More evidence that circumcision can slow the spread of HIV

A little bit better off

EVERY body part is there for a purpose, so it is not usually a good idea to remove one of them if it is healthy. But the results of two trials, announced on Wednesday December 13th, show that every rule has its exceptions. The trials in question, conducted in Uganda and Kenya under the auspices of America’s National Institutes of Health (NIH), unequivocally show that circumcision can protect men from infection with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The circumcised are half as likely to catch the virus as the uncircumcised. The result is so strong that the NIH has stopped both trials: ethical considerations require that circumcision be offered immediately to the uncircumcised control groups of men in both, should they want it.

These two trials are the culmination of a scientific process that started about two decades ago, when doctors began to notice that AIDS seemed less prevalent in groups of people who routinely practiced circumcision than in those who did not. That casual observation was followed by more detailed studies that sought to eliminate confounding variables which might somehow be connected with circumcision. These, too, suggested the effect was real. But to make absolutely certain in such cases, you need to do what is known as a randomized clinical trial. That means recruiting people for testing and then, only after you have recruited them, choosing some of them at random for treatment while the others are left untreated as a control group.

Ideally, neither the participants nor the researchers in such a trial should know who is being treated for real, and who has had a placebo. Obviously, that is not possible in the case of circumcision. But in all other respects the trials just reported were conducted as if they were drug tests. Some 4,996 uninfected men were gathered together in Uganda and 2,784 in Kenyan. In each case half were given the snip. All, however, received identical counseling about matters of sexual health. After less than two years, 65 of the Ugandans and 69 of the Kenyans had become infected. In each case, two-thirds of the infected were among the uncircumcised and a third among the circumcised. Combined with the result of a French-organized trial in South Africa that gave similar results a year ago, it now seems unquestionable that circumcision provides significant protection against infection.

The idea that a healthy person can be protected from disease by cutting off a healthy body part is counterintuitive. Evolution has put the foreskin there for a reason, and that reason is to guard a vulnerable orifice. Unfortunately, part of the guard is a type of immune-system cell that is vulnerable to HIV infection. Paradoxically, therefore, if HIV is the main sexually transmitted threat that a man faces, he is better off without this guard than with it.

Circumcision is not, of course, a complete answer. First it only reduces the risk of infection, it does not abolish it. Second, it is a surgical procedure, and therefore carries its own risks, even when conducted in a clinic by medical practitioners. Third, it is not cheap. The minimum cost is $25, and it can be much more than that. On the other hand, that price is a one-off payment.

There is also a fourth risk. Armed with his new protection, a man might change his sexual behavior in a way that increases his risk of getting infected. Such risk-adjustment responses are seen in other areas of life to which new safety features have been added–driving, for example. The researchers in both trials looked hard for evidence that this was happening in the case of circumcision, but failed to find any. That is a hopeful sign. They plan to continue watching the participants, though, just in case.

Click here to read this enlightening article from Economist.com (includes a UNAIDS map of infection rates worldwide)

Consolidation of Media Is Unhealthy for Education

I am the president of the University of Washington, but I am really here tonight as a citizen — not as the university’s president, but as someone who has spent his entire life in education as a student or as a teacher or as an academic administrator.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on media consolidation and media ownership. I don’t understand fully all of the economics of the dynamics that are going on in the media today. But, what I do understand is the educational process. And, what I do understand is the role of universities, especially research universities, in our society today. If you look at what happens in the academic setting of a university, what you see is that we are really charged with two simple tasks: the creation of new knowledge and new ways of understanding the world around us; and, second, disseminating that information to our students and to the world beyond the ivy walls.

Now, the consolidation or homogenization of information, the homogenization of the distribution of ideas around cultural creation, and the lack of diversity that comes from that homogenization of opinions are completely antithetical to the creation of new knowledge, the creation of new cultures, and the transmission of those to society.

It is utterly impossible to have world-class universities like the United States has if we do not have the free flow of ideas, a clear and open exchange of diverse opinions and views, and forums in which those can be objectively discussed, debated and considered in a full and thoughtful fashion.

The consolidation of the media that I see under way right now around the United States is working exactly in the opposite of the directions that I, as an educator, think are healthy for our students, for our society and for our educational enterprises.

Think about young people coming to a university. Young people who have only seen single points of view in the media, who have only been fed cultural perspectives that are about as rich as fast food — if they have never heard a free and open debate of ideas — what kind of students are they going to be? What is the probability that they are going to challenge views and opinions in the classroom? What is the probability that they are going to be open to the diverse opinions that they are going to hear in the university? What’s the probability that they, themselves, are going to be creative and invent new ideas going forward?

I have had the opportunity to go to universities in nations where the homogenization of opinions is, in fact, the only opinions that go forward. You can find students there who are very good at math. You can find students who are very good at reciting the scientific facts of the day. But, you will not find students who are creative. You will not find students who are pushing forward new scientific borders. You will not find students who want to debate issues with their classmates, let alone with their faculty. In short, you will not find the makings of democracy in those places.

The free flow of ideas, the diversity of opinions, the capacity to hear ideas locally and nationally, are absolutely critical to the educational enterprise.

Click here to read the original column from the President of University of Washington, adapted from remarks he made at a Federal Communications Commission field hearing Nov. 30 in Seattle on rules governing media ownership.

The branding of malaria

A big opportunity for business-minded philanthropists

THIS Thursday George and Laura Bush are due to host a most unusual product launch. The new brand to be unveiled with much fanfare at a White House summit is malaria―or, more precisely, the eradication of malaria. The brains behind the summit, a group of business leaders and philanthropists operating under the auspices of a non-governmental organization called Malaria No More, are convinced that the time is right to launch what they hope will be the next big thing in the giving business.

Today, they point out, most Americans know little about malaria and care less. Yet eradicating the mosquito-borne disease has all the ingredients of a great charitable brand. There is a clear need, easily illustrated with the usual moving pictures of suffering poor people. There is a clear goal, the complete eradication of a disease that currently kills around 1m people a year. There is a plan in place to achieve that goal. And, lest anyone doubts the chance for success, there is evidence from America itself that the disease can be stamped out. “From a businessman’s perspective, this is the perfect storm of marketing opportunities”, says Malaria No More’s Scott Case, a former top executive at an internet firm, Priceline.com.

The best charity brands nowadays offer a simple product for their customers, sorry, donors, to “buy”. Oxfam’s Christmas catalog, Oxfam Unwrapped, is perhaps the best example of this, with its heartwarming selection of stocking fillers including school dinners for 100 poor kids at £6 ($12), a goat for a poor farmer at £24, or kitting out the economy of an entire village for £1300. Malaria No More is planning to compete for the pre-Christmas surge in charity with its own blockbuster gift: malaria-beating insecticide-laced bed nets at $10 each. But its bed-net campaign is not just for Christmas. A host of high-profile multi-media fundraising activities are planned for next year to market bed-net charity to the great American public. “If Starbucks can figure out how to sell $7.5 billion of coffee each year, we, all the citizens of the world working together, should be able to figure out how to raise $5 billion every three years to buy a bed net”, says Lance Laifer of Hedge Funds vs Malaria, who will be at Thursday’s summit.

Christmas would not be Christmas without Scrooge, and the bed nets campaign has prompted a few cries of “Bah! Humbug!”―none of them entirely groundless, it must be admitted. One billionaire who cares deeply about beating malaria recently told The Economist that, when bed nets are given away, they are less likely to get used properly by their impoverished recipients, who may instead treat them as wall hangings or even “insecticide-laced wedding dresses”. Jacqueline Novogratz of the Acumen Fund, a much admired non-profit venture fund that invests in entrepreneurial solutions to poverty, and is backed by Google among others, fears that distributing bed nets for free is not a sustainable solution, and that a better approach is to develop private markets for bed nets. Acumen has invested in a firm that sells bed nets for around $3 each, a price within the reach of many, though by no means all, poorer people.

That the free bed nets campaign has the enthusiastic support of Jeffrey Sachs has also set alarm bells ringing among those who think the publicity-loving economist is prone to solutions based on throwing money at problems rather than grappling with the underlying complexities.

Certainly, some of the most popular charity products―sponsoring a child, for example, or, if you are a celebrity, adopting a child―have often been of doubtful impact. Yet there are plenty of reasons to hope that the bed nets campaign will be different, which is why the people behind Malaria No More are so optimistic. Many of them have been involved in broader efforts to fight poverty, such as the “Make Poverty History” and “One” campaigns around the G8 summit in 2005, and in the fight against HIV/Aids, compared to which eradicating malaria is relatively straightforward. Several factors have combined to create Mr Case’s perfect storm, meaning that free bed nets can be the final piece in an integrated solution including better education, prevention and treatment, not merely a high-profile symbolic gesture.

Incentivized in part by George Bush’s $1.2 billion “President’s Malaria Initiative” announced in June 2005, a growing number of African governments have developed plans of their own to tackle malaria. (Happily, there is no malarial equivalent of South Africa’s president Thabo Mbeki, denying that the disease is spread by mosquitoes.) The drugs industry has been similarly encouraged by Gordon Brown's push for a global fund to buy a malaria vaccine if one is developed. Companies in malaria-hit areas are waking up to the self-interest case for participating in the fight against malaria. For instance, BHP Billiton, a mining and commodities company, says it has helped raise productivity by supporting anti-malaria initiatives in Africa, not least thanks to reduced absenteeism. There have also been big steps forward in techniques for fighting malaria―how best to spray mosquito-infested areas, for example; and in technology, allowing the creation of bed nets that remain effective for up to five years.

Malaria No More is an example of a new business-inspired breed of philanthropy that has flourished in recent years under the leadership of a new generation of wealthy entrepreneurial givers, of whom Bill Gates is the most prominent. These new philanthropists aim to use money and skills built up in the private sector to make an impact on the biggest problems facing the world. At the heart of this approach is the “leveraging” of private money through partnerships with governments, companies and non-governmental organizations. The new campaign against malaria may provide the best test yet of whether the hype about this new philanthropy is justified. Wish it well.

Click here to read this interesting article and related information from Economist.com

San Francisco upsets Seattle 24-14, sweeps season series

Seattle, Washington - The setting was perfect for Alex Smith to fail: His team was trailing, it was cold and wet, and the crowd expected another Seahawks' division title.

Instead, with crisp, confident passes and nimble running, Smith put together the best 15 minutes of his young career.

Smith accounted for three fourth-quarter touchdowns - two passing, one running - and the San Francisco 49ers prevented the Seattle Seahawks from clinching the NFC West with a surprising 24-14 win on Thursday night.

"The boy just became a grown man today, baby," 49ers' running back Frank Gore said of his quarterback. "There's a lot more to come."

Keeping the 49ers' slim playoff hopes alive, Smith tossed an 8-yard touchdown pass to Vernon Davis early in the fourth quarter, then capped a 10-play, 73-yard drive with a 20-yard TD pass to Gore with 4:01 left that sent soaked -- and shocked -- Seahawks' fans for the exits.

One play after a delay-of-game penalty on third-and-1, Smith stepped out of Kelly Herndon's grasp, scrambled and found Gore behind defense near the goal line. San Francisco's players erupted into celebration, as the 49ers (6-8) broke a three-game losing streak and swept both games from Seattle.

"I think we always knew (we could beat Seattle)," Smith said. "I think that changed a couple of weeks ago when we beat them at our place.

"I think this team grew up a little bit tonight."

If his fourth-quarter passing wasn't enough, Smith faked the entire Seattle defense and jogged 18 yards for a touchdown with 1:42 left to cap a night when he looked just a little like Steve Young and Joe Montana.

The turnaround was startling, after the 49ers' offense went the first 44 minutes with just four first downs and rarely looked threatening. The 49ers rolled up 196 yards in the fourth quarter.

Meanwhile, the questions only continue about the Seahawks. Seattle (8-6) lost its second straight divisional game, ending any hopes of getting a first-round bye in the playoffs.

Afterward, coach Mike Holmgren said inconsistency is Seattle's identity.

"We need to find a way to win this week or next week or somehow," Seattle's Bryce Fisher said. "Otherwise there's going to be a lot of us getting our lockers cleaned out."

Smith finished 14-of-25 for 162 yards, a far cry from the first half when he was 5-of-12 for 38 yards and the 49ers best offensive play was a 33-yard run on a fake punt.

It was Smith's completion to Antonio Bryant late in the third quarter that finally got the 49ers' offense on track.

Smith's 11-yard completion to Bryant with 48 seconds left in the quarter was San Francisco's first first-down of the half. On the next play, Arnaz Battle beat Herndon off the line of scrimmage and Smith hit him in stride for a 54-yard completion.

Two plays after hitting Battle for 13 yards on third-and-10 at the Seattle 22, Smith rolled right and Davis got separation from safety Jordan Babineaux in the end zone.

With Smith finding holes in Seattle's secondary, Gore put the game away. Gore, who ran for a franchise record 212 yards in the first meeting between the two teams, had 104 of his 144 yards in the fourth quarter.

"When we go at them, it's hard to stop us," Gore said. "We kept going downhill at them and they couldn't hold up."

Matt Hasselbeck threw a 22-yard touchdown to Jerramy Stevens with 9 seconds left, for the final margin, but Hasselbeck was outplayed by Smith.

Hasselbeck finished 20-of-37 for 220 yards, but threw a pair of interceptions, the most damaging on the first possession of the second half.

On second-and-11 at the San Francisco 20, Hasselbeck tried to hit D.J. Hackett on a seem route in the end zone. Instead, 49ers' safety Mark Roman stepped in front of Hackett and intercepted the pass, returning it to the 27.

Shaun Alexander rarely found holes to run through in the second half. Alexander had just 16 yards rushing in the second half, and failed when Seattle needed 1 yard to keep its best drive of the fourth quarter alive.

On third-and-1 at the 49ers' 27, Alexander was held to no gain. Seattle went for it on fourth down, but Mack Strong was stopped short with 9:37 left, causing Holmgren to flail his arms on the sideline in disgust.

"I was trying to be aggressive. I always think we can get that," Holmgren said. "Normally we convert those."

Alexander was held to 73 yards, 40 coming on Seattle's first quarter scoring drive, capped by a 3-yard plunge by Alexander, just his fourth rushing touchdown of the season.

Joe Nedney kicked a 39-yard field goal with 3 seconds left in the first half.

Game notes
San Francisco lost C Eric Heitmann to a broken right leg in the first quarter. Tony Wragge took his place. ... A heavy rainstorm moved in shortly before kickoff leaving standing water on the field and momentarily knocking out power to the video screens in the stadium. The worst of the storm subsided during the game.

Click here to see the article and related coverage from ESPN.com

Colorado congressman who called Miami 'Third World' cancels appearance here

U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo, who last month likened parts of South Florida to "a Third World country," has canceled a speaking engagement off Miami after his hosts cited a violent threat and asked him not to come, the lawmaker's office said Wednesday.

"I'm obviously disappointed that a radical element in Miami was able to intimidate the hosts into rescinding their invitation for me to speak," Tancredo said in a statement.

The Miami Rotary Club had invited Tancredo to the waterfront Rusty Pelican restaurant in Virginia Key, where he was to give the speech Renewing America: The Need for Assimilation.

Tancredo, R-Colo., has called for severe limits on immigration to the United States.

He angered many in the Miami area last month when he implied the city had been harmed by absorbing too many immigrants. Tancredo pointed to crime, low high school graduation rates and a resistance to English.

Carlos Espinosa, a spokesman for Tancredo, said the Rusty Pelican's corporate office told the lawmaker Wednesday morning that it could not host the luncheon, citing at least one telephone threat. The lawmaker's team then tried to find another restaurant.

"We called about a dozen, but they either didn't have the capacity or they didn't want to deal with the same threats the Rusty Pelican received," Espinosa said.

In canceling his trip, Tancredo also referred to censorship in communist Cuba -- an apparent swipe at South Florida's Cuban-American community.

"I knew speaking your mind could be dangerous in Havana," he said. "I guess it's equally dangerous to do so in Miami."

Rusty Pelican manager Randy Palmer said in a statement that the restaurant and the Rotary Club agreed to cancel the appearance.

"We are not trying to make political statements," he said. "But during this busy holiday season we have a great deal of concern for the safety of our guests and employees.

We've decided it's in everybody's best interest for Congressman Tancredo not to speak at the Miami Rotary Club."

Miami police said they were investigating a report that someone made a threatening call to The Miami Herald on Wednesday about Tancredo's visit, but they were unaware of any threatening calls to the restaurant.

Click here to read the original story by Ruth Morris of the Sun-Sentinel.com

DEAL SWEETENERS

America has one heck of a sweet tooth. We consume more sweeteners per capita than any other country, and close to ten million tons of sugar every year. But American sugar producers aren’t satisfied with supplying the most sweet-hungry population in the world. They’ve relentlessly sought—and received—special favors from the federal government, turning the industry into one of the most cosseted in America today. The government guarantees producers a fixed price for domestic sugar and sets strict quotas and tariffs for foreign sugar. Economically speaking, this has many obvious bad results. It keeps sugar prices in the U.S. at least twice as high as the world average. It makes it harder for companies that use lots of sugar to do business here—in the past decade, an exodus of candy manufacturers from the U.S. has eliminated thousands of jobs. And import restrictions make Third World countries poorer than they’d otherwise be. But protecting sugar also has a surprising consequence: it’s hurting America’s efforts to become more energy-efficient.

In recent years, as politicians have tried to deal with high gas prices, concerns about global warming, and America’s dependence on OPEC, a new savior has been found: ethanol. Ethanol has all sorts of virtues. When it’s blended with gasoline, it reduces greenhouse-gas emissions. Unlike fossil fuels, it doesn’t get depleted over time, since it’s made from biomass. And sources of ethanol can be found all over the world, unlike those of oil, which are mostly in unstable or autocratic countries that are unfriendly to the U.S. So Congress has mandated that four billion gallons of ethanol annually be blended with gasoline, and it also subsidizes ethanol production with a fifty-one-cent-per-gallon tax credit. These policies have stimulated an ethanol boom; the number of ethanol plants is set to rise by nearly fifty per cent in the next few years.

Unfortunately, the ethanol produced in the U.S. comes from a less-than-ideal source: corn. Corn ethanol’s “net energy balance”—the amount of energy it yields in proportion to how much energy goes into its production—is significantly lower than that of other alternatives, and modern corn farming isn’t easy on the land. By contrast, ethanol distilled from sugarcane is much cheaper to produce and generates far more energy per unit of input—eight times more, by most estimates—than corn does. In the nineteen-seventies, Brazil embarked on a program to substitute sugar ethanol for oil. Today, every gallon of gas in Brazil is blended with at least twenty per cent of ethanol, and many cars run on ethanol alone, at half the price of gasoline.

What’s stopping the U.S. from doing the same? In a word, politics. The favors granted to the sugar industry keep the price of domestic sugar so high that it’s not cost-effective to use it for ethanol. And the tariffs and quotas for imported sugar mean that no one can afford to import foreign sugar and turn it into ethanol, the way that oil refiners import crude from the Middle East to make gasoline. Americans now import eighty per cent less sugar than they did thirty years ago. So the prospects for a domestic-sugar ethanol industry are dim at best.

We could, of course, simply import sugar ethanol. But here, too, politics has intervened: Congress has imposed a tariff of fifty-four cents per gallon on sugar-based ethanol in order to protect corn producers from competition. A recent study by Amani Elobeid and Simla Tokgoz, scientists at Iowa State University, projected that if the tariffs were removed prices would fall by fourteen per cent and Americans would use almost three hundred million gallons more of ethanol.

But that isn’t likely to happen anytime soon: the Bush Administration proposed eliminating the ethanol tariff this past spring, but Congress quickly quashed the idea—Barack Obama was among several Midwestern senators who campaigned in support of the tariff—and the sugar quotas appear to be as sacrosanct as ever. Tariffs and quotas are extremely hard to get rid of, once established, because they create a vicious circle of back-scratching—government largesse means that sugar producers get wealthy, giving them lots of cash to toss at members of Congress, who then have an incentive to insure that the largesse continues to flow. More important, protectionist rules flourish because the benefits are concentrated among a small number of easy-to-identify winners, while the costs are spread out across the entire population. It may be annoying to pay a few more cents for sugar or ethanol, but most of us are unlikely to lobby Congress about it.

Maybe we should, though. Our current policy is absurd even by Washington standards: Congress is paying billions in subsidies to get us to use more ethanol, while keeping in place tariffs and quotas that guarantee that we’ll use less. And while most of the time tariffs just mean higher prices and reduced competition, in the case of ethanol the negative effects are considerably greater, leaving us saddled with an inferior and less energy-efficient technology and as dependent as ever on oil-producing countries. Because of the ethanol tariffs, we’re imposing taxes on fuel from countries that are friendly to the U.S., but no tax at all on fuel from countries that are among our most vehement opponents. Congressmen justify the barriers to foreign ethanol with talk of “energy security.” But how is the U.S. more secure when it has to import oil from Venezuela rather than ethanol from Brazil? These tariffs are bad economic policy, bad energy policy, and bad foreign policy. Talk about your Domino effect.

Click here to read the original article from The New Yorker's James Surowiecki

Society of Professional Journalists President-Elect Offers Comment at FCC Hearing

INDIANAPOLIS, IN -- (MARKET WIRE) -- December 12, 2006 -- Representing the Society of Professional Journalists, Nashville City Paper executive editor and SPJ president-elect Clint Brewer offered public comment and a formal statement at a Federal Communications Commission hearing in Nashville, Tenn. yesterday. The commission hosted the hearing to discuss media ownership before it decides how to rewrite media ownership laws that dictate how much media organizations can grow.

The purpose of Monday's FCC hearing was to fully involve the public in the process. The hearing was the second in a series of media ownership hearings that the Commission is hosting throughout the country.

The Nashville, Tenn. media ownership hearing drew criticism from national recording artists who say that media ownership by large corporations could compromise their abilities to promote themselves and make a decent living. National journalism experts fear that media ownership by large corporations could further contribute to the decline in available job opportunities. While SPJ takes no formal position on this matter, in 2003, the Society did call for additional hearings on proposed media ownership laws. Additionally, the society called upon all media outlets to devote more attention via news stories to the matter in an effort to raise public awareness.

Addressing the commissioners, Brewer urged them to consider whether weighing any action or inaction on behalf of the media ownership debate would have any impact on the quality of the public service being offered by media entities at the local level.

"Would keeping ownership rules status quo or expanding them help or hurt the quality of journalism being offered by media outlets across this country and the quality of public service these companies are providing," Brewer asked. "SPJ's Code of Ethics is considered by many to be the independent standard for quality journalism in our profession. It is the only code pervasive in the world of journalism that exists apart from company mandates and standards. We encourage the FCC to give further consideration to the question of media ownership based on the kinds of benchmarks set forth in our organization's Code of Ethics."

A full transcript of Brewer's remarks can be read on www.spj.org.

Founded in 1909 as Sigma Delta Chi, SPJ promotes the free flow of information vital to a well-informed citizenry; works to inspire and educate the next generation of journalists; and protects First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and press. For more information about SPJ, visit www.spj.org.

Click here to original press release from the Society of Professional Journalists

The Power of the Press

The Media Is in Need of Some Mending

Thomas Jefferson, a better president than we’ve had in a very long time, penned a line back in 1787: “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I would not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” By 1807, in his seventh year as president and after seven years of being subjected to severe press criticism, he wrote: “I deplore the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed, and the malignity, the vulgarity and the mendacious spirit of those who write them.”

You’ll be relieved to know that Jefferson did remain true to his primary principle: “The press,” he concluded, “is an evil for which there is no remedy. Liberty depends upon freedom of the press and that cannot be limited without being lost.” He was right then, and we are right now, to prefer a free press, however flawed, to any controlled alternative. Still, as we watched CNN flashing its pre-election logos each day — “Broken Borders,” “Broken Government,” “Broken Politics,” Broken Everything — I can’t help thinking the media, too, is in need of some mending.

At its best news informs and enlightens the citizens of a free society and thereby safeguards and strengthens our democracy. At its worst — dishonest, unfair, irresponsible — the media has potential to erode the public trust on which its own success depends and to corrode the democratic system of which it is so indispensably a part. So, let me touch on 10 current trends in the mass media that ought to disturb us.

The blurring of the lines between journalism and entertainment. Journalism that puts too high a priority on entertaining is almost destined to distort and mislead. Compounding this confusion is a diffusing definition of “journalist.” When political operatives moonlight at moderating news shows, when people alternate between being political editors and political consultants, when celebrity newspeople pocket $20,000 fees speaking at corporate conventions while criticizing congressman for conflicts of interest — we jumble public perceptions of newspeople as well as news.

The blurring of lines between news and opinion. Newspapers have a format that helps maintain the distinction. The Internet, TV and most magazines have neither that format nor that tradition. The result is a blending of news and views. The two are not ingredients to mix together for a tastier meal, they are different courses. Part of the problem here lies in fashionable new philosophies that argue there are no basic values of right and wrong, that news is merely a matter of views. It’s a dangerous philosophy for our society and a dagger at the heart of genuine journalism.

The blending of news and advertising, sponsorships or other commercial relationships. The resulting porridges may be called “advertorials” or “infomercials”; they may be special sections masquerading as news, news pages driven by commercial interests, or Web pages where everything somehow is selling something. Without clear distinctions between news and advertising, readers or viewers lose confidence in the veracity of a news medium. And advertisers lose the business benefit of an environment of trust.

The problems and pitfalls inherent in pack journalism. Individually, most reporters are decent, dedicated, fair-minded people. But the press, en masse, tends to lose its common sense and its sense of fairness and independence and what we see all too often is the spectacle of a pack of hounds in pursuit of a quarry. We frequently see this phenomenon in political reporting, where the faintest whiff of scandal, or even of weakness, can send the pack in pursuit. At its worst, the pack, not finding a real problem, proclaims the “perception” of one and this perception becomes self-fulfilling.

The issue of conflict and context. On most issues most Americans are not on polar extremes. On abortion, for example, most seek a sensible center. Where is that center reflected in media coverage that mainly portrays rabid feminists or irate pro-life activists? Balance is not achieved by the talk show format of two extremists yelling at each other. And how many of us recognize our own communities from their depiction on local TV news shows — a nonstop montage of mayhem, murder, rape, arson, child molestation and more?

The exaggerated tendency toward pessimism. Just look back a few years over much of the media coverage of “American competitiveness.” All those news magazine covers on the coming “Japanese Century.” And along with it, all the pessimism about the ability of U.S. industry to compete globally. It was nonsense. Similarly, it’s one thing — and an appropriate one — for the press to probe particular instances of political corruption. It’s quite another thing to jump to the cynical conclusion that our political process, and all politicians, are corrupted — that “they all do it.” They don’t, and they aren’t. Skepticism and criticism are essential to the media’s role; reflexive pessimism is not.

The growing media fascination with the bizarre, the perverse and the pathological — John Mark Karr journalism. Such so-called journalism helps instantly legitimize crackpot ideas, deviant behavior, or alleged victimization in our society. My point is not to argue for “good news” vs. “bad news,” but to ask whether much of this amounts to news at all?

Social orthodoxy, or political correctness. These are reflected in a media whose job is not to parrot prevailing fashions, but to question, probe and thereby challenge them. Businessmen are not, by definition, greedy, and environmentalists, by definition, saintly. Third World poverty is not, by definition, a result of overpopulation as opposed to inane economic policies. And so on.

The media’s short attention span. As the press hops from Baghdad to Beirut, Natalee Holloway to Valerie Plame, Super Bowls to Super Tuesdays, it justifiably can blame some combination of the nature of the news and the short attention span of the public. The public, meanwhile, bombarded and bewildered can blame a fickle and shallow press. There are too many instant celebrities. Too many two-day crises. Too many “defining moments” from people in search of instant history. In a world where everything is considered critical, nothing needs to be taken very seriously.

The matter of power. The press is at least partially responsible for greater public skepticism toward traditional institutions in America. But the truth, not lost on our public, is that the press is a large and powerful institution, too: “60 Minutes” is more powerful than almost all of the subjects it exposes. This newspaper, arguably, has more influence on national economic policy than do most corporations. Networks are owned by giant industrial corporations, magazines by entertainment conglomerates, and most newspapers by national chains. Given these realties, we cannot plausibly pretend to be a David out there smiting Goliaths and expect the public to believe it.

Click here to read Peter R. Kahn's original letter to the Wall Street Journal (links to OpinionJournal.com, the free online WSJ editorial page). The Pulitzer-prize winning journalist is the chairman of Dow Jones, which publishes the Journal.

Controversial FCC Commissioner McDowell Can't Make Ownership Hearing

Republican FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell won't be at the media ownership hearing in Nashville Monday.

His office released the following statement about a half hour before the hearing was slated to begin.

"I regret that I am unable to attend the Commission’s media ownership field hearing in Nashville.

"The debate over our broadcast ownership rules elicits the opinions and passions of people from all walks of life from all over the country. I value those viewpoints and look forward to hearing more from the perspectives of all interested parties."

I thank Commissioner [Deborah Taylor] Tate, her staff and the staff of the Media Bureau for all of their efforts to organize the hearing. I am sorry that I will miss the event, as the comments from the panelists and members of the public surely will make a great contribution to the Commission’s ownership inquiry."

McDowell has been expecting to go and had his plane ticket, but his media advisor made the trip while he stayed back, likely to continue to review the AT&T/Bell South case, which he has been cleared to vote on by the FCC's general counsel's office. He has not yet announced whether he will vote or not. (Blogger's Note: McDowell previously recused himself from voting on the huge telecommunications merger due to a conflict of interest.)

As late as Sunday night fellow commissioner Jonathan Adelstein was still expecting all the commissioners to be flying down together Monday morning, and the prepared testimony of at least one of the music industry witnessess included McDowell's name in his introduction.

Click here to the original article from John Eggerton at BroadcastingCable.com

Peter Travers selects the 25 best DVDs of 2006

Peter Travers - Rolling Stone magazine's long-time film critic - gives you the lowdown on the top movie releases just in time for the holiday season. From James Bond to Miami Vice to Superman Returns to When the Levee Broke to An Inconvenient Truth, Travers gives readers 5 pages of hot bonus features and killer scenes with his distinct, opinionated slant. Enjoy!
Click here to read the entire review, classic photos included

Immigrant parents learn how to teach children, prepare them for school

Lake Worth, Florida - Thousands of miles from her Mayan village in Guatemala, Angelina Francisco knew little Spanish and no English. When her younger children grew closer to the school age, she was unable to prepare them for first grade.

She sought help.

For the past three years, Francisco has been opening her Lake Worth home to Martha Gomez, an instructor with Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters, or HIPPY. Every week, Martha teaches Francisco how to be her children's first teacher and help her to improve her Spanish. In her 13 years in the United States, Francisco managed to survive speaking only her native Mayan dialect.

"I felt bad not being able to help my sons," Francisco said in broken Spanish.

Gomez is one of many HIPPY home visitors in Palm Beach and Broward counties tutoring parents on how to get involved in their children's pre-k education. The program, offered in Spanish and English, serves 659 parents with children 3 to 5 in Palm Beach County, said DeMarchia Gibson, director of the HIPPY program for the Center of Family Services in Lake Worth.

In Broward, 175 parents with 203 children participate in the program, said Penny Westberry, director of the Early Learning Coalition of Broward County, which helps fund HIPPY in that county. "Parents are their children's best teachers," she said.

Westberry said the program is a success. A recent survey showed 96 percent of the families enrolled in HIPPY in Broward demonstrated the ability to be their kids' first teacher.

Francisco hopes the program will give her children, Alejandro, 8, Juan, 6, and Diego, 4, a leg up in school and build confidence to continue studying as adults.

"I want them to become teachers or police officers," she said. "I don't want them to work in the fields."

She knows the hardship of working outdoors. When she came to Palm Beach County 10 years ago, she worked in nurseries. She quit when she became a mother. Her husband, Diego Pascual Francisco, is now the breadwinner. He does landscaping for a construction company, she said.

The couple agreed that she would stay home to help with their education.

The HIPPY material coaches children to think, listen, develop reading habits, follow directions and coordinate eye-and-hand movements.

"Kids' brains are a sponge at this early age," Gomez said.

The skills they learn transcend language, and children from Spanish-speaking homes easily apply the techniques to their English education, she said.

Gomez goes to the Franciscos' home once a week, carrying storybooks and activity packets, including scissors and crayons. Gomez explains the material to Angelina Francisco and helps her understand what skills she will teach Diego . Diego is in the only one of her three children still in the program.

Juan completed HIPPY last year and now attends first grade at South Grade Elementary School. Alejandro was too old for his mom to qualify for the HIPPY program when she enrolled in 2003.

Angelina Francisco attends Spanish classes at the Guatemalan-Maya Center in Lake Worth every morning. She needs to, she said, to be able to better understand the HIPPY storybooks and the homework she explains to Diego.

"Some days I think I can't learn enough to help them," she said. "But I go on. I don't give up."

Click here to read the original story from Paola Iuspa-Abbott from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com (includes a picture on the subject and a link to the newspaper's Children's fund)

Sixers looking to pull off Iverson trade by Tuesday

Allen Iverson's 11-year tenure in Philadelphia is on track to end as soon as Monday night.

A source close to Iverson has told ESPN.com that Sixers brass met Sunday to go over the various trade proposals that have come in over the past few days. One or two three-team trade proposals were expected to be explored Monday, and the source said the Sixers were inclined to pull the trigger shortly thereafter - either Monday night or Tuesday.

While the Sixers are apparently looking to pull the plug on the trade quickly, Iverson will be inactive for Monday's game against Portland.

The source indicated the Minnesota Timberwolves were not seriously in the running, and the attention being paid to Denver and Boston was being overblown.

Click here to read the entire article from Chris Sheridan of ESPN.com

Prince Tapped As Headliner At Super Bowl

Super Bowl is February 4th in Miami

MIAMI - Sports fans will get a little purple rain with their football because Prince has been tapped as the halftime headliner at the Super Bowl in Miami.

The big game takes place February fourth.

The Super Bowl is television's highest rated show each year. An estimated 141 million people watched last year's game between Pittsburgh and Seattle.

The NFL has been more cautious with its music picks since Janet Jackson's widely criticized "wardrobe malfunction" at halftime in 2004. Last year, Mick Jagger's microphone was silenced as he sang sexually suggestive lyrics in a couple of Rolling Stones songs.

Prince gained attention early his career with raunchy lyrics and racy performances, but has toned down his act somewhat in recent years.

Click here to see the original story from CBS4.com (video included)

Two More Cruises Return To Port With Sickened Passengers

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL - Two more cruise ships returned from their voyages Sunday, each with about 100 sickened passengers on-board.

The Sun Princess docked at Port Everglades on Sunday morning, and Princess Cruise Line confirmed that almost 100 people on-board have been suffering symptoms of the Norovirus.

The cruise line said steps to contain the virus were immediately implemented at the first sign of illness among passengers.

The ship was returning from a 10-day eastern Caribbean tour out of Fort Lauderdale.

The Freedom of the Seas also came back Sunday with 97 sick passengers experiencing symptoms of Norovirus.

Last week, Freedom also came back with 381 sick passengers.

At the recommendation of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Royal Caribbean International said it was delaying the ship's departure for two days to conduct "enhanced" cleaning before it leaves Tuesday on a modified five-night Caribbean cruise.

Click here to read the original article from NBC6.net

Politics this week: 2nd - 8th December 2006

A report on Iraq by a panel of foreign-policy experts headed by a former American secretary of state, James Baker, and a former congressman, Lee Hamilton, recommended that George Bush's administration should start reducing the number of American troops there—bar unforeseen circumstances—by the spring of 2008. Their primary mission should be to bolster and train the Iraqi army. See article

The report also called urgently for a Middle East regional summit, including Syria and Iran and addressing such thorny issues as Palestine. Mr Bush did not say whether he would heed the report's findings but said he would take them “very seriously”.

Robert Gates received the approval of the Senate to become America's new defence secretary. Eyebrows were raised at Mr Gates's stark assessment that America was not winning the war in Iraq, a contradiction to recent statements made by his boss.

Hundreds of humanitarian workers were evacuated from el-Fasher, capital of the Sudanese state of North Darfur, after clashes between government-backed janjaweed militias and rebels. The town is the hub of the government's counter-insurgency campaign in the area and a UN-aid base. See article

According to preliminary results, Madagascar's incumbent president, Marc Ravalomanana, a dairy tycoon, won a new five-year mandate in a presidential poll on December 3rd. See article

Joseph Kabila was sworn in as Congo's first freely elected president in more than 40 years. He defeated his rival, Jean-Pierre Bemba, in a run-off election last month.

A new reality sinks in

John Bolton resigned as America's ambassador to the United Nations. The diplomat, who has had a prickly relationship with the world body, was given the job by Mr Bush on a temporary basis and needed to be approved by the Senate, an unlikely proposition given that the Democrats, who will soon control the chamber, blocked his permanent appointment last year. See article

Nancy Pelosi, the incoming speaker in the House of Representatives, tried to smooth things over with some of her colleagues after she bypassed the two most senior Democratic congressmen on the intelligence committee to appoint Silvestre Reyes as its chairman. The two senior contenders had been backed by, respectively, the party's “Blue Dog” conservative coalition and the black caucus.

NASA, America's space agency, revealed that it intends to build a permanent manned base on the moon. Construction work is planned to start in 2020, once a new breed of rockets to deliver people and components there has been designed and tested.

Hurricane Hugo

Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's left-wing president, won a resounding victory in his country's presidential election. With nearly all votes counted, he had won 63% to 37% for Manuel Rosales, his social-democratic opponent. See article

General Augusto Pinochet, Chile's elderly former dictator, was rushed to hospital after a heart attack. Following surgery, he appeared to recover.

Felipe Calderón took office as Mexico's president, and announced cuts in his own and other public-sector salaries to finance an increase in spending on health care and fighting crime. See article

Canada's Liberal Party, the main opposition, chose Stéphane Dion, a former academic and cabinet minister from Quebec, as its leader in preference to Michael Ignatieff, a writer and journalist, and two other candidates. See article

All in a flap

The spat between Turkey and the European Union continued to reverberate around Europe. The leaders of France and Germany called for a further review in 15 months' time. A last-ditch offer by Turkey to open one port and one airport to (Greek) Cyprus seemed unlikely to succeed. See article

Finland, which currently holds the European Union presidency, is to become the 16th out of 25 members to ratify the draft EU constitutional treaty. The German presidency early next year promises to find some way of reviving the treaty, which was rejected by French and Dutch voters in the summer of 2005.

France launched its much-hyped international television news channel, France 24. The aim of the channel, which is government-financed, is to challenge Anglo-American channels such as CNN and BBC World. France 24 will broadcast in French and English; later an Arabic channel will be added.

British police went to Moscow to investigate the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. But they were told by Russian authorities that they could neither make arrests of, nor seek to extradite, any Russian nationals. Traces of polonium, the radioactive substance used to kill Mr Litvinenko, were found at the British Embassy in Moscow. See article

Brutal weather

Hundreds of people died in the Philippines as Typhoon Durian caused torrential mudslides from the slopes of Mayon volcano. The storm later went on to pound Vietnam's south coast. See article

A court in the Philippines capital Manila sentenced an American marine to up to 40 years in prison for raping a local woman last November. America and the Philippines squabbled over custody of the marine during his appeal. See article

Frank Bainimarama, commander of Fiji's armed forces, staged a coup against the government of Laisenia Qarase. Although the coup was widely condemned, John Howard, Australia's prime minister, ruled out military intervention. See article

The Labor Party, Australia's main opposition, voted out its leader, Kim Beazley, and replaced him with Kevin Rudd, the party's foreign-affairs spokesman. See article

As prospects for a revival of the peace process continue to worsen, Sri Lanka's government announced sweeping anti-terrorism measures. But it stopped short of banning the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Despite a 2002 “ceasefire”, more than 3,400 people have died in fighting this year.

The opposition in Bangladesh called off its latest strike and blockade, which yet again had brought the capital, Dhaka, to a standstill in protest at alleged efforts to rig the election due in January. See article

Click here to see The Economist's Politics this week in its original format (including riveting pictures and more features.)

Business this week: 2nd - 8th December 2006

PFIZER'S share price plunged after higher-than-expected mortality and side effects reported during a clinical trial led it to scrap a drug it had been developing since 1992. Torcetrapib boosted "good" cholesterol and had been touted by the company's head of research as the biggest advance in cardiovascular medicine in years just two days before he pulled the plug. The decision leaves Pfizer without anything in the highly lucrative cholesterol-drug market to replace Lipitor when its patent expires in 2010. - See article
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_ID=8381458

Two of America's most venerable financial institutions agreed to merge in a $16.5 billion deal. The combination of BANK OF NEW YORK, which Alexander Hamilton helped to set up in 1784 before he became America's first treasury secretary, and MELLON FINANCIAL, founded in Pittsburgh in 1869, creates the world's biggest firm in the business of safeguarding and administering securities, with $16.6 trillion in assets under custody. - See article
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_ID=8381969

The merger of NYSE GROUP, owner of the New York Stock Exchange, and EURONEXT, operator of several European stockmarkets, came a step closer when it was approved by regulators in Europe. The deal has faced opposition from those who claim it will lead to American financial regulations being imposed on Europe, which NYSE and Euronext addressed by creating a regulatory structure to assure the independence of the European exchanges. The decisive hurdle for the deal is a vote by Euronext's shareholders on December 19th.

UPS AND DOWNS

AIRBUS launched the delayed A350XWB (bad reviews led to a redesign). The jet will enter service in 2013 and is crucial to troubled Airbus in its competition with Boeing. However, Airbus's cheerier mood was dampened when Lufthansa, a reliable customer, decided not to add to its order of A380 super-jumbos and went with an updated version of Boeing's 747 instead. - See article
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_ID=8381539

The Italian government confirmed it would sell part of its 49.9% stake in ALITALIA. The size of the chunk it is selling, 30.1%, is bigger than had been indicated, but conditions were attached to the sale including job security at the airline.

NTL, a cable and telephone operator, abandoned its attempt to win control of ITV, Britain's biggest commercial broadcaster. NTL's plans were scuppered when BSkyB, a rival television company that is part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, took a 17.9% stake in ITV. NTL complained to regulators about what it says are the "serious competition and public interest issues" of BSkyB's stake.

GALLAHER confirmed it had received a preliminary takeover approach, speculated to be from JAPAN TOBACCO. The British tobacco firm, valued at some $15 billion, has expanded its business in Russia and is an attractive target for cigarette-makers wishing to peddle their wares outside America and Europe, where smoking is on the decline.

The HARD ROCK chain of restaurants and casinos was sold to a subsidiary of the SEMINOLE TRIBE OF FLORIDA, which pioneered the opening of casinos on Native American land, for $965m. Rank, the sellers of Hard Rock, want to concentrate on their gambling businesses in Britain.

A RECIPE FOR SUCCESS?

The chief executive of YAHOO! restructured its senior management and created a new unit that will focus entirely on advertising sales. Concern about the company's future revenue from advertising is one reason behind the 30% fall in its share price this year. The management shake-up was nicknamed "Project Souffle".

Meanwhile, a new venture was unveiled between Yahoo! and Reuters to use amateur images from events such as the Asian tsunami and London tube bombings in online news reports. Material uploaded to YOU WITNESS will still be seen by editors.

LSI LOGIC, a chipmaker that specialises in semiconductors for DVD recorders, data storage devices and personal music players, said it would buy AGERE SYSTEMS, an integrated-circuit components company, for $4 billion. The deal gives LSI a presence in the market for mobile-phone chips.

The fall in America's housing market hurt profit at TOLL BROTHERS, a builder of luxury homes, which reported that net income had dropped by 44% in the three months to October 31st compared with a year earlier. However, Toll Brothers' share price rose after its boss said the market was "dancing on the bottom or slightly above" and appeared to be stabilizing.

WHAT TO MAKE OF IT

New orders for MANUFACTURED GOODS at America's factories dropped by 4.7% in October compared with the previous month, the biggest fall since July 2000. Orders for durable goods fell by 8.2%.

Click here to read The Economist's Business this week in its original format (including graphs and other extras.)

Still Not the News: Stations Overwhelmingly Fail to Disclose Video News Releases

Video news releases (VNRs) are pre-packaged broadcast segments designed to look like television news stories, that are funded by and scripted for corporate or government clients. (See "Fake TV News: Introduction.") On April 6, 2006, the Center for Media and Democracy released a comprehensive report detailing TV newsrooms' use of VNRs. The report, "Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed," named 77 TV stations that aired at least one of 36 VNRs tracked over a ten-month period. Not once were the clients behind the segments—such as Pfizer, Intel and General Motors—disclosed to news audiences.

The response to CMD's report was significant. In August 2006, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) launched an investigation of the 77 stations named. According to the FCC's April 2005 Public Notice, TV stations airing VNRs "must clearly disclose to members of their audiences the nature, source and sponsorship of the material."

CMD continued to track VNRs following the release of the "Fake TV News" report. Knowing that previous public scrutiny had resulted in little change in the production or use of VNRs (see "The Professional Opposition" section of "Fake TV News: Recommendations"), CMD sought to determine whether the broadcast PR firms that create VNRs and/or the TV newsrooms that air them were changing their practices. The results are especially interesting, in light of a coordinated industry attack on CMD's initial report and allegations that the report and resulting FCC investigation have had "a chilling effect" on TV newsrooms. (See "Frequently Asked Questions.")

Report highlights include:

* WTOK-11 in Meridian, MS, aired without disclosure a VNR titled, "Global Warming: Hot Air?" The segment ridiculed claims that increased hurricane activity is related to global warming. The VNR was funded by TCS Daily, a website then published by the PR and lobbying firm DCI Group, which counts ExxonMobil among its clients.
* In 12 instances, television stations actively denied disclosure to their news audiences by editing out on-screen and verbal client notifications included in the original VNRs. WMGM-40 in Philadelphia aired a full-length VNR after making just one edit—to remove the on-screen disclosure. A WMGM-40 reporter re-voiced the VNR, following the original script nearly verbatim, but omitting the verbal disclosure at the end of the script.
* In four instances, television stations not only aired VNRs without disclosure, but showed PR publicists on screen, as though they were staff reporters. KHON-2 (Honolulu, HI) and KFMB-8 (San Diego, CA) allowed publicist Mike Morris to "report" on Halloween traditions (and promote his client, General Mills), while KVCT-19 (Victoria, TX) and KSFY-13 (Sioux Falls, SD) showed publicist Kate Brookes "reporting" on medical advancements (specifically, machinery produced by her client, Siemens).
* Ten television stations named in this study had previously been cited in the April 2006 "Fake TV News" report for undisclosed VNR broadcasts, including such major market stations as New York City's NY1 and WPIX-11, WDAF-4 in Kansas City, MO, and WSYX-6 in Columbus, OH. Only two of the 10 stations previously cited—Philadelphia's KYW-3 and Cincinnati's WCPO-9—provided disclosure of their more recent VNR broadcasts.

Summary

The Center for Media and Democracy's follow-up research indicates that viewers are still routinely deceived by fake TV news. From April through October 2006, CMD documented 46 stations in 22 states airing at least one of 33 different video news releases. (See "Methodology.") The total number of VNRs tracked for this study—109—represents just two percent of the estimated 5,000 VNRs offered to U.S. television newsrooms over a six-month period.

Eighty-nine percent of the VNR broadcasts documented—48 of the 54 examples in this report—included no disclosure whatsoever of the nature or source of the sponsored video. The six remaining VNR broadcasts exhibited different approaches to disclosure. However, none approached the level recommended by CMD: continuous on-screen notification of the client that funded the VNR. (See "Fake TV News: Recommendations.")

The strongest level of disclosure observed in this report was provided by KSFY-13 in Sioux Falls, SD, though it can hardly be attributed to the station's initiative. KSFY-13 aired a complete and uncut VNR from the broadcast PR firm D S Simon Productions, complete with narration by publicist Sonia Martin. At the end of both the VNR and the KSFY-13 segment, the words "Video provided by American College of Physicians, publisher of Annals of Internal Medicine" briefly flashed on the screen and Martin signed off, "On behalf of the American College of Physicians, I'm Sonia Martin."

This built-in client notification appears to be a new practice at D S Simon, likely in reaction to CMD's "Fake TV News" report. While a step in the right direction, most stations airing D S Simon VNRs deleted the notifications from their newscast, thus actively denying disclosure to their news audiences. CMD documented 15 newscasts that included footage from D S Simon VNRs with built-in client identification; 12 of the 15 failed to provide any disclosure to audiences. It's hard to imagine how this could be due to simple human error, as many stations claimed following the release of the "Fake TV News" report.

Questionable approaches to disclosure seen include fleeting and/or ambiguous on-screen labels. Such marginal attempts, coupled with the variety of approaches used, suggest that the FCC needs to clarify what constitutes the requisite "clear" disclosure of a VNR's "nature, source and sponsorship," as stated in the agency's April 2005 Public Notice. The FCC should also work, in concert with TV stations and broadcast PR firms, to ensure that minimum standard is met in practice.

There were more subtle changes in TV newsrooms' use of VNRs, compared to what CMD documented in April's "Fake TV News" report. Stations cited here were more likely to edit VNRs, as opposed to running them in their entirety. Eighty-five percent of VNR broadcasts contained edited footage, versus 64 percent in the earlier report. Stations cited here were also more likely to have local staff re-voice the publicist's original VNR narration. Eighty-five percent of VNR broadcasts had been re-voiced, versus 61 percent in the earlier report. Lastly, stations cited here were more likely to supplement the VNR material with other video. Twenty-two percent of segments included outside video, versus 13 percent in the earlier report. However, in one case, the additional video appears to have come from other VNRs. Other segments included what looks like promotional video or generic background footage.

In sum, television newscasts—the most popular news source in the United States—continue to air VNRs. Overwhelmingly, stations fail to offer any disclosure of the nature or source of the sponsored video. When TV stations do make some attempt at disclosure, it is fleeting and often ambiguous. Broadcast PR firms and TV stations appear to have done little to constructively address the serious problems documented in the "Fake TV News" report, even following the August 2006 launch of the ongoing FCC investigation into undisclosed VNRs.

Click here to see a follow-up multimedia report on television newsrooms' continuing use of fake news provided by PR firms (includes more links to subjects of interest.)