[eccr] Fwd: The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, December 4, 2002

>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, December 4, 2002
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>The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. 'Tis the Season of Urgent Fundraising Appeals
>2. One Nation Under Fox
>3. The Pentagon Muzzles the CIA
>4. Colombian Journalist Gets Applause, But No Coverage
>5. The Perils of Court Reporting
>6. Who Ya Gonna Trust?
>7. Koppel Says Yes to Military Censorship
>8. Bodies? What Bodies?
>9. A One-Way Information Highway
>10. Silencing Whistleblowers at Yucca Mountain
>11. Food Industry Hires PR Help For Obesity Issue
>12. The Selling of Terrorism Insurance
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. 'TIS THE SEASON OF URGENT FUNDRAISING APPEALS
>https://www.egrants.org/donate/index.cfm?ID=2344-0|1118-0
>   Since its founding nine years ago, the Center for Media & Democracy
>   remains the world's only organization dedicated to investigating
>   and exposing special interest propaganda. In those nine years,
>   we've published 36 issues of our award-winning quarterly, PR Watch.
>   CMD staff members have written three acclaimed books and spoken to
>   thousands of people in most states and many countries. We've
>   conducted hundreds of interviews, from the smallest radio stations
>   to the largest TV networks, and with newspapers including the New
>   York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post.
>   Unfortunately, however, success in our mission does not guarantee
>   our survival. On the contrary, it places greater demands upon us.
>   That's why we hope you'll take a moment right now to visit our
>   online donation page and send a contribution so that our work can
>   continue. The Center has survived as a spunky, underfunded
>   organization thanks to a small but dedicated staff. We refuse
>   grants from businesses and government to maintain our independence,
>   so personal contributions from people like you are crucial in
>   funding our work.
>SOURCE: December 4, 2002
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2002.html#1038978000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1038978000
>
>2. ONE NATION UNDER FOX
>http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/media/columns/medialife/n_8080//index.html
>   There's something "incredibly creepy" about Fox TV mogul Roger
>   Ailes, writes Michael Wolff: "He looks the way you imagine the man
>   behind the curtain looking: That is, he doesn't care about how he
>   looks (which is, as it happens, gray and corpulent). He understands
>   it's all manipulation." Wolff examines the techniques that Ailes
>   has used to turn his right-wing network into a ratings phenomenon:
>   "Fox is not really about politics (CNN, with its antiseptic beltway
>   p.o.v., is arguably more about politics than Fox). It certainly
>   isn't arguing a consistent right-wing case. Rather, it's about
>   having a chip on your shoulder; it's about us versus them, insiders
>   versus outsiders, phonies versus non-phonies, and, in a clever
>   piece of postmodernism, established media against insurgent media.
>   ... In the conventional-wisdom swamp of television, this passes for
>   serious counter-programming. "
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1038936302
>
>3. THE PENTAGON MUZZLES THE CIA
>http://www.prospect.org/print-friendly/print/V13/22/dreyfuss-r.html
>   "Even as it prepares for war against Iraq, the Pentagon is already
>   engaged on a second front: its war against the Central Intelligence
>   Agency. The Pentagon is bringing relentless pressure to bear on the
>   agency to produce intelligence reports more supportive of war with
>   Iraq," writes Robert Dreyfuss. "Morale inside the U.S.
>   national-security apparatus is said to be low, with career staffers
>   feeling intimidated and pressured to justify the push for war."
>   Much of the pro-war faction's information comes from the Iraqi
>   National Congress (INC), a PR front group established in the early
>   1990s by the Rendon Group. "But most Iraq hands with long
>   experience in dealing with that country's tumultuous politics
>   consider the INC's intelligence-gathering abilities to be nearly
>   nil," Dreyfuss writes. "The Pentagon's critics are appalled that
>   intelligence provided by the INC might shape U.S. decisions about
>   going to war against Baghdad. At the CIA and at the State
>   Department, Ahmed Chalabi, the INC's leader, is viewed as the
>   ineffectual head of a self-inflated and corrupt organization
>   skilled at lobbying and public relations, but not much else."
>SOURCE: The American Prospect
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2002.html#1038846864
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1038846864
>
>4. COLOMBIAN JOURNALIST GETS APPLAUSE, BUT NO COVERAGE
>http://www.american-reporter.com/1986/4.html
>   "Colombian journalist Ignacio Gomez told a roomful of America's
>   most influential journalists Tuesday how Washington-supported
>   Colombian president Alvaro Uribe is connected to drug traffickers
>   and how U.S. military trainers helped organize a massacre in his
>   country," reports Lucy Komisar. "Among the 1,000 guests at the
>   Committee to Protect Journalists' annual dinner at the
>   Waldorf-Astoria grand ballroom were NBC's Tom Brokaw, CBS's Dan
>   Rather, Time-Warner's Walter Isaacson, Reuters CEO Thomas Glocer
>   and executives and reporters from the nation's major TV networks,
>   newspapers and newsmagazines. Gomez, 40, has twice gone into exile
>   after death threats. The media 'stars' applauded him for his
>   courage. But did they put his revelations into print or on air? If
>   you didn't see the stories he recounted in the American press,
>   don't be surprised."
>SOURCE: American Reporter, December 2, 2002
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2002.html#1038805201
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1038805201
>
>5. THE PERILS OF COURT REPORTING
>http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6812
>   Bob Woodward's reporting on the Watergate story made him a
>   journalistic legend, but his reliance on secret sources troubles
>   Richard Blow. "Among journalists who care about nagging details
>   like accuracy, there will also be the inevitable handwringing over
>   Woodward's dubious reporting methods, the fact that he writes from
>   a fly-on-the-wall perspective yet never identifies his sources,"
>   Blow writes. "Speaking anonymously allows people to say things that
>   they don't have to be held accountable for, and without
>   accountability there is no impediment to spinning, manipulating and
>   just plain using the reporter." This is particularly evident, Blow
>   says, in Woodward's recent book about President Bush, which paints
>   Bush as "a wise, determined executive, a master at manipulating and
>   motivating the world-weary Washington insiders around him, a
>   visionary leader who wants to use the war on terrorism to effect
>   world peace and the end of human suffering. ... You have to give
>   George Bush credit for one thing. He was smart enough to figure out
>   how to play Bob Woodward like a maestro, and now he has the
>   hagiography to show for it."
>SOURCE: TomPaine.com, December 2, 2002
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2002.html#1038805200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1038805200
>
>6. WHO YA GONNA TRUST?
>http://www.weforum.org/site/homepublic.nsf/Content/E9BAFCCB6334E204C1256C6900487E56?OpenDocument&PreviewStyle=BD8B6AAB5ED10F3BC1256A9200419537&Preview=1
>   A major global public opinion survey suggests that trust in many
>   key institutions has fallen to critical proportions. The survey of
>   36,000 people conducted by Gallup International and Environics
>   International reveals a dramatic lack of trust in democratic
>   institutions and global and large national companies; and trust is
>   even low when it comes to non-governmental organizations (NGOs),
>   trade unions and media organizations around the world. (Maybe
>   people should just take the advice of PR Watch editors Sheldon
>   Rampton and John Stauber, and Trust Us, We're Experts.)
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2002.html#1038546000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1038546000
>
>7. KOPPEL SAYS YES TO MILITARY CENSORSHIP
>http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0247/cotts.php
>   "If and when a press corps of 3000 to 5000 lands with the U.S.
>   military in Iraq, should they be prohibited from broadcasting the
>   war live, using their videophones and satellite dishes? Yes, under
>   some circumstances, says Nightline anchor Ted Koppel."
>SOURCE: Village Voice, November 20-26, 2002
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1038286800
>
>8. BODIES? WHAT BODIES?
>http://www.alternet.org/print.html?StoryID=14633
>   War correspondent Leon Daniel was puzzled by the lack of corpses at
>   the tip of the Neutral Zone between Saudi Arabia and Iraq on Feb.
>   25, 1991. Clearly there had been plenty of killing on the previous
>   day, which marked the beginning of the ground war in Operation
>   Desert Storm. But there were no visible signs of carnage because
>   the army had already plowed dirt over all of the bodies. "What
>   happened at the Neutral Zone that day has become a metaphor for the
>   conduct of modern warfare," writes Patrick Sloyan. "While political
>   leaders bask in voter approval for destroying designated enemies,
>   they are increasingly determined to mask the reality of warfare
>   that causes voters to recoil. ... In manipulating the first and
>   often most lasting perception of Desert Storm, the Bush
>   administration produced not a single picture or video of anyone
>   being killed. This sanitized, bloodless presentation by military
>   briefers left the world presuming Desert Storm was a war without
>   death."
>SOURCE: AlterNet, November 25, 2002
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1038200402
>
>9. A ONE-WAY INFORMATION HIGHWAY
>http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/4589307.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
>   "Nothing more starkly illustrates the federal government's
>   post-Sept. 11 desire to learn more about its citizens and to
>   divulge less about itself than the new homeland security
>   legislation," write James Kuhnhenn and Drew Brown. "Approved by the
>   Senate last week and destined for President Bush's signature, the
>   bill would make it easier for government agencies to gather
>   information about individuals and groups, including their e-mail,
>   the phone calls they place, and the Web sites they view. At the
>   same time, the bill would make it harder for people to obtain
>   information about their government and would permit greater secrecy
>   by government advisory groups."
>SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer, November 24, 2002
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1038114001
>
>10. SILENCING WHISTLEBLOWERS AT YUCCA MOUNTAIN
>http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2002/Nov-24-Sun-2002/news/20104203.html
>   In our book, Toxic Sludge Is Good For You, we reported on the U.S.
>   government's disastrous PR campaign to build public support in
>   Nevada for a high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. Now
>   two workers at the Yucca Mountain Project to dispose of high-level
>   nuclear waste say they were fired or transferred after raising
>   concerns about the project's safety.
>SOURCE: Las Vegas Review-Journal, November 24, 2002
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2002.html#1038114000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1038114000
>
>11. FOOD INDUSTRY HIRES PR HELP FOR OBESITY ISSUE
>http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/1122obesity.htm
>   "Edelman PR Worldwide and Dittus Communications have been tapped to
>   spearhead PR and lobbying for the American Council for Fitness and
>   Nutrition, a coalition of top food and beverage groups seeking to
>   counter charges that the industry is at fault for a swelling
>   obesity problem in the U.S.," O'Dwyer's PR Daily writes. "Formed
>   earlier this year, the Council stresses that both physical activity
>   and a proper diet are needed for a healthy lifestyle. The group
>   includes the American Frozen Food Institute, Kraft Foods, Chocolate
>   Manufactuers Assn., Sugar Assn., Grocery Manufacturers of America,
>   National Restaurant Assn., National Council of Chain Restaurants,
>   and the Assn. of National Advertisers, among a handful of others."
>SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily, November 22, 2002
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1037941202
>
>12. THE SELLING OF TERRORISM INSURANCE
>http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6777/view
>   By stating time and again that terrorism insurance is a jobs bill,
>   the White House "delivered a big plum to the insurance industry,"
>   writes Steven Rosenfeld. Now taxpayers are obligated to cover the
>   industry's back by paying up to $300 billion if another terrorism
>   attack occurs -- even though there's no evidence that the
>   legislation will protect a single worker's job. "It has nothing to
>   do with reality," the former top federal insurance regulator said
>   earlier this fall, when discussing his studies examining the issue.
>   "It was hype back then and it's still hype."
>SOURCE: TomPaine.com, November 20, 2002
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1037768400
>
>
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Carpentier Nico (Phd)
Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University Brussels
Studies on Media, Information & Telecommunication (SMIT)
Centre for Media Sociology (CeMeSO)
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