Number assigned to public affairs: 1,862
7/89Percentage change, since 1979, in the average number of hours of television devoted to public affairs: -51
9/93Amount the Health Insurance Association of America spent last spring on health-care-policy ads: $4,000,000
11/94Chances that an American knows who Harry and Louise are: 1 in 8
2/96Number of times Ringo Starr’s Private Issue credit-card ad ran during last year’s six-hour Beatles documentary: 6
12/98Chances that a U.S. film with male Arab or Muslim characters depicts them as greedy, violent, or dishonest: 19 in 20
1/99Rank of the Budweiser frog TV-ad campaign, among the most popular commercials with children over the age of six: 1
1/99Ratio of the number of political ads aired last year that used the word “good” to those that used the word “evil”: 44:1
10/99Amount of corporate funding or advertising accepted by the Pacifica Radio Network’s five stations since 1949: 0
Number of days last July that Pacifica locked out the entire staff of Berkeley’s KPFA over internal politics: 17
7/99Fee that Nike offered Ralph Nader to say “another shameless attempt by Nike to sell shoes” in a TV ad: $25,000
9/99Percentage of Americans who say Hillary Clinton’s campaign will be more successful if her husband doesn’t try to help: 69
6/00Average amount spent on direct advertising to U.S. children in 1983 and 1998, respectively, per child: $2.68, $36.60
8/00Percentage of public relations executives who say they have “had to lie ” in the course of their jobs: 25
6/02Years U.S. Latin American policy adviser Otto Reich was a lobbyist for Mobil Oil before his appointment in January: 6
Years into his ambassadorship that he was cited for creating illegal “covert propaganda” in the Iran-Contra scandal: 1
Days after April’s Venezuelan coup that he attributed his ignorance of events there to an “information blackout”: 4
7/02Number of Florida State University students arrested in March for protesting while not in a designated “free-speech area”: 12
2/03Number of years the New York Police Department’s new Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence worked for the CIA: 35
7/03Number of Wisconsin accounting students given take-home tests to accommodate an Enron whistle-blower’s April speech: 78
Number later found to have cheated: 40
6/05Number of books registered at BookCrossing.com, so the books can be left in public places and found by others: 1,935,000
Number of the books left behind that have been from the Left Behind series: 2,047
12/06Chances that a Guantánamo detainee was turned over to Coalition forces by an Afghan or Pakistani citizen: 9 in 10
Average reward that leaflets airdropped over their countries promised for every “terrorist” turned in: $5,000
7/07Amount Uncle Ben’s rice spent this year to rebrand the “iconic character” of its fictional namesake: $20,000,000
Date on which he was “elevated” to “Uncle Ben, Chairman”: 3/30/07
6/08Pages of ads that a company must buy each year in Good Housekeeping in order to win its seal of approval: 1
2/09Rank of Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy among “music’s most anticipated album[s] ever,” according to its ad campaign: 1