[eccr] Fwd: The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, January 8, 2003

>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, January 8, 2003
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>sponsored by PR WATCH (www.prwatch.org)
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>The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. War Is Sell
>2. Favors for Enron
>3. Tasteful PR in Time of War
>4. Managing those Pesky Activists
>5. Thank You For Fessing Up
>6. Lobbyism 101 - How to Get Rich in Politics
>7. ' Are You Horny, Baby? Or Are You Sick? '
>8. HBO's Belated & Weak Retraction: Baby Killing a PR Hoax
>9. Learning to Resist Propaganda
>10. Announcing the P.U.-litzer Prizes
>11. The Secret President
>12. Corporations Claim the "Right to Lie"
>13. Humanitarian Crises Ignored in 2002
>14. Ad Triumphs and Advertrocities
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. WAR IS SELL
>http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2002Q4/war.html
>   Officially, President Bush is claiming that he sees war with Iraq
>   as an option of last resort, and many members of the American
>   public seem to have taken him at his word. In reality, say
>   journalists and others who have closely observed the key players in
>   decision-making positions at the White House, they have already
>   decided on war. In the Fourth Quarter 2002 issue of PR Watch,
>   released on the web this week, Laura Miller examines the PR and
>   marketing campaign currently underway to convince the public that
>   war is necessary and inevitable. (Our paying subscribers received
>   this issue already last month. Please consider becoming a
>   subscriber. Donations from people like you are what make our work
>   possible.)
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2003.html#1042002000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1042002000
>
>2. FAVORS FOR ENRON
>http://www.public-i.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=487&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0&L5=0://
>   Enron Corp. ran a formidable lobbying machine in Washington and
>   state capitals that gained favorable treatment from state and
>   national governments on no fewer than 49 occasions from the late
>   1980s to the company's scandal-ridden bankruptcy last year. A new
>   report from the Center for Public Integrity lists the favors Enron
>   obtained, the former government officials who worked for Enron, and
>   28 separate coalitions that aided Enron's lobbying activities. The
>   list of Enron-affiliated front groups and fundees includes the
>   Alliance for Lower Electric Rates Today, Americans for Affordable
>   Electricity, Americans for Fair Taxation, Citizens for a Sound
>   Economy, International Climate Change Partnership, National
>   Wetlands Coalition, and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2003.html#1041978914
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1041978914
>
>3. TASTEFUL PR IN TIME OF WAR
>http://www.prweek.com/thisweek/index.cfm?ID=167495&site=3
>   The PR industry needs to mull "a shift in strategy if US goes to
>   war," writes Sherri Deatherage Green. During the first few days of
>   fighting, she says, PR pros should hold off on product promotions.
>   "Few activities could be more futile than pitching stories when war
>   reports fill every second of network time," she writes. "But if
>   military action continues over time, companies should find tasteful
>   and appropriate ways to revive their marketing." Also,
>   "Understatement might be the best messaging approach during
>   wartime. Even companies producing items for the military shouldn't
>   brag about fatter profits."
>SOURCE: PR Week, January 6, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1041829203
>
>4. MANAGING THOSE PESKY ACTIVISTS
>   PR Week continues the industry's preoccupation with managing
>   activism with a variety of articles examining the strategies
>   activists use to advance their causes, "the proactive approach to
>   averting protests," and an article on corporate social
>   responsibility titled "CSR: Beyond Lip Service."
>SOURCE: PR Week, January 6, 2003
>Web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2003.html#1041829202
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1041829202
>
>5. THANK YOU FOR FESSING UP
>http://www.prweek.com/thisweek/index.cfm?ID=167481&site=3
>   The industry trade publication PR Week has a few kind words to say
>   about Nick Naylor, the fictional PR man who figures as the
>   protagonist in Christopher Buckley's hilarious book, Thank You for
>   Smoking. "He can stun a Clean Lungs conference into silence with a
>   few words about the First Amendment rights of the poor, embattled
>   tobacco companies. He can win over an Oprah audience by turning the
>   tables on those evil health professionals who only care about their
>   (gasp!) budgets." PR Week gushes that PR pros "will recognize and
>   laugh at themselves in this brilliant, morally complex portrayal of
>   a good guy in a rough business. As one of the more savage political
>   strategists once told PR Week, 'This is the most accurate portrayal
>   I've ever seen of what I do all day.'"
>SOURCE: PR Week, January 6, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2003.html#1041829201
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1041829201
>
>6. LOBBYISM 101 - HOW TO GET RICH IN POLITICS
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/06/politics/06LOBB.html?ex=1042948853&ei=1&en=1d3881db25fc8a89
>   When voters elect a Representative they also are frequently
>   launching the education and career of a future corporate lobbyist.
>   Don't pity the retired or (rarely) defeated incumbent because their
>   truly lucrative political career just begins when they join the
>   ranks of millionaire lobbyists. "Dick Armey, the departing House
>   majority leader, summarized the situation in his usual succinct
>   style when he was asked on Friday how much money he would be making
>   in his new job starting this week at Piper Rudnick, a law firm with
>   a large lobbying operation. 'I don't anticipate going hungry,' Mr.
>   Armey replied. ... 'You go from the grovelee to the groveler,
>   [former Representative Robert L. Livingston] said. "It takes a
>   psychological adjustment, but there are compensations.' ... Why do
>   companies like ChevronTexaco , Oracle and Northrop Grumman pay Mr.
>   Livingston fees that are typically $10,000 to $30,000 a month? ...
>   'When he calls up, people don't say, `Bob who?' ' said Ken Johnson,
>   the spokesman for the energy committee, of Mr. Livingston. 'He's
>   known and respected by a lot of people. He opens a lot of doors.' "
>SOURCE: New York Times, January 6, 2002
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1041829200
>
>7. ' ARE YOU HORNY, BABY? OR ARE YOU SICK? '
>http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7379/45?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=dysfunction&searchid=1041631561157_14250&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&volume=326&issue=7379
>   Hoping to create another cash cow like Viagra, the pharmaceutical
>   industry has invented a new disease "female sexual dysfunction."
>   According to journalist Ray Moynihan, industry-funded doctors are
>   circulating a bogus statistic claiming that 43% of women suffer
>   from this condition so they can prescribe drugs to treat it - even
>   though "inhibition of sexual desire is in many situations a healthy
>   and functional response for women faced with stress, tiredness, or
>   threatening patterns of behaviour from their partners." And just to
>   make sure the guys can keep up, one of the doctors is also urging
>   men to take Viagra on a daily basis to "prevent impotence."
>SOURCE: British Medical Journal, January 4, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2003.html#1041656400
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1041656400
>
>8. HBO'S BELATED & WEAK RETRACTION: BABY KILLING A PR HOAX
>http://www.hbo.com/films/livefrombaghdad/related.shtml
>   HBO Films has finally gotten around to admitting what PR Watch
>   readers knew all along: "allegations of Iraqi soldiers taking
>   babies from incubators (in 1990) ... were never substantiated."
>   This fabrication by the Hill & Knowlton PR firm resurfaced in HBO's
>   December docudrama, "Live from Baghdad" and was subsequently
>   repeated as fact in the Washington Post.
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2003.html#1041631419
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1041631419
>
>9. LEARNING TO RESIST PROPAGANDA
>http://perc.ca/PEN/2002-12-01/review.html
>   Propaganda. What does it mean? How does it work? How can we resist
>   it, and live more decently with one another? Randal Marlin, a
>   professor in the department of philosophy at Carleton University,
>   has attempted to answer those questions in a new book that reviewer
>   Martha Sully calls "a fascinating historical study."
>SOURCE: Peace and Environment News, December - January 3, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2003.html#1041570000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1041570000
>
>10. ANNOUNCING THE P.U.-LITZER PRIZES
>http://www.fair.org/media-beat/030102.html
>   Norman Solomon has issued his annual "P.U.-litzer Prizes" for
>   "America's stinkiest media performances." Winners this year
>   include: journalists who falsely reported that Iraq kicked out U.N.
>   weapons inspectors four years ago; Vivendi Universal executive
>   Barry Diller, for his claim that media consolidation is "a natural
>   law"; and right-wing mouth Ann Coulter, for publicly wishing that
>   Timothy McVeigh had bombed the New York Times.
>SOURCE: FAIR Media Beat, January 2, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1041483600
>
>11. THE SECRET PRESIDENT
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/03/politics/03SECR.html?tntemail0=&pagewanted=print&position=top
>   "The Bush administration has put a much tighter lid than recent
>   presidents on government proceedings and the public release of
>   information, exhibiting a penchant for secrecy that has been
>   striking to historians, legal experts and lawmakers of both
>   parties," writes Adam Clymer in a detailed report on the
>   administration's new and wide-ranging secrecy policies.
>SOURCE: New York Times, January 1, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1041397201
>
>12. CORPORATIONS CLAIM THE "RIGHT TO LIE"
>http://CommonDreams.org/views03/0101-07.htm
>   After Nike conducted a huge and expensive PR blitz to tell people
>   that it had cleaned up its subcontractors' sweatshop labor
>   practices, California activist Marc Kasky sued them under a
>   California law that forbids corporations from intentionally
>   deceiving people in their commercial statements. "Instead of
>   refuting Kasky's charge by proving in court that they didn't lie,
>   however, Nike instead chose to argue that corporations should enjoy
>   the same 'free speech' right to deceive that individual human
>   citizens have in their personal lives," writes Thom Hartmann. It's
>   true that free speech is an important right for people, but
>   Hartmann points out that "Nike isn't a person - it's a
>   corporation." He analyzes the history of the legal fiction that
>   gives corporations the same rights as people, and suggests that the
>   Kasky case might "begin the process of dismantling the flawed and
>   unconstitutional doctrine of corporate personhood."
>SOURCE: Common Dreams, January 1, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1041397200
>
>13. HUMANITARIAN CRISES IGNORED IN 2002
>http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/oneworld/20021231/wl_oneworld/1032_1041292700
>   Urgent stories of humanitarian crises that claimed or threatened
>   the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in Africa and other
>   war-torn regions around the world were largely ignored by the U.S.
>   news media, according to a year-end report by the international
>   medical aid group, Doctors Without Borders. Their report on the Top
>   Ten Most Underreported Humanitarian Stories of 2002 said the three
>   major U.S. TV networks devoted more airtime to the activities of
>   British royalty than to eight of the top 10 crises combined.
>SOURCE: Yahoo! News, December 31, 2002
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2002.html#1041310801
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1041310801
>
>14. AD TRIUMPHS AND ADVERTROCITIES
>http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=36812
>   Advertising Age editor-at-large Bob Garfield reviews the high and
>   low points of TV advertising during the past year and finds mostly
>   lows connected to the "war on terrorism": from ads linking casual
>   drug use to the funding of terrorism ("the evidence is a bit
>   thin"); to the Freedom Campaign, which ran ads celebrating the
>   blessings of American democracy. Unfortunately, Garfield observes,
>   "The most striking - a 'Twilight Zone'-esque glimpse at how an
>   America without civil liberties might look - was more chilling and
>   ironic than intended. The supposedly apocalyptic scenario of
>   federal agents shadowing our personal library activities had
>   already come to pass, among other infringements, in the repulsively
>   named Patriot Act."
>SOURCE: Advertising Age, December 30, 2002
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1041224401
>
>
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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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