[eccr] Fwd: The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, October 15, 2003

>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, October 15, 2003
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. "Nayirah" Handler Hypes Iraqi's Book on Lynch Rescue
>2. Bush Goes 'Over the Heads' of National Media
>3. Mind Games and Word Games
>4. The Story Behind the Story
>5. Letters Home From a Ghostwriter
>6. White House Buffs Image (Again)
>7. Bending Facts Until They Break
>8. The Recall Show With Jay Leno
>9. Journalists Frustrated With White House Secrecy
>10. Truth, War and Consequences
>11. Superman's Treason
>12. Conservative Pundits Feel the Heat
>13. Bestselling Books Bash Bush
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. "NAYIRAH" HANDLER HYPES IRAQI'S BOOK ON LYNCH RESCUE
>   Expect lots of media hype soon over the first Jessica Lynch-related
>   book by Iraqi Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief. According to some reports
>   he told U.S. Marines the location of the captured Private Lynch. He
>   and his family were then granted U.S. asylum. Along with the chance
>   for U.S. citizenship, al-Rehaief received $300,000 from Rupert
>   Murdoch's Harper Collins for his new book about the Lynch rescue.
>   He also was given a job at the Livingston Group, a high-powered
>   D.C. lobby firm. His book "Because Each Life Is Precious: Why an
>   Iraqi Man Came to Risk Everything for Pvt. Jessica Lynch" is being
>   promoted by his Livingston Group colleague Lauri Fitz-Pegado. She
>   is infamous for her work at Hill & Knowlton PR in 1990 coaching the
>   Kuwaiti girl called "Nayirah" in her shocking but phony testimony
>   on Congressional hill that she'd seen Iraqi soldiers murdering
>   Kuwaiti babies. That stunt helped propel the U.S. to war against
>   Iraq in 1991. Fitz-Pegado's client was the ruling family of Kuwait
>   and the baby-killing claims were later shown to be false. The new
>   book is well timed since it will precede by a few weeks Jessica
>   Lynch's own book, half-a-million copies of which will hit
>   bookstores on Veterans Day, November 11th.
>Web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2003.html#1066190400
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1066190400
>
>2. BUSH GOES 'OVER THE HEADS' OF NATIONAL MEDIA
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A21714-2003Oct13?language=printer
>   "The Bush administration, displeased with the news coverage of the
>   war in Iraq, has accelerated efforts to bypass the national media
>   by telling the administration's story directly to the American
>   public," the Washington Post's Dana Milbank writes. In an
>   "unprecedented effort to reach news organizations that do not
>   regularly cover the White House," Bush did five eight-minute
>   interviews with regional broadcasters yesterday. Mentioning
>   improvements to Iraq's hospitals and schools, Milbank reports, "he
>   said that 'there's a great deal of consistency' in the
>   administration's actions and 'a very clear strategy' while
>   expressing "'a sense that people in America aren't getting the
>   truth.' In one interview, with Hearst-Argyle, he said, 'I'm mindful
>   of the filter through which some news travels, and somehow you just
>   got to go over the heads of the filter and speak directly to the
>   people.'"
>SOURCE: Washington Post, October 14, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1066104000
>
>3. MIND GAMES AND WORD GAMES
>http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2003/issue2/english/art4.html
>   The NATO Review has published an essay by Lieutenant-Colonel Steven
>   Collins, the chief of PSYOPS (psychological operations) in NATO's
>   Operations Division at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe.
>   Titled "Mind Games," the essay examines the use of
>   "perception-management operations before, during and after
>   Operation Iraqi Freedom. Collins defines perception management to
>   mean "all actions used to influence the attitudes and objective
>   reasoning of foreign audiences and consists of Public Diplomacy,
>   Psychological Operations (PSYOPS), Public Information, Deception
>   and Covert Action." He adds, "It was surprising, even to PSYOPS
>   practitioners, how often the term 'PSYOPS' was used in military
>   briefings and by the press during Iraqi Freedom. In recent military
>   operations, there has been a tendency to blur connotations and
>   meanings by using fuzzier terminology, avoiding terms like
>   psychological operations and opting for what is deemed by some to
>   be more acceptable expressions like 'Information Operations' (INFO
>   OPS)." However, Collins continues, "This can lead to embarrassing
>   consequences. ... [T]he press and the public have caught on to this
>   word game, expressing concern about how the use of the term INFO
>   OPS seems to be a deliberate attempt to allow PSYOPS to be used by
>   politicians in order to manipulate domestic audiences to support
>   weak, unpopular policies."
>SOURCE: NATO Review, Summer 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1066023090
>
>4. THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY
>http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/recall/la-oe-carroll12oct12,0,4817752.story
>   The Los Angeles Times is facing a firestorm of criticism from
>   supporters of Arnold Schwarzenegger who have accused the newspaper
>   of showing bias against their candidate by publishing women's
>   complaints that Schwarzenegger sexually harassed them. "Regrets?
>   Not one," responds Times editor John Carroll. "Personally, I knew
>   the stories were solid as Gibraltar. ... Among those employees
>   whose misfortune it is to answer the phones at The Times, there is
>   a consensus that our angriest critics haven't actually read the
>   stories. Instead, they've heard about them secondhand."
>SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, October 12, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2003.html#1065931200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1065931200
>
>5. LETTERS HOME FROM A GHOSTWRITER
>http://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20031011/frontpage/121390.shtml
>   "Letters from hometown soldiers describing their successes
>   rebuilding Iraq have been appearing in newspapers across the
>   country as U.S. public opinion on the mission sours," reports
>   Ledyard King. "And all the letters are the same." A newspaper in
>   Olympia, Washington noticed the pattern after receiving
>   identically-worded letters from two different soldiers with the 2nd
>   Battalion of the 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment. A subsequent
>   search found the same letter, over different signatures, in 11
>   different newspapers, including the Charleston Daily Mail; Mountain
>   View Telegraph of Moriarty, NM; Observer-Dispatch of Utica, NY; and
>   the Boston Globe. When contacted, none of the soldiers whose names
>   appear on the letters said they actually wrote it, and one said he
>   didn't even know about the letter until his father congratulated
>   him for getting it published.
>SOURCE: The Olympian (WA), October 11, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2003.html#1065844800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1065844800
>
>6. WHITE HOUSE BUFFS IMAGE (AGAIN)
>http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_3238.shtml
>   Faced with falling poll numbers and domestic unease with the Iraq
>   situation, the White House is again attempting to polish its image.
>   "The Bush administration is undertaking a campaign to regenerate
>   public support for its policies in Iraq, dispatching officials
>   across the country to promote White House strategy and build
>   momentum for its $87 billion proposal to rebuild the war-torn
>   nation," Capitol Hill Blue reports. National Security Advisor
>   Condoleezza Rice kicked the campaign off Wednesday, addressing the
>   Council on Foreign Relations in Chicago. George W. Bush spoke
>   Thursday in in Portsmouth, N.H., where he "praised military
>   reservists and family members who gathered for his speech,
>   asserting that the United States is 'meeting the test of history'
>   as a result of its involvement in Iraq, which he described as the
>   'central front' in the war on terrorism." Friday, Vice President
>   Dick Cheney spoke at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. Cheney
>   delivered "a blistering rebuttal yesterday to critics of the
>   administration's foreign policy and arguing that a consensus-based
>   foreign policy is obsolete. ... Cheney blasted the criticism 'that
>   the United States, when its security is threatened, may not act
>   without unanimous international consent,'" the Washington Post
>   reports.
>SOURCE: Capitol Hill Blue, October 10, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2003.html#1065758400
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1065758400
>
>7. BENDING FACTS UNTIL THEY BREAK
>http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4943.htm
>   "The most obvious proof that Bush officials hyped and distorted
>   evidence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in the past is
>   that they continue to hype and distort that evidence today, with a
>   shamelessness that is stunning," writes Jay Bookman. "If you
>   believe their version of the story, the fact that we have found no
>   WMD in Iraq - and no WMD programs - is of little or no importance.
>   ... To justify their bizarre claim, Bush officials have pounced
>   upon a handful of minor finds by [David] Kay's group, in particular
>   the discovery of a biological agent in the possession of an Iraqi
>   scientist. What they found, of course, was not the tons of weaponry
>   that [Colin] Powell so famously promised in his speech to the
>   United Nations. It was not pounds or even ounces of the material.
>   It was one small vial. That vial contained the B strain of
>   botulinum, not the more deadly A strain. It did not contain
>   botulinum toxin, the actual nerve agent known in this country as
>   Botox, only the fairly common botulinum bacteria that can produce
>   the toxin."
>SOURCE: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 9, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1065672004
>
>8. THE RECALL SHOW WITH JAY LENO
>http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-me-nbc9oct09.story
>   "It may have been Arnold Schwarzenegger's victory celebration, but
>   the crowd around him at the Century Plaza Hotel on Tuesday night
>   easily could have been the receiving line at an NBC stars' picnic,"
>   notes Greg Braxton. Prominent faces at the celebration included his
>   wife, "Dateline NBC" correspondent Maria Shriver; actor Rob Lowe of
>   NBC's "Lyon's Den"; Pat O'Brien of NBC's "Access Hollywood"; and
>   "Tonight Show" Host Jay Leno. According to Marty Kaplan, associate
>   dean of the of University of Southern California's Annenberg School
>   for Communication, Schwarzenneger so blurs the line between
>   politics and Hollywood that no one seems to notice when the media
>   becomes blatantly partisan. But as Nikki Fink observes, this is
>   only the latest example of Jay Leno's oh-so-obvious Republican
>   partisanship.
>SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, October 9, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2003.html#1065672003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1065672003
>
>9. JOURNALISTS FRUSTRATED WITH WHITE HOUSE SECRECY
>http://www.jsonline.com/news/nat/oct03/175778.asp
>   One of America's leading newspaper executives took the Bush
>   administration to task Wednesday for what he termed an "unsettling
>   trend toward governmental secrecy." Tony Ridder is chairman of the
>   Newspaper Association of America, the industry's largest and most
>   important trade organization. Speaking at an October 8 luncheon at
>   the National Press Club, Ridder said the current fear, frustration
>   and anger felt by many veteran journalists in the nation's capital
>   is "unprecedented, even going back to the dark days of Watergate."
>SOURCE: Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, October 9, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1065672002
>
>10. TRUTH, WAR AND CONSEQUENCES
>http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/truth/
>   The PBS program Frontline has produced an excellent documentary
>   tracing the roots of the Iraqi war back to the days immediately
>   following Sept. 11, when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered
>   the creation of a special intelligence operation to quietly begin
>   looking for evidence that would justify the war. The intelligence
>   reports soon became a part of a continuing struggle between
>   civilians in the Pentagon on one side and the CIA, State
>   Department, and uniformed military on the other -- a struggle that
>   led to inadequate planning for the aftermath of the war, continuing
>   violence, and mounting political problems for the president.
>   Although White House officials refused to be interviewed for the
>   program, other key players were interviewed including Ahmad
>   Chalabi, Paul Bremer, Jay Garner, Richard Perle, Greg Thielmann and
>   Joseph C. Wilson.
>SOURCE: PBS Frontline, October 9, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2003.html#1065672001
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1065672001
>
>11. SUPERMAN'S TREASON
>http://www.insightmag.com/news/477694.html
>   Brent Bozell, whose Media Research Center spends its days looking
>   for "liberal bias" in the media, has decided to take on the Justice
>   League of America. "Comic-book superheroes have gone into the
>   liberal political-indoctrination business," he complains, referring
>   to JLA Issue #83, in which arch-villain Lex Luthor, standing in as
>   president for George Bush, orders the invasion of a country called
>   "Qurac," while "Superman finds himself in a living nightmare as his
>   fellow Leaguers fall one by one to Lex's executive order: support
>   the war or be 'neutralized!'" DC Comics writer Joe Kelly defends
>   the controversial comic in an interview with a pro-war critic.
>SOURCE: Insight Magazine, October 9, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2003.html#1065672000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1065672000
>
>12. CONSERVATIVE PUNDITS FEEL THE HEAT
>http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20031008/1024685.asp
>   "The right wing talk media empire is taking some hits," observes
>   Anthony Violanti. Rush Limbaugh got the boot from ESPN last week
>   after making racially charged comments about "black quarterbacks."
>   Michael Savage was fired by MSNBC after saying he wished a gay
>   caller would "get AIDS and die." Bill O'Reilly at Fox News has made
>   himself a laughingstock with his temper tantrums and attempt to sue
>   satirist Al Franken. Columnist Robert Novak is in the center of a
>   controversy about his role in publishing a White House leak that
>   outed an undercover CIA officer. (Yeah, but who hired these guys in
>   the first place?)
>SOURCE: Buffalo News, October 8, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1065585600
>
>13. BESTSELLING BOOKS BASH BUSH
>http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/books/10/07/politics.lies.reut/index.html
>   Bookstore display tables give the distinct impression there is a
>   lot of lying going on in America these days, with President George
>   W. Bush and his top advisers portrayed as the main culprits.
>   Bestsellers include The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the
>   Politics of Deception, by David Corn; Big Lies: The Right-Wing
>   Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth, by Joe Conason;
>   Bushwhacked, by Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose; Thieves in High Places,
>   by Jim Hightower; The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, by Greg Palast;
>   Paul Krugman's The Great Unravelling; Michael Moore's Dude, Where's
>   My Country?; and, of course, Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars
>   Who Tell Them. Oh, yeah ... almost forgot one: Weapons of Mass
>   Deception, by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber.
>SOURCE: Reuters, October 7, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2003.html#1065499200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1065499200
>
>
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Carpentier Nico (Phd)
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