Dear friends,

Yesterday, Federal Communications Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein gave a rousing speech about the "most pernicious symptoms" of "increasing commercialization of American media." In particular, he singled out product placement and corporate shills in "news" programming. "The use of covert commercial pitches is penetrating deeper and deeper into our media," Adelstein said.

In his speech, Adelstein endorsed Commercial Alert's call for disclosure of covert commercial propaganda on television. He said: "In fall 2003, a group called Commercial Alert asked us to take a number of different actions regarding product placement, and its filing, and the recent press reports I mentioned, clearly indicate that the time has come for us to step up our enforcement in this area."

Hooray!

Now we need your help more than ever. To win at the FCC, we must have the support of three of the four commissioners to stop covert commercial propaganda on TV.

Commissioner Adelstein has taken a public stand for our side. "I am going to make it my priority to wipe out these unlawful practices," he said.

But we still have to convince two more FCC commissioners that there is overwhelming support for requiring disclosure of covert commercial propaganda on TV. Of course, our nation's broadcast and advertising industries will likely lobby as hard as they can to stop Adelstein.

So, tell all four FCC commissioners today that you want TV stations to make "clear and prominent" disclosure of all covert commercial propaganda, including product placement and corporate shills. Click here:

http://www.demaction.org/dia/organizations/commercialalert/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=775

You can read more about covert commercial propaganda on our product placement web page, at:

http://www.commercialalert.org/index.php/category_id/1/subcategory_id/79/article_id/191

Today's Los Angeles Times article about Commissioner Adelstein's speech is here:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-payola26may26,0,3905720.story?coll=la-home-business

-- Gary Ruskin, Commercial Alert

Commercial Alert is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to keep the commercial culture within its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting the higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and democracy. For more information, go to http://www.commercialalert.org.