EPA invests in its Web site

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Of possible interest.
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NYTimes 7/18:

WASHINGTON, July 17 - The Office of Research and Development at the 
Environmental Protection Agency is seeking outside public relations 
consultants, to be paid up to $5 million over five years, to polish its 
Web site, organize focus groups on how to buff the office's image and 
ghostwrite articles "for publication in scholarly journals and magazines."

The strategy, laid out in a May 26 exploratory proposal notice and further 
defined in two recently awarded public relations contracts totaling 
$150,000, includes writing and placing "good stories" about the E.P.A.'s 
research office in consumer and trade publications.

. . .

The more extensive and expensive plan seeks help from public relations 
agencies to, among other things, "provide research, writing and editing of 
Office of Research and Development articles for publications in scholarly 
journals and magazines."

Donald Kennedy, the editor of Science magazine and a former head of the 
Food and Drug Administration, said in a telephone interview on Saturday 
that he found the idea of public relations firms ghostwriting for 
government scientists "appalling."

"If we knew that it had been written by someone who was not a scientist 
and submitted as though it were the work of a scientist, we wouldn't take 
it," Mr. Kennedy said. "But it's conceivable that we wouldn't know, if it 
was carefully constructed."

copyright 2005 The New York Times