A survey of the impact of marketing on children's taste preferences has revealed the power of McDonald's. Sixty-three preschoolers from low-income families in California were presented with five samples of identical foods and beverages, one in McDonald's packaging and the other in unbranded packaging. They were then asked "to indicate if they tasted the same or if one tasted better." The results?

Jamil Anderlini and Mure Dickie report that when the banking company HSBC and the China Charity Foundation recently held a celebration in Beijing, the event organizers paid attending Chinese journalists 200 renminbi ($26.40) as "transport money." "It's awful. It's an embarrassment for Chinese journalism ... and it's corruption," said Ying Chan, director of the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong.