"The University of Colorado's governing Board of Regents has retained a $350-per-hour public relations consultant," to deal "with the fallout from a football recruiting scandal and the ongoing saga surrounding controversial professor Ward Churchill." The consultant is Christopher Simpson, a former Washington Times reporter and press secretary to Senator Strom Thurmond.

In response to Sunday's New York Times expose, White House press secretary Scott McClellan called government-produced video news releases "an informational tool." Their source, he said, is "very clear to the TV stations." The head of Medialink, on

The Project for Excellence in Journalism's "State of the News Media 2005" concludes that U.S.