Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
"A series of revelations of corporate malpractice and number fiddling" have destroyed investor faith in Wall Street, reports the Economist. "Investors have not only lost patience with corporate America's greed and its inability to do what it says it is doing; they have also lost confidence in Wall Street's ability to act as an honest broker between them, the providers of capital, and the corporate users of it.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (ADTI), a libertarian think tank that gets part of its funding from Microsoft, has issued a new white paper that seems calculated to tell computer buyers, "If you are not with Microsoft, you are with the terrorists." Some government agencies, including the U.S.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Dave Itzkoff has written a confessional based on his two and a half years editing Maxim, one of the so-called "lad magazines" that cater to male interest in topics like beer, sex and gadgets. Itzkoff describes the magazine's formula as "unrealistically retouched photographs, patently invented pillow talk, obvious editorial concessions to advertisers and a pervasively smug attitude. ... We didn't do issue-oriented news features or authoritative first-person narratives, and hadn't published a proper profile in almost a year -- all hallmarks of basic magazine journalism.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
The race for profits is undermining quality journalism, according to panelists at the annual conference of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE). As publications cut spending and staffing levels in newsrooms, "Quick and cheap celebrity gossip, gruesome snippets on accidents and crimes, and fluffy features about cute pets usually drive out costly, complex reporting on politics and economics, creating the media equivalent of a sugary, junk-food diet," reports David Armstrong.
Submitted by John Stauber on
"A mall (development) war ... has heated up after one developer secretly launched a hard-hitting public relations strike against a competitor, warning that the rival's plan could lead to traffic gridlock and adult businesses. ... After The Cincinnati Enquirer obtained a plan that outlined part of the campaign, David Kass, Continental Retail Development's president, admitted Wednesday to unleashing it against (competitor) Steiner. But he said it was a legal effort similar to development campaigns elsewhere in the country. ... 'We're coming clean,' Mr.
Submitted by John Stauber on
Two weeks ago, Guardian columnist George Monbiot described how the Bivings Group, a PR company contracted to Monsanto, invented fake citizens to post messages on internet listservers. "These phantoms had launched a campaign to force Nature magazine to retract a paper it had published, alleging that native corn in Mexico had been contaminated with GM pollen," Monbiot writes in today's column. "But this, it now seems, is just one of hundreds of critical interventions with which PR companies hired by big business have secretly guided the biotech debate over the past few years. ...
Submitted by Laura Miller on
The Food and Drug Administration has been leaderless since George W. Bush took office 16 months ago. The Boston Globe reports that Bush administration's latest pick for FDA commissioner, Dr. Alastair J. J. Wood, was derailed by the pharmaceutical industry.
Submitted by Laura Miller on
The recent ruling by California's Supreme Court that Nike's PR efforts to defend itself against sweatshop labor charges are considered commercial speech has some PR professionals worried that the ruling will have a "chilling effect" on other PR campaigns.
Submitted by John Stauber on
Tobacco PR lobbyist Rick Berman runs a lucrative business smearing public interest groups through his industry-funded fronts such as ConsumerFreedom.com and Activistcash.com. Berman can dish it out, but apparently he can't take it, nor stand the truth. He is threatening to sue food safety activist Jeff Nelson of VegSource for revealing that Berman lines his own pockets from his "non-profit" enterprises. According to Nelson, "Berman claims he wants to 'expose' funding sources of non-profit activist organizations.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Much of the Internet stock boom was a fiction, "written to script by Wall Street fixers who stood to collect, and did collect, buckets of money by duping the investing public," says Gregg Wirth, a freelance writer who has covered Wall Street for most of the past decade. "Americans were deluged with media sound bites and commercials portraying stock market trading as a virtual free ride on the gravy train.
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