Public Relations

In March 2002, Andy Gallagher, then the spokesperson for West Virginia's Department of Environmental Protection, drafted a media release to inform residents in Wood County that the toxic chemical C8 was being emitted from DuPont's local plant. But the statement was never released.

Reviewing the language used by journalists used to describe legislative changes designed to marginalise Australian unions, Deirdre Macken writes that stories in Rupert Murdoch's News Limited publications and by the publicly funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation often use the term "workplace reform." A dictionary definition of "reform", she notes, is making something "better by removal of faults or errors." "Governments will

George W. Bush's Tuesday night national address reflected "a purposeful strategy based on extensive study of public opinion about how to maintain support for a costly and problem-plagued military mission," the Washington Post's Peter Baker and Dan Balz write. The White House consulted the work of Duke University political scientists Peter D. Feaver and Christopher F.

This spring, a poll that found half of adult Americans have frequent sleeping problems was reported on "by virtually all of the country's major newspapers and television networks," as well as international media. "Lost in the somber warnings and survey results, however, was that the poll, the proclamations and the press kits that spread the information were paid for by sleeping pill manufacturers," reports the Sacramento Bee.