[eccr] Fwd: The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, October 22, 2003

>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, October 22, 2003
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>The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. Corporate Damage Control Turns Tough
>2. Product Placement in Print
>3. Reporters Without Borders Blasts U.S., Israel
>4. 50 Lies To Tell the Public
>5. Painting a Smiley Face on Iraq
>6. Leaky Leak-Plugging
>7. Pay to Play TV
>8. Product Placement in Peril?
>9. Moran Fondly Remembered
>10. Exxon Tries to Shed Its Skin
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. CORPORATE DAMAGE CONTROL TURNS TOUGH
>http://www.cjr.org/issues/2003/5/games-mundy.asp
>   Alicia Mundy writes that "I was about to go live on the Today show
>   to discuss my book on the fen-phen scandal when the host, Maria
>   Shriver, leaned forward and very kindly said, 'I'm really sorry
>   about the way we're doing this interview and the questions I have
>   to ask. You understand, don't you?' ... It seems that the
>   pharmaceutical company, Wyeth-Ayerst, had been calling. Wyeth, a
>   major conglomerate, makes Dimetapp and Robitussin, as well as
>   hormone replacement products and other drugs, and was a huge
>   advertiser with NBC. They'd apparently been in negotiations with
>   NBC's counsel over my pending appearance. ... I left satisfied, but
>   remained curious about the dynamics behind the scenes. The answer
>   came this summer in an extraordinarily revealing panel at the
>   annual convention of Investigative Reporters and Editors, in
>   Washington. ... The panel, titled 'PR Attacks and Counterattacks,'
>   was moderated by Mark Feldstein of George Washington University.
>   With him was a former local TV news colleague, Kent Jarrell, who
>   went over to the dark side to P.R. and 'crisis management' in 1996,
>   and is now a senior vice president for litigation communications at
>   APCO Worldwide. Jarrell was joined by Don Goldberg, a survivor of
>   the Clinton White House, who toils for the government relations
>   firm Navigant Consulting."
>SOURCE: Columbia Journalism Review, September/October, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1066781565
>
>2. PRODUCT PLACEMENT IN PRINT
>http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=38982
>   "As TV and movies embrace a Madison & Vine ethos of blending
>   entertainment with marketers' products and messages, magazine
>   editors and publishers find themselves trying to pull off a tricky
>   balancing act of maintaining the 'church and state' wall between
>   editorial and advertising," writes Jon Fine. Recent examples
>   include: a cover photo of Angelina Jolie on Rolling Stone that
>   opened to a three-page ad featuring the sexy Ms. Jolie shilling for
>   Jeep; and an editorial supplement in Prevention magazine that
>   promoted "Pfizer's Alzheimer's medication Aricept, which was the
>   sole advertiser of that section." According to Rolling Stone's Rob
>   Gregory, "marketers expect more from magazines in general now. And
>   magazines have to give them more."
>SOURCE: Advertising Age, October 20, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1066622401
>
>3. REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS BLASTS U.S., ISRAEL
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52859-2003Oct20.html
>   The media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has published
>   its second annual world press freedom ranking, criticizing Israel
>   and the United States for unacceptable behavior toward journalists
>   in the occupied Palestinian territories and in Iraq. RSF also
>   criticized Arab countries for cracking down on media freedoms, but
>   said standards were worst in Asia. Its worst ranking went to North
>   Korea, followed by Cuba, which it said is "today the world's
>   biggest prison for journalists."
>SOURCE: Reuters, October 20, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2003.html#1066622400
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1066622400
>
>4. 50 LIES TO TELL THE PUBLIC
>http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/031020/whispers/20whisplead.htm
>   Retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner, a war gamer who has
>   taught strategy and military operations at the National War
>   College, has produced an analysis which suggests that the White
>   House and Pentagon made up or distorted more than 50 news stories
>   related to the war in Iraq. "It was not bad intelligence," Gardiner
>   says. "It was much more. It was an orchestrated effort. It began
>   before the war, was a major effort during the war and continues as
>   post-conflict distortions. ... It was not just the Pentagon. It was
>   the White House, and it was Number 10 Downing Street. It was more
>   than spin. ... In the most basic sense, Washington and London did
>   not trust the peoples of their democracies to come to right
>   decisions. Truth became a casualty. When truth is a casualty,
>   democracy receives collateral damage."
>SOURCE: U.S. News & World Report, October 20, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2003.html#1066363201
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1066363201
>
>5. PAINTING A SMILEY FACE ON IRAQ
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39774-2003Oct17?language=printer
>   "The U.S. government has launched a 'good news' offensive in Iraq,
>   and a couple of Baghdad street kids, peddlers of soda pop, have
>   been recruited for the first wave of attack," reports Charles J.
>   Hanley. "On a two-day visit, U.S. Commerce Secretary Don Evans said
>   thousands of new businesses have sprung up here since the war, and
>   gave an example of new entrepreneurship: two boys he spotted by the
>   road selling soft drinks to Baghdad's parched drivers." As in past
>   wars, "the government has unleashed a flood of news releases
>   promoting the U.S. Army's good deeds in an occupied countryside."
>   But in Iraq, even the "positive" stories mask "negative" sides
>   unseen by senators on "tours closely guided by American occupation
>   authorities."
>SOURCE: Washington Post, October 17, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1066363200
>
>6. LEAKY LEAK-PLUGGING
>http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/7023679.htm
>   "Concerned about the appearance of disarray and feuding within his
>   administration as well as growing resistance to his policies in
>   Iraq, President Bush - living up to his recent declaration that
>   he's in charge - told his top officials to 'stop the leaks' to the
>   media, or else," report Joseph L. Galloway and James Kuhnhenn.
>   "News of Bush's order leaked almost immediately. Bush told his
>   senior aides on Tuesday that he 'didn't want to see any stories'
>   quoting unnamed administration officials in the media anymore, and
>   if he did, there would be consequences, a senior administration
>   official who asked that his name not be used told Knight Ridder."
>SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer, October 16, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1066276802
>
>7. PAY TO PLAY TV
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32198-2003Oct15.html
>   David Morgan, a morning show staffer at the NBC affiliate in Tampa,
>   minced no words when a public relations agent asked how he could
>   get his client interviewed on the program. "You pay us and we do
>   what you want us to do," Morgan said. "Twenty-five hundred bucks
>   for four to six minutes." Howard Kurtz notes that most networks and
>   local TV stations "have strict rules against pay-for-play
>   journalism. But at WFLA-TV, in the nation's 14th-largest market,
>   producers on 'Daytime' are not shy about asking guests to pony up.
>   They have turned the routine daily booking of guests into a
>   commercial transaction." While the station's manager "likened the
>   paid segments to an 'infomercial,' the slickly produced 'Daytime'
>   looks like a regular local morning show, with NBC's peacock logo
>   and a 'News Channel 8' insignia at the bottom of the screen."
>SOURCE: Washington Post, October 16, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1066276801
>
>8. PRODUCT PLACEMENT IN PERIL?
>http://www.clickz.com/media/media_buy/article.php/3091761
>   Advertisers are "livid," says Tessa Wegert, over an FCC petition
>   filed recently by Commercial Alert that could make TV product
>   placement advertising a thing of the past. If the petition
>   succeeds, Wegert frets, it would "ensure brands like Doritos and
>   Mountain Dew never again appear on an episode of 'Survivor' without
>   a conspicuous accompanying message disclosing their nature and
>   origin. ... Media buyers fear Commercial Alert's recommendation
>   will diminish the effectiveness of placements. One media buyer, who
>   requested to remain anonymous, was quoted as saying product
>   placement disclosures would, 'diminish the very reason why we do
>   product placement deals -- to integrate products into a show
>   without calling attention to them as commercials.'"
>SOURCE: Clickz.com, October 16, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2003.html#1066276800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1066276800
>
>9. MORAN FONDLY REMEMBERED
>http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2003/s964122.htm
>   The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has aired a glowing
>   memorial to Paul Moran, its cameraman who was killed in March by a
>   suicide bomber while filming the war in Iraq. The broadcast
>   features fond recollections from Moran's colleagues, friends and
>   family, while glossing over and rationalizing Moran's work for the
>   Rendon Group, the secretive PR firm that has worked behind the
>   scenes to promote the U.S. foreign interventions in Iraq and
>   elsewhere. "It's true that he was unwittingly involved in, I guess
>   what could be called a propaganda operation in the early 90's, but
>   people must remember he didn't know that," says Zaab Sethna,
>   Moran's colleague at the Iraqi National Congress. But Sethna's
>   comments contradict his own statements made during a previous
>   interview. For the rest of the story, PR Watch editor Sheldon
>   Rampton has summarized Back to Iraqsome of the concerns about
>   Moran's relationship with the INC and the Rendon Group on the "Back
>   to Iraq" weblog.
>SOURCE: Australian Broadcasting Corporation, October 13, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2003.html#1066017601
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1066017601
>
>10. EXXON TRIES TO SHED ITS SKIN
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,11319,1061566,00.html
>   ExxonMobil, which has a reputation as the least socially
>   responsible oil country in the world (no small feat), has been
>   holding "a series of secret meetings with environmental and human
>   rights groups worldwide in an effort to change its hard-nosed
>   public image," reports Terry Macalister. But critics such as Cindy
>   Baxter, a spokeswoman for the Stop Esso campaign, remain
>   unconvinced. "This looks like PR. They need to stop funding
>   rightwing groups and climate change sceptics if they want to
>   convince anyone they are really changing," Baxter said.
>SOURCE: Guardian (UK), October 13, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2003.html#1066017600
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1066017600
>
>
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Carpentier Nico (Phd)
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