race/ethnic issues

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

Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, we look at Al Gore's not-so-green PR firm, who cares about the FDA, and a strange definition of "civil rights." In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," how Big Oil is courting the blogosphere. The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

"I've never been on the opposite side of the NAACP," said Dr. Alicia Fernandez, an associate professor of clinical medicine. "I've been a big admirer of the SEIU" labor union. "But now these drug companies are going to the good guys for cover." In particular, the SEIU affiliate International Association of EMTs and Paramedics (IAEP) recently sent two letters to its members promoting Pfizer's cholesterol drug Lipitor. "IAEP leadership stands behind LIPITOR as the lipid-lowering agent of choice," read one letter, which was signed by IAEP director Matthew Levy and printed on IAEP letterhead, but with a Pfizer copyright at the end. IAEP stated it "does not endorse specific drugs," but refused to say whether the union has any financial relationship with Pfizer. In a similar case, the NAACP's New England branch accused Medicare of racism for refusing to cover the heart medication BiDil. (NitroMed, BiDil's manufacturer, has donated $1.5 million to the NAACP.) BiDil is a combination of two generic drugs that won "patent protection for treating African-American patients with heart failure." Fernandez believes NitroMed's "real goal" is "selling an expensive 'new' pill made from two cheap old ones." Meanwhile, she warned, "the argument over coverage of BiDil deflects attention from the real issues involved in health disparities."

Ward ConnerlyPeople in Colorado who signed an anti-affirmative action ballot initiative petition are charging that petition circulators deceived them about the measure's real purpose and intent. The signature-gathering effort is part of a push by African-American conservative Ward Connerly to qualify ballot initiatives in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma that would end affirmative action policies and programs in those states. Signature-gatherers for Connerly's measure, which is deceptively titled the "Colorado Civil Rights Initiative," reportedly approached people in the Denver metro area by asking them whether they were "against discrimination." If a person answered "yes," they were asked to sign a petition that they were told would legally end discrimination in their state. Many signers were upset later when they discovered that the "Civil Rights Initiative" was really an effort to end existing affirmative action programs and policies that help level the playing field for groups like minorities and women, that historically have suffered the most from discrimination in employment, contracts and educational opportunities.

Pastor John Hagee endorses John McCain for PresidentWhile news media have focused on Barack Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright, little attention has been paid to the endorsement of Republican presidential candidate John McCain by controversial Texas televangelist John Hagee. Hagee has voiced extreme anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish and anti-homosexual views. In a September 2006 interview on National Public Radio, Hagee reaffirmed his view that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment against New Orleans for hosting a homosexual parade. Hagee has also said that the Jews brought the Holocaust upon themselves by "turning away from the true God." He referred to Catholicism as a "false cult," and said the religion contributed to Hitler's anti-semitic views. When Hagee endorsed him, McCain said he was "proud" to have the pastor's support. More recently, McCain has been working to distance himself from Hagee's inflammatory comments.

The PR firm MultiVu has a new "social media news release targeting the U.S. Hispanic audience," reports PR Week. Its "Interactivo Multimedia News Release" (IMNR) distributes fake news "broadcast content, photos, and text to Hispanic social networks and news sites. Video content will also be distributed to video-sharing sites such as MiGente and HispaVista. And IMNR content will appear in Spanish on the Reuters billboard in Manhattan's Times Square." MultiVu parent company PR Newswire purchased Hispanic PR Wire in January. MultiVu's new division, "MultiVu Latino," is headed by Hispanic PR Wire co-founder Manny Ruiz.

Republican strategists are salivating over the "inflammatory sermons by Obama's pastor" Jeremiah Wright. They believe that Wright's sermons "offer the party a pathway to victory if Obama emerges as the Democratic nominee. Not only will the video clips enable some elements of the party to define him as unpatriotic, they will also serve as a powerful motivating force for the conservative base." Notwithstanding Obama's highly praised speech on race yesterday, the videos of Wright's sermons have "convinced some that, after months of praying for Hillary Clinton and the automatic enmity which she arouses, that they may actually have easier prey." According to Micah Sifry, "Obama's speech is a great test of the following question: Are we still living in the age of sound-bite politics, where the sharp attack line, even taken out of context, can become the 'truth' of an event or a person thanks to the amplifying and distorting effects of broadcast media? Or are we entering the age of sound-blast politics, where a 37-minute speech can actually be watched, read, and digested by millions of people (a million views already on YouTube!) using the abundant spaces of the internet -- and the themes and meanings they encounter and absorb will be not about the 'politics' of a speech, but its actual content? In other words, are we entering an age when politicians can be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character?"

Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, we look at inconvenient research results on toxins, big coal spending to survive, and coconuts in the fuel tank. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we look at the Armstrong Williams: hardly a paragon of ethics, but still a go-to guy for commentary. The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, we look at how Wal-Mart is moving supposedly outside support in-house, the work of a government agency charged with protecting consumers, and how they aren't, and 2007 journalism that really reeks. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we tell you how drugs and rock n' roll connect Rudy Giuliani and George Bush. The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

Nigeria is located on Africa's west coastFacing a massive lawsuit brought against it by the Nigerian government, cigarette maker British American Tobacco Nigeria (BATN) knows exactly what to do: roll out the Corporate Social Responsibility. Since Nigeria's federal government filed to seek reimbursement for 5.3 trillion Nigerian Naira (about US$ 43.5 billion) it has spent treating sick smokers, BATN has donated a fleet of Ford Ranger trucks to the Nigerian Customs Service, boasts that it has pumped $300 million into the local economy and that it has 1,000 "model farms" in tobacco-growing areas. As part of the puffery, BATN ran advertisements around Nigeria featuring a 98 year farmer old named Amos Adedigba praising BATN by saying, "Sixty years is a long time to maintain a relationship. I have been able to give my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren a good life, education and I am very proud of that." But when interviewed about the ad, Mr. Adedigba told Nigeria's The Nation newspaper, "BAT cheated me. I heard they used the advert all over Nigeria and even in America, yet I was only paid N40,000" (about US$328). Adedigba also alleged that the tobacco industry cheats farmers over the price of tobacco leaves. The Nation also reported that most Nigerian tobacco farmers actually live in squalor, and Nigerian public health advocate Seun Akioye states that BATN's claims of socially responsible farming are false, that tobacco farmers really live in "debt bondage" to tobacco companies, and that tobacco farming leaves soil unusable for growing food or other crops.