"If you put the First Amendment up for a nationwide vote, we're not so sure it would pass," reports Howard Kurtz. "When war breaks out, many folks believe that the people with pens and microphones should just get out of the way and let the soldiers do their jobs." According to a recent opinion poll, two-thirds of the public believes the government should have the right to stop the media from disclosing military secrets, and 56% say news organizations are more obliged to support the government in wartime than to question the military's handling of the war.

Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee (ENVY), which owns a nuclear power plant near Brattleboro, VT, has been conducting an opinion poll using leading questions designed to influence public opinion, not measure it. "They were trying to sneak in some propaganda disguised as an objective poll," said one local resident after being called. "They claimed they didn't know who was paying for the poll." ENVY has been fighting to keep the plant open as town meetings convene to discuss its fate.

"The U.S. State Department has suspended its ad campaign extolling Muslim life in the U.S., barely a month after propaganda czar Charlotte Beers pitched 'paid media' as the best way to influence the Islamic World," reports O'Dwyer's PR Daily. The TV ads were controversial in the countries where they aired, and government-run channels in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan refused to run them. "Islamic opinion is influenced more by what the U.S.