Democracy

Australian Government Lays Information Smokescreen

Faced with opposition to increasing government secrecy by Australia's Right to Know, a coalition of Australian media companies and the journalists' union, the Australian Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, has announced a review of the

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PR Adviser Praises Maldives Prisons

Nic Careem, a London-based "public affairs consultant", recently proclaimed his interest in helping raise the profile of the President of the Maldives, Abdul Gayoom, on the issue of global warming.

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Framing the War on Terror

The Gallup polling organization marked the sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks by publishing a thoughtful analysis challenging the assumption that "religious fanaticism fuels extremism and therefore replacing Muslims' worldview with Western liberalism is the path to victory against terrorism. ... As a starting point, Muslims do not hold a monopoly on extremist views.

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Saddam Did 9/11 -- One-Third of Americans Believe the Big Lie

An important New York Times/CBS News survey finds that six years after the terror attacks of 9/11, "33 percent of all Americans, including 40 percent of Republicans and 27 percent of Democrats, say Saddam Hussein was personally involved." In reality, of course, Saddam and Iraq had absolutely no connection to the terror attacks.

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CMD's Founder John Stauber Profiled in Cap Times

Rob Zaleski, columnist with Madison's Capital Times, has written a profile piece on CMD's founder John Stauber. "In the beginning, it was just Stauber and his buddy Sheldon Rampton, a local typesetter and Princeton University grad Stauber recruited to help produce the first issue of PR Watch. ...

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Featured Participatory Project: Help Expose the Attempts to Spin Wikipedia (Week 2)

Last week we started a new participatory project to expose the government agencies, corporations and lobbying groups that have been censoring, whitewashing or otherwise spinning Wikipedia. (See CMD Senior Researcher Diane Farsetta's great blog post for some background on this sordid tale.) So far we've logged several attempts at spin into the respective SourceWatch profiles, including:

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Who's Footing Allawi's Lobbying Bill?

The Barbour, Griffith and Rogers (BGR) lobbying firm "is talking to the Justice Department about how to amend its foreign-agent filings after department lawyers questioned whether the firm had adequately disclosed who was paying" for the $50,000 per month contract with former Iraqi prime minister

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Republican Lobby Firm BGR Undercuts Iraqi Leader al-Maliki

Bush and Allawi"Republican lobbyists with close ties to the Bush administration are aiding and supporting the efforts of an Iraqi opposition leader who is calling for the ouster of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki," reports IraqSlogger.

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