Merck's PR campaign around the Vioxx recall includes "three full-page ads in seven prominent newspapers," "several television appearances," and "testimony before Congress by the company's chief executive." But the president of a New York crisis-management firm says, "They really need some third-party endorsements

Kevin Sites, the cameraman who filmed a U.S. Marine shooting a wounded prisoner in Fallujah, has written a detailed and powerful account, addressed to the soldiers, of what he saw and his decision to release the footage. "This week I've even been shocked to see myself painted as some kind of anti-war activist," he writes. "Anyone who has seen my reporting on television or has read the dispatches on this website is fully aware of the lengths I've gone to play it straight down the middle. ... .

"As American soldiers were dying in Falluja, some Americans back home spent Veteran's Day mocking the very ideal our armed forces are fighting for freedom," writes Frank Rich. "Ludicrous as it sounds, 66 ABC affiliates revolted against their own network and refused to broadcast 'Saving Private Ryan.' The reason: fear.