I can’t decide whether this is a frivolous lawsuit or a legitimate claim. Maybe you can help me.

A Los Angeles woman, Brenda Lifsey, is suing Kraft because its Kraft Dips Guacamole contains less than 2% avocado, which would normally be the bulk of a guacamole recipe. After making a three-layer dip last year that didn’t taste “avocado-y”, Lifsey read the list of ingredients, which show more oil than avocado. Her lawyer warns that other “fake guacamole” makers are on their hit list. The reports that Lifsey has a history of suing large corporations.

Sounds frivolous right? But, Kraft is changing the labels, supermarket shelves in California have been cleared of the offending dip, and there are FDA regulations that peanut butter has to contain at least 90% peanuts. Maybe the same should be true for other products?

A Kraft spokesperson says people understand that the dip isn’t made of real avocados because the ingredients, which Lifsey eventually read, are printed on the label. True, but it still leaves a bad aftertaste. If something is written on a label in big type, do you have to read the small type to make sure you’re not eating a Kraft chemistry experiment?

Google News has 34 articles on this subject; bad press that might be worth avoiding with better labeling.

American reporters can only hope to one day be as badass as our Australian counterparts. At last night’s Walkley Awards ceremony (the big shot, black tie awards show for journos down under), one enraged reporter rushed the stage while a rival was presenting, yelled at him, grabbed him, and tossed him off stage.

Hurrah, Australia! This WWF style of personal engagement may be just what we need here to resurrect the flagging news industry and enliven boring awards show all in one fell swoop. Imagine Bill Keller coming off the top rope onto Col Allan at the Pulitzer ceremony– pure gold!

We’re busy redesigning this year’s PRWeek Awards to reflect the audience’s increased appetite for hand to hand combat. See you there!

The National Science Teachers Association is in full crisis mode after the barrage of negative press since Sunday’s Washington Post editorial by Laurie David, one of the producers of An Inconvenient Truth.

Here’s what happened. In her Post editorial, David basically accused the NSTA of bowing to the corporations that help fund the organization. When the movie’s producers offered up 50,000 free copies of the DVD so that teachers could show their students what’s happening to our precious little planet, the NSTA turned them down.

According to David, the e-mail from NSTA turning the offer down also said that the organization didn’t want to put “unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters.” Who might those be? You guessed it. Exxon Mobil and Shell.

After David’s column ran, Keith Olbermann named NTSA president Linda Froschauer his “Worst Person in the World” for the day and the media storm began.

Well, the NSTA isn’t going to go down without a fight. They’ve posted their official response here, basically calling David a liar, claiming they offered up the organization’s mailing list and promised to announce the availability of the film in their publications, but the producers didn’t want to pop for postage.

Hmm. Seems like they’re going to need to come up with something better than that. If what the NSTA says is true, surely the two sides would have come up with a solution to get the important film in front of student’s eyes. And I don’t think I’m even cynical enough to believe David made the story up to garner more press for the film. Stay tuned.

I was perusing the New York Post this morning when I came across a perfectly nice story about NASCAR. Apparently, there was this young kid waiting to meet his hero Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Upon determining that he would not get to do that, the 8-year-old started crying uncontrollably. Seeing this, Andrew Giangola, the director of business comms for NASCAR, immediately organized a face-to-face with driver and young fan.

Like I said: Nice story. Except for one tiny thing. Giangola was referred to as a NASCAR “spokesman.” I bet if you look back at many similar articles in most media outlets, you’d find Giangola and others at his level referred to as “spokespeople.” That bothers me a little.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, a much loved/hated show here at PRWeek, had two interesting bits of media commentary on it. Here’s a synopsis of the show to get you started.

This week, there were two interesting developments.

Development one:

A New Yorker-ish reporter filed a column, excoriating a film starring one of the cast’s actors and, in the process, buttressed her opinion with an anonymous commentor on real-life Web site Aintitcoolnews.com. One of the producers of (Studio 60) rightly stuck it to the author, who seemed nonplussed.

It’s an interesting temptation journalist face in times of unfettered and unceasing opinion. Thanks to the online environment, journalists can invent trends and give heightened credence to anonymous people who may either have an axe to grind or scant clue about their opinions. A salient point to ponder.

Development two:

In a career-salvaging interview given to Time, Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet), the network president, faced a slew of hostile questions, including the old chestnut - “A lot of people are saying X, would you care to comment?” McDeere’s response, in essence, was “Who are these ‘people?’ I have an idea - it’s you and your friends at the office. I don’t think you’ve talked to one person close to the show that has a negative opinion of me.

Needless to say, the reporter was not chastened by the dress down; he snidely cut the interview short. But it exposed another journalistic pitfall - the taking of convention wisdom or insular thinking - and projecting it to the unknown, unwashed masses or “insiders.”While the give-and-take seemed a bit (par for the course) sanctimonious, the two incidents (where journalists are giving a proper criticism) should lead to some journalistic introspection.

With the immense amount of professional and not-so-professional media criticism proliferating on the web these days, some have said that classic journalism publications like the American Journalism Review and the Columbia Journalism Review have become irrelevant dinosaurs. But CJR is proving its doubters wrong.

The magazine is in the midst of publishing an absolutely outstanding collection of first-person accounts from dozens of different reporters who spent time working in Iraq during the war.

It paints a picture of a country sliding inexorably into disaster, and details the difficulties of practicing basic journalism in a bloody war zone. The piece should be required reading for anyone interested in how conflicts get reported– and the gulf between what journalists see around them and the perceptions of readers back home.

Just how obsessed with Google is the bulk of the techie world in Silicon Valley? This obsessed. Valleywag.com, self-proclaimed gossip site, spied this creepy Craigslist ad purportedly from a lonely, dateless Google engineer looking for booty in exchange for admittance to Google’s holiday party, Dec. 1. That sad thing is, if this were real, I can imagine a long line of ladies willing to do anything to go. Just

The media reports. The media opines. But how often does it get a real chance to make a statement beyond its pages and Web space? Well, here’s such an opportunity.

As of Monday, Mark McGwire is on the ballot for baseball’s Hall of Fame. He of the 583 home runs. He of the classic 1998 summer and the pursuit of Roger Maris’ hallowed record. He - the poster child for the sport’s “Steroids Era.”

There is nothing sexier in baseball than the home run. Obviously, Hall of Fame voters - those who have been members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) for 10-plus years – concur, as no eligible player with 500 or more homers has ever been denied entry.

So by the numbers, McGwire is a slam-dunk selection. And anyone who makes that argument has a legitimate claim. Conversely, anyone who says that McGwire should never get in because his accomplishments may very well be tainted also stand on solid ground.

The BBWAA often has tough decisions to mak, but, for the most part, those decisions are always based on the numbers. The McGwire decision is based on morals. It’s also based on each writer’s interpretation of those morals and ethics. If you believe in innocent until absolutely proven guilty, then McGwire gets your vote. If you think McGwire cheated the game and his fans and Maris’ hallowed record, he’s out.

And with Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, and, gulp, Barry Bonds likely to be up for Hall consideration within the next decade, this “moral” decision will be revisited on numerous occasions.

Should McGwire get in or not? That debate can go on forever. One thing all can agree on: this Hall of Fame vote will likely be the most scrutinized ever.

This weekend’s news on the Internet and elsewhere.

Friends Say They’re Shocked by Pam-Kid Rock Spli

Meanwhile, at GQ

NEWLYWEDS OF THE YEAR
There was Adam and Eve, Sonny and Cher, Siegfried and Roy—and now there’s Kid and Pam. Or not. We called them the Newlyweds of the Year with a healthy dose of humor.

At least, online, they were smart enough to add the following:

Read the last interview before they split

The ripples from Michael Richards’ racist rant last week are getting more interesting now that Jesse Jackson is involved. In a news conference today, the AP that Jackson “challenged the entertainment industry, including rappers, to stop use of the racial slur that Michael Richards uttered in his tirade.”

Present at the press conference was comedian Paul Mooney, who pledged to stop using the N-word in his act. Feel the power of Jesse!

Huge entertainment companies presumably could not care less what words their talent utters, as long as it sells. If Jackson is successful in raising enough of a stink about this, companies would probably go along with him, as long as the artists Ok-ed it, and it didn’t cut into sales figures at all.

The story also contained this unfortunate note:

Asked about free-speech issues, Jackson said the word is “unprotected.”

Well, constitutional scholars would beg to differ. If he tries to position this as a legally binding matter instead of a moment of cultural progress, Jackson will be fighting a losing battle.

How about just a pledge from white comedians not to use the word? That’s something that everyone could get behind.