For millions of Internet users, the collaborative online encyclopedia Wikipedia serves as a trusted information resource, its articles covering more topics than most can imagine -- almost 2.2 million entries in English alone. Wikipedia's own readers, their expertise and their dynamic scrutiny help maintain the site's accuracy, as well as the neutrality vital to its reputation.

At least, that is how Wikipedia is supposed to operate.

In December 2007 the giant wisdom-of-the-commons encyclopedia was the Web's 8th-most visited site, according to Alexa data. Type just about any proper noun into a major search engine and a Wikipedia entry about it will probably pop up in the first page of results.

But despite all the eyeballs scanning it, and the efforts of a large volunteer work force, Wikipedia has become something of a battleground for the truth, or, at least, a kind of operating history. Beyond Wiki-debates churning daily about obviously controversial topics such as abortion or gun control, or the biographies of U.S. presidential candidates, Wikipedia's articles are becoming targets for anyone with a stake in making sure history unfolds according to proper talking points.

The earliest documented example of a "front group" was the the work of Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud who is widely considered the "father of public relations." Bernays began working as a press agent for theatres, hotels and other businesses in 1913. At the time, he was editor of the Medical Review of Reviews, a monthly magazine owned by a college acquaintance. He discovered that the then-famous actor Richard Bennett was interested in producing a play titled "Damaged Goods," which Bernays described as "a propaganda play that fought for sex education." It discussed sexual topics, such as prostitution, that were considered unusually frank for their day. Bennett was afraid that the play would be raided by police, and he hired Bernays to prevent this from happening. Rather than arguing for the play on its merits, Bernays cleverly organized a group that he called the "Medical Review of Reviews Sociological Fund," inviting prominent doctors and members of the social elite to join. The organization's avowed mission was to fight venereal disease through education. Its real purpose was to make "Damaged Goods" acceptable to the public, and apparently the plan worked. The show went on as scheduled, with no interference from police.

"This was a pioneering move that is common today in the promotion of public causes -- a prestigious sponsoring committee," notes PR industry historian Scott Cutlip. "In retrospect, given the history of public relations, it might be termed the first effort to use the front or third party technique." It was a technique that Bernays would return to time and again, calling it "the most useful method in a multiple society like ours to indicate the support of an idea of the many varied elements that make up our society. Opinion leaders and group leaders have an effect in a democracy and stand as symbols to their constituency."

In Acme Township, Michigan, the Meijer retail giant "secretly funded a plan to orchestrate last February's recall of Acme Township's elected officials, a potential violation of state campaign finance laws," reports Brian McGillivary. "Meijer paid a public relations firm at least $30,000 in a failed effort to remove Acme's board after years of zoning disputes over Meijer's plans to build a store along M-72 in Grand Traverse County. Meijer's public relations firm crafted recall language, devised election strategy, wrote campaign literature, and used local residents as figureheads in the recall." The PR firm, Seyferth, Spaulding, Tennyson Inc. of Grand Rapids, directed the campaign using front groups including Acme Taxpayers for Responsible Government and the Acme Recall Committee. "It gives me a chill, how much money they can spend to ruin other people," said Acme Clerk Dorothy Dunville, one of the public officials targeted by the company's recall campaign. T. Michael Jackson, a retired public relations professional, has filed a complaint with the Public Relations Society of America, charging that Seyferth, Spaulding, Tennyson violated the Society's code of ethics.

From the musical "Walmartopia"In 2005, the Edelman PR firm created the front group Working Families for Wal-Mart on behalf of their client, the retail giant. With Wal-Mart funding, Edelman ran the faux citizens' group to counter union critics like WakeUpWalMart.com, founded by the United Food and Commercial Workers and Wal-Mart Watch, founded by the Service Employees International Union. Edelman has been removed from the project due to Wal-Mart's decision to bring the front group in-house. Wal-Mart spokesperson David Tovar said the plan is to "retool the group and its website as a platform for employees and consumers to speak out in favor of the world's largest retailer, rather than the outside supporters it has featured so far. 'We believe the best way to tell our story is to bring Working Families for Wal-Mart 'in-house' and operate it as an internal program. We're at a point where we no longer need a separate entity.'" It doesn't appear that Wal-Mart has any qualms about publicizing the change in direct management of the Working Families organization. A visit to the group's website, www.forwalmart.com, produces this message: "Please check back soon for a new site brought to you by Wal-Mart. For now, please visit Wal-Mart Facts." Wal-Mart Facts is a site that has the heading "Get the facts and latest news about Wal-Mart from Wal-Mart."

Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, a front group for the coal industry, is "sending 30 Santas to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to deliver stockings filled with coal-shaped chocolate," reports The Hill. "The goal of the campaign is to shift coal's image as a key contributor to global warming to a relatively cheap and increasingly clean provider of electricity." David Roberts predicts that "This is only the beginning of what promises to be an enormous PR campaign by an industry that sees the writing on the wall. In public, it will be smiles and Santas. Behind the scenes, it will be slime campaigns against candidates who dare propose a shift to renewable energy."

The November 6, 2007 election brought a stinging defeat to Oregon's cigarette tax increase. The proposal aimed to raise the state's cigarette tax by 84.5 cents a pack to pay for health insurance for about 100,000 additional poor Oregon children who currently have no coverage. Measure 50, as the tax was called, went down by a wide 60-40% margin.

Increasing cigarette taxes to fund health care is not a new idea, and tobacco industry efforts to defeat such measures aren't new either. What was new in this case was that tobacco interests poured a record $12 million into defeating Oregon's measure, making it the costliest election in Oregon's history. So stunning was the industry's effort that Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski openly accused the tobacco industry of "buying the election" in his state.

Old Dog, No New Tricks

The tobacco companies trotted out their most formulaic and time-tested strategies to defeat Oregon's tax measure: They created front groups with grassrootsy-sounding names designed to push voters' emotional buttons. R.J. Reynolds formed Oregonians Against the Blank Check, and hired their longtime Oregon lobbying ally Mark W. Nelson to head the group. Philip Morris formed "Stop the Measure 50 Tax Hike," and funded it with money from their parent company, Altria Corporate Services. The companies then determined which populist-sounding messages pushed voters' buttons the hardest while omitting any mention of the subject of health. They then purchased vast quantities of advertising to push these messages relentlessly onto Oregon voters.

Several years ago, there were a number of health Web site seal-of-approval efforts underway -- Hi-Ethics, a group of 18 health sites, which was supposed to create a seal with Truste, the privacy organization; the Internet Healthcare Coalition, whose domain address is now for sale; and of course, the HON Code, still around, for better or worse. These days a number of health sites display logos from the "World Wide Web Health Awards," as if they constitute a quality seal -- in fact, on the WWW Health Awards home page, they market themselves as "providing a 'seal of quality' for electronic health information.' " We wanted to know more about these awards, since they give out dozens, twice a year. According to their Web site, they're administered by the Health Information Resource Center, which doesn't turn up much on a Google search.

Looking deeper among the various sites attached to the World Wide Web Health Awards pages we find HealthPrograms.com, most of which is "under construction" or broken links. There are logos appearing on the right hand side of that page for the "Consumer Health Publishers Association" and the "Online Health Association," both of which also appear to be largely under construction. Ultimately, the path leads to the American Custom Publishing Corporation of Libertyville, Illinois. We called the number on their home page and, indeed, the WWW Health Awards are run from there. What does American Custom Publishing do for a living? Well, they print brochures for the pharmaceutical industry and others. Their client list includes Liberty Medical, Pfizer, CVS, General Electric, Humana, "and hundreds more!" according to the site. The WWW Health Awards site is not exactly transparent about all this, but it wasn't all that hard to trace, and the nice person who answered the phone at American Custom Publishing was helpful.

The way the World Wide Web Health Awards appear set up, it's not a bad business -- $52 per entry, though we don't know how much of that goes toward the chicken entree at the awards banquet. Looks like just about anyone can become a volunteer judge, based on the online form. We couldn't find a list of judges anywhere on the site, so it's tough to speculate who's making the awards decisions. There are certainly some well-known names among the current crop of winners, though -- A.D.A.M., a good-quality content provider; our old friends at Johnson & Johnson, uh, Babycenter.com; Rozerem; Blue Cross/Blue Shield. And there are a whole host of non-profits there, too, doing really good things with great programs.

But we ask: How valuable are awards handed out by a company that prints brochures for the pharmaceutical industry? Are consumers fooled by awards logos into thinking that, for instance, a Web site produced by Takeda Pharmaceuticals to sell its Rozerem sleep drug -- a gold medal WWW Health Award winner in the, yes, patient education information category -- is an unbiased source of information? Why give an award to a drug company as a recognition of excellence in patient education? Isn't that like giving some sort of public service award to Sepracor for its pretty-blue-butterfly Lunesta commercials on TV?

From a Center for Union Facts TV adCorporate-funded attack dog Rick Berman, who has previously attacked Mothers Against Drunk Driving, tobacco control advocates and critics of fast food, is on the warpath against teachers' unions. In a speech at the Conservative Leadership Conference in Sparks, Nevada, Berman said "everybody should be afraid" of unions and warned that the Employee Free Choice Act, currently being considered in Congress, could lead to explosive growth in union membership and "change politics in this country forever." Teachers' unions in particular need to be attacked, he said, because people normally tend to like and trust teachers. "We have to reposition these people in the minds of the public," Berman said. "If you don't, you will always be fighting Mother Teresa. ... We have to marginalize their unwarranted credibility." A Berman front group, the Center for Union Facts, has been running TV ads featuring actors posing as unhappy union workers, and print ads comparing union leaders to Fidel Castro and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il.

It's no secret that polls are used to shape public opinion at least as much as they're used to measure it. The website of one major U.S. polling firm, the Mellman Group, boasts its "extensive experience developing effective communications strategies that lead people to choose our client's product or service, join their organization, hold their opinion, or vote as we would like."

Polling was used as a perception management tactic in the national debate over the children's health insurance program known as SCHIP. As President Bush prepared to veto an SCHIP reauthorization bill, Republican strategists worried about the impact on their party. Republican pollster David Winston came up with a solution: present the party's opposition as an attempt to "'put poor kids first' rather than expand coverage to adults, illegal immigrants and those already with insurance," reported the Wall Street Journal. "Independents favored that message 47%-38%." The veto went ahead, with the "poor kids first" theme figuring prominently in Republican talking points and briefing materials, such as the White House's "Five Key Myths About President Bush's Support for SCHIP Reauthorization."

Polls are also frequently employed as part of a "bandwagon" strategy: most people support (or oppose) this, so you should support (or oppose) this, too. Last year, a poll purported to show strong opposition to "net neutrality," the principle that networks should provide access to any data, without discrimination. But the poll questions were highly leading, asking participants whether they preferred "new TV and video choice" and "lower prices for cable TV," or "barring high speed internet providers from offering specialized services." The poll was funded by Verizon Communications, which opposes net neutrality.

Another telecom-related poll was unveiled last month at a press conference in Madison, Wisconsin. According to a press release (PDF) put out by the newly-formed Wisconsin Video Choice Coalition, "Wisconsin residents across demographic, geographic and party lines overwhelmingly support a state bill that would encourage competition to cable TV."

By all accounts, the legislation in question is controversial. Why, then, did the poll find such strong support for it?

The Hygiene Council, a "think tank" created and funded by the cleaning products company Reckitt Benckiser, touts the need for "good hygiene practice" in the "home and community." Ruth Pollard reports that the council "is pushing products that contain the expensive -- and potentially damaging -- antibacterial additive, triclosan." Aside from promoting commonsense measures to prevent infections such as the washing of hands and appropriate preparation and refrigeration of foods, the council is enthusiastic about the chemical treatment of household surfaces. "Commonly touched surfaces should be regularly disinfected with products such as LYSOL Disinfectant Spray," the council states on its website. Peter Collignon, the director of infectious diseases at Canberra Hospital, believes that promoting the use of products containing triclosan was "a marketing exercise with no real benefit" that would "do nothing to stop multi-resistant bacteria in hospitals. If anything it may actually contribute to it." Triclosan products are used in hospitals as a disinfectant, particularly against staphlycoccus.