Public Relations

SourceWatch Updates

Volunteer contributors continue to be the mainstay of SourceWatch, our open-source encylopedia of the people, organizations and issues shaping the public agenda. SourceWatch (formerly the "Disinfopedia") is a "wiki," which means that anyone (including you) can edit existing articles or create new ones about the topics of your choice. Since its launch in 2003, it has become the 14th-largest wiki on the Internet, and usage continues to grow. It now includes more than 7,400 articles. In July approximately 1.86 million pages from SourceWatch were served to web users.

The Enemy is Everywhere

The Legal PR Bulletin has posted an article by Richard S. Levick of Levick Strategic Communications on how companies can defend themselves against online critics, titled "A Virtual Omnipresent Enemy." Levick warns: "It is only a matter of time before blogs become commonplace weapons allowing well-organized adversaries to both disseminate and preserve shrewder anti-corporate messages.

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If You Pay Them, They Will Blog

Corporations have begun hiring bloggers to put out their messages and to promote products, writes Mary Jacobs. Examples: "Stonyfield Farm Inc., a dairy products maker in Londonderry, N.H., hired a corporate blogger to write company-hosted blogs on nutrition and health as well as organic farming. Microsoft Corp. plans to hire bloggers to generate excitement about an upcoming product release. Electronic Data Systems Corp.

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Changing Of The Guard At ExxonMobil

The chairman of ExxonMobil, Lee R. Raymond, has announced that he will retire at the end of the year. Kert Davies, research director at Greenpeace U.S.A. told the New York Times that "there is a spectrum of corporate behavior on global warming and Exxon is the epitome of denial and deception.

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Drug Industry Embraces Human Rights ... For Ads

Mediaweek reports that new voluntary guidelines issued by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) on Direct-to-consumer advertising "contain few requirements that will add to marketers' ethical and legal burdens in creating drug ads." The guidelines, it reports "do little to go beyond a press release PhRMA issued on July 21, which merely 'enco

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