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[eccr] The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, November 26, 2003

Wed Nov 26 07:49:33 GMT 2003


>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, November 26, 2003
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>The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. Help Peel Banana Republicans!
>2. Weapon of Mass Communication
>3. Fox's Rant and Runt Show
>4. Ruining "Reagan"
>5. Klores Flacks for Paris Hilton
>6. Media Kept From Soldier Funerals
>7. So Much for Plan A
>8. Attack on Academic Freedom
>9. The 9/11 President Launches His First TV Ad
>10. Putting Things in Perspective
>11. Chemical Industry Wages War on Environment & Health
>12. Freedom of the Press in Iraq
>13. The Birth of "Journo-Lobbying"
>14. "Transpertainment" Comes to  Las Vegas
>15. Scarborough to Lynch: "Shut Up and Take the Cash"
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. HELP PEEL BANANA REPUBLICANS!
>http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Banana_Republicans
>   The United States is supposed to be a democracy, but today powerful
>   business interests dominate government, most citizens don't even
>   vote, civil liberties are surrendered for national security,
>   gunboat diplomacy alienates world opinion, and one overtly
>   pro-business party dominates all three branches of government and
>   the news media. What's going on, and what can be done? PR Watch
>   editors Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber are working on a new book,
>   titled Banana Republicans: How the New Right is Turning American
>   Into a One-Party State. We welcome your help! Please visit our
>   Disinfopedia and add your own research on the Republican political
>   machine.
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2003.html#1069822800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069822800
>
>2. WEAPON OF MASS COMMUNICATION
>http://www.texasmonthly.com/mag/issues/2003-11-01/feature.php
>   "If not for sixteen specious words about African uranium, George W.
>   Bush's post-war PR would be humming along," declares Sam Gwynne in
>   a mostly gushing profile of Dan Bartlett, the Bush administration's
>   director of communications. Gwynne depicts Bartlett as an affable
>   Texas good ol' boy who gets "the spit knocked out of him with
>   alarming regularity by the velociraptors of the media," while
>   acknowledging that he is "the linchpin of the most far-reaching,
>   tough-minded, and technologically advanced government
>   communications operation in history - one whose sophistication,
>   sweep, and scope make even the silken spinners of the Reagan era
>   seem primitive by comparison."
>SOURCE: Texas Monthly
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2003.html#1069790238
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069790238
>
>3. FOX'S RANT AND RUNT SHOW
>http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17225
>   Hannity & Colmes, Fox News Channel's primetime debate show, figures
>   prominently in the network's campaign to market its right-leaning
>   programming as "fair & balanced." Actually, the program exemplifies
>   the way Fox jiggers the balance to favor conservatives. "The show
>   pairs the aggressive conservative Sean Hannity with the mildly
>   liberal, often conciliatory Alan Colmes," writes Steve Rendall, in
>   "a format where conservatives out-number, out-talk and
>   out-interrupt their liberal opponents." Moreover, Colmes "seems to
>   see his role as one of policing liberal excess," actually taking
>   conservative positions on many issues and rushing to the support of
>   conservative figures such as Rudy Giuliani, Trent Lott and Rush
>   Limbaugh. "Colmes appears to have no goal other than to maintain
>   the illusion of debate on a univocal network," Rendall states.
>SOURCE: FAIR/Extra!
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069777163
>
>4. RUINING "REAGAN"
>http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/TV/11/25/tv.reagans.ap/index.html
>   The director of "The Reagans" complained Monday that CBS butchered
>   his made-for-TV movie, ultimately making it too incoherent for the
>   network to air. According to Robert Ackerman, CBS expressed no
>   problems until after a "rough cut" was hurriedly delivered in
>   October. At that point, the network ordered changes to the dialogue
>   that were "nonnegotiable," he said. "What they were doing with the
>   structure of the film, I thought, was making it incoherent,"
>   Ackerman said. However, CNN reports, "The film Showtime is airing
>   Sunday is exactly as the filmmakers intended -- with the major
>   exception of excising the one line that caused the most hubbub."
>SOURCE: CNN, November 25, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069736400
>
>5. KLORES FLACKS FOR PARIS HILTON
>http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0348/musto.php
>   Paris Hilton has hired Dan Klores Communications, a PR firm that
>   specializes in "crisis communications" for celebrities embroiled in
>   scandals, to help her cope with the fallout over public circulation
>   of a videotape featuring her having sex with a boyfriend. The
>   videotape has sparked a media frenzy, but New York Times columnist
>   John Leland jokes that the only thing that could really "damage her
>   reputation as a vapid, self-involved rich girl" would be a
>   videotape showing her doing something worthwhile with her life,
>   such as "developing mathematical models for a low-cost irrigation
>   system to be used in the developing world. ... Few celebrities have
>   worked as hard at pure tabloid notoriety, or built reputations so
>   unsullied by accomplishment or circumspection. Since she was the
>   subject of a Vanity Fair profile in 2000, Ms. Hilton, whose
>   great-grandfather Conrad Hilton started the Hilton hotel chain, has
>   been seized upon by gossip columnists as a chance to construct a
>   celebrity from scratch, using only the raw clay of her wealth and
>   indiscretion. Though she has done little more than go to
>   nightclubs, her name has appeared in more than 90 New York Post
>   articles this year alone."
>SOURCE: Village Voice, November 24, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2003.html#1069650001
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069650001
>
>6. MEDIA KEPT FROM SOLDIER FUNERALS
>http://www.prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=195903&site=3
>    "The Pentagon took another step in distancing the media from US
>   casualties of war last week with the announcement of new
>   restrictions on funeral coverage at Arlington National Cemetery
>   (ANC)," PR Week's Douglas Quenqua reports. "Any reporter wanting to
>   cover a soldier's funeral at the Virginia cemetery will now be
>   required to stay within a distant, roped-off area. This 'bullpen'
>   is described as an area far enough away from the proceedings that a
>   clergyman or family member's words cannot be clearly heard. The new
>   restrictions come on the heels of a Pentagon announcement last
>   month that reporters were no longer permitted to witness the return
>   of soldier's bodies returning from overseas combat. At the time,
>   Pentagon spokesman Captain David Romley explained the ban this way:
>   'The media can get a better, more complete understanding of the
>   person who has passed by attending and covering funeral services as
>   opposed to coffins arriving aboard an air station.' Last week,
>   Romley confirmed the new policy, but declined to comment on the
>   apparent contradiction between it and his previous explanation.
>   Instead, he directed calls to the ANC press office, which did not
>   return calls seeking comment."
>SOURCE: PR Week, November 24, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069650000
>
>7. SO MUCH FOR PLAN A
>http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9447
>   "For a long time, Bush's poor job approval ratings on domestic
>   issues were more than counterbalanced by his strong approval
>   ratings on international issues. But that formula for political
>   success is falling apart," writes Ruy Texeira. The latest polls
>   show that only 48 percent of the public approves of his handling of
>   foreign policy and Iraq. A majority believes the war with Iraq was
>   not worth the cost and that the Bush administration was hiding
>   information or lying about what it knew when it made the case for
>   war. "No wonder the Bush team was so happy to see one quarter of
>   good economic growth," Texeira writes. "Their plan A (invade Iraq
>   in 2003; coast to victory on the national security issue in 2004)
>   is now completely out the window. Wise Democrats won't let the
>   voters forget just how deceitful and costly that plan A has been;
>   even wiser Democrats will have clear ways of explaining to voters
>   how we can get out of the mess that plan A has created. By the
>   evidence of these polls, voters are ready to listen."
>SOURCE: TomPaine.com
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069614578
>
>8. ATTACK ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM
>http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=23954
>   With little fanfare and almost no media coverage, Congress recently
>   passed House Resolution 3077, which threatens academic freedom by
>   imposing rules on what professors can and can't teach. HR 3077
>   focuses in particular on "area studies" (university programs that
>   study international culture and politics in specific regions of the
>   world). Proponents of the bill, warns Benita Singh, portrayed area
>   studies programs as "hotbeds for anti-American sentiment" in order
>   to propose "the creation of an advisory board that has the final
>   word on curricula taught at Title VI institutions, course materials
>   assigned in class, and even the faculty who are hired in
>   institutions that accept Title VI funding. ... According to the
>   language of the bill, professors whose ideological principles may
>   not support U.S. practices abroad can have their appointments
>   terminated, any part of a course's curriculum containing criticisms
>   of U.S. foreign policy can be censored, and any course deemed
>   entirely anti-American can be barred from ever being taught."
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2003.html#1069437372
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069437372
>
>9. THE 9/11 PRESIDENT LAUNCHES HIS FIRST TV AD
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/politics/campaigns/21REPU.html
>   President Bush's popularity skyrocketed after 9/11 as the country
>   naturally rallied around its leadership. Bush announced that his
>   war on terror would define his presidency and the 2004 Republican
>   convention will be held in New York city as close as possible to
>   the third anniversary of 9/11. Now, the New York Times reports that
>   the Republican Party is launchiing "its first advertisement of the
>   presidential race, portraying Mr. Bush as fighting terrorism while
>   his potential challengers try to undermine him with their sniping.
>   The new commercial gives the first hint of the themes Mr. Bush's
>   campaign is likely to press in its early days. It shows Mr. Bush,
>   during the last State of the Union address, warning of continued
>   threats to the nation: 'Our war against terror is a contest of
>   will, in which perseverance is power,' he says after the screen
>   flashes the words, 'Some are now attacking the president for
>   attacking the terrorists.' "
>SOURCE: New York Times, November 21, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069430233
>
>10. PUTTING THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE
>http://truthout.org/docs_03/112103A.shtml
>   "A number of explosions tore through the British consulate in
>   Turkey today, killing scores of people. George W. Bush is in
>   England, surrounded on all sides by enraged British citizens whose
>   massive protests have required nearly every police officer in
>   London to be put on the line of defense," writes William Rivers
>   Pitt. "It is 3:16 p.m. on Thursday afternoon as I write this. CNN
>   has been covering, with total exclusivity, a parking lot outside a
>   police station for the last hour. They covered an airplane landing.
>   They covered the same airplane sitting still on the tarmac. They
>   covered the airplane slowly moving into a hangar. All the while,
>   talking head after talking head explored every conceivable facet of
>   the parking lot, the plane, the tarmac, and the hangar, as well as
>   a variety of parallel issues. No stone of data was left unturned.
>   Why? Michael Jackson is about to surrender to police."
>SOURCE: Truthout.org, November 21, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2003.html#1069390800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069390800
>
>11. CHEMICAL INDUSTRY WAGES WAR ON ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH
>http://www.ewg.org/briefings/acc/
>   A news release from the Environmental Working Group reveals that
>   "the chemical industry plans to conduct a covert campaign attacking
>   the growing movement in California for more chemical safety
>   testing, with tactics including the creation of phony front groups
>   and spying on activists, according to an internal American
>   Chemistry Council (ACC) memo. ... It recommends to ACC members that
>   they pay $120,000 a year to Nichols-Dezenhall, a Washington-based
>   firm that hires former FBI and CIA agents, to conduct 'selective
>   intelligence gathering ... about the plans, motivations and allies
>   of opposition activists... Focus on the PP [Precautionary
>   Principle] movement leadership in the U.S., and in particular,
>   California.' The memo says Nichols-Dezenhall would also 'create an
>   independent PP watchdog group to act as an information
>   clearinghouse and criticize the PP in public and media forums...
>   The group could be structured as a tax-exempt organization.'" The
>   EWG release spawned articles in the San Francisco Chroncile and the
>   Oakland Tribune.
>SOURCE: Environmental Working Group, November 20, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2003.html#1069304401
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069304401
>
>12. FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IN IRAQ
>http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1120-08.htm
>   "Freedom of the press is beginning to smell a little rotten in the
>   new Iraq," reports Robert Fisk, listing some of the fatwas that
>   U.S. Proconsul Paul Bremer has issued against Al Jazeera and other
>   Arab media. "Things are no better in the American-run television
>   and radio stations in Baghdad. The 357 journalists working from the
>   Bremer palace grounds have twice gone on strike for more pay and
>   have complained of censorship. According to one of the reporters,
>   they were told by John Sandrock - head of the private American
>   company SAIC, which runs the television station - that 'either you
>   accept what we offer or you resign; there are plenty of candidates
>   for your jobs.'" On the other hand, more than 100 newspapers have
>   sprung up, some of which "have carried blatantly untruthful stories
>   about the occupation army, claiming that U.S. soldiers have been
>   involved in distributing pornographic pictures to schoolgirls or
>   taking Iraqi women to the bedrooms of the Palestine Hotel. One
>   problem is that many journalists for the Iraqi papers are either
>   converts from the old regime or new writers who have no
>   journalistic training in fairness or fact checking."
>SOURCE: Capitol Times (Madison, WI), November 20, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069304400
>
>13. THE BIRTH OF "JOURNO-LOBBYING"
>http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17222
>   "James Glassman and TCS have given birth to something quite new in
>   Washington: journo-lobbying. It's an innovation driven primarily by
>   the influence industry. Lobbying firms that once specialized in
>   gaining person-to-person access to key decision-makers have
>   branched out. The new game is to dominate the entire intellectual
>   environment in which officials make policy decisions, which means
>   funding everything from think tanks to issue ads to phony
>   grassroots pressure groups. But the institution that most affects
>   the intellectual atmosphere in Washington, the media, has also
>   proven the hardest for K Street to influence -- until now."
>SOURCE: Washington Monthly, November 19, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2003.html#1069218000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069218000
>
>14. "TRANSPERTAINMENT" COMES TO  LAS VEGAS
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/18/business/media/18adco.html
>   Nextel Communications "is becoming a principal sponsor of a
>   monorail system that is scheduled to start serving Las Vegas in
>   January, underwriting the branding of the Convention Center stop as
>   well as one of nine four-car trains with the Nextel name, logo and
>   colors. ... Coca-Cola is also negotiating with the Las Vegas
>   Monorail Company to become a sponsor there, along with companies
>   that include Discovery Communications and General Motors. Bacardi
>   and Motorola have signed letters of intent to become sponsors ... .
>   ... Patrick Pharris, president and chief executive of Promethean
>   Partners in Las Vegas, which is selling the sponsorships for the
>   monorail system [comments] 'the biggest brands in the world are
>   saying, we understand consumers are perhaps numbed to traditional
>   advertising, and we have to engage them in our experience. Then the
>   consumers are more likely to become brand proponents and tell their
>   friends about it. If you can convert transportation to
>   'transpertainment' it becomes a better experience for the consumer
>   and the advertiser.' "
>SOURCE: New York Times, November 18, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069131603
>
>15. SCARBOROUGH TO LYNCH: "SHUT UP AND TAKE THE CASH"
>http://www.msnbc.com/news/993155.asp
>   Now that Private Jessica Lynch has told the truth about the
>   conditions of her capture and rescue in Iraq, right-wing
>   telebabbler Joe Scarborough is complaining that she "started
>   whining about the Pentagon PR machine and the fact that they told
>   parts of the stories that may have made her more of a hero than she
>   considered herself to be. ... Well, Jessica, I've got bad news to
>   break to you. It was because of the Pentagon PR machine that turned
>   you into an American hero - that got book publishers interested in
>   paying you $1 million to tell your story. It was the Pentagon PR
>   machine that told America how you were a hero that got NBC
>   interested in doing a movie about your story. It was the Pentagon
>   PR machine that's turned you into a millionaire."
>SOURCE: MSNBC, November 12, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1068613206
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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