Suggestions for potential Ig Nobel Prize winners come from many sources. Here’s one from a January 23, 2007 editorial in the Manila Times:
EDITORIAL
Questions for Karen HughesMANY Filipinos look forward to meeting Karen Hughes, the US State Department undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, because this is her first visit to Manila, because they have many questions to ask her and because she heads an interesting but little-known office in America?s oldest Cabinet department. ?
Our interest is in the plan [to develop] a system that would allow Washington, D.C., to monitor negative news about the United States or its leaders in newspapers, radio and television stations overseas?.
Developing and carrying out a system of monitoring foreign opinion that costs millions and that creates a new bureaucracy sounds like an Ig Nobel invention.