"Public relations firms giving advice on corporate ethics? That sounds like a plot line straight out of a movie by Woody Allen," Jeff Barge, president of Lucky Star Public Relations, wrote in a July 30 Wall St. Journal letter-to-the-editor. Quoting Barges remarks, Paul Holmes, editor of the Holmes Reports, reflects on PR's role in ethical corporate policy making.

The Media Education Foundation has produced a new educational video inspired by the work of the Center and titled Toxic Sludge Is Good For You - The Public Relations Industry Unspun. You can view a short clip and order the video, narrated by Democracy Now's host Amy Goodman, from the MEF website which says "this video illuminates ... the way in which the management of the public mind' has become central to how our democracy is controlled by political and economic elites. ...

"I have been an accomplice to the murders of untold numbers of human beings," writes Joe Eszterhas, the author of movie megahits such as Flashdance and Basic Instinct. "I am admitting this only because I have made a deal with God. Spare me, I said, and I will try to stop others from committing the same crimes I did." His crime? Making smoking look "cool and glamorous ... an integral part of many of my screenplays." Eszterhas says his moral awakening came after he was diagnosed with throat cancer, "the result of a lifetime of smoking. I am alive but maimed.