Effective today, we have added a new feature to the PR Watch web site: a message board where visitors can post their own comments and questions about public relations manipulations of the news and public opinion. The PR Watch forum is linked to Spin of the Day, so by clicking on the link at the bottom of each item you can join a thread that discusses that particular story. Use this forum to talk back about flacks!

The Online Journalism Review recently posted a couple of articles on researching people using the internet. Part I shows how to use online databases to do background checks on someone's property ownership, business ties, professional licenses.

Ray Hanania, a Palestinian Arab-American activist and former journalist who now works in public relations for KemperLesnik Communication, has written an essay urgin Arab Americans to "pursue journalism as a career choice rather than as an option in a political battle." Coverage of the Arab community is biased, he says, in part due to an "anti-Arab American m