[eccr] Fwd: The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, September 17, 2003

>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, September 17, 2003
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. The Muzzled Press
>2. Homefront Confidential
>3. Radioactive Waste Is Good For You
>4. Nike Settles Sweatshop Labor Suit, PR Stays Muted
>5. Branding America, One More Try
>6. Media Lose Access to Information
>7. Now They Know How You Feel
>8. Flooding the Zone
>9. The Profane Pervert Arab Blogger
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>
>1. THE MUZZLED PRESS
>http://www.usatoday.com/life/columnist/mediamix/2003-09-14-media-mix_x.htm
>   "CNN's top war correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, says that the
>   press muzzled itself during the Iraq war. And, she says CNN 'was
>   intimidated' by the Bush administration and Fox News, which 'put a
>   climate of fear and self-censorship,'" USA Today's Peter Johnson
>   writes. Appearing on CNBC's "Topic A With Tina Brown" with other
>   guests comedian Al Franken and former Pentagon spokeswoman Torie
>   Clarke, Amanpour told Brown that is wasn't a question of being able
>   to do certain stories and not do others. "It's a question of being
>   rigorous. It's really a question of really asking the questions.
>   All of the entire body politic in my view, whether it's the
>   administration, the intelligence, the journalists, whoever, did not
>   ask enough questions, for instance, about weapons of mass
>   destruction. I mean, it looks like this was disinformation at the
>   highest levels," Amanpour said.
>SOURCE: USA Today, September 14, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1063512000
>
>2. HOMEFRONT CONFIDENTIAL
>http://www.rcfp.org/homefrontconfidential/
>   The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has released an
>   updated report chronicling the effects the war on terrorism has had
>   on the public's right to know. The 89-page report, called
>   "Homefront Confidential: How the War on Terrorism Affects Access to
>   Information and the Public's Right to Know," outlines actions taken
>   over the last two years by state and federal government agencies
>   that limit the ability of journalists to do their jobs.
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1063428591
>
>3. RADIOACTIVE WASTE IS GOOD FOR YOU
>http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,7244734%255E2682,00.html
>   Michels Warren, a PR firm in Adelaide, Australia, is collecting up
>   to $107,000 from the Federal Government to sell the merits of a
>   planned radioactive waste dump in South Australia.
>SOURCE: Adelaide Advertiser, September 13, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2003.html#1063425600
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1063425600
>
>4. NIKE SETTLES SWEATSHOP LABOR SUIT, PR STAYS MUTED
>http://www.prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=190002&site=3
>   "Nike said today that although it has settled the suit brought
>   against it by California consumer activist Mark Kasky, it still
>   intends to curtail its corporate PR efforts, including the
>   continued suspension of its social-responsibility reporting
>   initiative," PR Week reports. "Despite the settlement, which was
>   announced this morning, Nike said it does not plan to ramp up the
>   PR activities that had been curtailed because of the pending
>   lawsuit. ... Nike has also decided not to issue its
>   corporate-responsibility report for fiscal year 2002." The suit
>   stemmed from a Nike campaign to defend itself from charges that it
>   used sweatshop labor. Kasky sued Nike in 1998 under California
>   truth-in-advertising laws saying Nike's claims were false. Nike
>   said its statements on its overseas factories are protected speech.
>   The California Supreme court, however, disagreed with Nike, saying
>   its campaign did qualify as commercial speech. The US Supreme court
>   decided not to rule on Nike's appeal. Nike admits no liability with
>   the settlement that will see $1.5 million dollars going to the Fair
>   Labor Association.
>SOURCE: PR Week, September 12, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2003.html#1063339201
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1063339201
>
>5. BRANDING AMERICA, ONE MORE TRY
>http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-image12sep12,1,2019245.story
>   "After a failed advertising campaign in the Middle East and then
>   the war in Iraq, which most people in the region opposed, the Bush
>   administration is struggling to find a better way to communicate,"
>   reports Sonni Efron. "Plans call for new messages as well as new
>   messengers - including launching an Arabic-language satellite
>   television station to compete with Qatar-based Al Jazeera. The
>   administration's critics argue that the United States can do little
>   to improve its image without major changes in unpopular policies,
>   especially its close alliance with Israel. But some conservatives
>   blame the State Department for doing a bad job of selling what
>   should be an appealing message of freedom and democracy." The U.S.
>   spends $1 billion per year to polish its image abroad, but
>   according to pollster John Zogby, who studies public opinion in
>   many Arab nations, American popularity there has hit "rock bottom."
>   Similar sentiments are being expressed "from Africa to Europe to
>   Southeast Asia," according to the New York Times.
>SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, September 12, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2003.html#1063339200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1063339200
>
>6. MEDIA LOSE ACCESS TO INFORMATION
>http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/6734740.htm
>   "In two years since the terrorist attacks," writes Keith McKnight,
>   "journalists across the country have found themselves losing access
>   togovernment-held information on various matters - much of which
>   has nothing to do with national security."
>SOURCE: Beacon Journal (Akron, Ohio), September 10, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1063166403
>
>7. NOW THEY KNOW HOW YOU FEEL
>http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/6739380.htm
>   Humorous columnist Dave Barry is driving telemarketers nuts with
>   his recent column that published the toll-free number for their
>   lobby group, the American Teleservices Association. Barry
>   encouraged readers to call the ATA "to tell them what you think"
>   about telemarketers. Thousands of readers took Barry up on his
>   suggestion, and 10 days later, they're still calling. ""I feel just
>   terrible, especially if they were eating or anything," Barry says.
>SOURCE: Miami Herald, September 10, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2003.html#1063166402
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1063166402
>
>8. FLOODING THE ZONE
>http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1971091
>   "Some time in the next two weeks, David Kay, head of the Iraqi
>   Survey Group, is expected to finally release a crucial report on
>   his findings so far in his search for weapons of destruction,"
>   writes Greg Mitchell. "Since no weapons of mass destruction (WMDs)
>   have been found in Iraq, close observers now report that Kay is
>   likely to drop on the media a massive weapon of his own: hundreds
>   or thousands of pages of summaries and documents purporting to
>   prove that Saddam Hussein had WMDs. ... Kay thereby will "flood the
>   zone" and hope the press portrays what may be largely assertion --
>   not fact -- as compelling proof. Would the media possibly fall for
>   this? There are disturbing indications that they would." After all,
>   journalist did it before when they rolled over and accepted Colin
>   Powell's now-discredited speech last summer to the United Nations.
>SOURCE: Editor & Publisher, September 9, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2003.html#1063080001
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1063080001
>
>9. THE PROFANE PERVERT ARAB BLOGGER
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1038253,00.html
>   "Salam Pax," the already-legendary writer of a Baghdad-based
>   weblog, tells how his site began as "an internet joke with a friend
>   in Jordan" and grew to become the most famous web diary in the
>   world. Despite Saddam Hussein's censorship of the Internet, he
>   writes, "the internet offered a wealth of tunnelling software to
>   download, little programs which allowed you to make tiny holes in
>   the firewall through which you could access blocked sites." Blogs
>   in particular seemed to fly below the censors' radar: "I preferred
>   to believe they were not watching. They were never patient. If they
>   knew about it I would already have been hanging from a ceiling
>   being asked about anti-governmental activities. ... By the end of
>   January war felt very close and the blog was being read by a huge
>   number of people. There were big doubts that I was writing from
>   Baghdad, the main argument being there was no way such a thing
>   could stay under the radar for so long in a police state. I really
>   have no idea how that happened. I have no idea whether they knew
>   about it or not. I just felt that it was important that among all
>   the weblogs about Iraq and the war there should be at least one
>   Iraqi blog, one single voice: no matter how you view my politics,
>   there was at least someone talking." Today several blogs are
>   available from Iraqis as well as individual U.S. soldiers stationed
>   in Iraq, using colorful pseudonyms such as Baghdad Burning, Turning
>   Tables, Chief Wiggles, and Chrome Dome.
>SOURCE: The Guardian (UK), September 9, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2003.html#1063080000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1063080000
>
>
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Carpentier Nico (Phd)
Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University Brussels
Studies on Media, Information & Telecommunication (SMIT)
Centre for Media Sociology (CeMeSO)
Office: C0.05
Pleinlaan 2 - B-1050 Brussels - Belgium
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E-mail: (Nico.Carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
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