The U.S. has indicted executives from Ogilvy and Mather, a PR and advertising agency, for participating in an "extensive scheme to defraud the U.S. Government by falsely and fraudulently inflating the labor costs that Ogilvy incurred" for its work on a media campaign for the Office of National Drug Control Policy. According to O'Dwyer's PR Daily, O&M's anti-drug media campaign work was part of a five-year $684 million dollar project. The government claims it was overcharged by O&M from May 1999 to April 2000.

"Weeks before a federal judge is set to open Martha Stewart's trial on charges of obstructing justice and securities fraud, the case already is being tried in the court of public opinion," writes James T. Madore. According to Roberg G. Heim, a former Securities and Exchange Commission attorney, "A very extraordinary aspect of the Martha Stewart case is the amount of public relations efforts that she and her team are making in an attempt to clear her name."

"Meat-industry trade groups were scurrying during the recent holiday season to coordinate key messages and media lists as they responded to reports of mad cow disease rearing its head in the Western US," PR Week's John Frank writes. PR staffers at the American Meat Institute and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, working with PR giant Burson-Marsteller, handled a flood of media calls over the Christmas holiday.