Archive for June 2003

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[eccr] Fwd: The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, June 18, 2003

Wed Jun 18 08:56:40 GMT 2003


>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, June 18, 2003
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>The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. Stonewalling the Arms Inspectors
>2. Facts about Iraq? Who cares?
>3. 'Shared Values' Campaign Under Review
>4. Intelligence? What Intelligence?
>5. Pentagon's PR Chief Torie Clarke Resigns
>6. CBS News/Viacom Offers POW Lynch Stardom
>7. Those Ungrateful Iraqis
>8. Not Counting the Dead
>9. Media's Class Divisions
>10. Right Wing Think Tank Takes Aim at NGOs
>11. The Strategically Ambiguous Bush
>12. Obfuscation, Obfuscation, Obfuscation
>13. PRSA Hands Out Silver Anvils
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. STONEWALLING THE ARMS INSPECTORS
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2996752.stm
>   Senator Carl Levin, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services
>   Committee, has publicly challenged the CIA's handling of
>   information about alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. "Why
>   did the CIA say that they had provided detailed information to the
>   UN inspectors on all of the high and medium suspect sites with the
>   UN, when they had not?" Levin asked. "Did the CIA act in this way
>   in order not to undermine administration policy? Was there another
>   explanation for this? ... It undermines the credibility of the
>   director of intelligence to be making public statements relative to
>   intelligence which are not factually accurate." Levin wants a
>   Senate investigation into whether US intelligence on Iraq was
>   "shaded or exaggerated."
>SOURCE: BBC, June 17, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1055822401
>
>2. FACTS ABOUT IRAQ? WHO CARES?
>http://www.dmregister.com/opinion/stories/c2125555/21521542.html
>   The Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius once wrote, "The opinion of
>   10,000 men is of no value if none of them knows anything about the
>   subject." The editorial board of the Des Moines Register writes,
>   "That is the quote that comes to mind now that a new poll reveals
>   many Americans are misinformed about Iraq." The fact that Americans
>   don't know the truth about the basics is "downright scary. It means
>   Americans are basing their opinions about the Iraq war on
>   misinformation." According to the Register, the findings also
>   suggest a reason why "the Bush administration may not be so
>   concerned about finding the still-elusive weapons of mass
>   destruction in Iraq: It doesn't matter. The people think they were
>   found. The people think Saddam Hussein was somehow involved in the
>   Sept. 11 hijackings. The people think it's OK to attack a country.
>   Because they don't know the facts."
>SOURCE: Des Moines Register, June 17, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2003.html#1055822400
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1055822400
>
>3. 'SHARED VALUES' CAMPAIGN UNDER REVIEW
>http://www.prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=182697&site=3
>   "At the request of Congress, the State Department is launching an
>   inquiry into its campaign to polish America's image in Muslim
>   countries over the past two years," PR Week writes. "The move comes
>   just one week after a new Pew Global Attitudes survey showed that
>   negative views of the US are on the rise in the Middle East." Most
>   of the work to be reviewed -- known as the "Shared Values" campaign
>   -- "was spearheaded by former ad executive Charlotte Beers, who
>   left her post as undersecretary of state for public affairs and
>   public diplomacy in March for health reasons." Veteran Middle East
>   diplomat Edward Djerejian will assemble and lead an advisory group
>   that "will consist largely of private-sector PR and media experts,"
>   PR Week writes.
>SOURCE: PR Week, June 16, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1055736003
>
>4. INTELLIGENCE? WHAT INTELLIGENCE?
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62941-2003Jun15?language=printer
>   Five days before the war began in Iraq, Rand Beers resigned his
>   White House job as special assistant to the president for combating
>   terrorism. "The administration wasn't matching its deeds to its
>   words in the war on terrorism. They're making us less secure, not
>   more secure," Beers told reporter Laura Blumenfeld. "As an insider,
>   I saw the things that weren't being done. And the longer I sat and
>   watched, the more concerned I became, until I got up and walked
>   out." Beers described the Bush administration as "a very closed,
>   small, controlled group. This is an administration that determines
>   what it thinks and then sets about to prove it. There's almost a
>   religious kind of certainty. There's no curiosity about opposing
>   points of view. It's very scary. There's kind of a ghost agenda."
>SOURCE: Washington Post, June 16, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2003.html#1055736002
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1055736002
>
>5. PENTAGON'S PR CHIEF TORIE CLARKE RESIGNS
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64452-2003Jun16.html?nav=hptoc_p
>   Victoria "Torie" Clarke is resigning from her position as
>   Department of Defense assistant secretary for public affairs.
>   Clarke says she's leaving her top spot as Pentagon spin doctor for
>   personal reasons. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in a press
>   release that in her two years of service, Clarke has "developed
>   countless new methods to tell the story of our fighting forces, and
>   bring their courage, dedication, and professionalism into sharp
>   focus for all Americans." As we report in our forthcoming book
>   Weapons of Mass Deception, Clarke is credited with developing the
>   Pentagon's brilliant PR strategy of embedding reporters with troops
>   in Iraq. If investigations are ever held on the selling of the war
>   a key question might become 'what did Torie know, and when did she
>   know it?'
>SOURCE: Washington Post, June 16, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2003.html#1055736001
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1055736001
>
>6. CBS NEWS/VIACOM OFFERS POW LYNCH STARDOM
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/16/business/media/16CBS.html?ex=1056774440&ei=1&en=4e35cd4a9dc97699
>   "In its letters to Private Lynch's family and officials at the
>   medical center, obtained by The New York Times, CBS News combined
>   its pitch for a two-hour documentary with many other projects
>   envisioned by the other divisions of its corporate parent, Viacom.
>   In the process, CBS renewed concerns among critics about the
>   independence of news divisions owned by media giants. 'Attached you
>   will find the outlines of a proposal that includes ideas from CBS
>   News, CBS Entertainment, MTV networks and Simon & Schuster
>   publishers,' Betsy West, a CBS News senior vice president, wrote to
>   Private Lynch's military representatives. 'From the distinguished
>   reporting of CBS News to the youthful reach of MTV, we believe this
>   is a unique combination of projects that will do justice to
>   Jessica's inspiring story.' "
>SOURCE: New York Times, June 16, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1055736000
>
>7. THOSE UNGRATEFUL IRAQIS
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/15/business/yourmoney/15VIEW.html?pagewanted=print
>   Morale among U.S. troops in Iraq is suffering as they find
>   themselves "locked into an increasingly serious battle against
>   guerrilla snipers and bombers who stage regular hit-and-run
>   attacks," reports Edmund L. Andrews. "You call Donald Rumsfeld and
>   tell him our sorry asses are ready to go home," said infantryman
>   Pfc. Matthew C. O'Dell. "Tell him to come spend a night in our
>   building." Several soldiers have received psychological counseling
>   after showing signs of combat stress: nightmares, sleeplessness,
>   edginess, outbursts of anger and what a chaplain called "intrusive
>   thoughts." But apparently the thought that we shouldn't be
>   occupying Iraq hasn't yet intruded on people like Arizona resident
>   Carol Drew, who thinks the Iraqis are "selfish and thankless" for
>   "crying and whining about how little food and water there is and
>   blaming it on America." Drew's niece is stationed in Iraq as a
>   soldier. "The soldiers are suffering diarrhea," she reports. "They
>   sleep on the ground in ditches to cover themselves from constant
>   gunfire from the Iraqis. ... She has lost 15 pounds and is weak
>   from lack of proper nutrition and water, but is adamant about being
>   there to do the job that her government has required her to do."
>   (How much "constant gunfire" will it take to persuade her that the
>   Iraqis don't want them there?)
>SOURCE: New York Times, June 15, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2003.html#1055649600
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1055649600
>
>8. NOT COUNTING THE DEAD
>http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/164/oped/US_clouds_Iraqi_civilian_deathsP.shtml
>   Derrick Z. Jackson examines the "numbing prattle" from US military
>   officials "about the precision of our weaponry, precaution to avoid
>   needless carnage, and promises to investigate possible mistakes."
>   During the war, officials said pledged investigations into civilian
>   casualties, but are now admitting that the "investigations" were
>   never conducted. A recent Associated Press report counted more than
>   3,000 civilian deaths. The Iraq body count has tallied more than
>   5,000. Another group, the Campaign for Innocent Victims in
>   Conflict, is conducting its own count and campaigning for U.S.
>   compensation to family members of the dead.
>SOURCE: Boston Globe, June 13, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2003.html#1055476800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1055476800
>
>9. MEDIA'S CLASS DIVISIONS
>http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/mediarpt/stories/s876082.htm
>   Discussing whether the profit making side of the media industry had
>   won out over content, former "60 Minutes" producer Lowell Bergman
>   (who was played by Al Pacino in the movie "The Insider") told
>   Australia's Radio National, "It's a situation where the class
>   differential between the people who present, so-called presenters,
>   we call them talent when you work inside the network news
>   organisations, between what they make for instance annually, and
>   what the people who work in the industry make, who actually do most
>   of the reporting and production and writing, is just phenomenal.
>   They become part of if you will, the logo of the corporate
>   organisation. An example would be Frontline, the only documentary
>   series on US network television, it's on public television, has an
>   annual budget that is less than the annual salary of the host of
>   the Today Show ... Katie Couric."
>SOURCE: Media Report (Australia), June 12, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1055390402
>
>10. RIGHT WING THINK TANK TAKES AIM AT NGOS
>http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0612-09.htm
>   The industry-funded right-wing think tank the American Enterprise
>   Institute (AEI) has taken aim at non-governmental organizations.
>   During a recent all-day conference, "Nongovernmental Organizations:
>   The Growing Power of an Unelected Few," speakers delivered the
>   message that NGOs "are using their growing prominence and power to
>   pursue a 'liberal' agenda at the international level that threatens
>   U.S. sovereignty and free-market capitalism." According to AEI and
>   the conference co-sponsor, the rightist Institute of Public Affairs
>   of Australia, "NGOs have created their own rules and regulations
>   and demanded that governments and corporations abide by those
>   rules." Jim Lobe writes for OneWorld, "Several speakers praised the
>   work of NGOs ... but stressed that, at the international policy
>   level, much of what they did actually hurt the intended
>   beneficiaries." NGOs' opposition to the use of DDT to fight malaria
>   and to the delivery of genetically-engineered corn in southern
>   Africa were cited as examples of policies which amounted to
>   "eco-imperialism" and showed a "callous disregard for human life."
>SOURCE: OneWorld, June 12, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2003.html#1055390401
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1055390401
>
>11. THE STRATEGICALLY AMBIGUOUS BUSH
>http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20030612.html
>   "President Bush's recent claim that weapons of mass destruction
>   have been found in Iraq highlights two disturbing trends in
>   rhetoric from the White House," observes Bryan Keefer. The first
>   "is the Bush administration's record of factual misstatements and
>   distortions. The second is the administration's - and especially
>   President Bush's - history of strategically ambiguous statements
>   that, while technically or arguably true, imply connections between
>   two things which he cannot directly demonstrate." Keefer explains
>   how Bush has used language to fudge the difference between
>   "weapons" and "weapons programs," to insinuate a relationship
>   between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, and to mislead the public
>   about the causes of the U.S. budget deficit and the economic
>   recession.
>SOURCE: Spinsanity.org, June 12, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1055390400
>
>12. OBFUSCATION, OBFUSCATION, OBFUSCATION
>http://media.guardian.co.uk/columnists/story/0,7550,975178,00.html
>   Most public relations practioners will tell you that PR is about
>   good communication between an organization and its public. But the
>   Guardian's Mark Borkowski finds a different kind of public
>   relations being practiced by political and corporate institutions.
>   To deal with objections to their actions, these institutions
>   "create smokescreens of confusion and perplexity to enable them to
>   do exactly what they want, regardless of the wishes of the people
>   they are supposed to serve," Borkowski writes. "To take matters in
>   order of importance: obfuscation, obfuscation, obfuscation is New
>   Labour's great unsung policy, and the one employed to argue away
>   the government's failure to fulfil its unambiguous electoral
>   promises."
>SOURCE: Guardian (UK), June 11, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1055304000
>
>13. PRSA HANDS OUT SILVER ANVILS
>http://www.prsa.org/_News/press/pr060603.asp
>   The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) announced the
>   winners of its top award, the Silver Anvil. The Best of Silver
>   Anvil award went to co-winners the U.S. Postal Service and the
>   Presidents Council of State Universities of Michigan. U.S. Postal
>   Service with Burson-Marsteller won for their campaign to restore
>   public trust and confidence in the U.S. Postal Service during and
>   after the fall 2001 anthrax crisis. The Presidents Council of State
>   Universities of Michigan with Marketing Resource Group, Inc. won
>   for a successful campaign that helped defeat a statewide ballot
>   measure, which would have diverted some of Michigan's $300 million
>   tobacco settlement away from college scholarships.
>SOURCE: Public Relations Society of America, June 6, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2003.html#1054872001
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1054872001
>
>
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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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