[eccr] Fwd: The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, November 20, 2002

>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, November 20, 2002
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>sponsored by PR WATCH (www.prwatch.org)
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
>further information about current public relations campaigns.
>It is emailed free each Wednesday to subscribers.
>
>SHARE US WITH A FRIEND (OR FIFTY FRIENDS)
>Who do you know who might want to receive Spin of the Week?
>Help us grow our subscriber list!  Just forward this message to
>people you know, encouraging them to sign up at this link:
>
>http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. That's Not Right Wing Bias, That's 'Fair & Balanced' !
>2. The Indiscreet Charm of the Bush-Nazi Web Conspiranoids
>3. If You Don't Tell the Public, Maybe We'll Reform
>4. Sir Michael Slays Censors of "The Quiet American"
>5. War's PR Cheerleaders in Pep Rally with Condoleezza
>6. Bob Woodward's PR Ideal
>7. You Are a Suspect
>8. Homeland Security vs. Freedom of Information
>9. Why Newsweek is Bad for Kids
>10. Timber Industry Lobbies Against EPA Air Emissions Regulations
>11. FDA Acts, Too Little Too Late,  on 'Mad Deer' Feeding
>12. Army Considers Privatizing PR Jobs
>13. Falling From Grace, Often to the A-List
>14. Journalist Helen Thomas Condemns Bush
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. THAT'S NOT RIGHT WING BIAS, THAT'S 'FAIR & BALANCED' !
>http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/19/national/19TEEV.html?ex=1038724349&ei=1&en=3333cdf937b8b1d2
>   Alessandra Stanley writes in today's New York Times: "The
>   revelation that Roger Ailes, the chairman of Fox News, the
>   self-proclaimed fair and balanced news channel, secretly gave
>   advice to the White House after the Sept. 11 attacks was less
>   shocking than it was liberating -- a little like the moment in 1985
>   when an ailing Rock Hudson finally explained that he had AIDS. Ever
>   since Mr. Ailes changed jobs from Republican strategist to news
>   executive, he has demanded to be treated as an unbiased journalist,
>   not a conservative spokesman. But the cable channel he controls has
>   an undisguised ideological agenda, which has made his protestations
>   a bit puzzling. All along, the Fox motto 'fair and balanced' was
>   less a newsroom mantra than the kind of first-strike media strategy
>   that worked so well for the Republican Party when Mr. Ailes was
>   advising the first Bush administration. ... By tirelessly insisting
>   that all other cable or network news organizations are driven by a
>   liberal bias, Mr. Ailes casts his own network as the centrist voice
>   of reason. ... Mr. Ailes is so allergic to the label of former
>   Republican strategist that he once urged a reporter for The New
>   York Times who was seeking his views to exclude any mention of his
>   work for Ronald Reagan or George Bush because it was 'irrelevant.'
>   "  PR Watch has reported how Roger Ailes, on behalf of Monsanto,
>   censored Fox TV journalists Jane Akre and Steve Wilson  for
>   attempting to report on Monsanto's genetically engineered milk
>   hormone BGH. Although Jane Akre won a jury verdict against Fox, the
>   network has appealed.
>SOURCE: New York Times, November 19, 2002
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2002.html#1037682000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1037682000
>
>2. THE INDISCREET CHARM OF THE BUSH-NAZI WEB CONSPIRANOIDS
>http://www.thethresher.com/indiscreet.html
>   Phil Leggiere tries to separate fact from conspiracy theory as he
>   examines the historic ties between Nazi Germany and Prescott Bush,
>   Dubya's grandfather, whose business dealings were "aiding and
>   abetting the Nazi cause for profit long after the nature of the
>   Nazi regime became clear to any informed observer, and even after
>   the US declaration of war against Germany. ... It's clear Harriman,
>   Bush, Dulles and legions of the financial elite share a degree of
>   (largely unacknowledged) responsibility for providing Hitler and
>   the Nazis the wherewithal to launch World War Two and the
>   Holocaust." However, "There are sharp distinctions between the
>   'Bush is a Nazi' vulgarizations of the conspiranoia-ists, and the
>   documented corporate-Nazi connections. ... The theorists who see
>   this historical episode not as evidence of Nazism but of
>   business-as-usual are clearly the more sophisticated of the bunch."
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1037637291
>
>3. IF YOU DON'T TELL THE PUBLIC, MAYBE WE'LL REFORM
>http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/17/business/yourmoney/17WATC.html?pagewanted=print&position=top
>   "Embarrassing public disclosures about Citigroup threaten to
>   complicate final negotiations aimed at cleaning up tainted Wall
>   Street research and stock-offering practices," reports Thor
>   Valdmanis. "Top lawyers from Wall Street investment banks are under
>   orders to demand that securities regulators give firm assurances
>   that the industry will be spared further damaging revelations in
>   return for signing on to a sweeping reform package being discussed
>   this afternoon at the New York Stock Exchange." The latest damaging
>   revelation suggests that Citigroup chairman Sanford Weill
>   overestimated the value of AT&T stock for reasons that "appear to
>   have been self-interested." Small investors who relied on AT&T's
>   inflated valuation lost billions of dollars.
>SOURCE: USA Today, November 18, 2002
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2002.html#1037595601
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1037595601
>
>4. SIR MICHAEL SLAYS CENSORS OF "THE QUIET AMERICAN"
>http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/18/movies/18CAIN.html?ex=1038635902&ei=1&en=0643b2454429c987
>   Last year PR Watch noted that since 9/11  Hollywood is working with
>   the White House on US global propaganda  efforts. Apparently some
>   in Hollywood see film censorship as part of their patriotic duty.
>   The New York Times reported this October that "a cataclysmic event
>   can change the fate of a movie. One example is The Quiet American,
>   the ... adaptation of Graham Greene's 1955 novel. ... Miramax
>   executives worried ... [it] ...could be seen as a searing critique
>   of United States imperialism. The Quiet America was quietly
>   shelved." Today's New York Times reports that thanks to the
>   intercession of the movie's star Michael Caine, The Quiet American
>   will be heard and seen in time for Oscar consideration. " 'The
>   Quiet American isn't anti-American,' Sir Michael [Caine] said.
>   'It's anti the Americans who got the country involved in the
>   Vietnam War.' "
>SOURCE: New York Times, November 18, 2002
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2002.html#1037595600
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1037595600
>
>5. WAR'S PR CHEERLEADERS IN PEP RALLY WITH CONDOLEEZZA
>http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/15/international/middleeast/15HAWK.html?ex=1038373314&ei=1&en=2e69111a937809ca
>   The latest group of cheerleaders for war with Iraq, named the
>   Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, is meeting today in the White
>   House with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.  (Rice had
>   an oil tanker named in her honor, a special gift of the Chevron
>   company on whose board of directors she served.) The New York Times
>   reports that the "hawkish" group "formed with the White House's
>   tacit approval" is looking for additional funding for its
>   propaganda effort which will include "making contacts with
>   journalists, holding dinner sessions with administration officials
>   and meeting with editorial boards" around the country. Fronting for
>   the pro-war propaganda campaign are such notables as Bob Kerrey,
>   George Shultz, James Hoffa and Newt Gingrich. Senators John McCain
>   and Joe Lieberman "are expected to be the group's honorary
>   Congressional co-chairmen."
>SOURCE: New York Times, November 15, 2002
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2002.html#1037336400
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1037336400
>
>6. BOB WOODWARD'S PR IDEAL
>   "The model for me for someone in the public relations business is,
>   to a certain extent, the U.S. military," journalist and Watergate
>   legend Bob Woodward said in a keynote address to the Public
>   Relation's Society of America's National Capital Chapter in
>   Washington, D.C. PRSA's Strategist reports how Woodward, assistant
>   managing editor of the Washington Post, defines the model PR
>   professional. "The best sources for straight information were
>   people in the U.S. military, particularly the officers and men and
>   women who had served in Vietnam, who learned the lessons of Vietnam
>   -- that you cannot let the distance between what the reality is and
>   what you are saying to exist at all."
>SOURCE: PR Strategist, November 2002
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1037303272
>
>7. YOU ARE A SUSPECT
>http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/opinion/14SAFI.html?pagewanted=print&position=top
>   "If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, here
>   is what will happen to you," warns William Safire. "Every purchase
>   you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy
>   and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and
>   e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every
>   bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you
>   attend - all these transactions and communications will go into
>   what the Defense Department describes as 'a virtual, centralized
>   grand database.' To this computerized dossier on your private life
>   from commercial sources, add every piece of information that
>   government has about you - passport application, driver's license
>   and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce records, complaints
>   from nosy neighbors to the F.B.I., your lifetime paper trail plus
>   the latest hidden camera surveillance - and you have the
>   supersnoop's dream: a 'Total Information Awareness' about every
>   U.S. citizen. This is not some far-out Orwellian scenario. It is
>   what will happen to your personal freedom in the next few weeks if
>   John Poindexter gets the unprecedented power he seeks." According
>   to Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information
>   Center in Washington, Poindexter's proposed Total Information
>   Awareness system "could be the perfect storm for civil liberties in
>   America."
>SOURCE: New York Times, November 14, 2002
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2002.html#1037250000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1037250000
>
>8. HOMELAND SECURITY VS. FREEDOM OF INFORMATION
>http://www.csoonline.com/read/110802/foia.html
>   The Homeland Defense Bill currently working its way through
>   Congress adds a new exemption to the Freedom of Information Act,
>   protecting the secrecy of information that companies submit
>   voluntarily to the government. Supporters say the exemption makes
>   it easier for companies to share information with the government to
>   assist the "war on terrorism." Critics, like Rep. Janice
>   Schakowsky, say the exemption creates "a loophole big enough to
>   drive any corporation and its secrets through," They say companies
>   will misuse the exemption to hide misdeeds and protect themselves
>   from negligence lawsuits.
>SOURCE: CSO Online, November 2002
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2002.html#1037247375
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1037247375
>
>9. WHY NEWSWEEK IS BAD FOR KIDS
>http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2002/000133.html
>   "Did you see the cover story of Newsweek magazine last week? The
>   cover story is titled, 'Why TV is Good for Kids.' Why, against all
>   common sense, is Newsweek going to try and convince us that
>   television is good for kids?" write Russell Mokhiber and Robert
>   Weissman, co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for
>   MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy. "Well, one reason might
>   be: Newsweek is owned by the Washington Post Company, which owns a
>   sprawling cable company and six broadcast stations around the
>   country. Of course, nowhere in the article does Newsweek tell us
>   this. And how does Newsweek try and convince us that TV is good for
>   kids? They trot out an expert, Daniel Anderson, a professor of
>   psychology a the University of Massachusetts, who claims that TV is
>   good for kids. But what Newsweek doesn't tell us is Anderson is a
>   paid consultant to a variety of television networks and advertising
>   interests. His clients include: NBC, CBS, Universal Pictures, Sony,
>   General Mills, the Leo Burnett ad agency, Nickelodeon and the
>   National Association of Broadcasters."
>SOURCE: Focus on the Corporation, November 12, 2002
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1037077205
>
>10. TIMBER INDUSTRY LOBBIES AGAINST EPA AIR EMISSIONS REGULATIONS
>http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/1112ogilvy_envcontrols.htm
>   "The Forest Products Industry National Labor Management Committee,
>   a group that says it wants to 'balance economic and environmental
>   concerns' when it comes to managing America's timber, paid Ogilvy
>   PR Worldwide $100,000 during the first-half of this year to make
>   its case in Washington, D.C.," O'Dwyer's PR Daily writes. The group
>   lobbied against EPA regulations on new industrial emissions. "The
>   Committee members include the American Forest & Paper Assn., and
>   forest industry groups in California, Wisconsin, Minnesota,
>   Louisiana and the Rockies. It also counts the International Assn.
>   of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, United Brotherhood of
>   Carpenters and Joiners, United Mine Workers, and Paper,
>   Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers Assn."
>SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily, November 12, 2002
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1037077204
>
>11. FDA ACTS, TOO LITTLE TOO LATE,  ON 'MAD DEER' FEEDING
>http://www.fda.gov/cvm/index/updates/CWdup.htm
>   As we explain in our book Mad Cow USA, billions of pounds of
>   rendered by-product from slaughterhouse waste are fed to livestock
>   each year in the US. This is the practice that spread 'mad cow
>   disease' in British cattle, a disease that has now spread to humans
>   and is killing a growing number each year. The US has its own
>   versions of mad cow-type diseases including chronic wasting disease
>   (CWD) in deer and elk. CWD has apparently been spread across North
>   America the past decade via the exponential growth of game farms
>   and the feeding of rendered by-product as mineral and protein
>   supplement to grow big antlers on both farmed and wild animals. The
>   US has allowed tens of thousands of road kill deer to be rendered
>   annually and fed back to pigs, pets and poultry (and to cows and
>   deer previous to 1997). Finally the FDA is taking a step to limit
>   this practice, but that step remains too little and too late. The
>   FDA takes its lead from the US livestock industry and is protecting
>   the continued feeding of billions of pounds of rendered by-product
>   each year in the US. Until the US implements the same strict ban on
>   feeding rendered by-products that has been imposed in Europe, the
>   threat remains of CWD and other US mad cow-type diseases spreading
>   to livestock and people. To follow this issue visit MadDeer.org.
>SOURCE: FDA website, November 12, 2002
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2002.html#1037077203
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1037077203
>
>12. ARMY CONSIDERS PRIVATIZING PR JOBS
>   "The US Army is considering a proposal to privatize more than
>   200,000 jobs, a move that could displace thousands of public
>   affairs officers worldwide - and yield a wealth of opportunity for
>   private firms," PR Week's Douglas Quenqua writes. "The
>   privatization plan is part of an effort to concentrate more of the
>   Army's resources on fighting terrorism and to comply with a
>   directive, issued by President Bush last year, that all government
>   agencies must farm out work not deemed 'inherently governmental.'
>   If approved, the plan would create the largest transfer ever of
>   government jobs over to the private sector."
>SOURCE: PR Week, November 11, 2002
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1036990801
>
>13. FALLING FROM GRACE, OFTEN TO THE A-LIST
>http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/10/business/yourmoney/10FALL.html?pagewanted=print
>   Getting caught in a scandal isn't necessarily bad for a public
>   official's career these days. "Many in business - as well as old
>   Washington hands - who have had their names tarnished and
>   reputations sullied have discovered that there is life in the
>   private sector after public disgrace, and a potentially profitable
>   one at that," reports Leslie Wayne. "Many corporations are willing
>   to overlook an ethical lapse or a subpar performance and put those
>   with Washington expertise on their boards, to use them as lobbyists
>   or to make them partners in business deals." For example:
>        * Robert L. Livingstone, who resigned from Congress after
>   confessing to adultery, now is one of Washington's most
>   sought-after lobbyists.
>        * "Bob Packwood, a Republican from Oregon who resigned in
>   disgrace in 1995 after an ethics committee unanimously found he had
>   forced himself on nearly two dozen women in his office, including a
>   17-year old intern. Mr. Packwood reported lobbying income of $1.4
>   million in 2000 and his client list includes Northwest Airlines,
>   United Airlines and Verizon Communications."
>        * Former Congressman Dan Rostenkowski, a Chicago Democrat who
>   served time in prison for misuse of public funds, was subsequently
>   named to the board of American Ecology, a radioactive- and
>   hazardous waste services company. "His opinions on tax issues ...
>   appear on the op-ed pages of major newspapers, including the Wall
>   Street Journal."
>        * "Michael K. Deaver, who was chief of staff in the Reagan
>   White House, is now one of Washington's most powerful public
>   relations executives; he heads the Washington office of Edelman
>   Public Relations. His conviction on felony perjury charges in 1987
>   for lying to Congress and to a federal grand jury, and a suspended
>   prison sentence, matter not at all."
>SOURCE: New York Times, November 10, 2002
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1036904400
>
>14. JOURNALIST HELEN THOMAS CONDEMNS BUSH
>http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/tt/2002/nov06/thomas.html
>   Veteran journalist Helen Thomas is angered by the Bush
>   administration's "bullying drumbeat" of war. "Where is the
>   outrage?" she said in a talk at the Massachusetts Institute of
>   Technology. "Where is Congress? They're supine! Bush has held only
>   six press conferences, the only forum in our society where a
>   president can be questioned. I'm on the phone to [press secretary]
>   Ari Fleischer every day, asking will he ever hold another one? The
>   international world is wondering what happened to America's great
>   heart and soul. ... I do not absolve the press. We've rolled over
>   and played dead, too."
>SOURCE: MIT News Office, November 6, 2002
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1036558802
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>The Weekly Spin is compiled by staff and volunteers at PR Watch.
>To subscribe or unsubcribe, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html
>
>Daily updates and news from past weeks can be found at the
>Spin of the Day" section of the PR Watch website:
>http://www.prwatch.org/spin/index.html
>
>Archives of our quarterly publication, PR Watch, are at:
>http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues
>
>PR Watch, Spin of the Day and the Weekly Spin are projects
>of the Center for Media & Democracy, a nonprofit organization
>that offers investigative reporting on the public relations
>industry. We help the public recognize manipulative and
>misleading PR practices by exposing the activities of
>secretive, little-known propaganda-for-hire firms that
>work to control political debates and public opinion.
>Please send any questions or suggestions about our
>publications to:
>(editor /at/ prwatch.org)
>
>Contributions to the Center for Media & Democracy
>are tax-deductible. Send checks to:
>    CMD
>    520 University Ave. #310
>    Madison, WI 53703
>
>To donate now online, visit:
>https://www.egrants.org/donate/index.cfm?ID=2344-0|1118-0
>_______________________________________________
>Weekly-Spin mailing list
>(Weekly-Spin /at/ prwatch.org)
>http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/weekly-spin

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Carpentier Nico
Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University Brussels
Studies on Media, Information & Telecommunication (SMIT)
Centre for Media Sociology (CeMeSO)
Office: C0.04
Pleinlaan 2 - B-1050 Brussels
T: ++ 32 (0)2-629.18.30
F: ++ 32 (0)2-629.28.61
E-mail: (Nico.Carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
W1: http://www.vub.ac.be/SCOM/smit
W2: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
W3: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~jteurlin/Koccc.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------


----------------
ECCR-Mailing list
---
To unsubscribe, send an email message to (majordomo /at/ listserv.vub.ac.be)
with in the body of the message (NOT in the subject): unsubscribe eccr
---
ECCR - European Consortium for Communications Research
Secretariat: P.O. Box 106, B-1210 Brussels 21, Belgium
Tel.: +32-2-412 42 78/47
Fax.: +32-2-412 42 00
Email: (freenet002 /at/ pi.be) or (Rico.Lie /at/ pi.be)
URL: http://www.eccr.info
----------------