying APCO Worldwide to restore investors' trust in his scandal-plagued company, Yukos. His new motto has become "honesty, openness, responsibility" -- quite a turnaround for someone who has trafficked in women, laundered money and defrauded minority investors. PR Watch has reported in the past on APCO's work for the tobacco industry and its ideas on how to create front groups. Is there anything these guys won't do?

O'Dwyer's PR launches a new awards program to "recognize outstanding efforts at educating the public about issues, products or services." "We've heard complaints for some time that certain firms have come to dominate too many of the awards programs," said publisher Jack O'Dwyer. As an example, he noted that four PR firms took 18 or 43% of the 41 Silver Anvils awarded by PRSA in June out of a field of 736 entries. Many smaller PR firms have been critical of the elaborate and expensive entry process for other PR awards. The Lund Group earns the first O'Dwyer Award for its work educating the public about the dangers of mold in homes.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which reported that the New York City Police Department used improper racial profiling and which found serious flaws in the Florida voting process, is now facing criticism for spending $135,000 on public relations. The Holmes Reports writes that according to a Scripps Howard story, "payments made during the current fiscal year are more than double the amount that the panel is allowed to pay to outside consultants, according to the requirements of its 2001 spending allocation from Congress."

With fewer journalism jobs available, many reporters and editors are looking at PR jobs to pay the bills. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a 31-35% increase in PR jobs, versus a 0-9% increase in journalism, which also pays less than PR. For journalists worried that flacking means selling out, PR Week advises that "many believe it's an inevitable career progression." PR Week quotes Lou Colasuonno, a former editor at the New York Post and New York Daily News before turning PR practitioner, who says, "I had accomplished all I could in [the journalism] field. ... It was a natural progression to go from journalism, which is communications, to public relations and crisis which is also communications."

Of the many issues facing the White House communications staff, PR Week asked a few experts to sound off on how the media's treatment of President Bush's daughters should be handled. Here's what they had to say:

• "The White House should show the twins' positive attributes and interests, perhaps by having them interact with their parents. For example, where were the twins when the president was building the Habitat for Humanity house near the Crawford ranch?"
• "The Bush twins would ... be well-served to find a contemporary and non-partisan charity or two to publicly rally support for, like AIDS awareness programs or an urban youth program."
• "The White House is doing as good a job as can be expected. The real 'problem' lies with the Bush daughters, and not the White House communications team. While nobody begrudges Barbara and Jenna their good times, they have been arrested and continue to party in a very public manner -- one that's inconsistent with their father's political position, yet ironically consistent with his own past -- and thus will continue to remain a story."

The National Rifle Association, one of the most powerful Washington lobbying organizations, is seeking a new communications director to replace out-going flack Bill Powers. Applicants for the job -- called the third-most hellish PR job by PR Week readers -- would look forward to handling PR for NRA president Charlton Heston and to presiding over one of the largest stockpiles of PR dollars. The group spent $100 million on PR and advertising last year. Former communications director Powers left the NRA to join The Mercury Group, the PR agency of record for the NRA.

Dalia Rabin-Pelossof will head a $12 million public relations offensive to argue Israel's case amid fears that Palestinians are winning the propaganda war. Her father, Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated by a Jewish extremist in retaliation for signing the 1993 peace accords. PR advisors to Israel include Gideon Meir, Israel's deputy minister of public affairs, and the New York-based PR firm of Rubenstein & Associates.

Last year Michael Jacobson's Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI, also known as "the food police") received $200,000 from the pro-biotechnology Rockefeller Foundation to be a moderate voice in the raging debate over genetically engineered (GE) foods. CSPI has since made many statements very favorable to GE foods and recently called for government action against companies marketing non-GE foods. Ironically, CSPI's Integrity in Science Project criticizes and reveals the special interest funding and agendas of other nonprofit organizations. Apparently the food police don't see accepting a $200,000 grant to flack for GE food as a "competing interest" to their own objectivity and scientific integrity.

Is organic agriculture more risky than industrial agriculture, as a series of news stories have claimed in recent years? The UK-based Soil Association has compiled a report showing how this claim is based on bogus research and other false claims stemming primarily from industry-funded think tanks. Another group, the Norwalk Genetic Information Network, has also compiled its own online report on the organic-bashers.

A year ago we reported on the "No More Scares" campaign (www.nomorescares.org), an industry front group aimed at smearing environmental and health activists as "fearmongers." Now it appears that No More Scares has quietly decommissioned itself, and links to its website no longer work. In Trust Us, We're Experts we noted that "corporate-funded front groups ... are sometimes fly-by-night organizations. Called into existence for a particular cause or legislative lobby campaign, they often dry up and blow away once the campaign is over. The tendency of groups to appear and disappear creates another form of camouflage, making it difficult for journalists and everyday citizens to sort out the bewildering proliferation of names and acronyms."

It has been two years since Congress suppressed an overview of the risks to people from chemical plant explosions. Dangerous chemical plants, they argued, were potential terrorist weapons, and if terrorists knew which ones were most dangerous, they would target them. Congress also ordered the Justice Department to produce a report by August 2000 on how to protect chemical plants from terrorists and make them less dangerous. A year after that deadline, the report is nowhere to be seen. Dozens of people have died in the meantime from chemical plant accidents (caused by the plants themselves, not by terrorists). As Environment Writer observes, "Current law makes it illegal for EPA to tell reporters the ten most dangerous plants in the United States, but does not require those plants to screen employees for terrorist background or even to lock their gates at night."

Ever wondered who makes up those claims that "asbestos isn't dangerous" and "repetitive stress injuries are in your mind"? Vernon Mogensen looks at the dangerous business of corporate spin and unearths science fiction masquerading as science fact as industry battles against legislation to protect workers from on-the-job injuries.

In Toxic Sludge Is Good For You we wrote about the "Nevada Initiative," a PR campaign that hired prominent Nevadans to endorse plans to store high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. Now former Nevada Gov. Robert List has been hired by the Nuclear Energy Institute, making him the highest ranking former official in the state to align with the nuclear power industry.

In yet another blow to the biotech food industry's pretense of papal infallibility, scientists have found some unexpected DNA next to the inserted gene in the Monsanto Company's Roundup Ready soybeans, casting doubts on the biotechnology industry's assertions that its technology is precise and predictable.

An Australian radio station, DMG Radio, has won a court battle against rival stations after their PR consultant, Ken Davis of Turnbull Porter Novelli, admitted that he was involved in a bogus letter-writing campaign designed to undermine DMG's credibility. Davis sent out more than 50 letters using a fake identity to Australian politicians and the media, accusing DMG of destroying country radio and sparking a parliamentary inquiry into the "decline of local radio programming." Turnbull Porter Novelli is the Australian office of Porter Novelli International.

Traditionally, universities have been reservoirs of independent thinking where tenured faculty had the academic freedom to analyze and interpret science and its implications for society without pressure from financially interested parties. But as funding ties between private industry and universities grow, the pool of independent research is shrinking. Karen Charman examines the growing sense of intimidation felt by academic critics of the biotechnology industry in particular.

BSMG Worldwide is representing the Movement for Democratic Change, a political party which is trying to oust Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe. The MDC, according to the Aug. 7 New York Times, is the "first party in two decades to pose a serious threat to Mugabe's grip on power." Zimbabwe currently is faced with serious economic problems, which Mugabe blames on the country's 75,000 white farmers and their supposed Western backers. He has supported actions by the National War Veterans Association, whose members have seized and squatted on more than 1,700 white-owned farms.

The Hill and Knowlton PR firm is receiving $500,000 from Hong Kong to persuade skittish Americans and U.S. policymakers that the city retains a "high degree of autonomy" under China's rule.

Yesterday McDonald's announced it would be "providing more information about the specific source of the natural flavoring" it uses. However, today McDonald's refused to provide a spokesperson to CNN for an interview. Yesterday's announcement came after vegetarians filed lawsuits and some Hindus smashed windows upon discovering that McDonald's french fries cooked in oil were also cooked in meat flavorings. Speaking of "natural" food, European McDonald's have responded to consumer demand and removed all genetically engineered food, but McDonald's USA is using GE foods -- including soy, corn & BGH milk -- with no consumer labeling.

On June 14, the U.S. Senate passed the Student Privacy Protection Act, which would require parental consent before a corporation or person could extract personal information from a child in school for commercial purposes. However, the bill faces strong opposition from the anti-privacy lobby, advertisers, some publishers and Primedia Inc., which owns Channel One. "Increasingly, corporations wish to use the schools to gather personal information and market research from schoolchildren -- without parental consent, and against the wishes of many parents," notes Gary Ruskin of Commercial Alert. "Companies such as the ZapMe! Corp., N2H2 Inc. and Noggin, among others, have tried to turn the schools into market research factories. Since we compel children to attend school under force of law, we ought to protect them from companies that would use the schools to violate their privacy."

The New York Times ran an op-ed piece written by six-time Olympic track and field medal winner Jackie Joyner-Kersee about her struggle with asthma. The paper failed to note that Joyner-Kersee is part of an "asthma education program" program supported by GlaxoSmithKline, which makes an inhalation aerosol for asthma.

Boise Cascade is one of the worst transnational logging companies in the world. Its many scandals include: involvement in false imprisonment of peasant environmentalists who opposed Boise's logging in Mexico; a huge proposed woodchipping scheme in Southern Chile; threats of lawsuits and harassment to environmentalists, including a recent threat to ECO's Cath Wallace; and involvement with the campaign to get the Rainforest Action Network's tax-deductibility status removed. Thanks to the World Wide Fund for Nature, however, the company just got a green makeover. Boise Cascade's Australian office products catalog showcases the company's new image. The front cover shows a picture of an endangered turtle, above the WWF logo and a caption that reads, "Supporter of the World Wide Fund For Nature." The rest of the catalogue is scattered with similar references to WWF and eco-friendly icons such as a panda, a Siberian tiger, a black rhino, and Boise Cascade's mascot, "Sam the Sugar Glider" (with no mention that sugar gliders, one of Australia's most endangered species, are very susceptible to logging). For other polluting companies that want to buy a similarly green image, the WWF website thoughtfully provides a corporate pricelist.

Remember the PR hype and spin about how socially responsible and proactive 3M corporation was in pulling Scotchgard from the market last year? Well, check this out: "New analyses of 3M's own data, some decades old, reveals that the company knew far more, far earlier, about potential health problems from Scotchgard exposure. The (Scotchgard) story is likely to emerge as one of the apocryphal examples of 20th century experimentation with widespread chemical exposures without adequate testing."

In the wake of the dot-com meltdown, PR people are asking themselves, "what can PR do now that the IPOs have dried up? Where's the story?" This roundtable featured PR experts with answers like the following:

• "This whole dot-com thing finally killed branding. The '80s was the age of positioning; the '90s was the age of branding. We are currently in the age of narrative."
• "I disagree about narrative...It's about demonstration."
• "All I'm saying is the short fixes--the quick buzz approaches--don't work anymore."
• "We are talking about our clients who are groping for more media attention, and we're saying, 'Ha, silly them, it's not about having a cool buzz anymore.' It's about showing value. Well, at the same time we are saying we can't demonstrate our own value. This is our biggest problem."

No public relations agency in America benefited more from the Internet boom than Middleberg & Associates. By the year 2000, Middleberg had established itself as the authority on online media relations, but the dot-com meltdown also means leaner times for its PR firms. Last week, agency founder Don Middleberg closed the firm

The Bush administration's recently-announced plan to force General Electric to pay for a $460 million cleanup of the Hudson River is designed to battle the popular impression that his White House, particularly on environmental issues, is operating under corporate sponsorship. But check out the fine print to the Bush plan: "The EPA did announce one substantive change to the original Clinton plan: the dredging will now be carried out in phases, with government scientists (and, likely, GOP pollsters) evaluating at each step whether the cleanup is an effort worth its while," reports Time magazine. "In other words, Bush and Whitman will have plenty of opportunities to back off from this fight in the years ahead."

A secret report reveals that three of the world's biggest tobacco companies -- British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco and Philip Morris -- are considering a new set of self-imposed, international advertising restrictions including curbs on print ads, TV, outdoor, product placement and promotional events. Many of these restrictions are already being forced on the tobacco industry as a result of growing international pressure to reduce cigarette consumption. The self-imposed restrictions are designed to head off the World Health Organization's call for a global ban on all advertising and promotion.

Contrary to the claims of the biotech lobby, Canadian researchers have found strong evidence that genetically modified (GM) crops can spread long distances from where they have been planted and spawn "superweeds."

A leaked document, stamped "Confidential: National Semiconductor Communications Plan," shows how the American-based microchip company hired a maverick public relations firm, Beattie Media, to spy on its union and sabotate a BBC investigation into health problems plaguing employees. The company's union has been concerned for years that the firm's chemically intensive process of making computer microchips has caused scores of cancers, fertility problems, reproductive illnesses and miscarriages among its female staff.

Recent anti-globalisation protests have been met by an increasingly militarised state response aimed at deflecting attention from the issues. Corporate Watch's Lucy Michaels reports back from the BIOjustice protests against the US biotech industry in San Diego.

In the wake of a decision by England's University of Nottingham to accept

American coverage of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has almost always been sympathetic to Israel. For most U.S. news organizations, "objective" has long meant "pro-Israeli." This report in TomPaine.com details some of the behind-the-scenes PR aimed at keeping things that way. In the words of one Israeli official, "Engaging in a successful PR campaign is part of winning the conflict."

The Central Intelligence Agency has its own website for kids, complete with animal cartoon mascots that present an "antidrug message to America's youth." Spinning U.S. spy operations as an effort to keep kids straight seems hypocritical to Martin A. Lee, who has written previously about the CIA's history of experiments with drug-based mind-control and its collaborations with heroin and cocaine dealers in Southeast Asia and Latin America.

The tobacco, booze and food industry lobbyists at Rick Berman's Guest Choice Network usually castigate Michael Jacobson's Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) as the dreaded "food police" when it comes to fat and sugar in the diet. But they are loving CSPI's promotion of genetically engineered food. CSPI, Monsanto's former lawyer Mike Taylor (now at Resources for the Future) and Monsanto's former cow growth hormone lobbyist Carol Tucker Foreman (now back at Consumer Federation of America), are all getting substantial grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, a huge supporter of the alleged benefits of genetically engineered crops.

Michael Betsch at the Cybercast News Service reports that "the conservative environmental group, Greening Earth Society" opposes the scientific consensus that global warming is a real problem. Betsch fails to point out that this "conservative environmental group" is actually a front group created by the coal industry. We examine the Greening Earth Society and the industry campaign to confuse the climate debate in our book, Trust Us, We're Experts.

Many web surfers rely on for-profit search engines and web directories like Yahoo to guide them to news items of interest. When FAIR scrutinized Yahoo!'s daily journalism site, however, it found a serious lack of diversity. Of 21 columnists in the Yahoo! News Op/Ed section, 62 percent are conservatives, 14 percent are centrists, and 24 percent are progressives. 67 percent are male, 90 percent are white, and not one progressive person of color is a contributor. Additionally, five of the seven female columnists are conservatives.

Portland, Oregon resident Susan Hager's daughter Morgan was one of three U.S. citizens hospitalized in Genoa as a result of unprovoked violence by Italian police against protesters at the Group of 8 summit meeting. In the early hours of July 22, 92 young people were dragged from their beds by squads of Italian anti-riot police officers who kicked them, pummeled them with clubs and threw them down stairs. Emergency room doctors said a number of the injured would have died without treatment. Television crews arriving on the scene later filmed pools of blood and teeth knocked out during the raid. Outrage about the police behavior has spread throughout Europe, but Susan Hager is dismayed that most Americans remain unaware of the brutality of the raid,

Channel One, which beams TV news programs and commercials into thousands of schools in the U.S., has broadcast dozens of news segments which contained anti-drug messages in the past three years -- and received millions of dollars' worth of ad credits from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy for doing so. The arrangement, in which taxpayers' money was used to underwrite a covert anti-drug message shown to millions of schoolchildren in the guise of news, appeared to violate the ONDCP's publicly-stated policy that news and editorial pieces would not be eligible for the ad credit program.

Do you think activism is futile and ineffective? Time magazine thinks otherwise. "The demonstrations against global capitalism at the G-8 summit in Genoa were the latest manifestation of a trend that--mostly quietly and behind the scenes--is defining our age," writes Michael Elliott. "From Home Depot (criticized for its use of tropical hardwoods) to Starbucks (attacked for the treatment of workers on coffee plantations), from Big Oil (a perennial target for environmentalists) to tuna canners (think dolphins), companies are increasingly changing their business practices when pressured by activists."

The government of Ecuador is paying $180,000 to Burson-Marsteller

FitzGerald Communications, which rode the high-tech wave, has established a "special situations" group to handle corporate messes such as accounting irregularities, management shake-ups, class action suits and bankruptcies. The unit is headed by Nicole Russell, a former employee of Hill and Knowlton, where she served as spokesperson for Sunbeam during the "Chainsaw Al" Dunlap days and Cendant, victim of the largest accounting fraud in history.

If you want to take part in "democracy" without leaving your couch, now there's a company that will go to the White House and protest for you.

Now that Philip Morris has apologized for its role in commissioning a report claiming that the Czech Republic benefits from the premature deaths of smokers, the August 6 issue of PR Week asked PR pros, "How can Philip Morris regain PR ground following the publication of the Czech report?" Advice from the experts included:

• "More advertisements praising the philanthropic activities of its Kraft and Miller subsidiaries would be wise."
• "The best thing for it to do is minimize its public profile."
• "Partner itself with a consumer watchdog group."
• "Fire all of those involved in commissioning these studies, and obtain confidentiality statements from each of them."
• "Resist interview requests; any interviews on this will be no-win situations."

American companies are suffering a knock to their corporate reputations internationally due to the Bush administration's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. "The media tends to repeat the oversimplified view that companies supporting the Protocol are environmentally friendly, and those that don't are not," complains PR Week writer Eleanor Trickett. "The logic is wobbly at best; that would be saying that the treaty itself is flawless." For examples of companies that she thinks are doing good PR, Trickett points to examples like General Motors, which opposes the Kyoto Protocol but pretends to be environmentally friendly at its "sustainability" website and an "environmental science" club for kids.

After Children's Memorial Hospital, a private hospital in Chicago, refused to treat 11-year-old Ana Esparza because she was uninsured and could not afford a life-saving liver transplant, Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital agreed to do the surgery for only $225,000 -- discounted from the normal $500,000 cost of the procedure. PR Week reported that JMH's director of public affairs and communications said the Miami hospital "was careful not to disparage the Chicago hospital" and "was concerned the local community would be angered that JMH had gone beyond its regional needy base to provide a discounted service for someone from another state." The PR Week story didn't mention the heroic fundraising efforts by Ana herself and Chicago's Hispanic community, which raised $193,000 to save the girl's life. It also made no mention of the PR industry's role in making sure that the United States remains the only country in the industrialized world without a national health care system.

Advertising Age profiles Jonathan Ressler of Big Fat, a marketing company that specializes in what it calls "real-life product placement" -- planting thousands of freelance shills in bars and other public places to covertly spread word-of-mouth chatter about the virtues of brand-name drinks and other products. Big Fat's current client list includes Pepsi, Nintendo, Volvic, Evian, USA Networks and W magazine.

Now that he is done prosecuting Bill Clinton, former independent counsel Kenneth Starr has gone back to work as an attorney for the tobacco industry. On Monday he represented Philip Morris in Los Angeles, asking a judge to overturn a jury's $3 billion punitive damage award to a smoker with incurable lung cancer.

In Toxic Sludge Is Good For You, we reported on the Environmental Protection Agency's PR campaign to rename sewage sludge as "biosolids" and use it as fertilizer. Now the Washington Post is finally reporting that there might be some problems with the practice. This story mentions complaints from people such as James Lear of Virginia, who woke up one morning last fall covered head to foot with mysterious boils that his doctor said might be connected to airborne bacteria from the treated sewage used as fertilizer on a nearby pasture. In New Hampshire, Shayne Conner, 26, died a few weeks weeks after several hundred tons of sludge were spread on a field near his home.

Nike has created a website offering an online virtual tour of one of its factories in Vietnam, claiming that the tour demonstrates its commitment to continuous improvement in labor practices overseas. A year in the making, the video depicts a clean, well-run factory where workers are well-treated. But according to Jason Mark, a spokesman for San Francisco-based Global Exchange, a labor rights group, "It seems more like a publicity stunt than a genuine effort to make systematic changes across the board. It's easy for a factory to be set up that may or may not be a model and publicize it as some great thing."

If Rep. Gary Condit is looking for some PR advice, he could check out this column byFraser P. Seitel, the former editor and publisher of Public Relations Strategist (the official publication of the Public Relations Society of America). Seitel advises Condit to give a public interview, following Monica Lewinsky's example: (1) Select a friendly interviewer. Lewinsky chose Barbara Walters; Seitel thinks Condit should try Larry King. (2) Impose strict ground rules and make certain topics "off limits." Seitel notes that ABC agreed to Lewinsky's terms "without a peep" and thinks that Condit can get away with similar demands. (3) Apologize early and often. "No matter what he is asked, Condit should always end up by acknowledging how wrong he was and how sorry he is." (4) Stay on message. Seitel advises Condit to repeat a "mantra" of "great shock and sadness about Chandra's disappearance."

Editors at the world's most prominent medical journals, alarmed that drug companies are exercising too much control over research results, have agreed to adopt a uniform policy that reserves the right to refuse to publish drug company-sponsored studies unless the researchers involved are guaranteed scientific independence. The journal editors decided to act after several recent cases involving charges that drug companies tried to withhold research results or present them in the most favorable way. "It's become a huge problem," said Frank Davidoff, editor of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

In a major surrender to Israeli diplomatic pressure, BBC officials in London have banned their staff in Britain and the Middle East from referring to Israel's policy of murdering its guerrilla opponents as "assassination." BBC reporters have been told that in future they are to use Israel's own euphemism for the murders, calling them "targeted killings."

The Weber Shandwick PR firm created "Slam the Can for Dare to Care," a basketball-themed food drive designed to put a charitable face on the Brown & Williamson tobacco company. "The 16 B&W employees donating the largest number of canned goods during the two-and-a-half week collection period participated in a series of wacky basketball contests at a downtown shopping mall, with the winner receiving two tickets to the NCAA championship games," Shandwick stated in The Holmes Report, a PR industry trade publication. Shandwick declared the program an "unqualified success. ... In 2000, donations totaled more than 77,000 cans." If you do the math, that works out to roughly one can of food for every four people in the United States who died of a tobacco-related illness that year.

This CNN interview with Bob Druckenmiller, CEO of the Porter Novelli PR firm, gives his thoughts on PR aspects of the Ford/Firestone tire fiasco. "It could be a public relations firm's dream. I mean, you've got a chance to go in and be a hero, and there's very little downside," observed the CNN interviewer. Druckenmiller replied: "True. I think any crisis is an opportunity, both for a public relations firm and for a company to be a hero in terms of how they react to it."

While the International Whaling Commission held its annual meeting in London, PR Week asked British public relations practitioners how they would market whale meat. Two of the four respondents said that marketing whale meat is not an option given the already existing moratorium on whaling and the public opinion supporting it. Lexis' Bill Jones joked, "For a campaign slogan, we should of course borrow from that other Japanese import, Pokemon -- Gotta Catch 'Em All." Chris Lukehurst of the Meat and Livestock Commission saw "scope for marketing it as a health food that is also environmentally friendly. Whale is a traditional organic food ... It is free-range and not genetically modified. ... An added environmental bonus is that just one animal will feed hundreds of people."

Iceland recently joined Japan and Norway in seeking to reverse the International Whaling Commission's ban on commercial whaling, prompting the British edition of PR Week to ask its experts, "How would you market whale meat to reluctant UK consumers?" Chris Lukehurst of the British Meat and Livestock Commission suggested "marketing it as a health food that is also environmentally friendly ... a traditional organic food" that is "free-range and not genetically modified."

For the past three months the San Francisco Chronicle has been running a front page series called "The Mess on Market Street," which refers to the city's Mid-Market neighborhood. Poor Magazine reporter Lisa Gray-Garcia writes that "The series is part of a well-crafted propaganda campaign in support of the upcoming gentrification-Sweep- New York Style that the Mid-Market Redevelopment Project Area Committee is planning, modeled after the newest embodiment of economic and racial cleansing in the U.S.: The Business Improvement Districts (BIDs). The BIDs were established over the last ten years by a collective of corporate and private business interests whose main aim is to 'sweep' panhandlers, vendors, artists, street newspaper vendors and other micro-businesses owners out of downtown business districts across the US by bypassing the police departments and hiring private security firms to 'patrol' these districts."

Media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting reports in the latest issue of their magazine Extra! that media citations of think tanks grew 29 percent in 2000. Progressive groups, like the Economic Policy Institute, Urban Institute, and Justice Policy Institute, saw a significant increase in references to them in electronic media. Conservative and right-leaning think tanks, however, still got half of all media citations. The remaining half was split between centrist organizations, 30 percent, and progressive groups, 20 percent.

The San Francisco Independent Media Center reports that in response to escalating police sweeps and media vilification of homeless people, protesters plastered the front doors of the San Francisco Chronicle offices with copies of biased news coverage taken from the Chronicle's own pages and demanded an end to an editorial policy that is aiding and abetting the harassment and criminalization of homeless people. According to the editor of Poor magazine, Lisa Gray-Garcia, "The newest trend in the mainstream corporate media - as witnessed in the One Hearst town of San Francisco, as well as the rest of the corporate national press - is to act as public relations campaigns for economic and racial cleansing in cities across America." Organized by Media Alliance, Poor Magazine, Street Sheet and Street Spirit, the demonstration coincides with the annual conference of the North American Street Newspaper Association (NASNA) that took place July 27-29.

Ross Irvine, corporate activist and president of ePublic Relations, points out how business PR can learn from anti-biotech activists and NGOs. Irvine recommends taking a broader view of the issue, going beyond traditional allies and PR activities. According to Irvine, "With creative thinking a great deal of synergy among biotech and other issues is possible and essential."