[eccr] Fwd: The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, January 1, 2003

>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, January 1, 2003
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>The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. Working for the Pipeline
>2. Corporate Credibility, PR-Style
>3. Pentagon, Seeking Propaganda Advantage, Says It Will Give Press Better 
>Battlefield Access
>4. Saudis Spending Big to Shape US Public Opinion
>5. Telling Stories to Sell War
>6. 'Vote for Me, I'm Not Soft on Terrorism'
>7. Drug Firms, Doctors, Defend Kickbacks and Bribes As Legal and Normal
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. WORKING FOR THE PIPELINE
>http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/1231clsa_pipeline.htm
>   Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter & Assocs., a PR firm that specializes
>   in crisis management, is helping energy companies fend off
>   environmentalist and human rights groups that oppose a planned
>   400-mile pipeline in Peru that will pass through indigenous
>   homelands in the Amazon rainforest.
>SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily, December 31, 2002
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2002.html#1041310800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1041310800
>
>2. CORPORATE CREDIBILITY, PR-STYLE
>http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/1230corp_credibility.htm
>   "No less than three 'corporate credibility' seminars involving
>   PR/IR pros have popped up as panelists scratch their heads, trying
>   to find ways to win back public trust in corporations in the wake
>   of Enron, Worldcom, etc.," reports O'Dwyer's PR Daily.
>   Unfortunately, the corporados are seeking advice from the same
>   sleazebags as before: people like Margery Kraus of APCO Worldwide,
>   who helped big tobacco set up deceptive front groups and gave
>   advice on how to be "forthright, open and honest" to Russian robber
>   baron Mikhail Khodorkovsky and to WorldCom during its fraud and
>   bankruptcy scandal.
>SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily, December 30, 2002
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2002.html#1041224400
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1041224400
>
>3. PENTAGON, SEEKING PROPAGANDA ADVANTAGE, SAYS IT WILL GIVE PRESS BETTER 
>BATTLEFIELD ACCESS
>http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/28/politics/28MILI.html?ex=1042087750&ei=1&en=4034741ec946d5f7
>   In each war and military action since losing in Vietnam, the US
>   military has exerted increased control and censorship over
>   battlefield reporting. Now the Pentagon claims to be changing its
>   ways, in part to gain a propaganda advantage. According to the New
>   York Times, "military officials said in interviews that limits on
>   access to frontline units ... would be loosened if President Bush
>   ordered military action. The Pentagon has made similar pledges of
>   greater access before without making good on the promise. Even now,
>   as the Pentagon completes plans to 'embed' correspondents,
>   photographers and video crews within frontline units - and offering
>   military training so journalists can maneuver safely with the
>   troops - officials say it is premature to announce how many would
>   be included, with which units or how close they would be to
>   decisive operations. ... Several Pentagon officials lamented that
>   the military had too often damaged its image by failing to engage
>   the news media. The result, they said, is that the military has
>   found itself surrendering the fight over world opinion to the
>   propaganda of adversaries."
>SOURCE: New York Times, December 28, 2002
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1041051600
>
>4. SAUDIS SPENDING BIG TO SHAPE US PUBLIC OPINION
>   Odwyerpr.com  reports that "Qorvis Communications [OC] received a
>   staggering $14.6 million from Saudi Arabia during the six-month
>   period ended Sept. 30 for producing ads and doing PR to 'increase
>   the awareness in the U.S. of the Kingdom's commitment to the war
>   against terrorism and to peace in the Middle East.' That amount
>   exceeds the previous record $14.2 million that the Citizens for a
>   Free Kuwait front group spent at Hill and Knowlton during a
>   six-month period in 1990-`91 to build support for the Persian Gulf
>   War. QC projects another $5.6 million in spending for the last
>   three months of the year. QC dealt with a Saudi front group called
>   the Alliance of Peace & Justice, which is described in the PR
>   firm's government filing as an American organization concerned
>   about the Middle East process. Ads ran in the Spring in support of
>   the Saudi Middle East plan. ... On the PR front, QC arranged
>   interviews for Adel Al-Jubeir, the foreign affairs advisor to Crown
>   Prince Abdullah, with media worthies such as Ted Koppel, Bill
>   Plant, Paula Zahn, Andrea Mitchell, Aaron Brown, Chris Matthews and
>   Bill O'Reilly."
>Web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2002.html#1041035712
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1041035712
>
>5. TELLING STORIES TO SELL WAR
>http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=1964728
>   "At a press briefing Dec. 18, State Dept. public diplomacy chief
>   Charlotte Beers announced that her division has asked author Ken
>   Pollack to interrupt a book tour and travel overseas to talk about
>   his book 'The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq.' Turns
>   out the State Dept. also has been courting foreign journalists over
>   the past year. 'We set up many more responsive facilities than
>   we've had in the past for the foreign press at the president's
>   ranch in Texas, at the White House and in our own State foreign
>   press centers, which are Washington, New York and Los Angeles,'
>   Beers said. A former Madison Ave. executive, Beers extolled the
>   importance of 'storytelling' in convincing overseas audiences that
>   the U.S. is only trying to do good. 'And that's something that we
>   really have to get better at. This is an emotionally laden universe
>   now. It's not just the facts that are operating in the world now,'
>   Beers said. Hence, the State Dept. has just published the book
>   'Iraq: From Fear to Freedom.' Beers made sure to point out a
>   passage by President Bush: 'I hope the good people of Iraq will
>   remember our history. America has never sought to dominate, never
>   sought to conquer. We have, in fact, sought to liberate and free.
>   Our desire is to help Iraqi citizens find the blessings of liberty
>   within their own culture and their own traditions.' In the middle
>   of Beers' briefing at the National Press Club in downtown
>   Washington, several protesters stood up and began shouting, 'You're
>   selling war and we're not buying.' "
>SOURCE: Reuters, Friday, December 27, 2002
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1040965200
>
>6. 'VOTE FOR ME, I'M NOT SOFT ON TERRORISM'
>http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/26/politics/26DEMS.html?ex=1041910725&ei=1&en=32c92e7367287388
>   "The expressions of concern about the nation's safety by Mr. Bush's
>   prospective challengers, voiced in interviews, speeches and
>   television appearances over the last three weeks, suggest that the
>   focus of the Democratic White House candidates in 2004 will go well
>   beyond the traditional Democratic fare of education, the economy,
>   jobs and health care. While so far the criticisms lack many
>   specifics beyond asking for more money for police agencies or the
>   creation of an additional intelligence force, campaign aides said
>   these early challenges on terrorism signaled what they expected to
>   be a central theme in 2004. They argued that Mr. Bush was
>   potentially vulnerable on the issue that Republicans view as a
>   pillar of the president's political strength. ... Several Democrats
>   predicted a fundamental shift in the way presidential candidates
>   would have to present themselves in the 2004 campaign. They said
>   polls showed that the voters would now consider a presidential
>   candidate's ability to protect them from terrorism at home in much
>   the same way voters in a big city might now consider a mayoral
>   candidate's ability to stop crime in their neighborhoods."
>SOURCE: New York Times, December 26, 2002
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1040878801
>
>7. DRUG FIRMS, DOCTORS, DEFEND KICKBACKS AND BRIBES AS LEGAL AND NORMAL
>http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/26/politics/26DRUG.html?ex=1041910931&ei=1&en=01b0b197023058ad
>   "Drug companies and doctors are fighting a Bush administration plan
>   to restrict gifts and other rewards that pharmaceutical
>   manufacturers give doctors and insurers to encourage the
>   prescribing of particular drugs. ... In contending that the
>   proposed federal code of conduct would require radical changes,
>   those opposing the change discuss their tactics with unusual candor
>   and describe marketing practices that have long been shrouded in
>   secrecy. Drug makers acknowledged, for example, that they routinely
>   made payments to insurance plans to increase the use of their
>   products, to expand their market share, to be added to lists of
>   recommended drugs or to reward doctors and pharmacists for
>   switching patients from one brand of drug to another. ... But a
>   coalition of 19 pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, Eli
>   Lilly and Schering-Plough, said the Bush administration proposal
>   was 'not grounded in an understanding of industry practices.' The
>   payments and incentives to which the government objects are
>   standard in the drug industry, they said."
>SOURCE: New York Times, December 26, 2002
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1040878800
>
>
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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: C0.04
Pleinlaan 2 - B-1050 Brussels
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