Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
Part of the Washington DC government-industry revolving door has been quantified: 318 former members of Congress currently lobby their former colleagues, according to a new report by PoliticalMoneyLine. They include former Rep.
It's been a busy week on Congresspedia. New additions to the site include:
Also well worth checking out is the muckraking action over at the Sunlight Foundation blogs. The new Congresspedia article contributions include:
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
Hill & Knowlton will head "a complex $3.8M PR effort" for the U.S. State Department, "targeting Afghan citizens and stakeholder groups to dissuade Afghan farmers from cultivating poppies and boosting global drug trade." Poppy production has soared since the 2001 U.S. invasion.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
On May 2, a U.S.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
United Airlines' new in-flight video "was produced and funded by the Department of Defense -- a fact passengers do not learn from wat
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
"Reporters will be embedded with the government during natural disasters, according to a plan outlined by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff at the Radio-Television News Directors Association convention
Submitted by Bob Burton on
O'Dwyers PR Daily reports that Bill Dixon and Laurie Adler, who handled PR for the Lincoln Group which gained notoriety for using Pentagon funds to plant news articles in Iraqi newspapers, have jumped ship. Dixon only started with the company in January while Adler served as the company's main spokesman.
One news director says, "I have been instructed by corporate not to talk to you."
Hours after the Center for Media and Democracy released our study on television stations' widespread and undisclosed use of corporate video news releases (VNRs), a major organization of broadcast news executives issued its response.
"The Radio-Television News Directors Association strongly urges station management to review and strengthen their policies requiring complete disclosure of any outside material used in news programming," read the statement. RTNDA went on to caution that decisions involving "when and how to identify sources ... must remain far removed from government involvement or supervision."
Unfortunately, RTNDA's statement conflates "sources" with broadcast material funded by and produced for outside parties. It also conveniently ignores that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, under its authority to regulate broadcasters' use of the public airwaves, already has disclosure requirements (PDF) on the books. But RTNDA's stance does point to an important, underlying issue: how to ensure both news audiences' right to know "who seeks to influence them," and the editorial freedom of newsrooms.
Welcome to the debut of Congresspedia, the "citizen's encyclopedia on Congress." Congresspedia is a bold new experiment by the Center for Media and Democracy and the Sunlight Foundation in distributed citizen journalism. It is based on the wiki model (think Wikipedia) and is a subset of the Center's SourceWatch wiki.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), which acquires products and services on behalf of federal agencies, is "actively soliciting proposals from PR firms to be added to its list of pre-qualified contractors," reports O'Dwyer's.
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