U.S. government

After the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was "pummeled by Congress for poor inspections of tainted vegetables, drugs and other products," the agency wanted public relations help. First, it hired Mildred Cooper as "a temporary FDA consultant ... on a two-year contract to advise FDA Commissioner Andrew C. von Eschenbach and other officials." Cooper, who previously did public affairs work for the Defense Department and Federal Emergency Management Agency, then contacted a friend at the PR firm Qorvis Communications. The friend directed her to Qorvis crisis communications director Don Goldberg. Goldberg worked with Cooper to steer an additional FDA contract to Qorvis. But, as Goldberg explained, "It was not appropriate [for the FDA] to hire Qorvis directly." Instead, the PR proposal came from Alaska Newspapers Inc. (ANI), "a firm owned by an Alaska Native corporation that does not have to compete for federal work." Emails between the FDA's Cooper and Qorvis' Goldberg show that ANI agreed beforehand to give the $300,000 no-bid contract to Qorvis. Qorvis also works for the drug industry group PhRMA. The FDA contract, which was supposed to "create and foster a lasting positive image of the agency for the American public," has since been suspended. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce may investigate the contract, according to chair John Dingell.

As the political action committee (PAC) "Our Country Deserves Better" prepares for its national tour of "patriotic rallies" against Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, columnist Bill Berkowitz interviews the PAC's coordinator, Joe Wierzbicki. Like many of the PAC's officers, Wierzbicki works for the Republican-associated PR firm Russo Marsh & Rogers and with the pro-war group Move America Forward. Wierzbicki said the PAC hopes to "raise in excess of $1 million by Election Day," and run ads in "ten states." In regards to the PAC's ad that questions Obama's statements on religion, Wierzbicki asked, "Is Barack Obama's faith the Muslim registration listed by his family when he was a student growing up in Indonesia? Or is it the black liberation theology espoused by Reverend Jeremiah Wright...? Or is it the mainstream Christianity he identified with in the forum hosted by Pastor Rick Warren?" But Wierzbicki claimed his PAC isn't "Swiftboating" Obama, because, for example, "We've not used the photographs of Barack Obama in what some call 'Muslim garb' because the photos by themselves are inconclusive." They also decided, "despite the controversy that her words created," not to "use Michelle Obama's comments about this being the first time in her adult life that she was proud to be an American." Move America Forward also launched the MAF Freedom PAC, which opposes Obama and supports various Republican Congressional candidates.

By Congresspedia assistant editor Avelino Maestas

Monday was supposed to be the day the House approved a $700 billion rescue/bailout plan for the U.S. financial services sector. With Congress set to adjourn after approving the rescue and a few other bills, the week was shaping up to be a quick one.

However, with the House’s defeat of the bailout measure Monday, the legislative calendar has been thrown into upheaval. Rather than vote on tax package, it appears the House will reconvene Thursday in order to give the rescue bill another try.

Confusion seems to be running the day. Democratic leaders in the Senate, including Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Banking Committee Chairman Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) have signaled they still want to work towards a vote on the measure. There is no agreement, however, as to what changes should or could be made to the bill, or whether the House or Senate should take up the revised legislation first.

The U.S. Defense Department has awarded its up to three-year, $300 million contract for "information operations" in Iraq and possibly Afghanistan. There are four lucky firms: the Lincoln Group, which was outed in 2005 for planting U.S. military-written pieces in Iraqi newspapers; Leonie Industries, a woman-owned company that promises "access to seemingly impenetrable markets" around the world; SOS International, which in 2006 won a contract to monitor foreign media for coverage of the so-called Global War on Terrorism; and MPRI, a unit of L-3 Communications that won a contract in 2003 to involve former Iraqi soldiers in public works projects. The new PR push is "seen by the [U.S.] military as a means toward 'reconciliation' of the country and a way to foster support for Iraqi Security Forces from Iraqi civilians," reports O'Dwyer's.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is poised to end "a six-year-old battle between career EPA scientists" who want to regulate a chemical linked to thyroid problems in pregnant women and children, and the White House and Pentagon, where officials oppose setting a drinking-water safety standard for the chemical, perchlorate. Guess who's likely to win? The EPA's "preliminary regulatory determination," obtained by the Washington Post, claims that setting a perchlorate drinking-water standard wouldn't result in a "meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction for persons served by public water systems." The document was heavily edited by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Among the OMB's comments was "that there was 'no need'" to include "detailed data" that showed that "infants would be exposed to perchlorate levels above" levels deemed safe by the National Academy of Sciences. Perchlorate is present in rocket fuel; many contaminated water sources are near military bases. In an attempt to avoid costly clean-ups, defense companies formed the Perchlorate Study Group, which has questioned whether perchlorate in drinking water poses a health problem.

Soldiers guarding pallets of money in IraqOver $13 billion that the U.S. sent to Iraq to pay for reconstruction projects has been wasted, stolen or diverted to al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to Salam Adhoob, a former chief investigator for Iraq's Commission on Public Integrity. Adhoob worked for the Commission for three years, where he oversaw 200 employees. He testified about the waste, fraud and diversion of U.S. funds before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee. He told the panel that some of the investigations his and other agencies conducted uncovered "ghost projects" that never existed, or instances in which Iraqi and U.S. contractors did poor-quality work. In one case, Adhoob said that the U.S. had spent $24.4 million on an electricity project in Nineveh province, but that an oversight agency found that it "existed only on paper." He reported that he had a "firsthand, up-close look at corruption" and waste of U.S. funds, and that he eventually was forced to flee Iraq because of death threats.

One of my favorite critiques of our ad-saturated modern world is in "Infinite Jest," the epic novel by recently-departed author and essayist David Foster Wallace. In the novel's not-too-distant future, time itself has become a corporate marketing opportunity. There's the Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar and the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment. That's not to mention the Year of the Yushityu 2007 Mimetic-Resolution-Cartridge-View-Motherboard-Easy-To-Install-Upgrade For Infernatron/InterLace TP Systems For Home, Office, Or Mobile, which is often abbreviated.

Image from a Masterfoods video news releaseThe novel's system of Subsidized Time is hilarious ... and you can almost imagine it really happening. At least corporate-sponsored years wouldn't present the disclosure problems of today's stealth ads -- marketing messages that masquerade as entertainment or news content.

The Center for Media and Democracy believes that all advertising should be as clearly announced as the Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar. That's why we just filed a comment with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FCC is debating how its sponsorship identification rules apply to product placement, product integration and other types of "embedded advertising" relayed over television or radio stations.

In 2003, Commercial Alert urged the FCC to address product placement disclosure. "Advertisers can puff and tout, and use all the many tricks of their trade," the watchdog group wrote (pdf). "But they must not pretend that their ads are something else."

Especially, we would add, when that "something else" is news programming.

Efforts by the McCain/Palin campaign to keep reporters away from Sarah Palin have prompted journalists to threaten a boycott of Palin's photo shoots at the United Nations. "The campaign had originally indicated that the print reporters following her campaign would be among the small group of journalists allowed to attend the so-called 'pool sprays' before Palin’s meetings with dignitaries on the sidelines of the U.N. meetings," explains Kenneth P. Vogel. "The sprays are basically glorified photo opportunities during which journalists can snap photos and film footage and -- if they're lucky -- shout a question or two at Palin and her company before she adjourns for private meetings. ... But the imbroglio began developing Tuesday morning when Palin’s handlers informed the small print press contingent covering her campaign that the print reporter designated to cover the events, Elizabeth Holmes of the Wall Street Journal, would not be allowed to cover the sprays." As CBS News' Scott Conroy notes, this latest dustup reflects "unprecedented" efforts by the campaign to shut out the media. "She has been a candidate for the second highest office in the land for nearly a month, but Sarah Palin has yet to hold a single press conference," Conroy writes. Even conservative Fox News has noticed how tightly the McCain campaign is trying to control access to Palin. "One reporter got close enough to Palin to ask her an impromptu question about the AIG bail-out, but that is the only spontaneous question she has gotten thrown at her since being rolled out as McCain’s number two," observed Fox news producer Shushannah Walshe.

Public interest groups, including the Center for Science in the Public Interest, are blasting the Food and Drug Administration for relying on industry-funded studies in evaluating the safety of bisphenol A, a chemical widely used in food packaging materials. The FDA's BPA draft assessment says the chemical is safe, ignoring numerous independent and government-funded studies which show risk of harm including brain and prostate damage to developing infants, fetuses, and children, as well as increased risk of diabetes and heart disease. Instead, the FDA relied on two studies funded by an arm of the American Chemistry Council, a trade organization representing chemical manufacturers. Employees of SABIC Innovative Plastics and Dow Chemical, which manufacture BPA, coauthored the two studies. The studies' lead author, Rochelle Tyl of Research Triangle Institute in North Carolina, previously worked for the chemical industry and received research funding from the plastics industry.