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.

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.

Viral emails have become a pleasant staple of the holiday season. A couple of weeks ago, I sent one myself to a few friends and family -- an "Elf Yourself" video featuring me with my wife and one of our cats. (You can find it on my personal website if you're interested.) "Elf Yourself" includes an understated advertising message for its sponsor, OfficeMax, but the dancing elves are kind of cute, and I figured my loved ones are strong enough to handle an occasional bit of commercialism.

It's a different story, though, with the "Clean coal carolers" video shown here that was just released by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), a front group for the coal industry. This latest PR ploy features animated lumps of coal singing Christmas carols with the wording changed to deliver pro-coal propaganda.