Now that community radio advocates have regained control of the Pacifica Radio Network, they are discovering that the outgoing Pacifica managers "treated the network like a trough," in the words of current acting executive director Dan Coughlin. In addition to racking up huge personal expense bills and handing themselves "golden parachute" severance packages, the former managers ran up millions of dollars on attorneys and PR firms.

"Ethiopia spent a whopping $5.6 million in lobbying fees/expenses at Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson & Hand during the firm's recent six-month reporting period," O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports. "For Ethiopia, VLBM&H provided advice on the peace treaty with Eritrea, and explored commercial opportunities for Ethiopian businesses in the U.S." During that period VLBM&H also represented India, Cyprus, Kazakhstan, Malawi, Mexico, China, Montenegro and Slovenia. "On the downside," O'Dwyer's writes, "VLBM&H was terminated by Yemen's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The media's use of spokespeople as primary news sources has increased 81% between 1995 and 2000 according to a study by Bob Williams, an ethics fellow at the Poynter Institute. "As a reporter, you look around the newsroom, and the tendency has become to talk to spokespeople rather than to even try to get to the principals," Williams told PR Week. Council of PR Firms president Kathy Cripps suggests reporters and editors sit down with their PR contacts for interviews as a way to improve the relationship between the media and PR practitioners.