Search

A NEW business in military public relations that is worth millions of dollars is emerging as consultants are being drafted into the battle for the world's 'hearts and minds'.

How big a problem is the growing influence of the bipartisan Beltway Party? Details on this can be found in a report from the Real News Project. RealNews examined the track records of prominent Washington Democrats, consultants, advertising and public relations executives, lobbyists, attorneys and the like who have close connections to the top circles of their party. Many of them served in the Clinton-Gore White House, and many of them will likely be tapped should a Democrat be elected in 2008 and have considerable influence in a future Democratic-controlled Congress.

Some of the biggest names in documentary filmmaking have denounced a recent agreement between the Smithsonian Institution and Showtime Networks Inc. that they say restricts makers of films and television shows using Smithsonian materials from offering their work to public television or other non-Showtime broadcast outlets.

The Christian leader of megaplex Regal Cinemas is trying to shape what audiences see -- and don't see -- at the movies.

The Global Compact, a U.N. program intended to help businesses become better world citizens, celebrates its first anniversary yesterday with more than 300 corporate partners, up from 44 at its launch.

This year, several big-budget and award-nominated films have dared stray into the subject areas we at CorpWatch cover everyday, validating our sense that we are really not laboring obsessively in the shadows on inconsequential things (don't you get your esteem from Hollywood?).

A secret U.S. military program that pays Iraqi newspapers to publish articles favorable to the American mission appears to violate a 2003 Pentagon directive, according to a newly declassified document released Thursday.

The information campaign run by U.S. troops in Baghdad and a Washington-based private contractor is the subject of a high-level military investigation. Last month, the top U.S. general in Iraq said a preliminary investigation into the program had found it did not violate U.S. law or Pentagon regulations.

The press has spilled plenty of ink writing about Jack Abramoff, the powerful Washington lobbyist at the center of an extensive corruption scandal. But little noticed is that among Mr. Abramoff's many clients was the press itself, at least part of it. In 2000, he represented the Magazine Publishers Association, and it turns out that some of the association's money may have been funneled to Mr. Abramoff's political allies.

The IDT Corporation, a telecommunications and entertainment company that is under pressure for its languishing share price, barred a New York Times reporter from its shareholder meeting yesterday.

Satellite television operator DirecTV Group Inc. agreed to pay $5.3 million to settle charges it repeatedly violated rules against telemarketing to consumers whose names were on a national do-not-call registry, the Federal Trade Commission announced yesterday.