Archive for October 2003

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[eccr] Fwd: The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, October 29, 2003

Wed Oct 29 10:56:20 GMT 2003


>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, October 29, 2003
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>The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
>further information about current public relations campaigns.
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. This is Your Brain on Public Relations
>2. Right Wing Collegians
>3. Buying Your Way Into Airline "Radio News"
>4. Oh My! News!
>5. Hearts and Minds in Hostland
>6. Is Media Bias a Dumb Debate?
>7. Breast Cancer Action Vs. Corporate "Pinkwashing"
>8. BP & B-M in the UK:  Greenwashers Under Fire
>9. From Election Flack to War Flack and Back Again
>10. Scientist Resigns Over EPA's  'Wetlands Pollute' Study
>11. Muppets for Peace
>12. Curtains for Coffins
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON PUBLIC RELATIONS
>http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17034
>   The Environmental Working Group has obtained and analyzed documents
>   from a briefing book assembled by Frank Luntz, a top public opinion
>   researcher for corporate lobbyists. The briefing book offers a PR
>   playbook on how to frame the current wholesale rollback of
>   environmental and public health protections while avoiding a
>   stinging public backlash. "It can be helpful to think of
>   environmental and other issues in terms of 'story,'" Luntz advises.
>   "A compelling story, even if factually inaccurate, can be more
>   emotionally compelling than a dry recitation of the truth. ... The
>   facts are beside the point. It's all in how you frame your
>   argument."
>SOURCE: Alternet, October 28, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2003.html#1067317200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1067317200
>
>2. RIGHT WING COLLEGIANS
>http://www.wiretapmag.org/story.html?StoryID=17041
>   The student editor of the California Patriot, a right-wing student
>   newspaper at the University of California-Berkeley, claims that
>   conservatives are the true heirs to the university's free speech
>   movement of the 1960s. "The conservatives on Berkeley's campus have
>   employed various strategies in order to insert their views --
>   whether they're wanted or not -- into campus debates," writes
>   Michael Gaworecki. "They feel that linking themselves to the Free
>   Speech Movement is key to their cause, and employ leftist rhetoric
>   accordingly." But unlike the movement of the 1960s, which was
>   homegrown, "here is a large network of well-entrenched,
>   well-funded, national foundations and organizations sponsoring
>   publications like the Patriot." Organizations like the
>   Intercollegiate Studies Institute's Collegiate Network, the
>   Leadership Institute, Young America's Foundation, and Young
>   Americans for Freedom offer training, financial subsidies,
>   assistance with public relations on campus, and even editing
>   stories if they need it to neo-conservative campus journalists,
>   along with a network for getting jobs after they graduate.
>SOURCE: Wiretap Magazine, October 27, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2003.html#1067230801
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1067230801
>
>3. BUYING YOUR WAY INTO AIRLINE "RADIO NEWS"
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/27/business/media/27radio.html?ei=1&en=b7f664f007a87eda&ex=1068312025&pagewanted=print&position=
>   "The caller to Joanne Doroshow's office last month described
>   himself as working for Sky Radio Network, a company that produces
>   programming for Forbes Radio, one of the audio channels available
>   to passengers on American Airlines. As the executive director of
>   the Center for Justice and Democracy, a nonprofit organization that
>   casts itself as a champion of consumer rights, Ms. Doroshow was
>   asked if she would be interviewed for a talk show examining the
>   issue of tort reform. When Ms. Doroshow agreed, she said, the
>   caller informed her that it would cost her organization $5,900 to
>   have its point of view heard. When Ms. Doroshow balked, she said,
>   the caller offered to see if it could be reduced to $3,500. 'I was
>   furious,' Ms. Doroshow said. 'I thought this was another way
>   corporations are dominating what people hear, and are getting only
>   their side presented because they're willing to pay for it.' "
>SOURCE: New York Times, October 27, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1067230800
>
>4. OH MY! NEWS!
>http://www.japanmediareview.com/japan/internet/1063672919.php
>   Three years ago, a crew of four people quietly launched the South
>   Korean "citizen journalism" Web site OhmyNews. Since then, its
>   staff has grown to 53, and the number of "citizen reporters"
>   writing for the site has grown from 700 to about 26,700, with about
>   1 million readers each day. Its experiment with grassroots-led
>   journalism has transformed Korean politics. "OhmyNews is
>   transforming the 20th century's journalism-as-lecture model --
>   where organizations tell the audience what the news is and the
>   audience either buys it or doesn't -- into something vastly more
>   bottom-up, interactive and democratic," says San Jose Mercury News
>   columnist Dan Gillmor. In an interview with the Japan Media Review,
>   OhmyNews founder Oh Yeon-Ho explains how he got started. "I had
>   confidence that citizen participation in journalism was something
>   that citizens currently desired. But I could not imagine that the
>   fire would spring into a blaze in such a short time," he says.
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2003.html#1067205719
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1067205719
>
>5. HEARTS AND MINDS IN HOSTLAND
>http://archive.org/movies/movies-details-db.php?collection=prelinger&collectionid=20986a&from=mainPicks
>   The Internet Archive has unearthed a U.S. military training film
>   from 1968 showing psychological operations (psyops) in a mythical
>   country called "Hostland," where U.S. advisors want help the host
>   government gain the support of its population. "Psychologically,
>   the military in every country in the world represents government
>   authority," it explains as it shows images of a gray-haired
>   diplomat meeting with generals. "As promised by the ambassador, a
>   team of military advisors arrives in Hostland," the film continues.
>   The psyops expert "reviews the psychological objectives the United
>   States hopes to achieve," studies the population, identifies target
>   audiences, and plans a combination of media, cultural, and economic
>   development initiatives. "Prisoners are interrogated with special
>   questionnaires that give clues toward their reaction to the
>   psychological effort directed toward them," continues the second
>   part of the film. "The psychological program must be constantly
>   updated. As the people are affected by the program, so the program
>   is affected by their changes in attitudes. A successful psyop
>   program will make them perceive things from the desired viewpoint."
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2003.html#1067107225
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1067107225
>
>6. IS MEDIA BIAS A DUMB DEBATE?
>http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2003/10/24/bias_questions.html
>   "Denouncing bias in the media has become a dumb instrument. The
>   cases keep coming. The charges keep flying. Often the subject -
>   journalism - disappears," NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen. Rosen
>   poses six questions about the bias question, and two answers.
>   "Liberal spin. Corporate spin. Texas spin. Zionist spin. Republican
>   spin. Hollywood spin. American spin. Anti-American spin. We want it
>   out, out, out. Spin, that's bad," Rosen writes. " But critics smart
>   enough to detect spin are smart enough to see--and in fact, they do
>   see--that claiming, 'they're spinning!' has itself become a form of
>   spin, a popular one, which would seem to throw spin detection,
>   never a clear cut thing, into total incoherence. Does that bother
>   you, or is it only my spin?"
>SOURCE: PressThink, October 24, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2003.html#1066968001
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1066968001
>
>7. BREAST CANCER ACTION VS. CORPORATE "PINKWASHING"
>http://www.thinkbeforeyoupink.org/
>   "To draw attention to the troubling trend of corporate
>   'pinkwashing,' Breast Cancer Action, a national grassroots breast
>   cancer advocacy organization, is running an ad in the national
>   edition of the New York Times questioning some high-profile
>   corporate marketing campaigns launched in connection with Breast
>   Cancer Awareness Month. 'We're not opposed to companies raising
>   money for the cause,' said Barbara Brenner, Breast Cancer Action's
>   executive director. 'We're concerned about companies claiming to
>   support the fight against breast cancer while manufacturing
>   products that may be contributing to rising rates of the disease.
>   They can't have it both ways.' Breast Cancer Action offers examples
>   of corporate 'pinkwashers': Cosmetics companies such as Avon,
>   Revlon, Estee Lauder, and Mary Kay all direct a percentage of their
>   profits toward efforts against breast cancer. They also manufacture
>   products containing phthalates and/or parabens, hormone-disrupting
>   chemicals that may affect the development of cancer. 'As long as we
>   believe we're doing something meaningful about breast cancer by
>   buying into these corporate marketing schemes, the real work that
>   needs to be done around treatment, access to care, and true
>   prevention will continue to be under-funded and ignored,' said
>   Brenner."
>SOURCE: BCA news release, October 24, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1066968000
>
>8. BP & B-M IN THE UK:  GREENWASHERS UNDER FIRE
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/waste/story/0,12188,1068777,00.html
>   In Britain "Burson-Marsteller, the public relations agency used by
>   the oil, GM, tobacco and chemical industries, is to represent the
>   government's pollution watchdog, in a move that environmentalists
>   yesterday described as 'barmy'." B-M's clients have included
>   biotech behemoth Monsanto, and B-M's spying on food activists in
>   the US in 1990 inspired the founding of PR Watch. Green activists
>   in Britain are also blowing the whistle on the PR strategies of BP
>   -- British Petroleum -- the oil giant that has marketed itself as
>   "Beyond Petroleum." Activists in the group Rising Tide are
>   demonstrating and leafleting, noting that "BP invests less than 1%
>   of its annual budget on solar and other renewable energy sources, a
>   great deal less than they spend on advertising and public
>   relations." B-M, BP and other greenwashing corporations have long
>   been pursuing a strategy of co-opting UK environmental activists,
>   as Andy Rowell has reported in PR Watch. In 2002 Lord Peter
>   Melchett, former head of Greenpeace UK, joined B-M.
>SOURCE: Guardian, October 23, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2003.html#1066881600
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1066881600
>
>9. FROM ELECTION FLACK TO WAR FLACK AND BACK AGAIN
>http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2003/10/22/wilkinson/
>   White House advisor Karl Rove has selected Jim Wilkinson, the
>   33-year-old Texan who headed communications and press relations for
>   the U.S. Central Command in Qatar during the Iraq invasion, as
>   communications director for the 2004 Republican National Convention
>   in New York. A profile of Wilkinson in the New York Observer notes
>   that he previously worked for Republican Congressman Dick Armey
>   under Ed Gillespie, now chairman of the Republican National
>   Committee. During the last presidential election, Wilkinson helped
>   package and promote the false notion that Al Gore claimed to have
>   "invented the Internet," and later helped Republican protesters
>   shut down the vote recount in Florida.
>SOURCE: Salon.com, October 22, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2003.html#1066795201
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1066795201
>
>10. SCIENTIST RESIGNS OVER EPA'S  'WETLANDS POLLUTE' STUDY
>http://www.peer.org/press/403.html
>   "A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency biologist has resigned in
>   protest of his agency's acceptance of a developer-financed study
>   concluding that wetlands discharge more pollutants than they
>   absorb, according to a statement released today by Public Employees
>   for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). EPA's approval of the
>   study gives developers credit for improving water quality by
>   replacing natural wetlands with golf courses and other
>   developments. ... Bruce Boler, a former state water quality
>   specialist, resigned after three years with EPA. ... PEER is
>   leading a coalition of environmental groups seeking to stop ten
>   projects in the Western Everglades that would destroy more than
>   2,000 acres of wetlands. 'EPA's new position that wetlands pollute
>   stands the Clean Water Act on its head and sends the all-clear
>   signal to developers that no project is out of bounds.' "
>SOURCE: PEER News Release, October 22, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2003.html#1066795200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1066795200
>
>11. MUPPETS FOR PEACE
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1067447,00.html
>   "Sesame Street's Big Bird is hoping to triumph where George Bush,
>   Tony Blair and numerous heads of state have failed, by bringing
>   peace to the Middle East," reports Julia Day. The children's TV
>   show is preparing a series of programs for broadcast in Israel,
>   Jordan and the Palestinian territories, promoting cooperation,
>   respect for others and self-esteem.
>SOURCE: Guardian (UK), October 21, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1066708801
>
>12. CURTAINS FOR COFFINS
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A55816-2003Oct20?language=printer
>   "Since the end of the Vietnam War, presidents have worried that
>   their military actions would lose support once the public glimpsed
>   the remains of U.S. soldiers arriving at air bases in flag-draped
>   caskets," writes Dana Milbank. "To this problem, the Bush
>   administration has found a simple solution: It has ended the public
>   dissemination of such images by banning news coverage and
>   photography of dead soldiers' homecomings on all military bases."
>SOURCE: Washington Post, October 21, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1066708800
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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Carpentier Nico (Phd)
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<http://www.kubrussel.ac.be/>Katholieke Universiteit Brussel - Catholic 
University of Brussels
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