Media

It was apparently just a matter of time. A parody website called the "Faux News Channel, P.N.N. (Pentagon News Network)" has received a letter from attorneys for the Fox News Network. The attorneys object, among other things, to the sale by Faux of "Bill O'Reilly Hitler Youth" t-shirts. They express concern that people may confuse the real Faux with the fake Fox ... or is that vice-versa?

The Carlyle Group sits at the epicenter of the military-industrial complex that connects the Bush-Cheney administration with crony capitalism. Dan Briody, discusses The Iron Triangle, his new book about the Carlyle Group, which has recently begun to dabble in media acquisition. "We're looking at the potential for having a real controlling influence in the media," he says. "And I personally would not like to see Carlyle Group controlling the information that I receive on a daily basis."

Clinical trials showed that ViroPharma's anti-cold drug, pleconaril, was little better than a placebo in clinical trials, but that didn't stop hundreds of newspapers from hyping it as a miracle cure. "It fell far short of what any rational person would call a cure," observes Gary Schwitzer. "Yet hundreds of journalists called pleconaril just that - and more - in hundreds of news stories before the drug was ever submitted to the FDA for approval. ... Journalists used an array of superlative terms for the drug -cure, miracle, wonder drug, super drug, a medical first.

"The Pentagon may make it official policy to include journalists with U.S. military units headed for battle," the Associated Press's Matt Kelley reports. During a panel discussion on media coverage of the Iraq war, outgoing Pentagon spokesperson Victoria Clarke said that Pentagon officials were pleased with the results of embedding journalists with troops. Clarke said she would like to see more reporters accompany U.S. troops in the future, AP reports. "Transparency works," Clarke said. "The good news gets out.