The industry-funded former civil rights group Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) continues to bash environmentalists, to the benefit of the energy industry. In July 2008, CORE, the conservative High Impact Leadership Coalition (HILC) and the pro-drilling front group Americans for American Energy pushed for increased domestic oil and gas production, under the banner "stop the war on the poor." Now, CORE and HILC have a campaign called "don't freeze us out," which supports "a Bush administration auction in Utah of oil and gas leases, some near national parks." Environmentalists, including Robert Redford, are urging President-elect Barack Obama to overturn the already-completed auction. CORE's Niger Innis vowed, "We are not going to stand by as Robert Redford tries to slow the flow of home heating fuel from the Rockies and drive up home heating prices to millions of Americans in his lust for environmental headlines." Innis "also recently appeared at a press conference in Washington ... in support of the Americans for American Energy Act sponsored by Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah." CORE has received funding from ExxonMobil.

"To gain greater international support for Israel Defense Forces operations in the Gaza Strip," Israeli Foreign Minister (and candidate for Prime Minister) Tzipi Livni directed the Foreign Ministry to lead "an aggressive and diplomatic international public relations campaign." In addition to meetings with foreign officials and interviews with international media, Israeli officials are posting videos to YouTube and conducting "press conferences" via the microblogging site Twitter. The Israeli military described one of its YouTube videos as a bomb attack on "a Hamas truck carrying dozens of Grad rockets." Yet human rights groups say the truck belonged to a local resident, who was moving equipment out of his workshop, after the house next to it was bombed. Ahmed Samur, the person who says the bombed vehicle was his, told Haaretz, "These were not Hamas [who were killed], they were our children." BBC News writes that "the incident shows how an apparently definitive piece of video can turn into something much more doubtful." Doubts have also been raised about the Israeli Foreign Ministry's changing graph of the number of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel. Still, according to the BBC, "Israel appears to think its [PR] efforts are working," to "justify the air attacks" and "show that there is no humanitarian calamity in Gaza."

When television stations take the "'quick and dirty' route to health news coverage" by airing sponsored videos produced by public relations firms or other companies, it's a real problem, writes journalism professor Gary Schwitzer. For example, Ivanhoe Broadcast News (which was mentioned in the Center for Media and Democracy's "Fake TV News" report) puts out "single source stories with one spokesman from one institution touting one idea," complete with PR contacts. Yet, the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) -- which is supposed to set "standards of newsgathering" -- recently partnered with Ivanhoe. RTNDA's foundation is offering "two new training opportunities for journalists": a three-month internship providing "professional training in health reporting at Ivanhoe headquarters," and a two-week fellowship "to travel to the Ivanhoe headquarters to focus on health and medical reporting." Schwitzer asks, "Why doesn't RTNDA partner with the NIH Medicine in the Media workshop or the MIT Science Journalism Fellowships or with the Association of Health Care Journalists or with [the University of Minnesota's] HealthNewsReview.org project?" RTNDA has sided with the Public Relations Society of America, in opposing attempts to ensure that video news releases are disclosed to news viewers.

Mark PennUntil March 2008, the major public relations firm Burson-Marsteller counted among its clients the Pakistan People's Party, as the Center for Media and Democracy previously reported. Burson-Marsteller promised to influence U.S. policy and public opinion, via contacts with "100 American political journalists and business elites," by favorable "white papers" by academics and op/ed columns in newspapers. The firm also pledged to "promote credible 'third-party' supporters of Pakistan," including "former U.S. government officials," "think tank experts" and influential Pakistani-Americans. The Pakistan lobbying contract, which also involved the polling firm Penn, Schoen & Berland, specifically mentioned New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria as outreach targets. Luckily for Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton -- whose former campaign strategist, Mark Penn, heads Burson-Marsteller and Penn, Schoen -- the firms' work for Pakistan ended "well before [November's] terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India." Otherwise the Penn-Pakistan connection could have been used by "opposition researchers dredging up tough questions" for Clinton's confirmation hearing.

Energy Secretary-designate Steven Chu "seems about as climate friendly as they come," writes Josh Harkinson, but "more industry friendly than his rhetoric suggests." As the director of the Energy Department-funded Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Chu helped broker "the largest university-industry alliance in U.S. history, the $500 million Energy Biosciences Institute." The biofuels research institute involves the Berkeley lab, two public universities and oil giant BP. Chu pitched BP's deal to the UC-Berkeley Academic Senate, one-third of whose members voted against it. Chu also promoted the institute on campus, saying "money" was the only reason more biofuels research wasn't already underway. The university's compromise agreement gave BP half of the seats on the board governing the institute. As Energy Secretary, Chu will likely "face pressure to partner with corporations in pursuing technological solutions to climate change," notes Harkinson. "As the incoming Obama administration prepares to spend liberally to develop cleaner sources of energy, the structure of corporate-government partnerships will determine how the profits of that research return to taxpayers, and how rigorously scientists evaluate the downsides of controversial technologies such as biofuels."

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 an off-key gift, education that doesn't teach and SLAPPed reporters. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," Chip Saltsman. 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!