Think Tanks

U.S. Does Democracy Demotion in Iran

"The United States has begun a $75-million program to promote democracy by supporting Iranian NGO's [non-governmental organizations]," write Haleh Esfandiari and Robert Litwak. "That program, coupled with loose talk about regime change ...

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Well-Connected Skeptics Behind UK Attack on Global Warming Film

Snapshot from viral videoThe school governor who challenged the screening of Al Gore's climate change documentary in secondary schools was funded by a Scottish quarrying magnate who established a controversial lobbying group to attack environmentalists' claims about

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Czech President the Anti-Gore, Says U.S. Think Tank

"President Vaclav Klaus is getting help from a right-wing U.S. think tank ... to spread a message many see as anti-environmentalist and some Czechs say reflects badly on their country," reports the Prague Post.

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Outsourcing Firms Bring Lobbying Business to the U.S.

"As the 2008 U.S. election starts to sizzle, the Indian outsourcing firms have returned to win Washington over as veritable insiders, slicker and better connected than ever," reports Anand Giridharadas.

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When Drug Industry Flacks Attack

Following Dr. Steven Nissen's publication of a study warning that "GlaxoSmithKline's diabetes drug Avandia increased the risk of heart attacks by 43% and death from cardiovascular events by possibly 64%," he was publicly pilloried. "More than one story from ostensibly different sources" derisively referred to him as "St Steven," the "Patron Saint of Drug Safety," and "Saint Steven the Pure," reports Evelyn Pringle. Among the attackers was FDA spokesman Douglas Arbesfeld.

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American Legion and VFW Launch Pro-War Lobby & PR Campaigns

The Boston Globe reports "the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the nation's oldest and most influential veterans' organizations, have broken their relative silence on the merits of the Iraq war, joining some of the staunchest war supporters to lobby Congress and the public...

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Bob Burton Takes Readers "Inside Spin"

Cover of Inside Spin: The dark underbelly of the PR industryThe PR industry in Australia "employs more than 10,000 people and turns over more than $1 billion a year," writes the Center for Media and Democracy's Bob Burton, drawing on research published in his new book, "Inside Spin." While some PR campaigns are ben

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A Black Day for Yellow Journalism

Former media mogul Conrad Black has been convicted by a Chicago jury of three counts of mail fraud and one count of obstruction of justice and could face up to 35 years in prison for looting his former company, Hollinger International, of tens of millions of dollars.

Before his downfall, Black was a smaller-scale version of Fox-TV owner Rupert Murdoch, building a media empire that he used to inject his right-wing views into U.S., Canadian, British and Australian politics. He pumped money into the pockets of the neoconservative pundits who helped sell the war in Iraq and gave them prominent voice in his own newspapers.

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