Nuclear Energy Institute coaster"If we are going to seriously address our energy needs as well as our concerns about global climate change, one source stands out -- nuclear," writes Christine Todd Whitman in the San Francisco Chronicle. It's one of two recent op/eds by the former EPA administrator (the other was in BusinessWeek) that fail to disclose that Whitman is a paid consultant for the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). Patrick Moore, Whitman's co-chair of the NEI-funded "Clean and Safe Energy Coalition," has also been busy, promoting nuclear power in Michigan. "Nuclear energy is the key," Moore told a Grand Rapids audience. Meanwhile, in Britain, environmental groups have dismissed a public consultation on nuclear power as a "public relations stitch-up" by the pro-nuclear government. This is the second consultation on the issue; Greenpeace won a legal challenge against the first. Liberal Democrat Sir Menzies Campbell accused the UK government of "making up its mind on nuclear power long before this latest consultation had even begun," reports the BBC.

Last week we started a new participatory project to expose the government agencies, corporations and lobbying groups that have been censoring, whitewashing or otherwise spinning Wikipedia. (See CMD Senior Researcher Diane Farsetta's great blog post for some background on this sordid tale.) So far we've logged several attempts at spin into the respective SourceWatch profiles, including:

• Chevron deleting the article on "Biodiesel";
• Military contractor Raytheon deleting information on them spying on their competitors and the U.S. Air Force;
• Republican-friendly broadcaster Clear Channel adding allegations of plagiarism to Democratic Senate Candidate Al Franken's profile;
• PR firm Hill & Knowlton removing descriptions of the political repression by the government of the Maldives, an H&K client;
• Amway parent company Alticor removing descriptions of the company's use of "Google bombing" to drive down the search engine rankings of Web sites critical of the company;
• Electronic voting machine company Diebold removing descriptions of the controversies surrounding their machines' failures and glitches;
• Conservative news network Fox News changing Keith Olbermann's profile (and not in a good way - see Olbermann's reaction on this video);

The information here is obviously very important and, thanks to SourceWatch's high rankings in Google searches, easily accessible to citizens, journalists and policymakers checking out the record of these politically active and high social-impact organizations. There are many dastardly edits left, however, and we need your help to make sure they aren't lost to history. There's no need for technical expertise, just head over to the SourceWatch page for the project, where there are complete instructions, examples and an email hotline for support. If this is your first time editing on SourceWatch, you can register here, and learn more about adding information to the site here and here.

The Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA) has dismissed an ethics complaint that a front group authorized by the Chief Executive of Corporate Communications Tasmania, Tony Harrison, breached the PR industry's self-regulatory code of ethics. In the March 2006 Tasmanian state election, Harrison authorised a major advertising campaign for Tasmanians for a Better Future but refused to disclose who was funding it. Australian Greens Senator, Christine Milne, argued that in her opinion Harrison breached the code of ethics provision which states that "members shall be prepared to identify the source of funding of any public communication they initiate or for which they act as a conduit". In a speech to the Australian Senate late last week Milne said that all she got from the PRIA "was a two-line reply" dismissing her complaint. Corporate Communications Tasmania is the largest PR company in Tasmania and an affiliate of Porter Novelli.

The R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company has contributed $10,000 to an Arizona group, the Non-Smoker Protection Committee. The group is proposing a ballot initiative in favour of The Arizona Non-Smoker Protection Act which it claims would create "a balanced, reasonable, consistent, statewide non-smoking law, protecting minors and preserving private property rights." In fact, the initiative would overturn existing smoking bans in cities such as Tempe and would prevent other cities from instituting them. Dr. Leland Fairbanks, a retired doctor, told Associated Press that the name of the tobacco-friendly proposal has fooled some people into signing the petition supporting the initiative being placed on the ballot."There's a lot of deception going on," Fairbanks said. "Many people think they're signing the health one, but they're signing the R.J. Reynolds one. They're mad, and they should be." Tobacco control groups are proposing an alternative initiative, the Smoke-Free Arizona Act.