News Releases

  • Death Penalty

    Gary Graham is scheduled to be executed at 7 P.M. Eastern Time. The following analysts and critics of the death penalty are available for interviews: WILLIAM HARRELL Executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, Harrell said today: “We are outraged by the board’s failure to halt this execution. The judicial system has failed us, the Board of Pardons and Paroles has failed us and the governor has failed us. This is the greatest proof that the time for a moratorium on executions in Texas is now.” The president of the board of the ACLU of Texas, Greg…


  • “Prosperity and Progress”?

    Inequalities, Health-Care Coverage, Estate Tax CHARLES ANDREWS The author of the forthcoming From Capitalism to Equality, Andrews said today: “Before we celebrate the economy’s alleged prosperity and progress, we should tally the exhaustion it is causing. The average husband-and-wife family works six hours today for every five hours worked in 1979. The percentage of employees who work 49 hours a week or more rose from 13 percent in 1976 to 20 percent today. If there is a bit of prosperity today in our role as consumers, the deeper truth is that today’s economy consumes people’s lives.” SARA NICHOLS National spokesperson…


  • Interviews Available: Father’s Day

    WILL GLENNON Glennon is author of Fathering: Strengthening Connection with Your Children No Matter Where They Are, for which he interviewed 180 fathers, aged 15 to 87, almost all of whom cried during their interviews. He said today: “Fathers need to get deeply engaged in the upbringing of their children. Fathers don’t want to be isolated, children don’t want them to be disconnected and mothers don’t want them to be absent — physically or emotionally. But we have patterns of how we raise our children which keep fathers distant, cost them emotionally, cause pain in their relationships, making boys more…


  • Arafat’s Visit to U.S.

    The following analysts are available for interviews about the U.S. visit by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat scheduled to begin on Wednesday: NASEER ARURI Professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, former board member of Amnesty International and author of The Obstruction of Peace: The U.S., Israel, and the Palestinians, Aruri said today: “The approach of Syria’s Hafez Assad toward Israel was based on equality, land for peace, an international framework, and normalization with Israel after it fully withdraws from occupied territory. By contrast, Arafat’s approach — despite lip service to the contrary — is open-ended. It would…


  • Study Finds Conservative Think Tanks Predominant

    Brookings Leads; Left-of-Center Think Tanks Decrease WASHINGTON — A study released today found that conservative think tanks and the centrist Brookings Institution dominated much of the national media debate last year. Of the 25 leading think tanks studied, Brookings had the most citations (2,883), twice as many media mentions as the next-ranked conservative/libertarian Cato Institute (1,428 cites). The conservative Heritage Foundation, which had rivaled Brookings in prominence a few years ago, has fallen to third place (1,419 cites), while the conservative American Enterprise Institute (1,263 cites) is the fourth most cited think tank in the U.S. media. These four think…


  • Analysts Available on Microsoft Decision

    The following analysts are available to comment on the Microsoft decision: NORMAN HAWKER Hawker is a law professor at Western Michigan University specializing in antitrust issues. JUDY SLOAN Sloan is a professor at Southwestern University Law School in Los Angeles. ROBERT LANDE Lande is senior research scholar at the American Antitrust Institute and professor of law at the University of Baltimore. More Information For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167 More Information More Information


  • Interviews Available on Germany and Russia

    MARTIN A. LEE Author of The Beast Reawakens, a book on neofascism, Lee said today: “President Clinton’s visit to Germany comes at a time when that country is mired in a major political scandal, involving secret slush funds and illegal influence-peddling by big business. The scandal has resulted in the fall from grace of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl and several other leaders of the Christian Democratic Union, now the main opposition party in Germany. Thus far, U.S. officials have yet to acknowledge the role that the U.S. government played in setting the stage for this scandal. For years, Washington turned…


  • Interviews on “Missile Defense”

    WILLIAM HARTUNG Senior research fellow at the World Policy Institute and co-author of the recent report “Tangled Web: The Marketing of Missile Defense, 1994-2000,” Hartung said today: “In its ongoing effort to ‘triangulate’ by co-opting Republican issues, the Clinton administration has met right-wing missile defense boosters more than half way. Meanwhile, Republicans have stepped up their calls for an elaborate, multi-tiered system akin to Ronald Reagan’s ill-fated Star Wars scheme. The nation’s four major missile contractors — Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and TRW — are looking to missile defense to revive them from mismanagement and technical problems that have slashed…


  • United – U.S. Airways

    United Airlines said today it intends to buy U.S. Airways. The following analysts are available for interviews: PAUL HUDSON Executive director of the Aviation Consumer Action Project, Hudson said today: “If this merger is approved without major divesting of routes and other restrictions, the ‘Big Six’ will quickly become the ‘Big Three’ and U.S. airline passengers will be the major losers. No airline should control more than 25 percent to 30 percent of the nation’s airline seats or over 40 percent of seats in a particular region. This merger would give United dominant control of most routes in the Northeast…


  • Interviews Available on International Issues

    SIMONA SHARONI Author of Gender and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Sharoni is currently a professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She said today: “If there is any relationship between the recent mini-intifada and the negotiations, it is that the two issues that have been central to the protests — the Palestinian refugees and the release of political prisoners — have not been seriously addressed. Those who are familiar with the Oslo Accords, its supplements and its rocky implementation should not be surprised that Palestinians have once again taken to the streets…. If Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon is designed to…


  • *Cipro Patenting * Civil Liberties

    ASIA RUSSELL Russell is a member of the Health GAP Coalition. She said today: “With the Cipro deal, Secretary Thompson did not want to set a precedent that could be used against the U.S. administration at the upcoming WTO meeting, where the issue of affordable AIDS drugs and patent rights in poor countries will be…

  • * Bio-Warfare * “Blowback” * Nukes

    SUSAN WRIGHT Co-author of Preventing a Biological Arms Race and of the forthcoming book The Biological Warfare Problem: A Reappraisal for the 21st Century, Wright said today:”As the U.S. faces the threat of biological warfare at home, calls for strengthening defenses against biological warfare are certainly justified. But there is a deep contradiction in the…

  • Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

    With Israeli tanks back in Palestinian population centers and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in Washington, the following analysts are available for interviews: MITRI RAHEB Raheb is pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem and author of I Am a Palestinian Christian. More Information SIMONA SHARONI Sharoni is professor of peace and conflict…

  • Global Analysts Available

    JEFFREY WINTERS Associate professor of political economy at Northwestern University, author of Power in Motion: Capital Mobility and the Indonesian State and co-author of the forthcoming Reinventing the World Bank, Winters said today: “Hardly anything has been accomplished at past Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meetings and very little economics will be discussed at this…

  • Food to Afghanistan: Analysts Available

    ROGER NORMAND Executive director of the Center for Economic and Social Rights, Normand said today: “Millions in Afghanistan need immediate food aid in order to survive the harsh winter that begins in one month. Today is World Food Day; we call on all parties to allow humanitarian operations to resume.” More Information JIM JENNINGS President…

  • Pakistan and India: Into the Nuclear Fire?

    As Colin Powell visits Pakistan and India, the following analysts are available for interviews: ZIA MIAN Mian is co-editor of the book Out of the Nuclear Shadow and a researcher on South Asian security issues with the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He…

  • Critical Perspectives on the Current Crisis

    SAM BARRATT Barratt is the spokesperson for Oxfam International in Islamabad. He said today: “So much more needs to be done to prevent mass starvation in Afghanistan this winter. Prior to the crisis, the World Food Program, with the help of Oxfam and other groups, was feeding 3.7 million people. That has stopped. The airdrops…

  • First Amendment in Jeopardy?

    MARK CRISPIN MILLER Professor of media studies at New York University, Miller is author of Boxed In: The Culture of TV and author of the forthcoming Spectacle: Operation Desert Storm and the Triumph of Illusion. He said today: “It’s all too easy to use the need for operational security as an excuse to abridge our…

  • Civil Liberties at Home: “Enduring Freedom”?

    CHRISTOPHER SIMPSON Professor of Communications at American University and author of the books Blowback, Science of Coercion and National Security Directives of the Reagan and Bush Administrations, Simpson said today: “The administration’s scapegoating of the U.S. Congress for supposedly leaking information is a good example of how extreme the administration’ secrecy policies are. The allegedly…

  • As Bombing Proceeds: Now What?

    JIM JENNINGS President of Conscience International, a humanitarian aid organization, Jennings was in Afghani refugee camps in Pakistan this May. He has been involved in humanitarian work for the past 20 years around the world. Jennings said today: “The conditions of the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan earlier this year were the worst I have…

Mastodon