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Now Available! Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY Click Here to Order the Hot New CounterPunch Book by 3-time Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Kathy Kelly! Today's Stories May 14 / 15, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Join the 14 Per Cent Club! May 13, 2005 Tom Stephens A Chronology of US War Crimes and Torture, 1975-2005 Patrick Cockburn "They Destroyed Everything" Mike Whitney Tom Friedman, Imperial Chronicler Chris Floyd Miami Vice: the Sleazy World of Jeb Bush Jenna Orkin Ground Zero's Toxic Dust Dave Lindorff Googling for Fun Joshua Frank Yale Fires an Acclaimed Anarchist Scholar: an Interview with David Graeber Website of the Day Botero: Pinta El Horror de Abu Ghraib May 12, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts America is Losing: More Phony Jobs Hype Uri Avnery Death of a Myth Greg Moses Neo-Con Logic at the Border Carolyn Baker The Politics of Dominionism: the New Religious Right in America Pat Williams Amateurish High Jinks on Roadless Areas William S. Lind Reality Gap: the Myth of US Invincibilty Jack Random The Dubious Wisdom of George W. Bush Gary Leupp Douglas Feith Bares His Soul to Jeffrey Goldberg   May 11, 2005 Patrick Cockburn The Rise, Fall and Rise of Ahmed Chalabi: King of Jordan to Pardon His $300 Million Bank Swindle Kevin Zeese The Occupation Gets More Saddam-like Every Day Christopher Brauchli Coffee, Tea or Torture?: A One Way Ticket to Uzbekistan Zalman Amit The Collapse of Academic Freedom in Israel: Tantura, Teddy Katz and Haifa University Robert Shull Carte Blanche for the Terror Cops: Senate Gives DHS Power to Waive All Laws Mike Whitney God, Gays, and George Bernard Shaw Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Anti-Arabic Week at a Southern High School Norman Solomon Political Bluster and the Filibuster   May 10, 2005 Richard Drayton The Imperial Mythology of WW II: an Ethical Blank Check Dave Zirin Steve Nash's Brilliant Year: Anti-War Hoopster Wins NBA's MVP Jackie Corr The Medicare Catch: Mrs. O'Hara's Windfall Dave Lindorff Silence of the Scams: Economists on China Michael Donnelly From Roadless to Clueless: the Great Stillborn Eco Victory Reza Fiyouzat Nomadic Abstracts Scott Parkin Taking Direct Action Against Halliburton Stephen Babcock The Burden of Knowing Better Alan Farago Florida, Water and Lobbyists Michael Neumann Naomi's Courage Website of the Day One Nation Under Plagiarism   May 9, 2005 Louis Proyect Shilling for Chevron: Jared Diamond, Greenwasher Robert Fisk "Mission Accomplished": the Occupation, Year Two Kevin Zeese Concientious Objection on Trial: the Court Martial of Keith Benderman Joshua Frank Kerry Bashes Gay Marriage Sasha Kramer A Mother's Day Call for Justice in Haiti's Prisons Andrew Wimmer Create and Resist Jeffrey Webber Back to the Streets in Bolivia? Jeffrey St. Clair Straight to Bechtel   May 7 / 8, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Who Beat Hitler? Gary Leupp Biblical Prophecy and Christian Zionism Saul Landau Pope Torquemada: Purges, Pedophiles and Cover-Ups Joe DeRaymond Autumn of the Revolutionary: Another Look at Daniel Ortega Daniela Ponce Seeing Chile in Nepal Heather Williams Hollywood Does Enron Gregory Elich Zimbabwe's Fight for Justice Anis Memon To Cuba and Back John Chuckman The Peculiar State: "Criticism of Israel is a Form of Anti-Semitism" Mike Whitney Hard Right Rage Against the Truth Ron Jacobs Re-Reading "Born on the Fourth of July" as the Iraq War Grinds On Colin Kalmbacher Whither Disorder? Ann Coulter and the Texas Police State, Cont. Lance Selfa Uprising in Mexico City Fred Gardner "Getting High is a Little Like Cuba" Ben Tripp Letters on Wittgenstein Mickey Z. The Mother of All Days Richard Joseph Those Patriotic Magnets Dr. Susan Block Come As You Are: Masturbation 101 Poets' Basement Smith-Ferri, Louise, Nettnin, Engel and Albert   May 6, 2005 Patrick Cockburn Baghdad Diary: a Week of Bombs and Blood Erin Yoshioka Another "3 Strikes" Travesty: Why is Santo Reyes Facing Life in Prison? Sam Husseini Talking with Syrians Dave Lindorff Ernie Pyle Where Are You? When Reporters were Reporters Kevin Zeese Circus Trials of Abu Ghraib: When Even the Fall Girl Can't Plead Guilty Joshua Frank An Overextended US Military? It Won't Stop Another War Dan Bacher Tribes and Salmon Win One: Bush Backs Off Trinity River Water Raid P. Sainath India's Bloody Water Wars   May 5, 2005 Carles Mutaner Is Chavez's Venezuela "Socialist" or "Populist?" Carl G. Estabrook Is There Any Hope for the Pope? Farrah Hassen The US's Syrian Obsession Kevin Zeese "Sent Into Combat Unequipped and Unprepared": an Interview with Patrick Resta Michael Leonardi May Day with an American Soldier in Rome Bennett Ramberg The Future of Nuclear Terror: Coming to a Reactor Near You Ray McGovern The Smoking Gun on White House Deceit Norman Solomon Nuclear Fundamentalism, the New York Times and Iran Nicole Colson The Back Alley Attack on Abortion Rights Brian Concannon, Jr. Clearing the Fences in Haiti     May 4, 2005 Colin Kalmbacher Ann Coulter and the Police State: Heckle a Racist, Get Arrested John Walsh Al Franken is a Big Fat Phony: Lying on Air America to Support the War Greg Moses Vigilante Wedge: Schwarzenegger Reprises "Birth of a Nation" Ali Khan Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Poised to Fall Apart Chris Floyd Ring Them Bells Linda S. Heard D-Day for Tony Blair: Bogeymen and Scare Tactics Dave Zirin The NFL, Congress and the Male Cheerleader Principle William S. Lind Fool's Paradise Gary Leupp Bolton's Proudest Moment: Breaking the UN's Anti-Zionist Resolution Website of the Day Kent State, May 4, 1970   May 3, 2005 Dave Lindorff Bush has Grasped the Third Rail, Now Turn on the Juice Brian Cloughley Halliburton's War Loot Ira Kurzban Death Squad Diplomacy: How Bolton Armed Haiti's Thugs and Killers Seth Sandronsky Towards Debtors' Prisons? Gilad Atzmon The Labour Party Isn't an Option Any More Michael Donnelly Branding Eco Collapse Alex Sanchez Chile's Man at the OAS: a Blow to Bush? Peter Linebaugh Magna Carta and May Day   May 2, 2005 Ron Jacobs Toward an Anti-Imperialist Movement Stan Goff The Case of Hasan Akbar Karyn Strickler Achieving Gender Balance in US Politics Joshua Frank Leaked UK Memo Indict's Blair's Iraq Folly Kevin Zeese Getting Out of Iraq will Prove Tougher Than Getting Out of Vietnam Vicente Navarro Pope Benedict: a Rightwing Politician       April 30 / May 1, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Marla Ruzicka, Rachel Corrie and "Credibility" Gabriel Kolko Lessons from a Total Defeat: the End of the Vietnam War, 30 Years Later Jennifer Loewenstein The Disengaged: Gaza and the Fragmentation of Palestinian Nationhood Lee Sustar City for Sale: Richard Daley's Chicago Saul Landau The Bush-DeLay Axis of Naked Power T.W. Croft The Undiscovered Country: the High Tide of the Neo-Con Confederacy Nikolas Kozloff Fox News v. Hugo Chavez William Blum Never-Ending Double Standards Dave Lindorff Judicial Jury Tampering in Philly Joshua Frank The Bi-Partisan Assault on Teenage Girls Doug Giebel Saving Jane Fonda Steven Erlanger A Response to Kathy Christison, from the NYT Jerusalem Bureau Chief Fred Gardner Washington State Doctor Harassed Mike Whitney Another Mad Bush Press Conference Kurt Nimmo Putin Pussyfoots in Palestine Joe DeRaymond A Short History of the 15th Congressional District of Pennsylvania Michael Dickinson Flags Mickey Z. May Day at Yankee Stadium Justin Taylor The Crawling Chaos: HP Lovecraft's Polymorphous Legacy Poets Basement Krieger, Engel, Albert, St. Clair Website of the Weekend Save Barbados's Cowpastor                                             Hot Stories Alexander Cockburn Behold, the Head of a Neo-Con! Subcomandante Marcos The Death Train of the WTO Norman Finkelstein Hitchens as Model Apostate Steve Niva Israel's Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings? Dardagan, Slobodo and Williams CounterPunch Exclusive: 20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians Steve J.B. Prison Bitch Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber True Lies: the Use of Propaganda in the Iraq War Wendell Berry Small Destructions Add Up CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition May 14 / 15, 2005 PR Industry Imitates Big Tobacco Senate Holds "Fake News" Hearing By DIANE FARSETTA Anyone who's ever looked at a package of cigarettes in the United States since 1965 is familiar with the Surgeon General's warning labels. The tobacco industry did not want their product being labeled with, "Smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and may complicate pregnancy." However, Congress determined that the public interest was best served by ensuring that everyone purchasing cigarettes knew of their ill effects. Providing this information didn't end smoking (today, 22 percent of U.S. adults use cigarettes), but it helped balance years of Big Tobacco's deceptive PR by simply presenting the facts in an appropriate, immediate and universal way. Congress is now engaged in a similar debate about labeling "fake news." On May 12, public relations and broadcasting industry representatives testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation about the Truth in Broadcasting Act (S 967). Their remarks were reminiscent of how the tobacco industry responded to the threat of cigarette labeling four decades ago. The importance of this issue is painfully apparent to anyone familiar with the Armstrong Williams scandal and other cases of "pundit payola." Fake news is also partly responsible for numerous instances of media deception related to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The current debate centers on a particular type of fake news - prepackaged segments, called audio news releases (ANRs) when produced for radio, and video news releases (VNRs) when produced for television. Government agencies, corporations, industry groups and other large organizations have routinely used ANRs and VNRs since at least the 1980s; some claim VNRs date back to World War II-era newsreels. More recently, media consolidation and shrinking newsroom resources have resulted in broadcasters' increased reliance on such provided materials. Mounting concerns led the Government Accountability Office to rule in February 2005 that government-sponsored TV "news" reports are covert propaganda, unless their source is apparent to viewers. Unfortunately, broadcasters commonly air ANRs or VNRs without disclosure. According to a survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a quarter to a third of local news directors - by their own admission - disclose the source of VNRs occasionally, rarely or never. Other evidence suggests that non-disclosure may be an even bigger problem. What Congress is now considering, thanks to increased public awareness and pressure, is how to ensure appropriate disclosure of government-funded "news." The Truth in Broadcasting Act, sponsored by Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and John Kerry (D-MA), is one of four Congressional measures recently proposed to deal with fake news. The Act is strong in that it covers ANRs as well as VNRs. It also clearly specifies what constitutes disclosure. For ANRs, a verbal announcement would be required. For VNRs, the phrase "Produced by the U.S. Government" would have to be displayed "conspicuously" throughout the video. However, the Truth in Broadcasting Act also has serious shortcomings. To begin with, it only addresses government-sponsored ANRs and VNRs, even though private corporations are the main source of fake news. Moreover, the Act doesn't explicitly cover additional audio or video footage, called radio "actualities" or video "B-roll," which are usually provided along with the prepackaged segment. Although these materials are not broadcast-ready, their content and presentation are still determined by parties with an interest in how the institutions, events and issues they deal with are perceived. The Center for Media and Democracy would have loved to send one of our staff members to the recent Senate hearing. After all, industry was well-represented, by the heads of the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA), the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), and one PR firm that produces VNRs. Watchdogs inside the government - the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Government Accountability Office - also testified, but no independent, public-interest perspective was represented. Ignoring overwhelming evidence to the contrary, RTNDA president Barbara Cochran claimed that news broadcasters air VNRs "rarely" and neglect to disclose their source "even more rarely." Cochran pointed out that RTNDA's ethics code has called for "clear and complete disclosure" of provided materials since 1989 - but neglected to inform the committee that her Association does not monitor compliance with or enforce its code. PRSA president Judith Phair fretted about the fate of the "free flow of information," should the Act pass. She expressed support for the "intent of the legislation," but said its "rigid requirements and specifications" would make using provided materials "so onerous and inappropriate" that broadcasters might forgo them altogether. Similar to Cochran, Phair presented PRSA's code of ethics as proof of the public relations industry's noble practices. (Once again, merely having an ethics code doesn't necessarily translate into compliance. In twelve years of reporting on PR firms' legal and ethical breaches, the Center for Media and Democracy has yet to run out of material.) Doug Simon of the VNR-producing firm D S Simon Productions warned that the Act might result in federal agencies either decreasing efforts to inform the public, or turning to more deceptive practices, such as funneling VNRs through think tanks or other third parties. On a more philosophical level, Simon ominously stated that "increased government control over news broadcasts" is not a "hallmark of democracy." Holding a Senate hearing on fake news is, in and of itself, a step in the right direction. However, Commerce Committee Co-chair Senator Ted Stevens - who expressed interest in knowing "who was behind the propaganda" declaring his home state of Alaska "pristine" and opposing oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - appeared perhaps too eager to accommodate industry concerns. Stevens repeatedly voiced support for delaying any further Congressional action until late July, after the end of the comment period on the FCC's Public Notice on VNRs. This despite assurances from FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein and Acting General Counsel Austin Schlick that the issue before Congress and the FCC's Public Notice are like proverbial apples and oranges. (The FCC ensures broadcast licensees act in accordance with existing laws and regulations, while Congress is considering new disclosure requirements for broadcast materials sponsored by federal agencies.) More seriously, Stevens seemed to accept at face value the industry representatives' alarmist rhetoric against the "long arm of the government" in the newsroom. He suggested that the Byrd amendment - recently passed by the Senate, but only in force during fiscal year 2005, which ends in September - might be a better legislative model than the Truth in Broadcasting Act. The problem with the Byrd amendment is that it calls for "a clear notification" of government sponsorship, without specifying what that means. It's also unclear whether the Byrd amendment covers ANRs, or just VNRs. Nothing would suit the PR and broadcast industries better than vague and toothless legislation that effectively maintains the status quo. The reality is that the "long arm of the government" - and, to a greater extent, the long arm of corporations, industry groups and other large organizations - are already in the newsroom, shaping what the public sees, hears and reads. Currently, only a handful of extreme situations trigger ANR and VNR disclosure requirements. These include when the broadcaster is paid to air them; when broadcasters deem their content to be "political or controversial" - a vague restriction that, in practice, requires public complaints to the FCC, after they've aired (and assumes viewers can identify such footage); or when government agencies admit that their goal in producing them is to persuade, rather than inform, the public. Like their predecessors in the 1960s, members of Congress must summon the courage to act in the public interest, over industry opposition. Full disclosure should be required for all government-produced and -funded ANRs (including extra actualities) and VNRs (including extra B-roll). The FCC must also act to address the far more prevalent problem of privately-funded fake news, by requiring broadcasters to identify the source of all provided broadcast material. Until those important steps are taken, the U.S. information environment will remain as hazy, and as polluting, as a smoke-filled room. Diane Farsetta is a senior researcher at the Center for Media and Democracy in Madison, Wisconsin. She can be reached at: diane@prwatch.org                         .