Media

Appetite for Profit: An Interview with Michele Simon

Appetite for Profit book coverIn December 2006, I interviewed author Michele Simon about her book, "Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines our Health and How to Fight Back." The excerpts below are from that original interview, which took place on WORT, community radio in Madison, Wisconsin. For more information on Michele and her work, please visit her website.

Judith Siers-Poisson (JSP): How did you personally become so involved and interested in food politics?

Michele Simon (MS): It started about 10 years ago when I was struggling with my own weight and turned to a vegetarian diet and, lo and behold, I lost the weight I was struggling with. And then, from there, I started to learn all of the other ways our diet impacts our own health, in addition to the environment, animal welfare, and labor, and so many aspects of society -- I was just amazed at how much was impacted by those food choices.

Drug Company Funds Direct-To-Consumer Movie

Submitted by Diane Farsetta on

Johnson & Johnson's biopharmaceutical unit, Centocor, "has developed a documentary film to serve as the centerpiece of a national campaign," reports O'Dwyer's. The movie, "Innerstate," follows "three patients living with chronic diseases like Crohn's disease, Rheumatoid arthritis, and psoriasis -- ailments for which Centocor markets treatments.

No
Main Source: 
O'Dwyer's PR Daily (sub req'd), February 15, 2007
Topics: 
Health
Media
Pharmaceuticals
Public Relations

The Gori Truth: Tobacco Industry Payments to Toxicologist Undisclosed

Submitted by Anne Landman on

As part of a program to give voice to a select group of think tanks, on January 30 the Washington Post printed an article by toxicologist and epidemiologist Gio Batta Gori, titled "The Bogus 'Science' of Secondhand Smoke." Gori claims that many published studies on the health hazards of secondhand smoke are bas

No
Main Source: 
Washington Post, January 30, 2007
Topics: 
Media
Science
Think Tanks
Tobacco

Bush's Fantasy Budget and the Military/Entertainment Complex

The entertainment industry: Bush's "Mission Accomplished"Those distressed by the bloated military budget that Bush recently announced should be equally alarmed by corporate media's stake in defense spending, because among other things, it helps shape news, entertainment culture and public attitudes toward war and its weapons. The CBS News report on Bush's budget was typical of the news coverage, describing it as a proposal for "a big increase in military spending, including billions more to fight the war in Iraq, while squeezing the rest of government" -- a euphemism for slashing Medicare and social programs across the board, further impoverishing Americans now sitting on mountains of debt with no medical coverage.

Beyond Focus Groups: The Marketers Among Us

Submitted by Diane Farsetta on

Forget about focus groups. Before launching their new weekly glossy magazine for women, "Look," executives at Britain's IPC Media (a Time Warner company) engaged in "immersion research," or ethnography. "We went out to our audience," explained IPC's Chris Taylor. "We literally lived for weeks at a time with [potential] readers in their homes.

No
Main Source: 
The Independent (UK), February 5, 2007
Topics: 
Marketing
Media
Women

Guerrilla Marketing Gone Bad in Boston

Submitted by Diane Farsetta on

Turner Broadcasting apologized "for a marketing campaign that sparked Boston's biggest security scare since the September 11, 2001, attacks -- closing bridges, shutting major roads and putting hundreds of police on alert." The "outdoor marketing campaign" promoting an Adult Swim cartoon "had been in place for two to three weeks in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco, and Philadelphia." Boston police feared that the magnetic lightboards of cartoon characters might be bombs.

No
Main Source: 
Reuters, January 31, 2007
Topics: 
Guerrilla Marketing
Media
Public Relations

Pages

Subscribe to Media