War / Peace

The American Red Cross has hired the Edelman PR firm and the firm of Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter & Associates to handle criticism that arose when the Red Cross revealed that it only planned to give out $300 of the $560 million-plus dollars collected for victims' families of the assaults on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

In an article headlined "Anthrax attacks have bolstered consumer perceptions of food irradiation," the livestock industy website MeatingPlace.com reports: "American consumers may be warming up to the idea of irradiation, according to a news survey by Porter Novelli. Apparently, news coverage of bioterrorist activity in the United States, combined with the well-publicized news about the use of irradiation technology to eradicate anthrax spores in potentially contaminated U.S.

The Army's 4th Psychological Operations Group, the only US active-duty unit dedicated to psyops, is conducting a campaign to persuade Afghan Taliban troops to defect to the opposition and Afghan civilians to join with the United States in ousting the Taliban. The group consists of about 1,200 soldiers, selected from among Army's brightest, and about 35 civilian analysts, two thirds of whom have doctoral degrees.

Government needs the media on its side to keep public support in times of war. Journalist Phillip Knightley writes for the Public I, "In democracies like Britain and Australia, with a powerful press and a tradition of dissent, or like the United States, where freedom of expression is constitutionally guaranteed, the media cannot be coerced into supporting the war. They have to be seduced or intimidated into self-censorship.