In the latest installment of their series on the business of war, the Center for Public Integrity's team of investigative journalists examines the career of Tim Spicer, the figurehead in a PR campaign to improve the unsavory image of soldiers who fight for hire. "Politicians in the West seem quickly to have accepted a convenient if illusory dichotomy just as it has been handed to them - contrasting the old-style (and bad) 'dogs of war' with the new-style (and good) private military companies, or PMCs," the report states. It shows how Spicer and other soldiers of fortune have operated through a shadowy network of companies with names like Executive Outcomes, Sandline International and Strategic Consulting International. Even as their activities prompted arrests, government inquiries and civil unrest in countries like Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea and Sierra Leone, mercenaries used "leading London public relations consultant, Sara Pearson," whose company, Spa Way, hired a ghostwriter to pen Spicer's autobiography and transform his image "from law-breaking buccaneer to respectable commentator, a minor celebrity to include in chat shows and TV quizzes," so that mercenary soldiering could be "rebranded, restyled, sanitized and relaunched."

The US government is using The Rendon Group, advertising whiz Charlotte Beers and others to develop PR and ad campaigns to sway Muslim opinion toward the US. The first ads are being "greeted with skepticism," according to the New York Times. "Rawia Ismail, ...her head covered with an Islamic head scarf, appears in a US government video that will have its first public showing this week on national television here in [Indonesia]... 'I didn't see any prejudice anywhere in my neighborhood after Sept. 11,' says Ms. Ismail. ... The message, in four videos about American Muslims that are to be shown here and in other Islamic countries, is one of tolerance at home and a desire to reach out abroad. ... The theory underpinning the videos, and newspaper ads and radio spots that will accompany them, is that the US is a misunderstood place. Another feature of the broader campaign is a new radio station, Radio Sawa, that broadcasts in the Arab world, playing pop music in Arabic and English and providing top-of-the-hour news from an American point of view. Muslim academics from Asia and the Middle East are also being sent to the United States for study tours."

Jeremy Rifkin examines news coverage of the Bush Administration's war drive on Iraq. "One can't help but be surprised by the almost total silence on the question of the 'oil connection,'" he writes. "Is it possible that United States political leaders and reporters, columnists, editors and producers are so naive that they really believe there is no other White House agenda in the Middle East except the one that the administration is extolling? Do they really believe that oil plays no role in the strategic thinking of the inner circles at the White House? ... It might be that Europe and the rest of the world are simply wrong. But to have virtually no public discussion in the United States of what the rest of the world suspects is the White House's real reason for wanting to depose Saddam makes me feel that there is indeed more to Bush's Iraq obsession than we are being told."

"Marketing a war is serious business. And no product requires better brand names than one that squanders vast quantities of resources while intentionally killing large numbers of people," Media Beat columnist Norman Solomon writes. From 1989's Operation Just Cause to 1991's Operation Desert Storm to today's Enduring Freedom, Solomon suggests that naming military operations is nothing more than a form of "media cross-promotion" meant to sanitize war. "Looking ahead, the media spinners at the White House are undoubtedly devoting considerable energy to sifting through options for how to brand the expected U.S. assault on Iraq. Long before the war is over, we'll all know its reassuring code name. But we won't know the names of the Iraqi people who have been killed in our names," Solomon writes.

Despite a 1998 multi-state tobacco settlement banning tobacco companies from marketing directed toward children and banning payments to place tobacco products in films, tobacco use in the most popular youth-oriented movies has increased by 50 percent, according to a new report. "Tobacco at the Movies" highlights the health risks to children, who are susceptible to the subtle message sent by famous actors and actresses using tobacco on the big screen.

Guthrie/Mayes PR is helping the Archdiocese of Louisville handle its sex abuse crisis. Eight of the Archdiocese's 182 priests have been "permanently removed" from their ministries. Other clients of Guthrie/Mayes include Philip Morris, Toyota, Eli Lilly and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.

Under fire from environmentalists, California's wine industry plans to announce a code of "sustainable" environmental practices. Critics charge the industry with contributing to soil erosion, watershed loss and pollution and say its proposed "voluntary code" is an attempt to head off binding state regulation.

A nearly two-year investigation by the Center for Public Integrity's International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has identified at least 90 private military companies worldwide that intervene on behalf of governments in military conflicts. The ICIJ investigation shows how profits from war commerce have gone to a small group of individuals and companies with connections to governments, multinational corporations and, sometimes, criminal syndicates in the United States, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Their report, an 11-part series that begins today, will include a story on Wednesday that shows how mercenaries, with the aid of public relations professionals, rebranded themselves as private military companies.

"Julia Butterfly Hill lived in the branches of a giant California redwood for two years to keep the Pacific Lumber Company from making it into planking, and when she climbed back down to earth, she discovered that the ad agency TBWA/Chiat/Day had used her likeness in an ad campaign without her permission. She sued, and last week reached a settlement. ... [T]he shop has agreed to shell out a significant cash donation to a worthy cause and produce a prominent print ad campaign for a foundation of Ms. Butterfly's choosing."

"Some of the United States' best-heeled corporations and capitalists, seeking to elect a Republican Congress in November, have turned to a gambit pioneered nearly 70 years ago by rulers of the Soviet Union," Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Joel Connelly writes. "The underlying reason: Sheep's clothing is often needed for wolves to stalk their prey." With elections drawing near, industry-sponsored front groups are flooding the air waves with their anonymous messages. The drug company sponsored United Seniors Association spent more than $1 million to boost embattled Rep. George Gekas (R-Penn.) in his re-election race. "Before his death Friday in a plane crash, Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone was targeted with a $1 million hostile TV media buy for the last two weeks of Minnesota's Senate campaign," Connelly writes. "The ad time was bought by a group called Americans for Job Security. It also has bought up to $1 million worth of late-campaign media in New Hampshire, $480,000 in Missouri, and $625,000 in Colorado." Americans for Job Security does not give out its contributor list, but Connelly reports that it was founded in 1997 with $1 million in seed money from the American Insurance Association and $1 million from the American Forest and Paper Association.

A series of influential studies purporting to show that federal regulation is broadly irrational are based on data that is highly misleading and frequently manufactured to fit a preconceived point of view, according to an investigation by Richard Parker, a law professor at the University of Connecticut. Parker looked at studies by Robert Hahn, John Graham and John Morrall.

"The Internet's promise as a new medium -- where text, audio, video and data can be freely exchanged -- is under attack by the corporations that control the public's access to the 'Net, as they see opportunities to monitor and charge for the content people seek and send," writes Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy. "The industry's vision is the online equivalent of seizing the taxpayer-owned airways, as radio and television conglomerates did over the course of the 20th century. To achieve this, the cable industry, which sells Internet access to most Americans, is pursuing multiple strategies to closely monitor and tightly control subscribers and their use of the net."

For insight into ways to promote better US-Arab relations, the Saudi Arabia-based Arab News interviewed Jim Cox of the Hill & Knowlton PR firm (which worked a decade ago to promote war in the Persian Gulf). "Saudi Arabia has a cadre of friends," says Cox, "who know, respect and value it in terms of business relationships and the culture of the Kingdom. The trouble is that cadre is very small. It's a real industry-based group, limited to those who have had business contacts with the Kingdom." Arab News peppers its analysis with references to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's love of "privacy" (a euphemism for government censorship and repression). "Outside the concerns of commerce, the public image of the Kingdom as perceived by the rest of the world was not a high priority," the article states. "The question of the difference between privacy and isolation never arose. All that changed in a couple of fireballs in September last year. With the revelation that the majority of the hijackers involved in those catastrophic moments were Saudi, the carefully preserved cloak of privacy became a wall of isolation, supported by fear." As a result, Cox says, "you start with this huge hurdle of disbelief to overcome," said Cox. But who's to blame? "It's not the Saudis, it's not the government and it's not anybody else in particular. It's simply the world we live in."

"An Egyptian satellite television channel has begun teasers for its blockbuster Ramadan series that its producers acknowledge incorporates ideas from the infamous czarist forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." That document, a pillar of anti-Semitic hatred for about a century, appears to be gaining a new foothold in parts of the Arab world, some scholars and observers say."

The National Rifle Association and its supporters are struggling to cope with the bad publicity generated by America's latest gun-toting mass murderer. In an essay that has circulated widely on right-wing and pro-gun web sites, Michael S. Brown complains that the DC-area sniper "gave the battered antigun lobby what it desperately needed, a high-profile mass murderer who used a firearm," adding that the sniper gives gun control advocates the biggest boost "since their last big public relations victory at Columbine." Brown adds a couple of digs at the news media: "In their rush to instill fear in the audience, they implied that the rifle was some kind of super weapon, when in reality it is much less powerful than most common hunting rifles. Close ups and graphics invariably left viewers with the impression that the .223 cartridges are much larger than they actually are. A real sniper would not be interested in such an anemic cartridge." According to Rodney Ryan, who runs a private school in West Virginia that trains people to be snipers, "This guy is not a sniper. He is just a crazed gunman, and he is giving snipers a bad reputation." Weapons of frightening power continue to be readily available to people like John Allen Muhammad, yet NRA propagandists continue to lobby against gun registration or ballistic fingerprinting, which would help police identify the owners of guns that have been used in shootings.

"The Wisconsin Medical Society on Thursday warned hunters that no test can tell them whether the venison from their deer is safe to eat," reports Ron Seely. Nevertheless, state officials are urging hunters to go all-out in harvesting (and consuming) deer in the hope that a special hunt will kill enough to halt the spread of chronic wasting disease (CWD). Like mad cow disease, CWD disease is a fatal brain illness caused by an infectious, malformed protein called a prion. To egg on hunters, the state Department of Natural Resouces is paying for an advertisement on area radio stations that features a jingle with lyrics including "Bagem tagem dragem, freezem testem fryem. I ain't afraid of no twisted little prion."

"Supporters of a ballot measure requiring food companies to label genetically engineered foods have about $195,000 in campaign contributions and former Beatle Paul McCartney on their side," the Portland Tribune reports. "On the other hand, while the measure's opponents may lack star power, they have a whopping $5 million in hand, contributed primarily by international food and biotechnology companies intending to snuff out the movement before other states get similar ideas." McCartney taped a 30-second, pro-labeling radio spot. But that doesn't faze the anti-labeling PR coordinator Pat McCormick of Conkling, Fiskum & McCormick Inc. The Tribune reports that a new poll shows the anti-labeling campaign leading 65 percent to 27 percent, with 8 percent of those surveyed undecided. "The results were the reverse of a poll taken a month ago, just before opponents began running TV and radio ads and started a direct-mail campaign," the Tribune writes.

Microsoft is the latest company to upset city officials by using sidewalks and other public property for a "guerilla" marketing campaign. According to the Associated Press, "In New York, municipal workers removed hundreds of Microsoft decals on Thursday and planned to remove hundreds more on Friday. ... 'We intend to hold your firm directly responsible for this illegal, irresponsible and dangerous defacing of public property,' Cesar Fernandez, the department's assistant counsel, said in a letter to Microsoft. Fernandez said Microsoft could be sued if it sticks more ads on city property." Chicago and San Francisco have also dealt with similar illegal ad campaigns by IBM, Snapple and Nike. "In April, IBM paid San Francisco $120,000 in fines and cleanup costs for an ad campaign in which sidewalks were spray-painted with ads. Chicago also fined the computer maker for similar corporate graffiti," AP reports.

"As the White House searches for every possible excuse to go to war with Iraq," writes James Bamford, "pressure has been building on the intelligence agencies to deliberately slant estimates to fit a political agenda. In this case, the agencies are being pressed to find a casus belli for war, whether or not one exists." Unhappy with the fact that CIA analyses don't support its claim that Iraq presents an imminent threat, the Bush administration has created its own separate intelligence unit. "There is a complete breakdown in the relationship between the Defense Department and the intelligence community, to include its own Defense Intelligence Agency," says one defense official. "Wolfowitz and company disbelieve any analysis that doesn't support their own preconceived conclusions. The C.I.A. is enemy territory, as far are they're concerned."

The Hill & Knowlton PR firm is still spreading lies about its deceptive PR campaign to promote war with Iraq in 1990. H&K vice president Vivian Lines has written a letter to the Singapore Business Times, protesting its report on how the PR firm helped concoct a false story about Iraqi troops throwing babies out of incubators. Business Times columnist John Gee stands by his story, as does every independent observer who has looked into the matter.

"The campaign for the 'professionalization' of radio is surreptitiously removing community voices from the dial," reports Tracy Jake Siska. "National Public Radio affiliates nationwide have been devouring locally produced community and university stations as educational institutions seek to end financial support for their stations." As examples, she points to the abolition of locally-produced jazz and ethnic programming at stations WYMS in Milwaukee and WLUW in Chicago, which previously offered broadcasts serving Bulgarian, German, Guatemalan, Haitian, Irish, Italian, Jewish, Latino, Native American, Polish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese audiences.

As chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Bob Graham (D-FL) sees classified government information that isn't released to the public. Based on what he's seen, he told CBS News, the Bush Administration appears to be selectively disclosing classified information based on politics rather than the requirements of national security. "There's been a pattern in which information is provided on a classified basis, and then what is declassified are those sections of the report that are most advantageous to the administration," Graham said. "And, frankly," he added cryptically, "there is a piece of information which is still classified which I consider to be the most important information that's come to the attention of the joint committee. We hope that it will be declassified. I think it is an important part of our judgments as to where our greatest threats are and what steps we need to do to protect the American people here at home."

"As Bush leads the nation toward a confrontation with Iraq and his party into battle in midterm elections, his rhetoric has taken some flights of fancy in recent weeks," Washington Post staff writer Dana Milbank wrote. "Statements on subjects ranging from the economy to Iraq suggest that a president who won election underscoring Al Gore's knack for distortions and exaggerations has been guilty of a few himself." Milbank quotes Brookings Institution scholar Stephen Hess suggesting that some of Bush's "overstatements" may be intentional. "What worries me about some of these is they appear to be with foresight. This is about public policy in its grandest sense, about potential wars and who is our enemy, and a president has a special obligation to getting it right," Hess said.

"This month marks the end of one of the most successful and respected conservative PR teams in Washington, as Herb Berkowitz and Hugh Newton retire from the Heritage Foundation," PR Week writes. "Heritage, a conservative think tank founded 25 years ago, became one of the foremost purveyors of right-wing public policy in Washington with Berkowitz and Newton at the PR helm. The two are credited with helping win credibility for conservative ideals among often-hostile liberal journalists in Washington."

Nike has asked the US Supreme Court to review a California Supreme Court ruling that Nike's public statements on the work conditions of its overseas factories be considered commercial speech and be subject to truth-in-advertising laws. Nike argues that the ruling is "profoundly destructive of free speech." The ruling applies to statements made by Nike in op-eds, letters to the editor, and comments made to reporters. PR trade publication The Holmes Report wrote that as a result of the ruling, Nike would not be releasing its annual corporate responsibility report. A number of PR trade organizations have joined together to file a friend-of-the-court brief. "At stake is our ability to do the kind of work we do in regard to public debate," Council of PR Firms president Kathy Cripps said. "If the US Supreme Court does not hear this case, a lot of what we do will be considered commercial speech. This is possibly the most vital issue the industry is dealing with, and we need to come together to defend our position."

A University of Southern California shows that local television newscasts have been barely covering the 2002 campaign. As a result, candidates are forced to spend all their time "dialing for dollars" from big campaign donors so they can promote themselves through paid advertising. "They don't go to talking to people. They don't do the kinds of visits to public fora that they used to, because they know it's a total waste of time," says Martin Kaplan of USC's Annenberg School for Communication.

"We're watching the total failure of any adequate preventive policy at the state or federal level," PR Watch's John Stauber told Salon.com's Fran Smith. "Stauber believes the government's response to CWD is disturbingly similar to Britain's failure to take quick action to stem mad cow," Smith writes. "He believes officials' reluctance to sound the alarm is influenced in part by economic considerations, like the $1 billion hunters pump annually into the Wisconsin economy." PR Watch has made Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber's book "Mad Cow U.S.A." available as a free PDF download. The book, published in 1997, takes an indepth look at Britain's mad cow crisis.

"The [Sunday political] talk shows may bore many Americans, but they are crucial vehicles for the White House in setting the news agenda for the week," New York Times reporter John Tierney writes. "For the networks, the programs not only keep the news machine going on a slow day but also generate handsome profits because of their low costs -- and the fact that the big-name guests do not have to be paid. So the White House and the shows are in something of a joint conspiracy to fabricate news Sunday mornings, although they have different ideas of what it ought to be." Columbia Journalism Review's Liz Cox looked behind the scenes at the five Sunday shows -- Fox News Sunday, ABC's This Week, CBS's Face the Nation, NBC's Meet the Press, and CNN's Late Edition. She reports booking guests for the shows is highly competative with White House officials in high demand.

The Canadian firm National PR inadvertently sent an email instructing Conservative members of the Ontario Parliament how to "undermine the Kyoto Protocol" to Liberal members who support the accord. The National Post reported the misdirected email caused "embarrassment for a government that has yet to take a clear stand on the international plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions." National PR, which is partly owned by PR giant Burson-Marsteller, helped organize the anti-Kyoto front group the Canadian Coalition for Responsible Environmental Solutions. Made up of transportation, energy, manufacturing and other industry associations, the Coalition is leading the anti-Kyoto lobbying effort in Canada. One Liberal party member warned that the Conservative provincial government "is taking its orders from an organization whose sole responsibility is to act on behalf of polluting big business, mostly hailing from western Canada."

On October 9, Microsoft posted a testimonial on its Web site called "Confessions of a Mac to PC Convert." It was a first-person account by a "freelance writer" about how she had fallen in love with Windows XP. "I was up and running in less than one day, Girl Scout's honor," said the attractive, woman in the photo. "There was only one problem: She doesn't exist," writes David Pogue. "A with-it member of Slashdot.org, the popular hangout for articulate nerds, happened to notice that the woman's picture actually came from GettyImages.com, a stock-photo agency. Ted Bridis, an Associated Press reporter, took it from there. Amazingly, he tracked authorship of the article to Valerie Mallinson, a public-relations woman hired by Microsoft to write the story." Microsoft reacted to the revelations by hinting it might punish Mallinson, and her PR firm tried to pretend she didn't work there. Microsoft also deleted the fake testimonial from its web site, but you can find a mirror of it at http://www.scripting.com/misc/msSwitchAd/ad/windowsxp_setup.asp.html.

The vast majority of Americans are reported to support a war with Iraq, but a new organization is asking, "can we trust the polls?" After doing its own survey, Retro Poll calls into question the accuracy of major media polls. "The Retro Poll attempts to show that public opinion is molded by media misinformation and disinformation (propaganda). It addresses the question: does the public opinion reported in the usual major media polls reflect the true values and beliefs of those Americans polled, or not?" Retro Poll writes in a press release. Based on Retro Poll's own survey data, they suggest that "by continually highlighting Washington's viewpoint unchallenged, the news bureaus in the U.S. can change the facts in the minds of many Americans. The opinions formed from those unsubstantiated facts are then used by polling organizations to report back the values, ideas, and thinking of the public."

"It is worth stating clearly and unambiguously what official U.S. government spokespersons have not," states a new report from the Council on Foreign Relations. "For years, individuals and charities based in Saudi Arabia have been the most important source of funds for al Qaeda, and for years the Saudi officials have turned a blind eye to this problem."

"Look what John Ashcroft is doing to our Constitution," says a new American Civil Liberties Union ad. "He's seized powers for the Bush administration no president should ever have." The 30-second TV spot will air in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle and Washington D.C., and will be shown on the Sunday morning talk shows on ABC, CBS and NBC in selected cities. "The commercial kicks off a six-month, $1 million ad campaign that is part of a broader $3.5 million effort the ACLU has planned over the next 18 months," Advertising Age reports. "The ACLU said the spot is being launched today in connection with the one-year anniversary of congressional passage of the USA Patriot Act, which the group feels went too far in taking away civil liberties."

Wampler Foods, a unit of poultry producer Pilgrim's Pride, has hired Edelman PR Worldwide to help handle a recall crisis, according to O'Dwyer's PR. Over the weekend, Pilgrim's Pride recalled 27.4 million pounds of cooked sandwich meat, primarily sold under the Wampler brand. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have traced a deadly strain of listeria bacteria to a Pilgrim's Pride plant in Franconia, Pennsylvania. This is the largest meat recall in U.S. history. The strain is blamed for at least seven deaths, 46 illnesses and three miscarriages since early summer. O'Dwyer's reports, "Wampler issued a statement following the CDC report stressing that 'no illnesses associated with the listeria strain in the Northeastern U.S. outbreak have been linked to any Wampler products.' The company said listeria often occurs naturally in the environment."

Breast Cancer Action of San Francisco is one of the few cancer prevention groups willing to tackle the corporate connection to the causes and prevention of breast cancer, which has risen alarmingly. BCA has placed a "think before you pink" ad in today's New York Times asking "Who's really cleaning up here? Breast cancer has become the poster child of corporate cause-related marketing campaigns, as companies try to boost their image and their profits by connecting themselves to a good cause. Breast Cancer Action urges you to ask some critical questions before opening your wallet for these marketing campaigns: How much money goes to the cause? What is it supporting? How is it being raised? And will it truly affect the fight against breast cancer? Make sure you know what your money is actually supporting, and consider whether shopping will truly make a difference. What the breast cancer movement needs is political involvement and action to create real change - and we don't mean the kind you keep in your pocket."

"Wedged between a rack of 99-cent Cheetos and a display of pork rinds stood a life-sized cardboard cutout of a buxom blond in a red miniskirt," reports Ian Urbina. "Resting on her inner thigh was a frosty bottle of Miller Genuine Draft. 'That's essentially what we do,' an army major remarked, pointing to the stiletto-heeled eye-catcher. 'But we don't sell beer.' ... The scene was a recruitment barbecue conducted by the US Army's 11th Psychological Operations Battalion ("Psy-ops," for short). ... Part ad men and part ethnographers, these specialists, some of whom are just back from Afghanistan, are dispatched regularly to front lines in the Middle East for hearts-and-minds campaigns aimed at undercutting the enemy's military morale and winning over civilian support. Many are waiting eagerly for a call to Iraq. With the US military deploying in every corner of the globe, demand is booming in the psychological warfare industry these days."

"McTeacher's Night" has drawn criticism from some elementary school teachers in South San Francisco according to the San Francisco Chronicle. During the fast-food chain's PR event, teachers volunteer to work a three-hour shift at a McDonald's, preparing and serving food. Then the restaurant donates 20 percent of the profits to the teachers' school. "This is exploiting teachers for a real, live McDonald's commercial," one first-grade teacher told the Chronicle. "We will be endorsing a product that contributes to the epidemic of childhood obesity and heart disease, even though the state dictates that we teach students to avoid junk food."

What do former Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig, Jr., former CIA director James Woolsey, White House advisor Richard Perle, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, American Enterprise Institute's Michael Ledeen, and dissident Iraqi nuclear scientist Dr. Khidir Hamza have in common? For one thing, they all have the PR expertise of Eleana Benador behind them. According to WorkingForChange columnist Bill Berkowitz, Benador, who "runs a high-powered media relations and international Speakers bureau called Benador Associates," gets her clients "maximum exposure on cable's talking-head television programs, and in placing their op-ed pieces in a number of the nation's major newspapers." But it's not as simple as sharing the same publicist, suggests Berkowitz. Benador and her clients have assumed a prominent role in shaping the public debate over U.S. Middle East policy.

Two separate full page anti-war advertisements appear in today's New York Times. The Florence Fund's ad feature's "Uncle Osama," an Uncle Sam take-off who taunts "Send me a new generation of recruits. Your bombs will fuel their hatred of America and their desire for revenge." Meanwhile, a full page advertisement from the TrueMajority Campaign led by former ice cream magnate Ben Cohen features photos of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld and says "They're Selling War. We're Not Buying." It also argues that "the final winner of war with Iraq will be Osama bin Laden."

"Tensions have escalated far beyond the inevitable grousing between press secretaries and journalists, who said they could not remember a White House that was more grudging or less forthcoming in informing the press. ... Certainly, there have been strains between reporters and the press secretary in previous White Houses, and every administration has tried to prevent leaks and control spin. But complaints about White House secrecy have reached new levels. White House reporters say they have been given very limited information about the cost, the length, and the risk of any military action in Iraq. They also contend that after Sept. 11, many more policy and governmental decisions are security."

In an effort to distance itself from the stench of its reputation as the world's worst tobacco company, Philip Morris recently changed its name to "Altria." To guard the new name against parodies, the company then sneakily bought up the domain name registration for "AltriaSucks.com." Bret Fausett, an Internet watcher interested in legal issues, discovered that AltriaSucks.com was registered to "Account Masking," which turns out to be a special service offered by Register.com available only to customers that spend at least $10,000 a year on Register.com services. For these high rollers, Register.com promises to "anonymously secure domain names that will conceal the registrant information from the public until the time is right." However, Fausett discovered that the nameservers for AltriaSucks.com belong to Young & Rubicam, Philip Morris' longtime advertising agency.

Chicago Media Watch is holding "an urgent city-wide conference" on war and propaganda Saturday, November 2, on the campus of Loyola University. Some of the speakers will include "David Schippers, attorney for FBI special agent and whistleblower Robert Wright, who was stopped from speaking out about the investigation of terrorist cells in the US, under threat of termination. ... Professor Nancy Snow of UCLA's Annenberg School of Communication who previously worked for US Information Service, and author of Propaganda, Inc. She will talk about government attempts to influence foreign opinion by exporting US culture and pro-US propaganda worldwide. ... There will also be an action panel of activists ... who will spearhead a discussion on what we can do to blunt the effects of the current climate of propaganda."

A memorandum from top spinmeisters provides advice, based on opinion polls, as to how Democratic Party members of Congress can explain their votes on the resolution giving President Bush the green light to attack Iraq -- whether the Democrat voted for or against war. According to the New York Times, the memo from Stan Greenberg, James Carville and Bob Shrum contains such advice as "An opponent of the Iraq resolution can run competitively with the Republican proponent, when he or she affirms support for the war on terrorism in general and expresses reservations in that context." On the other hand, "A Democratic supporter of an Iraq resolution is most compelling and strongly preferred to the Republican supporter when he or she gives strong voice to certain reservations about this operation - the need for allies who will share costs, concern about increased instability and neglect of the war on terrorism."

"U.S. food companies can seek federal approval to avoid using the word "irradiation" on labels of foods treated with the disease-killing process, and instead use language such as "cold pasteurization," the Food and Drug Administration said. ... The FDA issued guidelines explaining how companies can petition the agency to use more neutral language on the label of food treated with irradiation. American foodmakers have been slow to adopt the treatment for raw meat and poultry because of the cost of the equipment and worries about consumer acceptance. Some green groups and environmentalists fear using high-energy radiation in food products could have harmful side effects for consumers. Currently, foods treated with the technology must carry labels saying either "treated with irradiation" or "treated by radiation." ... Critics say the industry is trying to use euphemisms to hide that their products were irradiated."

Does it seem that the corporate news media is filled with traitorous peaceniks who are coddling Saddam, bashing Bush, and opposing a first-strike attack on Iraq? No? Well, maybe you just aren't paying attention like Brent Bozell III and his Media Research Center. The Center sends e-mail alerts throughout the day to its list of over 11,000 followers who can then rain complaints onto ABC, NBC, CBS and other media that aren't toeing the correct line on Iraq and other issues. MRC Chairman Brent Bozell III draws a salary of over a quarter of a million dollars a year, and the MRC budget totaled more than $15 million a year in 2000 with grants over the years from the usual ideological sources including the Scaife, Bradley and Olin foundations.

Industry apologist Steven Milloy, formerly a tobacco lackey at The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition and currently a self-proclaimed expert on "junk science," is hiding behind yet another front group. StopLabelingLies.com claims to be dedicated to exposing "examples of false and misleading food and other product labels and their associated marketing campaigns," but its real mission is to attack organic foods on behalf of the biotech industry. As is usually the case with Milloy's web sites, StopLabelingLies.com does not disclose the identity of any of its staff members or financial supporters, but an Internet registry search shows that the domain name is registered to Citizens for the Integrity of Science, a paper organization that Milloy sometimes lists as the sponsor of his other web site, JunkScience.com. By way of content, StopLabelingLies.com prominently features "The Fear Profiteers," which first appeared on yet another, now-defunct Milloy Front Group called NoMoreScares.com, which we debunked in the 3rd Quarter 2000 issue of PR Watch.

Seeking to "create a favorable image for the country," Pakistan will pay $600,000 for a year of media relations work, O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports. The recently formed Sterling International Consulting Corporation, based in Lansing, Michigan, will "root out negative stories" and provide journalists with "background, response and clarification." The PR firm is to find Pakistani-Americans willing to speak out on behalf of Pakistan. "Those 'message surrogates' will be given talking points and media training by SICC. [The] firm will stimulate a grassroots campaign via e-mails, letters-to-the editor, one-on-one communications and newsletters," O'Dwyer's writes.

"Though many Arabs are receptive to America's propaganda theme of 'freedom and hope,' they are turned off by the message because of the strong U.S. support of Israel, said Rep. Christopher Shays [R-Conn] during his all-day Capitol Hill probe into this country's public diplomacy efforts," reports O'Dwyer's PR. Pollster John Zogby told the meeting "more than 90 percent of those polled in [Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and U.A.E] gave an 'unfavorable' rating for U.S. policy toward the Arab nations and toward the Palestinians."

ABC, CBS and NBC all decided not to carry President Bush's speech live at 8 Monday night. "They said yesterday that they made this call because the White House never asked them to carry the speech live," reports the Washington Post. "But the White House said it did not put in the usual formal request because it wanted to keep the American public from thinking we were going to war." However, the fact that we are going to war did manage to register with a few pundits. As media critic Doug Ireland observes, "it was politically savvy David Gergen -- spinmeister for four presidents, both Republican and Democratic -- who got it absolutely right when he told MSNBC the speech was 'blunt, hardline, a prelude to war.' ... And Gergen accurately delivered the most frightening on-air analysis of all: 'The logic of the speech says that Iraq is our first stop, not our last stop, in the Middle East.'" (The Institute for Public Accuracy has prepared a line-by-line critique of the misrepresentations in Bush's speech.)

Congressional Democrats accuse the Bush Administration of stacking the Center for Disease Control's Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention with "individuals who are affiliated or openly sympathetic with the views of the lead industry." Their report "Turning Lead Into Gold: How the Bush Administration is Poisoning the Lead Advisory Committee at the CDC" details recent changes to the panel, noting the removal or rejection of several academic experts on lead poisoning. The Advisory Committee reviews scientific data and assesses CDC policies on lead poisoning prevention, including blood lead level limits, which are then used to identify at-risk children and determine remediation work.

A recent opinion poll shows that many Americans have serious misgivings about the war fever that currently dominates Washington politics. "A majority of Americans say that the nation's economy is in its worst shape in nearly a decade and that President Bush and Congressional leaders are spending too much time talking about Iraq while neglecting problems at home," reports the New York Times. "The number of Americans who approved of the way Mr. Bush has handled the economy -- 41 percent -- was the lowest it has been in his presidency. Many people said they worried that a war in Iraq -- which most Americans view as inevitable -- would disrupt an already unsettled economy. The poll found that despite the emphasis by Mr. Bush since Labor Day on the need to move against Saddam Hussein, support for such a policy has not changed appreciably since the summer. ... Americans said they feared a long and costly war that could spread across the Middle East and encourage more terrorist attacks in the United States. ... They thought members of both parties were trying to manipulate the issue for their political advantage."

Hollywood is making a movie about Stephen J. Glass, one of the most notorious frauds in the recent history of journalism. Formerly a hot star at The New Republic, Glass was fired after he was caught fabricating events, people and whole news stories. Given the nature of their subject matter, the filmmakers say they tried extra hard to make their movie stick to the real facts about Glass. Nevertheless, the film contains invented scenes and dialogue, composite characters, and a fictional news intern.

Ever since TV talking head Paula Zahn jumped to CNN from Fox News Channel last fall, her former employers have badmouthed her relentlessly. "The jibes are sometimes brutal, sometimes humorous and once even profane," writes David Bauder. "The underlying message seems clear: It's not wise to cross Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes." In an interview, Ailes compared Zahn to a "dead raccoon." Radio shock jock Erich "Mancow" Muller, a vassal of the Fox empire, called her a "knucklehead" and said, "I just want to punch her in the face. ... I'll kill you, Paula. We will kill you, Paula."

"I'm astonished that anyone's astonished" at the failures of the American intelligence community to detect or prevent terrorism, writes information guru John Perry Barlow. "After a decade of both fighting with and consulting to the intelligence community, I've concluded that the American intelligence system is broken beyond repair, self-protective beyond reform, and permanently fixated on a world that no longer exists." How could it be otherwise, he asks, in institutions that were designed to be paranoid and secretive? "The counterproductive information hoarding, the technological backwardness, the unaccountability, the moral laxity, the suspicion of public information, the arrogance, the xenophobia (and resulting lack of cultural and linguistic sophistication), the risk aversion, the recruiting homogeneity, the inward-directedness, the preference for data acquisition over information dissemination, and the uselessness of what is disseminated--all are the natural, and now fully mature, whelps of bureaucracy and secrecy." Some people in the intelligence community are proposing a radical alternative -- open source intelligence (OSINT) "assembled from what is publicly available, in media, public documents, the Net, wherever. It's a given that such materials -- and the technological tools for analyzing them -- are growing exponentially these days. But while OSINT may be a timely notion, it's not popular in a culture where the phrase 'information is power' means something brutally concrete and where sources are 'owned.'"

In a recent public speech, Senator Edward Kennedy "laid out what was arguably the most comprehensive case yet offered to the public questioning the Bush administration's policy and timing on Iraq," writes Washington Post ombudsman Michael Getler. "The next day, The Post devoted one sentence to the speech. ... Ironically, Kennedy made ample use in his remarks of the public testimony in Senate Armed Services Committee hearings a week earlier by retired four-star Army and Marine Corps generals who cautioned about attacking Iraq at this time -- hearings that The Post also did not cover. Last Saturday, antiwar rallies involving some 200,000 people in London and thousands more in Rome took place and nothing ran in the Sunday Post about them. ... The failure to report the news of the rallies when they occurred produced complaints from readers. ... I'm in agreement with the readers on these complaints. Whatever one thinks about the wisdom of a new war, once it starts it is too late to air arguments that should have been aired before."

Enron CEO Ken Lay and Global Crossing CEO Gary Winnick are both claiming that they knew nothing about the billion-dollar shortfalls, deceptive accounting and other problems at their companies. Experts say ignorance is a "potentially effective legal strategy," even though "you should expect chairmen to be aware of major factors affecting the business." After all, isn't that why they pay them the big bucks?

"If you are going to fairly represent the [military] institution to the media, you must know how the boss views various issues," PR Tactics reports Air Force Lt. Gen. Steven Plummer saying. "You have to understand his position vis-a-vis the greater environment in which he works." According to Tactics, loyalty, "strategic communications" experience, "deep insight into the media environment," and "knowledge of all the 'skeleton-in-the-closet' issues" are other key ingredients needed to make a good public affairs officer.

During recent protests in Washington against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, police deliberately used mass arrests to round up protesters who had committed no crime, writes law professor Jonathan Turley. "All the students were arrested while trying to comply with the law," he writes. "The D.C. and National Park Service police had used the same technique in each instance: Surround the crowd. Tell its members to disperse or face arrest. And then, as people try to disperse, block their escape with rows of officers in riot gear and arrest them. ... It is hardly difficult to make the D.C. streets as orderly as Beijing's if police can arrest large numbers of people without cause. However, this technique is both distinctly unconstitutional and un-American."

"Qorvis Communications is helping Saudi Arabia handle fallout from charges that American children born of mixed U.S./Saudi parents are being kidnapped to the Kingdom," reports O'Dwyer's PR Daily. Congressman Dan Burton, who recently held hearings on the issue, says there are "hundreds of such cases," and that the U.S. State Department hasn't done anything to pressure Saudi Arabia to return the American children held there against their will. U.S. reluctance to address the kidnapping matter makes Burton wonder whether "we have the resolve to deal with Saudi Arabia on other issues, ranging from funding for terrorists to cooperation in the effort against Iraq?"

"Congressman Christopher Shays wants to know how U.S. propaganda efforts are being received on the 'Arab Street.'" O'Dwyer's PR reports. "The Connecticut Republican plans hearings Oct. 8 to explore to what extent the State Dept.'s public diplomacy 'understands Arab and Muslim social and political thought.'" Harold Pachios, chairman of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, the State Dept.'s Chris Ross, and Hafez Al-Mirazi, Al-Jazeera's Washington, D.C., bureau chief are scheduled to appear before the National Security, Veteran Affairs and International Affairs subcommittee. Former Rand Corporation Laurent Murawiec is also expected to appear. "He is the analyst who briefed a secret meeting of the Defense Policy Board in August, and advocated the overthrow of the Saudi Arabian government," writes O'Dwyers. State Department "Public Diplomacy" head Charlotte Beers is not scheduled to testify.

The government of Thailand has hired the lobby firm of Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand to protect its rice crop from U.S. biotechnology researchers. Advocates of biotech foods claim that they will solve world hunger, but farmers in Thailand are afraid that it will do the opposite. Genetically modified Thai jasmine rice threatens to ruin them financially by enabling U.S. rice growers to steal the market for one of the country's primary exports.

After AIDS activists protested during a speech in Barcelona by US Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson, federal investigators were sent to investigate the groups and their finances. "Federal auditors are now swarming all over American-based AIDS-service organizations," writes John Aravosis. "And in case anyone suggests they're simply doing their job, the Washington Post now reports that 'one federal auditor scrutinizing the books of a District AIDS group for gay men counseled an employee on the sin of homosexuality, writing relevant Bible passages on her business card, according to internal documents.'"

The U.S. pharmaceutical industry, in close collaboration with Republicans, has been working for years to jack up the price of prescription drugs, as Americans find themselves paying more for less health care -- and there's no end in sight, with insurance executives predicting premium increases of 15 to 25 percent annually. Currently drug companies are waging what the Associated Press describes as "a successful lobbying and public relations battle" to fight legislation that would enable cheaper, generic drugs to enter the marketplace. Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the drug makers' lobby group, has been fighting the proposed legislation by trotting out celebrity spokespersons and running deceptive advertisements that show a sick child with the headline, "Pray for a Miracle, Because Generic Drugs Will Never Cure Him." (And if he can't afford non-generics, that means he'll just die, right?)

"More than 35,000 fish lay dead in the bed of the Klamath River and the death count continues to rise. These are not just any fish. They are wild salmon, both coho and chinook, the very totems of the Northwest. They suffocated from lack of cool water," writes Jeffrey St. Clair. "As the death toll mounted, Gale Norton, the grim boss of the Interior Department, acted befuddled and suggested that the die-off in these foul waters was a strange natural mystery. But there's no need to call in a fish coroner. The slaughter in the Klamath River was a deliberate act, connived at by the White House, the Interior Department and the gang of Klamath River basin irrigators who have run riot down in southern Oregon for these many years."

A recent study by the Hill & Knowlton PR firm shows that a good corporate reputation can boost sales and profitability. In November, business leaders from throughout the world will meet in Miami to "discuss how to implement corporate social responsibility strategies that contribute value to business and society." Participants will include British American Tobacco (responsible for criminal smuggling to evade taxation of its deadly products), Rio Tinto (responsible for (human rights violations and environmental destruction in connection with its mining activities), and Shell International (responsible for human rights violations in Nigeria including the murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa).

After Al Gore spoke out against war with Iraq, media pundits like Morton Kondracke and Linda Chavez outdid themselves inventing "disturbing contradictions" in his statements, raising questions about his motives and avoiding the merits of his arguments. "Remember -- the pursuit of facts plays almost no role in our devolving pundit culture," writes Bob Somerby."What does your pundit corps try to get right? They try to get their scripted spins right."