[eccr] Fwd: The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, September 3, 2003

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>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, September 3, 2003
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. Dead Meat
>2. Wounded In Action Go Unreported
>3. Groping in the Dark
>4. Spinning the Death of Spin
>5. Cheney's Lie
>6. UK's Top Spin Doctor Resigns
>7. A Lobbyman's Holiday
>8. The Perfect Storm
>9. Who's Fooling Whom?
>10. War On Terror = All-Purpose Opposition Cleanser
>11. Dust and Deception
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. DEAD MEAT
>http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1062535723254_57944923/?hub=Canada
>   A Canadian meat packing plant has retained the Primary Counsel
>   Group, a PR firm, to help answer allegations that it has been
>   processing and selling "deadstock" - dead and condemned animals
>   deemed unfit for human consumption. About four dozen people have
>   reported stomach ailments after eating meats produced by Aylmer
>   Meat Packers, which has a long history of previous health and food
>   safety violations and had its license pulled last week pending a
>   government investigation.
>SOURCE: CTV (Canada), September 2, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2003.html#1062475201
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1062475201
>
>2. WOUNDED IN ACTION GO UNREPORTED
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12096-2003Sep1.html
>   "U.S. battlefield casualties in Iraq are increasing dramatically in
>   the face of continued attacks by remnants of Saddam Hussein's
>   military and other forces, with almost 10 American troops a day now
>   being officially declared 'wounded in action,'" the Washington
>   Post's Vernon Lobe writes. With so many troops wounded in action
>   and attacks on soldiers becoming "commonplace," U.S. Central
>   Command only releases the number of wounded when asked -- "making
>   the combat injuries of U.S. troops in Iraq one of the untold
>   stories of the war," Lobe writes. "Since the war began, more than
>   6,000 service members have been flown back to the United States.
>   The number includes the 1,124 wounded in action, 301 who received
>   non-hostile injuries in vehicle accidents and other mishaps, and
>   thousands who became physically or mentally ill."
>SOURCE: Washington Post, September 2, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1062475200
>
>3. GROPING IN THE DARK
>http://www.msnbc.com/news/956618.asp
>   "Iraq may be spinning out of control, but in the Bush
>   administration, the spin was strictly controlled," writes Evan
>   Thomas. "From Baghdad to the White House, administration spokesmen
>   went to elaborate lengths to argue that the presence of terrorists
>   in Iraq was somehow a positive development." According to a recent
>   Newsweek opinion poll, Bush's approval ratings are declining, and
>   69 percent of Americans worry that the United States will be bogged
>   down for many years in Iraq without making much progress in
>   achieving its goals. Bad news is also penetrating the public
>   consciousness as families of soldiers stationed in Iraq are shocked
>   by the emails they are getting back from the front lines. "If
>   you're a military commander, e-mail is the worst thing ever
>   invented," complains Republican Senator Chuck Hagel.
>SOURCE: Newsweek, September 1, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2003.html#1062388800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1062388800
>
>4. SPINNING THE DEATH OF SPIN
>http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=438772
>   The British government is setting up a new "Department of Truth" in
>   an effort to end damaging publicity about the role of politically
>   appointed "spin-doctors." The rumored brain behind this strategy,
>   however, is Peter Mandelson, the former Labour Party communications
>   director who is credited with being the first of the new wave of
>   spin-doctors when he worked for the party in the 1980s. "He is the
>   one advising Tony Blair," said a government insider. "The King of
>   Spin is in charge of the death of spin."
>SOURCE: Independent (UK), August 31, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1062302400
>
>5. CHENEY'S LIE
>http://writ.news.findlaw.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=/dean/20030829.html
>   "This month, the General Accounting Office (GAO) - the
>   investigative and auditing arm of Congress - issued a report that
>   contains some startling revelations," notes John Dean. "Though they
>   are couched in very polite language, they are bombshells
>   nonetheless. The report - entitled 'Energy Task Force: Process Used
>   to Develop the National Energy Policy' - and its accompanying
>   Chronology strongly imply that the Administration has, in effect,
>   been paying off its heavy-hitting energy industry contributors. It
>   also very strongly implies that Vice President Dick Cheney lied to
>   Congress."
>SOURCE: FindLaw, August 29, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2003.html#1062129603
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1062129603
>
>6. UK'S TOP SPIN DOCTOR RESIGNS
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/30/international/europe/30BRIT.html
>   Alastair Campbell, the top spin doctor for British Prime Minister
>   Tony Blair, has announced his resignation amid continuing
>   controversy over his role in building the case for war with Iraq.
>   Nicknamed England's "real deputy prime minister," Campbell said his
>   family had paid a heavy price for the "real and intense" pressures
>   of his job. He will be replaced by David Hill, a PR executive at
>   Bell-Pottinger Communications and managing director of Good
>   Relations ltd, which has represented Monsanto.
>SOURCE: New York Times, August 29, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2003.html#1062129602
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1062129602
>
>7. A LOBBYMAN'S HOLIDAY
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61599-2003Aug28.html
>   "For most Americans, August is a time for summer vacation. For
>   members of Congress, their aides and some lobbyists, it's a time
>   for privately sponsored junkets," the Washington Post's Juliet
>   Eilperin writes. "This month, for example, 20 members of Congress
>   jetted to London for a week-long visit in which they delved into
>   such issues as trade, terrorism and foreign affairs. These
>   politicians had no fear of getting lonely, however: More than 100
>   lobbyists accompanied them, according to documents obtained by The
>   Washington Post." The trip, sponsored by the Republican Ripon
>   Educational Fund, is free for the congressional contingent. The
>   lobbyists -- representing corporations like American Express, AOL
>   Time Warner, Bristol-Myers Squibb, General Motors and
>   Hewlett-Packard -- pay their own way plus Ripon annual membership
>   fees of $9,500.
>SOURCE: Washington Post, August 29, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1062129601
>
>8. THE PERFECT STORM
>http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-8-92-1457.jsp#
>   "If the first Iraq war of 1991 was dubbed Desert Storm , the second
>   might be called Perfect Storm," writes Lance Bennett, professor of
>   political science at University of Washington. "The run-up to the
>   2003 war witnessed an extraordinary convergence of factors that
>   produced near-perfect journalistic participation in government
>   propaganda operations. ... On a scale from one to ten -- if 'one'
>   is rigorously sceptical and 'ten' supine -- Perfect Storm scored
>   ten out of ten, far exceeding the already impressive levels of
>   press complicity achieved in the first Iraq war. ... This time, the
>   level of mediated public deliberation was so diminished as to make
>   the preponderance of journalism little more than an instrumental
>   extension -- a sort of propaganda helper -- of the strategic
>   communication goals of the administration. With few notable
>   exceptions, the press took a pass on its fourth estate
>   prerogatives. Posing the hard questions, testing the
>   administrations logic and execution at every point, remaining
>   sceptical -- all this was drowned in a sea of waving flags and
>   gung-ho celebrations of military technology." Bennett itemizes the
>   "top ten factors that created this perfect propaganda storm," which
>   include "9/11 happened," "Master scripting and directing by Karl
>   Rove," and "The Fox Effect."
>SOURCE: OpenDemocracy.net, August 29, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1062129600
>
>9. WHO'S FOOLING WHOM?
>http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-wmd28aug28,1,124561,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines
>   Unable to find Saddam Hussein's suspected chemical and biological
>   weapons, U.S. intelligence officials say they're looking into
>   whether they were victims of a disinformation campaign meant to
>   trick them about Iraq's weapons stockpiles, the Los Angeles Times
>   reports. Officials are now questioning the information coming from
>   Iraqi defectors, claiming the Hussein regime had "double agents"
>   disguised as defectors to the West planting fabricated
>   intelligence. They also suggest that "Baghdad apparently tricked
>   legitimate defectors into funneling phony tips about weapons
>   production and storage sites," the Times writes. "Critics had
>   charged that the Bush administration exaggerated intelligence on
>   Iraq to bolster support for the war. The broader question now is
>   whether some of the actual intelligence was fabricated and U.S.
>   officials failed to detect it. One U.S. intelligence official said
>   analysts may have been too eager to find evidence to support the
>   White House's claims. As a result, he said, defectors 'were just
>   telling us what we wanted to hear.'" Ahmad Chalabi, head of the
>   Iraqi National Congress, has claimed his group provided three
>   defectors with knowledge of Hussein's illegal weapons to the
>   Defense Intelligence Agency. The CIA and State Department, however,
>   had repeatedly warned that intelligence from the INC had been
>   unreliable in the past. Chalabi's defectors failed to lead the U.S.
>   to any concrete evidence.
>SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, August 28, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2003.html#1062043201
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1062043201
>
>10. WAR ON TERROR = ALL-PURPOSE OPPOSITION CLEANSER
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1030572,00.html
>   "Terrorism doesn't just blow up buildings; it blasts every other
>   issue off the political map," journalist Naomi Klein writes. "The
>   spectre of terrorism - real and exaggerated - has become a shield
>   of impunity, protecting governments around the world from scrutiny
>   for their human rights abuses. Many have argued that the War on
>   Terror is the US government's thinly veiled excuse for constructing
>   a classic empire, in the model of Rome or Britain. Two years into
>   the crusade, it's clear this is a mistake: the Bush gang doesn't
>   have the stick-to-it-ness to successfully occupy one country, let
>   alone a dozen. Bush and the gang do, however, have the hustle of
>   good marketers, and they know how to contract out. What Bush has
>   created in the WoT is less a 'doctrine' for world domination than
>   an easy-to-assemble toolkit for any mini-empire looking to get rid
>   of the opposition and expand its power. The War on Terror was never
>   a war in the traditional sense. It is, instead, a kind of brand, an
>   idea that can be easily franchised by any government in the market
>   for an all-purpose opposition cleanser."
>SOURCE: Guardian (UK), August 28, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1062043200
>
>11. DUST AND DECEPTION
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/26/opinion/26KRUG.html
>   "Last week," notes columnist Paul Krugman, "a quietly scathing
>   report by the inspector general of the Environmental Protection
>   Agency confirmed what some have long suspected: in the aftermath of
>   the World Trade Center's collapse, the agency systematically misled
>   New Yorkers about the risks the resulting air pollution posed to
>   their health. And it did so under pressure from the White House."
>   Columnist Jimmy Breslin is even more blunt: "They lied because the
>   administration did not want people not going to work. They lied the
>   first week and they lied the week after that and they have lied
>   every day of the past two years to the people of this city. ... I
>   sit here in New York and I don't believe one single solitary word
>   of what the government says. ... And now we have this
>   administration welding their lies together on two matters: the air
>   you breathe and the war they insist is good for us."
>SOURCE: New York Times, August 26, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2003.html#1061870403
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1061870403
>
>
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Carpentier Nico (Phd)
Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University Brussels
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