== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. Hill & Knowlton’s 50 Year Fudge
2. Iraq:  The “Gift”? That Keeps On Bleeding
3. The Untold Story of How & Why Philip Morris is Pushing for FDA Regulation

== SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS ==
1. GM Goodies Result in Radio Mentions, FCC Complaint
2. Big-Spending Drug Industry Defenders
3. When Drug Industry Flacks Attack
4. Edelman Reps Diebold’s Not-So-Amicable Split
5. Spinning Wikipedia
6. Brother, Can You Spare $3 Million for “Strategic Communication”?
7. American Legion and VFW Launch Pro-War Lobby & PR Campaigns
8. Petraeus as Puppet
9. Journalism’s New Economics

——————————————————————–

== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. HILL & KNOWLTON’S 50 YEAR FUDGE
by Bob Burton
       Some PR executives take citizens for complete idiots.
       Almost three weeks ago a local branch of the American
  Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union (AFSCME)
  called on the University of California to dump the giant PR firm
  Hill & Knowlton (H&K). In a letter to the  university, AFSCME and
  other groups pointed to H&K’s work for the tobacco industry, its
  attack on research pointing to the impact of exposure to lead on
  children, and its work for “some of the worst human rights abusing
  states in the world.” In a statement emailed to the trade
  publication PR Week, H&K’s Executive Vice-President and Chief
  Operating Officer Mark Thorne claimed that the union’s criticism “is
  directed to work done more than 50 years ago. While we disagree that
  H&K ever was engaged in any improper conduct, our current firm
  policy is that we will not provide services in any way related to
  tobacco, anywhere in the world.”
       Sorry, Mark, but you can’t get away with a fudge like that
  quite so easily.
To read the rest of this item, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6356

2. IRAQ:  THE “GIFT”? THAT KEEPS ON BLEEDING
by John Stauber
       Shortly after the November 2006 election the Democracy
  Alliance, an exclusive group of about 100 Democratic Party
  millionaire activists, met in Miami, Florida. Members and their
  guests heard their keynote speaker and liberal legend Mario Cuomo
  analyze the Democratic Party in the wake of its stunning electoral
  victories that had given Democrats  control of the US Congress.
  Cuomo criticized the Democratic Party for lacking vision, big ideas
  and a winning political argument.  His recipe for future Democratic
  victories was simple: “You seize the biggest idea you can, the
  biggest idea you can understand.  And this is what moves elections.”
       Cuomo then dared to voice an inconvenient truth:  “Now it’s
  2006 and we’re all rejoicing.  Why?  Because of Iraq.  A GIFT.  A
  gift to the Democrats.  A lot of whom voted for the war anyway.”
To read the rest of this item, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6368

3. THE UNTOLD STORY OF HOW & WHY PHILIP MORRIS IS PUSHING FOR FDA REGULATION
by Anne Landman
       It may seem incongruous to the average person why Philip
  Morris (PM) would back legislation to restrict its business, yet
  that is what PM seems to be is doing by supporting S. 625, the
  “Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act,” the bill that
  would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority
  over tobacco products. After all, PM has a corporate mandate to
  increase profits for its shareholders, so PM would not support this
  legislation if it wasn’t going to benefit its bottom line, and it is
  practically an axiom in public health that whatever benefits PM’s
  bottom line is going to be bad for public health. That’s what makes
  this bill especially troubling to people who study tobacco industry
  documents; it is clear that PM had a hand in crafting it.  That
  alone sounds like a lot, but PM’s efforts to enact it are clearly
  delivering the company a hefty side-benefit of causing dissent
  within the tobacco control community over its passage.
To read the rest of this item, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6351

== SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS ==
1. GM GOODIES RESULT IN RADIO MENTIONS, FCC COMPLAINT
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6367
  Consumer advocate Ralph Nader has filed a complaint with the
  Federal Communications Commission, objecting to General Motors
  giveaways to radio stations. Nader’s filed his complaint after
  reading an Automotive News article that described how GM is giving
  “America’s best known radio personalities … new GM cars and trucks
  to drive for two weeks each month,” and inviting them “to Detroit
  for private meetings with top executives and VIP tours of GM
  facilities,” in addition to advertising on their shows. Bloomberg
  News notes that “FCC rules require broadcasters to say if content
  has been aired in exchange for money or other considerations.” The
  Automotive News article reported that Rush Limbaugh, one of those
  being wooed by GM, said on air that “GM cars and trucks have never
  been better.” A GM spokeswoman retorted, “We’ve been very
  transparent. … We think this is a good way to build relationships
  … and to get the word out about our great vehicles.” Other radio
  hosts being courted by GM include Bill O’Reilly, Laura Schlessinger,
  Whoopi Goldberg, Sean Hannity, Ed Schultz, Bill Press and Ryan
  Seacrest. GM previously offered free trips to student journalists
  and funds many video news releases.
SOURCE: Bloomberg News, August 18, 2007

2. BIG-SPENDING DRUG INDUSTRY DEFENDERS
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6366
  The lead U.S. drug industry lobby group, the Pharmaceutical
  Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), spent $10.7 million
  in the first six months of 2007 lobbying the U.S. government. (In
  the preceding six-month period, PhRMA spent $8.8 million.)
  Associated Press reports that PhRMA’S latest lobbying report,
  required under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, states that the
  group lobbied Congress, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the
  Department of Health and Human Services, and other agencies on
  “issues related to Medicare, patent reform, international trade and
  drug fees, importation and safety.” Billy Tauzin, a former
  Republican member of the House of Representatives from Louisiana
  turned PhRMA chief executive, is one of the group’s registered
  lobbyists.
SOURCE: Associated Press, August 17, 2007

3. WHEN DRUG INDUSTRY FLACKS ATTACK
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6363
  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. Arbesfeld previously worked at the PR firm
  Manning Selvage & Lee (MS&L), helping Glaxo and other “healthcare
  clients maximize internet-relations.” Former FDA Deputy Commissioner
  Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who ridiculed Nissen in a Wall Street Journal
  editorial, also consulted for pharmaceutical companies at MS&L. Two
  more FDA alums, Peter Pitts and Robert Goldberg, mocked Nissen in a
  Washington Times piece. Pitts is the senior vice-president for
  global health affairs at MS&L. Goldberg doesn’t have ties to the PR
  firm, but serves with Pitts as an officer of the Center for Medicine
  in the Public Interest, which Pringle describes as a “nest of
  ex-moles who served the industry in one capacity or another in the
  Bush Administration’s FDA.” It’s a project of the Pacific Research
  Institute, a corporate-funded think tank.
SOURCE: CounterPunch, August 15, 2007

4. EDELMAN REPS DIEBOLD’S NOT-SO-AMICABLE SPLIT
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6362
  The PR firm Edelman “is handling the recasting of Diebold Election
  Systems to Premier Election Solutions,” following the parent
  company’s failure to sell its e-voting subsidiary. PES “will have
  its own management team and board of directors,” and is based in
  Allen, Texas, while Diebold headquarters are in Ohio. Diebold blamed
  the lack of buyers on “rapidly evolving political uncertainties and
  controversies surrounding … electronic voting systems.” Diebold
  also lowered its e-voting revenue expectations by $120 million,
  according to Crain’s Cleveland Business. A Diebold spokesman
  “acknowledged that the highly charged attention paid to the
  subsidiary … has been a distraction to Diebold.” The parent
  company now hopes to “concentrate on its core ATM and security
  segments.”
SOURCE: O’Dwyer’s PR Daily (sub req’d), August 17, 2007

5. SPINNING WIKIPEDIA
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6360
  “Editing your own entry on Wikipedia is usually the province
  of vain celebrities keen for some good PR,” writes Bobbie Johnson.
  “But a new website has uncovered dozens of companies that
  have been editing the site in order to improve their public image.
  The Wikipedia Scanner, which trawls the backwaters of the popular
  online encyclopaedia, has unearthed a catalogue of organisations
  massaging entries, including the CIA and the Labour party. … But
  the biggest culprit that the Scanner claims to have discovered is
  Diebold, a supplier of e-voting machines, which it says has made
  huge alterations to entries about its involvement in the
  controversial ‘hanging chad’ election in the US in 2000.”
SOURCE: The Guardian (UK), August 15, 2007

6. BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE $3 MILLION FOR “STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION”?
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6359
  The U.S. Defense Department’s budget request for fiscal year 2008
  includes $3 million for “strategic communication and integration,”
  the Pentagon’s attempts to “understand and engage” key audiences
  worldwide, through “coordinated information, themes, plans, programs
  and actions synchronized with other elements of national power.”
  But, just before Congress’ summer recess, the House Appropriations
  Committee and Senate Armed Services Committee denied the funds. The
  House committee objected to what it called an “unsupported program
  initiation,” while the Senate committee expressed concern that
  blending public diplomacy, public affairs and information operations
  “could compromise the integrity of each of these functions.” Public
  affairs and public diplomacy communications are supposed to be
  truthful, while information operations includes psychological
  operations, or attempts to cause “dissidence and disaffection”
  within enemy ranks. Debate on the funding bill will continue after
  Labor Day.
SOURCE: FCW.com, August 14, 2007

7. AMERICAN LEGION AND VFW LAUNCH PRO-WAR LOBBY & PR CAMPAIGNS
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6358
  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…  Both organizations, which the White
  House has aggressively courted” are “recruiting members to argue for
  the surge strategy at town hall meetings, and have made their
  leaders available to the national media to declare that victory is
  still within reach.  …  ‘They have been speaking out more strongly
  than in the past,’ said Pete Hegseth, an Iraq veteran who heads Vets
  for Freedom, which supports the surge.”  Clifford D. May, president
  of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a think tank “that
  helps coordinate pro-war groups” told the Globe, ‘we need to work
  very hard to educate both members of Congress and the general
  public.’ ”  May is also active in Committee on the Present Danger,
  the Project for the New American Century, and was the Republican
  National Committee’s Director of Communications.  SourceWatch now
  contains a new article on the pro-war lobby.
SOURCE: Boston Globe, August 16, 2007

8. PETRAEUS AS PUPPET
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6355
  In recent months, President Bush has deflected questions
  about progress in Iraq with statements like, “I’m going to wait
  for … David Petraeus to come back and give us the report on
  what he sees.” According to a report in the Los Angeles Times,
  however, “administration officials” said that the expected September
  report from General Petraeus “would actually be written by the White
  House, with inputs from officials throughout the government.”
  Blogger Markos Moulitsas comments, “Let me predict the future. The
  report: ‘Success!’ The interpetation: ‘Smashing success!'”
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, August 15, 2007

9. JOURNALISM’S NEW ECONOMICS
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6354
  As newspapers continue shrinking, Julian Friedland worries about
  how journalism will handle the “conflict of interest between
  pleasing the bottom line” versus “upholding its mission to educate
  the public by publishing a steady stream of hard-hitting
  investigative reports.” As investigative journalism has been
  “eviscerated” by declining budgets, the “very best news sources in
  the country” are either family-owned newspapers like the New York
  Times or Washington Post, or publicly-funded media, such as the
  Corporation for Public Broadcasting. “Media represent an essential
  service like education and infrastructure. As such, media need to be
  protected from the corrupting influence of private interest, which
  has finally grown so massive as to exert a crushing grip on
  journalistic independence,” Friedland argues. “If we look to Europe
  we can see media independence there is protected by public funds.
  Take the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which is mostly
  funded by taxes, permitting it to hold every corporation and
  government’s feet to the fire. In France, two out of the three major
  networks receive no more than 40 percent of their operational funds
  from ads. … It’s high time we start putting a lot more money where
  our mouth is.”
SOURCE: Denver Post, August 15, 2007

——————————————————————–

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