Corporations

While the giant US media networks are covering the US's invasion of Iraq, they are also heavily lobbying to get rid of restriction on the number of TV and radio stations they can own in one market.The Guardian reports media critics are alarmed by what they see as a "serious conflict of interest" concerning how the broadcast industry covers the Bush administration.

"In an unusual mix of investor relations and grassroots political outreach, several corporate giants have sent letters to shareholders asking them to contact members of Congress to support President Bush's proposed dividend tax cut," PR Week writes. "[S]everal large dividend-paying companies, including GM, Citigroup, Southern Company, ChevronTexaco, and Verizon, have sent such letters to shareholders. 'We think this proposal makes good economic sense, and is good for our stockholders and General Motors,' read a recent letter to GM shareholders from president and CEO Rick Wagoner.

"France's Sodexho Alliance is fending off Congressional bids to strip it of its $880 million food service contract with the U.S. Marines because of the French snub of President Bush's invasion of Iraq," O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports. "Edelman is our corporate agency of record, and we use it for crisis work," Bonnie Goldstein, a PR staffer at Sodexho's North American headquarters in Gaithersburg, Md., told O'Dwyer's. "Rep. Jack Kingman (R-Ga.) wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asking him to consider transferring the Marines contract to a U.S.-based firm.

Paul Krugman notes that "by and large, recent pro-war rallies haven't drawn nearly as many people as
antiwar rallies, but they have certainly been vehement. ... Who has been organizing those pro-war rallies? The answer, it turns out, is
that they are being promoted by key players in the radio industry - with
close links to the Bush administration. ... Until now, complaints about Clear Channel have focused on its business
practices. Critics say it uses its power to squeeze recording companies and