Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
5W Public Relations, a New York-based firm hired last month by Agriprocessors, has told PR Week that a comment left on the Iowa-based blog Essential Estrogen was not fraudulent, but done at the bequest of Uri L’Tzedek, an Orthodox Jewish social group to which it was attributed. It’s a charge that the group organizers deny.
“[Co-director Ari Hart] and I had never been in touch with [5W PR CEO Ronn] Torossian until [July 18], and we had certainly never been a client of theirs, nor have we ever instructed them to do anything, nor would we have wanted that,†said Shmuly Yanklowitz, Uri L’Tzedek co-director. “We were boycotting the Agriprocessors company, and they are the PR firm for them.â€
Torossian said that the Uri L’Tzekek press release was given to his organization “in advance of public release” and that his firm was “tasked with its distribution.” Torossian, while not indicating that the press release came to them from Agriprocessors, does state that the press release “does not offer any additional or alternate messages than the one that Uri L’Tzedek issued to our client and to the public.” Torossian does not name the person that authorized the distribution of the press release.
The comment left on Essential Estrogen, which is authored by Iowa Independent fellow Lynda Waddington, differs from those left on FailedMessiah.com. The comment on Essential Estrogen, while believed to have originated from the home computer of 5W Senior Vice President Juda Engelmayer, provides, as Torossian is quick to point out, the text of a publicly distributed press release from Uri L’Tzedek. In contrast, the posts left at FailedMessiah.com impersonate others and put words in their mouths.
The comment appeared on Essential Estrogen nearly 10 hours after a post had already been published in relation to the press release. The comment in question did not appear in relation to that information, but instead was made in reference to a post that detailed the recent indictment of two Agriprocessors plant supervisors.
According to information in the PR Week article, both Heksher Tzedek (Rabbi Morris Allen) and Uri L’Tzedek are now considering legal action against 5W.
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