Corporations

"An anchor at KTLA-TV received a customized dining-room makeover worth more than $10,000 for her own home, in what a local furniture merchant says was meant to be a swap of free goods and services ... for favorable coverage on the station's 'Morning News'," reports the LA Times. The segment was taped in September 2005 but never aired, leading the merchant to warn, "If it doesn't air," KTLA's Michaela Pereira will "be treated like a paying customer." Pereira agreed to return some items and pay for others.

Australian social researcher Hugh Mackay has little time for companies that try to use corporate social responsibility as a PR and marketing tool. "Nothing diminishes virtue like trying to draw other people’s attention to it. You’re a good corporate citizen? Get on with it, then, don’t brag about it," he said in a speech launching a fundraising campaign for a non-profit disability group.

"This was a 10-year campaign to shape the science to fit the industry's agenda rather than shape the regulation to fit the science," Professor David Michaels said of industry attempts to avoid lower exposure limits for hexavalent chromium. In 2004, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) proposed reducing the exposure limit set in 1943 more than fifty-fold.

"Controversy over LNG [liquid natural gas] terminals is growing as demand soars," reports the Boston Globe. There are four proposals for new LNG terminals in Massachusetts -- and one has its own astroturf group. The Coalition for an LNG Solution, which describes itself as "a grass-roots neighborhood organization," supports new LNG terminals on Boston Harbor islands.