It's no secret that Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) shares a cozy relationship with the tobacco industry. In fact, VCU and the industry have long supported each other in a number of ways.
Submitted by John Stauber on
Rob Zaleski, columnist with Madison's Capital Times, has written a profile piece on CMD's founder John Stauber. "In the beginning, it was just Stauber and his buddy Sheldon Rampton, a local typesetter and Princeton University grad Stauber recruited to help produce the first issue of PR Watch. ...
Philip Morris (PM) has long been a past master at funding front groups and organizing scientists to deny the obvious. Now it is apparent that someone at PM tried puffing the entry in Wikipedia on the Marlboro cigarette.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
James L. Horton of the Robert Marston & Associates PR firm is worried about Wikileaks, a new website that provides a means for people to share information about unethical behavior by governments and corporations. Wikileaks says it "is developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and participatory analysis.
Submitted by Conor Kenny on
Last week we started a new participatory project to expose the government agencies, corporations and lobbying groups that have been censoring, whitewashing or otherwise spinning Wikipedia. (See CMD Senior Researcher Diane Farsetta's great blog post for some background on this sordid tale.) So far we've logged several attempts at spin into the respective SourceWatch profiles, including:
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
Thanks to WikiScanner, more PR firms are coming under fire for making anonymous edits to Wikipedia that favored their clients. "Freud Communications' London office was caught making edits" on articles about Pizza Hut and Carphone Warehouse, reports PR Week.
Submitted by Bob Burton on
Mark Penn, the CEO of the PR firm Burson-Marsteller, was tight-lipped when asked about his role as "chief strategist" for Hillary Clinton's campaign to be the Democratic Party nominee for president.
Submitted by Conor Kenny on
This bit of PR whitewashing comes very close to a literal definition. From a Japanese press account quoted in the "Telstar Logistics" blog: "China Airlines has painted over its name and logo on the wreckage of a passenger jet that exploded in flames at Naha Airport in Okinawa moments after passengers slid down emergency chutes to escape. The airline painted over the name 'China Airlines' on the left-hand side of the aircraft and the company's logo on the plane's tail fin.
Self-described "disruptive technologist" Virgil Griffith lists as his top aim in developing WikiScanner: "To create a fireworks display of public relations disasters in which everyone brings their own fireworks, and enjoys."
Here at the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), we see WikiScanner as a great way to better understand how public relations firms and other "perception managers" are subverting online discussions and social media. And what better website to track this on than Wikipedia, the world's most popular wiki, or collaboratively edited website?
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
The Center for Media and Democracy has previously reported on the PR firm Hill & Knowlton's work for the oppressive regime of the president of the Maldives, Maumoon Gayoom.
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