"George W. Bush has been criticized for disdaining fact in favor of faith in his own instincts. But he is savvy about the dangers that information can present to his authority over the government and the American people," writes Robert Parry. "That is why the first priority of his second term has been the elimination of the few government sources of information that could challenge the images he wants to project to the public. Bush doesn't want the State Department or the Central Intelligence Agency portraying his Iraq and other foreign policies as abject failures or reckless adventures.

"From oral contraceptives to estrogen therapy, Barbara Seaman has been exposing pharmaceutical industry cover-ups of drug health risks for 30 years," writes Linda Nathan. In response, pharmaceutical companies have exerted influence to get her fired from three different women's magazines -- Ladies Home Journal, Family Circle, and Hadassah -- where she wrote columns criticizing their products.

"Fleishman-Hillard treated the ratepayers of Los Angeles like a cash cow, milking them for millions," said city controller Laura Chick. Chick's audit of Fleishman-Hillard's work for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power concludes the PR firm overcharged the city $4.2 million over 5 years, through "unsubstantiated, unsupported and questionable" billings.