The K Street Project - a Republican efforts to pressure Washington lobbying firms to hire only Republicans to top positions - now has its own website: www.kstreetproject.com. "The site, open to all, contains news about who was hired in lobby shops, corporate offices and trade associations. It also will carry job postings and a rundown of the political giving patterns of people who are seeking or have taken lobbying jobs.

When is a video news release in danger of looking or sounding like a commercial?

"A VNR is aired on the news at the discretion of news personnel," Amy Goldwert Eskridge of AGE Productions told PR Week. "So it's important to produce a story that looks and sounds like it was done by the station."

This spring, a poll that found half of adult Americans have frequent sleeping problems was reported on "by virtually all of the country's major newspapers and television networks," as well as international media. "Lost in the somber warnings and survey results, however, was that the poll, the proclamations and the press kits that spread the information were paid for by sleeping pill manufacturers," reports the Sacramento Bee.