Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
The Washington Post reports on how House Majority Whip Roy Blunt "has converted what had been an informal and ad hoc relationship between congressional leaders and the Washington corporate and trade community into a formal, institutionalized alliance." Blunt's "organization of whips and lobbyist vote counters ...
Anyone who's ever looked at a package of cigarettes in the United States since 1965 is familiar with the Surgeon General's warning labels.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
Just weeks after the Department of Education's Office of Inspector General's damning report on the Ketchum / Armstrong Williams contract to promote the No Child Left Be
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
The conservative legal group Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against the Defense Department, for not responding to their March 2004 Freedom of Information Act request on what "strategic influence, perception management, strategic information warfare and/or
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
"An Agriculture Department agency paid a freelance writer at least $7,500 to write articles touting federal conservation programs and place them in outdoors magazines," reports the Washington Post.
There's an old PR trick that if bad news can't be suppressed, its release should be stalled until late on a Friday afternoon or just before a holiday break. It's a trick that served the U.S. Department of Education well when, late on Friday April 15, it released its Office of Inspector General's damning final report into the $240,000 Armstrong Williams contract to promote the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation.
The strategy behind the late Friday afternoon news dump is simple: most media outlets will be squeezed for space to cover a late-breaking story, looming deadlines will ensure harried journalists don't have time to get much further than the executive summary, and by the time Monday rolls around, it will be seen as stale news by editors with the attention span of a gnat.
Reading the 20-page report, which was prompted by Greg Toppo's exposé on the Williams contract in USA Today, it's easy to see why the Education Department wanted to bury it. The report chronicles the deception, bungling and mismanagement behind the Williams contract.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
PR Week reports on the video news release industry's response to Senator Byrd's one-year measure and the Truth in Broadcasting Act, both of which require disclaimers for pre-packaged "news" segments.
On April 6, 2006, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) released a multi-media report titled, "Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed." It provides the most extensive account to date of how corporate-funded video news releases (VNRs) -- fake TV news -- are routinely aired by newsrooms, without disclosure, as though they were independently-gathered reports.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
Concerned at rising rates of soldiers' non-combat deaths, the U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center hired two PR firms, Pario and Reingold, to "sell" safety measures.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
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