1976 True cigarette adThe U.S. Supreme Court has given a green light to smokers to sue tobacco companies over the fraudulent marketing of "light," "ultralight" and "low tar" cigarettes. Cigarette companies are currently facing around 40 such lawsuits. For decades, advertising lulled smokers into believing that so-called "light" and "low tar" cigarettes were better for their health. Smokers in Maine, however, sued Philip Morris, charging that the company was aware for decades that smokers compensate for lower levels of tar and nicotine by taking longer and deeper puffs. Philip Morris argued that the Federal Trade Commission's endorsement of machine testing for tar and nicotine levels in cigarettes, started in the 1960s, should relieve them of fraud charges. The FTC recently abandoned its testing method, though, after concluding that it is flawed because machines don't take into account how smokers adjust their smoking behavior when using cigarettes with lower levels of nicotine.

The "Worst EU Lobbying Awards," sponsored each year by Corporate Europe Observatory, Friends of the Earth Europe, LobbyControl and Spinwatch, have been announced for 2008. This year's award goes jointly to the agrofuel lobbyists of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council, Brazilian sugar barons UNICA and energy company Abengoa Bioenergy. According to the awards website, "They were jointly nominated for their use of misleading information and greenwash to influence crucial debates in the European Parliament and Council by claiming that agrofuels (crops used for fuel for cars and lorries) are sustainable." Event organizers also noted that "One of the candidates for the Worst Conflict of Interest Award, suspended Commission official Fritz-Harald Wenig, unsuccessfully tried to silence the Worst EU Lobbying Awards last week by taking legal action in the Court of First Instance in Brussels to have his name removed from the nominations and not have his name mentioned during the Worst Lobbying Awards ceremony. The court ruled that freedom of speech was more important in this case."

The Canadian Association of University Teachers has strongly condemned a new lawsuit by the Apotex pharmaceutical company against Dr. Nancy Olivieri. As a liver specialist at the University of Toronto, Olivieri first came under attack from Apotex in 1996 when she notified her patients that she had detected toxic side effects while conducting an Apotex-sponsored study of the company's drug, deferiphone. Claiming that Olivieri's actions violated their nondisclosure agreement, the company threatened her with legal action, and she was fired from her hospital (a recipient of hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in research funding from Apotex). After years of lawsuits, Apotex and Olivieri reached a legal settlement in 2004 in which the company agreed to pay $800,000 to Olivieri, while both sides were to refrain from further public "disparagement" of each other. Now Apotex is suing again, claiming that Olivieri has disparaged the company simply by participating at conferences on the relationship between universities and the pharmaceutical industry (even if she doesn't mention Apotex by name). Its legal filing also claims that she has engaged in disparagement when other people have written about her in newspaper stories and on Wikipedia. "This would appear to be a baldfaced attempt to muzzle a critic of the pharmaceutical industry," comments medical ethicist Howard Brody, author of the book Hooked: Ethics, the Medical Profession, and the Pharmaceutical Industry.

The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) has issued a statement strongly criticizing the National Broadcasting Corporation for its continued use of retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey as an on-air military analyst, while failing to disclose McCaffrey's multiple conflicts of interest that were recently detailed in the New York Times. "When the retired general offers his insight on the air for NBC, CNBC and MSNBC, viewers are left with the impression he is an 'objective' observer, a former military man speaking from the depths of his experience," it states. "What the networks have failed to tell viewers is that McCaffrey has a financial interest in the war." According to Andy Schotz, the chairman of SPJ's Ethics Committee, "these networks -- which are owned by General Electric, a leading defense contractor -- are giving the public powerful reasons to be skeptical about their neutrality and credibility. ... These are raging conflicts of interest embedded into reporting on crucial news." Writing for the Columbia Journalism Review, Charles Kaiser asks if there is "any limit to the shamelessness of NBC News," which "has never once disclosed any of McCaffrey's multiple conflicts of interest on the air. ... McCaffrey is the living embodiment of all the worst aspects of entrenched Washington corruption -- a man who shares with scores of other retired officers a huge financial interest in having America conduct its wars for as long as possible."

Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, we look at plotting out the Bush legacy, the demise of a pro-war group, and Frosty the Coal Man. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," Newt Gingrich. The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

The Pentagon's Inspector General has concluded that the "Defense Department's public affairs office may have 'inappropriately' merged public affairs and propaganda operations in 2007 and 2008 when it contracted out $1 million in work for a strategic communications plan for use by the military in collaboration with the State Department," writes Walter Pincus. The Inspector General's report (pdf) states that to avoid "appear[ing] to merge inappropriately the public affairs," or PR, "and information operation functions," Pentagon public affairs staff should focus on PR, while Pentagon policy staff assume "strategic communications responsibilities for information operations," the use of information to gain advantage over the enemy. While the report says that organizational structure should "ensure the separation" of PR and propaganda functions, it adds that "information operations [must] use public affairs products and information to communicate military objectives, counter misinformation and disinformation, deter adversary actions, and maintain the trust and confidence of the U.S. population." The focus of the report is an evaluation of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs and the American Forces Information Service, which is now part of the new Defense Media Activity.

Minnesota: State Canvassing Board meets today to determine fate of thousands of incorrectly-rejected absentee ballots. (Dec. 12, 2008)

The "Corporate Water Footprinting" conference in San Francisco December 2 and 3 had a small public component: "a presentation by Nestle on assessing water-related risks in communities, Coca-Cola's aggressive environmental water-neutrality goal, and MillerCoors' plan to use less water to make more beer," reports Amanda Witherell. "But what these giant corporations, which are seeking to control more of the world's water, really discussed the public will never know. Only four media representatives were permitted to attend -- all from obscure trade journals." Witherell's San Francisco Bay Guardian and the San Francisco Chronicle "were denied media passes." While corporate executives met in secret, social justice activists held a free, public "Anti-Corporate Water Conference." Witherell asked the organizer of the Corporate Water Footprinting conference why the water activists weren't welcome at his event. "Why didn't we invite them?" he responded. "I don't know."

In September 2008, as the U.S. Congress "was debating the first financial bailout, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich went on Fox News to decry how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had so 'many politicians beholden to them' that no one would step up to protect the American taxpayers," notes Muckety.com. But, as it turns out, Freddie Mac paid Gingrich $300,000 in 2006, "to push back against tough, new regulations of the mortgage company at a time the Bush administration was concerned about how big the two government-backed mortgage giants had become." After taking the money, Gingrich "talked and wrote about what he saw as the benefits of the Freddie Mac business model," reported the Associated Press. The Gingrich hire was part of an effort to woo conservatives; Freddie Mac also hired Frank Luntz and the DCI Group in 2005. Freddie Mac spent $11.7 million on outside lobbyists and consultants in 2006; 17 firms focused on Republicans, while four focused on Democrats. Freddie also hired Gingrich in 1999, "to provide strategic counsel," notes TPMMuckraker.

Consumer Reports WebWatch's Beau Brendler is questioning SaveTheFrog.com, a new Web site by the Discovery Channel's Animal Planet and the Clorox bleach company. The site purports to educate people about environmental concerns related to the planetwide disappearance of frogs. As Brendler points out, however, "What the Web site doesn't detail is the Clorox company's environmental record over the last couple of decades. It has been less than stellar." Brendler also points out that the domain for SaveTheFrog.com is registered to Fleishman-Hillard, one of the world's largest PR firms. "We know Clorox is trying to position itself as a 'health and wellness' brand, and that their new green image campaign prompted the Sierra Club's Florida chapter to complain about a deal the parent organization did with Clorox," he writes. "Corporations do this kind of thing. But what's a little troubling is the way Animal Planet, part of an organization that's a well-known and respected producer and broadcaster of documentary films on, among other subjects, the environment, has treated the Clorox frog site. Animal Planet's site can't seem to make up its mind whether SaveTheFrogs.com is an advertisement or editorial content."

George W. BushAs PR Watch previously reported, George W. Bush is worried about his legacy. In case they have any trouble summing it up on their own, he has provided his Cabinet members and other high-ranking officials with a memo containing suggested talking points for characterizing his eight years in office. The memo, titled "Speech Topper on the Bush Record," states that Bush "kept the American people safe" after the September 11 terrorist attacks, that he helped the U.S. economy by making tax cuts, curbed AIDS in Africa and maintained "the honor and the dignity of his office." The memo presents Bush's record as a complete success, without mentioning any major negative events that have happened during his presidency, like flawed intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war, the federal government's failed response to Hurricane Katrina, abuse of prisoners held at Abu Ghraib, the collapse of the housing market and subsequent financial company failures. In regard to the current recession, the memo says only that Bush "responded with bold measures to prevent an economic meltdown."

When Forbes.com wrote last winter about the proper diet for preventing colds and the flu, the article included advice from nutritionist and former TV host Lisa Hark to drink orange juice. As Tom Avril points out, however, "vitamin C's value as a cold-fighter is unclear," and "Hark failed to mention" that she "was being paid by the Florida orange industry to promote the health benefits of its product." Hark says what she did was common practice. "She may be right about that," Avril says, pointing to examples of financial ties between the food and restaurant industries and individual nutritionists affiliated with dietary organizations including the Obesity Society and the American Dietetic Association.

Doctors Frederick Goodwin and Joseph Biederman are counterattacking in an effort to defend their reputations following disclosures that they took millions of dollars from pharmaceutical companies while promoting the drug companies' products. Biederman, whose industry-funded research contributed to a 40-fold increase in the use of antipsychotic medicines in children, has written a letter to the Boston Globe insisting that he was "transparent" about his funding and that his sole concern has been "the treatment of children and families experiencing great suffering." Goodwin, who talked up psychiatric drugs on his PBS program, has blasted the New York Times and psychiatrist Daniel Carlat for their reports on his failure to disclose $1.3 million in pharma payments. Carlat in turn has replied that Goodwin should "stop blaming everybody else for this mess. ... This entire fiasco could have been averted if you had chosen to inform NPR listeners of your financial conflicts of interests at the beginning of shows focusing on pharmaceuticals."

Maryland officials now concede that its informants "wrongly listed at least 53 Americans as terrorists in a criminal intelligence database -- and shared some information about them with half a dozen state and federal agencies, including the National Security Agency." The so-called terrorists included pacifists, environmentalists, nuns, a novelist, an IT contractor and a legal secretary. Using the pseudonym "Lucy Shoup," an undercover Maryland State Police trooper infiltrated more than two dozen rallies and meetings of nonviolent groups. The scary activies listed in the police reports included making paper-mache puppets, songs, poetry readings, prayer meetings, and hanging out at a community center popular with punk rockers and slam poets.

The draft bailout for the U.S. automobile industry calls for the appointment of a "Car Czar" who, if the bill passes and is signed into law, would instantly become the most powerful marketing and advertising executive on Earth. The Czar would be charged with overseeing auto company expenses over $25 million, which means he or she would control the companies' media buys. An estimate from Advertising Age places the auto industry's marketing spending at about $7.3 billion in the U.S. alone -- $2 billion more than the next largest advertiser, Procter and Gamble, which spends some $5.2 billion per year. This will effectively make the Car Czar the single most influential marketing executive on Earth. The only catch? Ad agencies that work for automakers under the bailout will be effectively working on a government account, with all the bureaucracy and restrictions that entails. Depending on when the bill is signed, the Car Czar could be appointed by George W. Bush, but could be replaced by Barack Obama after his inauguration.

Illinois Governor Rod BlagojevichThe Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has arrested Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich after wiretaps showed he planned to sell or trade the open Senate seat left by Barack Obama to obtain financial and personal benefits for himself and his wife. If he couldn't get what he considered to be satisfactory compensation for the appointment, Blagojevich planned on taking the Senate seat himself. The government also accused Blagojevich of threatening to withhold state financial assistance to the troubled Tribune Company, publisher of the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, unless the Tribune fired its editorial board members who had been critical of him. The Governor is alleged to have said in a phone call about the board members, "Our recommendation is fire all those [expletive] people, get 'em the [expletive] out of there and get us some editorial support." Blagojevich is the second Illinois governor in a row to be arrested and charged with corruption. Former Governor George Ryan was convicted of racketeering and fraud in 2006.

The Philippines has enacted a law that treats the exposure of women to secondhand smoke in the home as a form of domestic violence punishable by law. Under the law, a woman can seek a protection order requiring her partner to stop smoking around her. Between 1981 and 1989 Philip Morris (PM) performed at least 115 studies at their secret overseas biological labs on the toxicity of secondhand tobacco smoke and found that secondhand smoke is four times more toxic by inhalation and 2-6 times more tumorigenic on skin than mainstream smoke (the smoke the smoker himself inhales). PM never published their studies or shared the information with governments or the public. PM also carried out elaborate media strategies in the U.S. and other countries aimed at confusing the public about the health dangers of secondhand smoke. Deborah Sy, a legal consultant with the Health Justice Foundation in the Philippines, explained the law by saying "Exposing another to second hand smoke has the same effect as exposing someone to poisons and dangerous toxins. It is an act that has immediate effects such as nausea, dizziness, headache or irritation of respiratory system. Normally, the exposure to smoking suffered by women is prolonged. Hence, the damage to the body is more significant."

As scientific warnings about the potential risks of climate change intensify, governments realize they need to at least be seen as responsive to global warming concerns. But, behind the scenes, many of the world's richest countries are dragging their feet. Some are promoting unproven measures designed to insulate the coal and energy industries from change. Others want to use the global warming crisis as an opportunity to promote nuclear power. Most are balking at committing to substantial cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, despite having signaled their intention to do just that a year ago. To help explain the issues and uncover the behind-the scenes lobbying, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is launching the Climate Change portal within the SourceWatch wiki.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conferences -- huge events, attracting some 10,000 people -- aim to create a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires at the end of 2012. Official conference documents are often hard to find and often full of mind-numbing jargon. As a result, it's hard for journalists to track what's going on and harder still for citizens to know what their governments are doing. Between now and the COP15 December 2009 meeting in Copenhagen, CMD staff and citizen editors will build SourceWatch articles on climate change issues, profile the players in the UNFCCC negotiations and unmask corporate and government greenwashing.

One current priority is a series of profiles on the policies and performances of the key richest countries. If you would like to lend a hand, just register on SourceWatch and check out this page on our Climate Change portal. Thanks for your participation!

The Association of Professional Political Consultants (APPC), the peak body for PR professionals and lobbyists in the UK, is horrified that the opposition Conservative Party is proposing that government agencies be banned from hiring lobbyists. APPC is urgently seeking a meeting with the shadow minister for the cabinet office, Nick Hurd, after he told the Times that "the hiring of lobbyists by government bodies to grab more government cash is a financial scandal." The controversy follows the Conservative Party documenting that state-funded agencies had spent over £9.7 million (US$14.4 million) on at least 71 separate contracts with lobbying firms over a five-year period. Hurd has proposed that, if the Conservative Party is elected, it would emulate the Byrd Amendment, which banned U.S. government agencies from hiring lobbyists. The amendment was adopted by the U.S. Congress in 1989.

Mark Penn, the CEO of the global PR firm Burson-Marsteller, recently spoke at a corporate conference in the UK promoting his book Microtrends. Journalist Cole Moreton interviewed Penn, starting with a blunt question on his role as "chief strategist" for Hillary Clinton's failed Presidential nomination bid: "Mr Penn, you blew it, didn't you? Were you so interested in microtrends that you completely missed the huge desire for change?" Penn responded, defensively, "Well, no, I think that, you know, I think ... the book is really a non-political book." Penn even denied that an infamous internal memo portrayed Barack Obama as unelectable. "Yes it does, if the facsimile published by Atlantic Monthly magazine is correct. The great communicator appears thrown," wrote Moreton. Penn's explanation: "Those memos, right, that came out, were really ... er, were really, I think, show you, you know, just a piece, because ... a small part, a piece of how we were looking to, I think, set up or solve the fact that he was a very strong candidate."

President-elect Barack Obama's cabinet appointments are winning praise from conservatives such as Karl Rove, Mitch McConnell and John McCain, and most of the people who actually voted for Obama aren't complaining just yet. Opinion polls show that most people approve of Obama's picks, while two-thirds of Americans approve of Obama personally. One the left, however, people like Chris Bowers are asking, "Why isn't there a single member of Obama’s cabinet who will be advising him from the left?" Bowers thinks Obama is "avoiding the tough fights" for now and hopes he'll be "more willing to take on some larger battles" further down the road. "Leading opponents of the war have mostly been silent," writes Jonathan Martin, while Obama, "who first built his national image on the foundation of his early opposition to the Iraq war, assembles a group of national security hands that is anything but a team of doves." Some anti-war activists say they trust Obama to do the right thing, regardless of his appointees. Others cite "a reluctance to carp before Obama is even sworn in." Marilyn Katz, a veteran of the peace movement and a well-connected Chicago public-relations executive, says some liberals have not been listening closely to Obama's positions all along. "A lot of people took his position on Iraq and projected our politics onto him," she said. "And that was never him. It was never true."

Freedom's Watch, the conservative 501(c)(4) organization that was set up earlier this year to help Republicans win elections, "is closing after just one cycle in business," reports Reid Wilson. "The group, which ran television, radio, phone and mail campaigns against dozens of Democrats this year, received most of its funding from wealthy gaming mogul Sheldon Adelson, chairman of the Las Vegas Sands Corp." Although Freedom's Watch originally said it would be spending as much as $200 million for ad campaigns, the reality was only about $30 million. The recession has hurt Adelson financially, cutting into tourism and gambling and sending Sands stock tumbling from $122.96 per share to just $2.89, a loss of 95 percent of its value. Freedom's Watch originally claimed to offer a conservative answer to the liberal advocacy group MoveOn. As one blogger pointed out, however, the "biggest difference" between the two groups is that Freedom's Watch "had a handful of mega-wealthy donors," while MoveOn "has an email list and funding base of 4 million."

Jesse Eisinger was one of the few financial reporters to sound an early warning about Wall Street's financial meltdown. In an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review, he explains that business reporters failed to see it coming because "the people who have gravitated to business journalism didn't get into journalism for the same reasons that people in political journalism tended to get into journalism. ... It's not necessarily fired by a sense that we should right society's wrongs. ... We lived in a period where the operating ethos was that business was efficient; that markets could solve our problems; that the imaginative people in our society was entrepreneurs, and it was very easy to be disdainful of government." Writing for the American Journalism Review, however, Chris Roush argues that the business media "have done yeoman's work during the past decade-plus to expose wrongdoing in corporate America."

CNN has announced that it will cut its entire science, technology, and environment news staff, a move that Christy George of the Society of Environmental Journalists called "disheartening." Other networks have also been slashing science and environmental jobs, including NBC Universal's The Weather Channel; the Gannett media chain, which slashed roughly 1,800 jobs this week at newspapers around the country; and Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine, which recently eliminated its bureau in Cape Canaveral, Florida, where NASA launches its rockets and shuttles. "The energy and environment beat, in particular, will likely continue to gain importance and relevance as the 21st century unfolds," writes Curtis Brainard. "Yet one can't help but feel dismayed by CNN's decision or that this industry, at least for the time being, is sadly deteriorating."

Netroots activists who supported the Barack Obama campaign thought they were joining "a new political movement that would be mobilized for big goals -- to end poverty or fix the healthcare system, or maybe to end the U.S. reliance on foreign oil," writes Peter Wallsten. Some are disappointed by what Wallsten describes as an "often secretive debate ... among top campaign staff members over how to refashion the broad network of motivated volunteers into a force that can help Obama govern," and by a seeming focus on more trivial goals. Last week, for example, Obama's campaign manager sent out an email calling on people to "Support your local animal shelter to give animals in your area a chance." James Dillon, who volunteered for Obama, says, "I'm not trying to discourage anyone from helping animals, but there are a lot of people hurting right now. If this movement is going to sustain itself, it has to have as grand a mission as electing Barack Obama." Micah Sifry of TechPresident.com has also warned that "by leaving people in the dark and only conducting one-way consultation on the movement's future, the Obama campaign risks losing its most vital resource: its grassroots base."

Arguing an appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Jesse Williams, a African American man who died of lung cancer after smoking Marlboros for 42 years, Philip Morris (PM) lawyers likened the company to a civil rights victim. PM also compared itself to a death row inmate illegally denied due process, an indigent criminal denied adequate legal representation, and even the civil rights group NAACP. Mayola Williams, Jesse's wife, pursued the personal injury case on behalf of her husband after his death, arguing that PM is liable because of its longstanding misinformation campaigns designed to allay fears about smoking. In 1999, a Portland, Oregon jury ruled against PM and awarded $81 million to Williams' estate. After the original verdict, PM finally admitted publicly that smoking causes cancer, but the company continues to appeal the case. PM's now seeking a new trial and relief from the punitive damages award, whose value with interest has now climbed to over $140 million.

Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, we look at Pentagon pundits, psychological operations for reporters and how tobacco companies want to help. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," the special relationship between Coke and India. The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

A consumer group filed a complaint against the medical device company Medtronic, because an online video promoting one of the company's products "did not make consumers aware of the risks, warnings, precautions or side effects" associated with the product. The video, which was posted to the YouTube website, was produced for Medtronic by the broadcast PR firm VNR-1 Communications. After a consumer group, Prescription Project, filed a formal complaint with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Medtronic pulled the video from YouTube. The group also called on the FDA "to take action against YouTube videos promoting medical devices from Abbott Laboratories ... and Michigan-based Stryker Corp." The Prescription Project's director said the videos "raise serious questions about whether drug and device companies are using the Internet to skirt laws that safeguard consumers." In related (fake) news, Richard Edelman blogged that ABC News Now producer Jessica Guff told him that PR people should offer TV newsrooms "fully formed four minute segments, with visuals, spokespeople and news hook all conceived." She explained, "Don't just send me a pitch letter or a book which requires me to put together the piece," because "we are short staffed."

Karen Hughes is backWondering what former Bush advisor Karl Rove and former public diplomacy czar Karen Hughes have been up to lately? They're part of an "ongoing Bush legacy project that's been meeting in the White House," according to Stephen Hayes on CNN. The project also includes "current senior Bush administration advisers," and is focused on "how to sort of roll out the President's legacy," he added. George Bush's remarks in recent interviews (the "exit interviews" of his presidency) include "criticism of his own party." Hayes predicts, "We're going to be seeing a lot more of this," as it's part of the "legacy project." In October, the Washington Post reported that federal agencies were asked to start documenting "the Bush record" of "accomplishments over the past eight years."

At a December 2 "wonky event" on the "future of energy policy" sponsored by Third Way, there was a remarkably "wide range of groups represented around the table," writes Kate Sheppard. In addition to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and several people with "close ties to the next administration," there were representatives from "renewable energy companies and industry groups, fossil-fuels industries, labor groups, big green groups, think tanks, and local government agencies." American Petroleum Institute president Jack Gerard argued, "As we make this transition to a ... more clean energy future, we hope people remember the important role of the basic fuels like oil and gas. ... We're significant players in terms of the innovation." Reid challenged Gerard's "innovation" claim -- "perhaps having heard that ExxonMobil ... only spent 1 percent of its massive 2007 profits on renewable energy," speculates Sheppard. Gerard countered, "British Petroleum is one of the key players in the solar sector, Chevron and others are big into wind, ExxonMobil spent a lot of time on battery development for electric cars."

1963 Marlboro ad: "The entire world enjoys a Marlboro."Tobacco companies are asking for the right to participate in global efforts to reduce nicotine addiction, claiming they are legitimate partners in efforts to limit the harmful effects of tobacco. But 160 countries disagreed. The talks occurred at a meeting of signatories to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, also known as the Global Tobacco Treaty, held in South Africa during the third week of November. The countries vowed to enforce the 2005 treaty -- the first coordinated, worldwide effort to reduce tobacco use -- to its fullest measure by preventing the tobacco industry from interfering in the creation and implementation of public health policies. Industry interference is seen as the number one obstacle to the health treaty's enforcement. The countries proclaimed that there is a "fundamental and irreconcilable conflict" between the interests of the tobacco industry and the cause of public health. Under the Bush administration, the United States has so far refused to ratify the treaty.

Georgia: Voter database error during Dec. 2 runoff election causes confusion at some Columbus precincts. (December 3, 2008.)

On December 2 and 3 in San Francisco, "international business representatives will discuss their use of water." The $1900 conference -- titled "Corporate Water Footprinting" -- gives major corporations an opportunity to "announce their new efforts to promote 'water neutrality,' the claim that they can return to local aquifers every drop of water taken for business." Speakers at the conference include executives from Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, MillerCoors and GE. Coca-Cola has already announced plans to become "the most efficient company in the world in terms of water use in the beverage industry," and eventually "water neutral." Yet some scientists question the very concept of water "neutrality." Jeff Conant of Food and Water Watch argues that the phrase is hypocritical marketing. "Multinational corporations like Coke and Nestle would like us to think that they are doing their best to protect our water," he writes, but "these corporations produce non-essential sugary products with the single-minded goal of generating profit. ... Currently, 12 percent of the world's population uses 85 percent of its water," and "lack of clean drinking water leads to nearly 250 million cases of water-related disease each year and between 5 and 10 million deaths." In related news, Canadian environmental groups have filed a complaint against Nestle, saying the company's ads calling bottled water "the most environmentally responsible consumer product," among other "eco-friendly" claims, are misleading.

With help from British public relations guru Lord Timothy Bell and his firm, Bell Pottinger, the country of Belarus -- where "opposition protests are regularly crushed with overwhelming force by riot police" and the domestic spy agency is still called the KGB -- is getting an image make-over. Belarus' government "now has a new English-language website for prospective investors, Western journalists are being jetted to Belarus," and the government spent a million dollars on tourism advertising in 2008, with plans to double that next year. Belarus also plans "to set up information centres in Paris and Berlin, as well as Lithuania and Poland," according to a tourism official. Belarus' authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, even released some political prisoners this year, in a bid "to improve relations with the European Union." Last year, the United Nations rejected Belarus' bid to join its Human Rights Council.

The U.S. general heading NATO forces in Afghanistan wants to merge the office that provides NATO information to reporters with the office that carries out "information operations" against enemy forces. U.S. General David McKiernan ordered that the public affairs functions of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan be combined with its Information Operations and PsyOps, starting December 1. The order is being reviewed by NATO headquarters in Brussels. An ISAF spokesperson called the review "an internal matter." NATO policy directs the separation of public affairs (PA) and information operations (IO), "to avoid creating a media or public perception that PA activities are coordinated by, or are directed by Info Ops." Reuters reports that "Germany has already threatened to pull out of media operations in Afghanistan," and one NATO official told Reuters that the merger would "totally undermine the credibility of the information" released by NATO. Back in 2006, the Columbia Journalism Review reported that the U.S. military had established a group in Kabul, Afghanistan called "Theaterwide Interagency Effects," to "synchronize public affairs, IO, and psyops."

New York: Students' residency challenged in crucial State Senate race. (Dec 2, 2008)

It's never good to get your target demographic really mad at you. Johnson & Johnson managed to do exactly that with a recent on-line commercial for its Motrin pain reliever. In the ad, a "mom" talks about how much carrying her baby around is hurting her neck, shoulders and back. It starts with "Wearing your baby seems to be in fashion. I mean in theory, it's a great idea ... " But then the voice over says she cries more than moms that don't carry their baby around "hands free." It's worth it though, because when people see her with her little bundle of pain, she says,"it totally makes me look like an official mom." The reaction from parenting groups was quick, and the ad was pulled just days after launch. Because of long lead times for print publications, however, it will be around to haunt Motrin for a while.

Barry McCaffreyAfter outing the Pentagon's pundit program -- which recruited some 75 retired military officers who are frequent media commentators, to serve as the Bush Administration's "message force multipliers" -- New York Times reporter David Barstow profiles one particularly conflicted pundit, Barry McCaffrey. The retired general is an NBC News analyst; heads his own consulting firm, BR McCaffrey Associates; and holds lucrative positions with numerous military and security contractors, including Veritas Capital, DynCorp, Defense Solutions and HNTB Federal Services. McCaffrey was an early participant in the Pentagon pundit program, but then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "abruptly cut [him] off" after McCaffrey's belated admission of concerns about U.S. military operations in Iraq. A chastened McCaffrey responded by publicly praising Rumsfeld and the Administration. McCaffrey's influence was so great that, even in semi-exile, the Pentagon continued to pay for him to visit Iraq and Afghanistan. "Other military analysts were invited on trips, but only in groups," Barstow writes. "McCaffrey went by himself." While McCaffrey's overseas visits, Pentagon contacts, media appearances and Congressional testimony benefited his corporate clients, neither he nor NBC disclosed those clients. NBC News president Steve Capus called McCaffrey an "independent voice" whose business obligations wouldn't color his commentary. McCaffrey simply claimed that his consulting "never has been a problem" for his punditry.