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[eccr] Fwd: The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, February 12, 2003

Wed Feb 12 08:06:29 GMT 2003


>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, February 12, 2003
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>The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. Fitz-Pegado's Progress
>2. The Defence Of The Indefensible
>3. Anti-Chavez All The Time
>4. AARP Examines Drug Industry Front Groups
>5. Spies vs. Lies
>6. The Truth Behind Powell's "Poison Factory"
>7. Marching for Peace is Banned in New York
>8. Is Protest Treason?
>9. Downing Street's Deceit
>10. A Skeptic's Battle Cry:  'Remember Nayirah!'
>11. WHO "Infiltrated by Food Industry"
>12. Corporations Will Save the World
>13. The Good Side of War
>14. Don't Look at Picasso
>15. PR-Inflicted Nightmare Hits Cell Therapeutics
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. FITZ-PEGADO'S PROGRESS
>http://www.fitzpinternational.com/
>   As an employee of the Hill & Knowlton PR firm, Lauri Fitz-Pegado
>   helped coach Nayirah, the 15-year-old daughter of Kuwait's
>   ambassadors whose false testimony about Iraqi atrocities helped
>   build public suport for the first U.S. war in the Persian Gulf.
>   Participating in one of the most scandalous PR scams of the 1990s
>   hasn't hurt her career, though. After Operation Desert Storm, she
>   went to work for Iridium LLC, a satellite phone company that went
>   bankrupt a few years later. She now owns her own PR firm, with
>   clients including the government of Egypt, the Pan African New
>   Agency Press and the American Business Women's Alliance. She's also
>   available as a public speaker through Podium Prose, a speakers'
>   bureau with ties to Monsanto and the libertarian Cato Institute.
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/February_2003.html#1045029075
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1045029075
>
>2. THE DEFENCE OF THE INDEFENSIBLE
>   "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence
>   of the indefensible. ... Thus political language has to consist
>   largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness,
>   " George Orwell wrote fifty-five years ago in his essay "Politics
>   and the English Language". In this month's Ecologist, Paul
>   Kingsnorth points out the relevance of Orwell's words today. "An
>   entire political culture has been built on one delightfully simple
>   premise: to get away with doing something downright evil, it's not
>   necessary to change your behaviour, it's just necessary to change
>   the language you use to describe it," Kingsnorth writes. He gives
>   the example of the Bush administration phrase "pre-emptive
>   defence." According to Kingsnorth, this means "attacking anyone we
>   want to and justifying it by saying that they might attack us one
>   day."
>SOURCE: The Ecologist, February 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1045007116
>
>3. ANTI-CHAVEZ ALL THE TIME
>http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=37098
>   As the so-called general strike against Venezuelean President Hugo
>   Chavez comes to an end, Venezuelan television will begin
>   broadcasting advertising again. For the two months of the strike,
>   "the only commercials on Venezuelan TV were the opposition's
>   relentless barrage of powerful and often witty anti-Chavez spots,"
>   Advertising Age reports. Fifteen Venezuelan ad agencies worked
>   together to make over 200 commercials, "although most shops and
>   clients were closed until Feb. 3 in what one agency executive
>   called a 'collective personal decision' to support the strike,"
>   Advertising Age writes.
>SOURCE: Advertising Age, February 10, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/February_2003.html#1044853200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1044853200
>
>4. AARP EXAMINES DRUG INDUSTRY FRONT GROUPS
>http://www.aarp.org/bulletin/departments/2003/consumer/0205_consumer_1.html
>   AARP, the huge non-profit membership and business organization that
>   bills itself as the senior lobby is now headed by corporate PR
>   veteran Bill Novelli. (Novelli founded one of the world's largest
>   PR firms representing agribusiness, chemical and drug interests,
>   Porter Novelli, leaving it in 1990.) The latest issue of the AARP
>   Bulletin examines some major drug industry front groups: United
>   Seniors Association, the Seniors Coalition and the 60 Plus
>   Association. "Three nonprofit organizations that claim to speak for
>   older Americans are in fact heavily bankrolled by the
>   pharmaceutical industry, an examination of tax records by the AARP
>   Bulletin shows. United Seniors Association, for example, got more
>   than a third of its funds in 2001 from drug-industry sources. The
>   big donors included Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of
>   America (PhRMA), the industry's trade association; Citizens for
>   Better Medicare, a PhRMA-funded nonprofit group; and Pfizer Inc.
>   Total industry contributions: at least $3.1 million."
>SOURCE: AARP Bulletin, February, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/February_2003.html#1044806563
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1044806563
>
>5. SPIES VS. LIES
>http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3100174&thesection=news&thesubsection=world
>   "Tony Blair and George Bush are encountering an unexpected obstacle
>   in their campaign for war against Iraq - their own intelligence
>   agencies," reports Raymond Whitaker. "Britain and America's spies
>   believe that they are being politicized: that the intelligence they
>   provide is being selectively applied to lead to the opposite
>   conclusion from the one they have drawn, which is that Iraq is much
>   less of a threat than their political masters claim." CIA analysts
>   actually believe that the likelihood of Saddam Hussein using
>   weapons of mass destruction is "very low" for the "foreseeable
>   future." The British spy agency MI6 didn't write England's recent
>   dossier on Iraq, which was actually cobbled together by junior
>   aides to Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's head spin doctor, using
>   sources plagiarized from the Internet. The dossier "was clearly
>   prepared by someone in Downing Street and it's obviously part of
>   the prime minister's propaganda campaign," said Charles Heyman,
>   editor of Jane's World Armies. "The intelligence services were not
>   involved -- I've had two people phoning me today to say, 'Look, we
>   had nothing to with it.'" In fact, a leaked report from British
>   intelligence contradicts the government's official position, saying
>   there "are no current links between the Iraqi regime and the
>   al-Qaeda network."
>SOURCE: New Zealand Herald, February 9, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/February_2003.html#1044766802
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1044766802
>
>6. THE TRUTH BEHIND POWELL'S "POISON FACTORY"
>http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,892112,00.html
>   "If Colin Powell were to visit the shabby military compound at the
>   foot of a large snow-covered mountain, he might be in for an
>   unpleasant surprise," reports Luke Harding. "The US Secretary of
>   State last week confidently described the compound in north-eastern
>   Iraq - run by an Islamic terrorist group Ansar al-Islam - as a
>   'terrorist chemicals and poisons factory.' Yesterday, however, it
>   emerged that the terrorist factory was nothing of the kind - more a
>   dilapidated collection of concrete outbuildings at the foot of a
>   grassy sloping hill. Behind the barbed wire, and a courtyard strewn
>   with broken rocket parts, are a few empty concrete houses. There is
>   a bakery. There is no sign of chemical weapons anywhere - only the
>   smell of paraffin and vegetable ghee used for cooking." Fearing an
>   American military strike, "The people of the town of Khurmal, about
>   five kilometres away to the west are particularly anxious since Mr.
>   Powell gave their town's name to the alleged chemical weapons
>   site."
>SOURCE: Observer (UK), February 9, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/February_2003.html#1044766801
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1044766801
>
>7. MARCHING FOR PEACE IS BANNED IN NEW YORK
>http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=815
>   In New York the coalition United for Peace & Justice is in court
>   today suing the city over its refusal to provide a permit for a
>   non-violent peace march February 15th. Newsday noted yesterday that
>   "the lawsuit ... sought a declaration from the court that the
>   city's action violated the First Amendment and for an order
>   permitting a parade of between 50,000 and 100,000 people. The Feb.
>   15 event would begin across from the United Nations and proceed to
>   Central Park for a rally. 'When we're in times of crisis, it's all
>   the more important that we zealously safeguard our rights, and
>   there's nothing more basic than the right to march, to protest,'
>   said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil
>   Liberties Union, which is representing the groups. ... Chris Dunn,
>   a lawyer with the New York Civil Liberties Union, said that when
>   the sponsor of the demonstration, United for Peace and Justice,
>   applied for a police permit last month, it was turned down because
>   of concerns cited about congestion.' "
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/February_2003.html#1044634564
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1044634564
>
>8. IS PROTEST TREASON?
>http://www.spinsanity.org/post.html?2003_02_02_archive.html#90291559
>   Since September 11, a number of pundits have tried to demonize
>   dissent by equating it with support for terrorism. "But none has
>   gone so far as to suggest an actual prosecution for treason simply
>   for voicing one's political views - until now," writes Brendan
>   Nyhan. In a February 6 editorial, the New York Sun begins by
>   praising the New York City government for "doing the people of New
>   York and the people of Iraq a great service by delaying and
>   obstructing the anti-war protest planned for February 15. The
>   longer they delay in granting the protesters a permit, the less
>   time the organizers have to get their turnout organized, and the
>   smaller the crowd is likely to be." The Sun goes on to suggest that
>   protesters "look at Article III" of the U.S. Constitution, which
>   provides a legal definition of treason. How is the protest in any
>   way relevant to treason? According to the Sun's pseudo-logic,
>   "There can be no question at this point that Saddam Hussein is an
>   enemy of America... And there is no reason to doubt that the
>   'anti-war' protesters -- we prefer to call them protesters against
>   freeing Iraq -- are giving, at the very least, comfort to Saddam
>   Hussein."
>SOURCE: Spinsanity.org, February 7, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/February_2003.html#1044594001
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1044594001
>
>9. DOWNING STREET'S DECEIT
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,890916,00.html
>   "Downing Street was last night plunged into acute international
>   embarrassment after it emerged that large parts of the British
>   government's latest dossier on Iraq - allegedly based on
>   'intelligence material' - were taken from published academic
>   articles, some of them several years old," the Guardian writes.
>   "[O]n Channel 4 News last night it was revealed that four of the
>   report's 19 pages had been copied - with only minor editing and a
>   few insertions - from the internet version of an article by Ibrahim
>   al-Marashi which appeared in the Middle East Review of
>   International Affairs last September." US Secretary of State Colin
>   Powell praised the dossier during his speech to the UN Security
>   Council on Wednesday. "I would call my colleagues' attention to the
>   fine paper that the United Kingdom distributed... which describes
>   in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities," Powell said.
>SOURCE: Guardian (UK), February 7, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/February_2003.html#1044594000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1044594000
>
>10. A SKEPTIC'S BATTLE CRY:  'REMEMBER NAYIRAH!'
>http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=wsj:2003:02:06:198438:LOCAL/WISCONSIN
>   The Wisconsin State Journal advocates a US attack on Iraq, but WSJ
>   columnist George Hesselberg remembers 'Nayirah.' He recently wrote
>   a column suggesting "perhaps we should question some of the
>   evidence being gathered to justify an invasion of Iraq. The column
>   was not appreciated by several readers, including ... Teddy
>   Fedkenheuer, of Baraboo: 'To either accuse or blame an American
>   President of lying to the American people ... is un-American. ...
>   You are also implying that his stand on Iraq is also 'smoke and
>   mirrors.' I find that offensive.' ... It might be wise, at this
>   time, to refer to "Nayirah," a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl who shocked
>   Congress with her testimony in October 1990, when she told of
>   invading Iraqi soldiers throwing babies from incubators onto the
>   cold hospital floor to die. Her testimony was a lie. She was part
>   of an $11.5 million public relations campaign by the Hill and
>   Knowlton, a well-known public relations company, to build backing
>   for a war. The money came from the Kuwaiti government, laundered
>   through Citizens for a Free Kuwait. The public relations campaign
>   included lots of phony evidence. ... 'Nayirah,' it was revealed
>   more than a year later, 'was not a simple hospital worker, but the
>   daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to the U.S.' And that's why our
>   hand-wringing ilk question everything."
>SOURCE: Wisconsin State Journal, February 6, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/February_2003.html#1044507602
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1044507602
>
>11. WHO "INFILTRATED BY FOOD INDUSTRY"
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4579650,00.html
>   According to a confidential report prepared by a consultant to the
>   World Health Organization, the food industry has followed the
>   example of the tobacco industry, infiltrating the WHO and exerting
>   "undue influence" over policies intended to safeguard public health
>   by limiting the amount of fat, sugar and salt we consume. "The easy
>   movement of experts - toxicologists in particular - between private
>   firms, universities, tobacco and food industries and international
>   agencies creates the conditions for conflict of interest," says the
>   report by Norbert Hirschhorn.
>SOURCE: Guardian (UK), February 6, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1044507601
>
>12. CORPORATIONS WILL SAVE THE WORLD
>http://www.prwatch.org/documents/corpsave.pdf
>   "If you want to save the world, forget going to protests and give
>   up on the press releases. It's time to work with corporations -- or
>   so an increasing number of former activists turned corporate
>   consultants would like you to believe," writes frequent PR Watch
>   contributor Bob Burton. "Not only is consulting more financially
>   rewarding than working for non-government organizations (NGOs), it
>   is defended as a superior form of activism. ... The often crude
>   corporate efforts of the 1980s and 1990s aimed at defeating
>   activist campaigns are now being superseded by softer strategies of
>   enticing non-government organizations to do less on the streets and
>   more in 'partnerships' in corporate boardrooms designing 'win-win'
>   solutions."
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1044507600
>
>13. THE GOOD SIDE OF WAR
>http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=industryNews&storyID=2174555
>   "Just as the advertising industry picks up the pieces from a
>   crushing slump, the drumbeat of war is threatening to spoil the
>   recovery," write Merissa Marr and Adam Pasick. "Advertisers are
>   nervously reviewing their campaigns as a U.S.-led conflict in Iraq
>   looms ... reporting a reluctance among some marketers to spend
>   money on new campaigns and launch new products. ... In the last
>   Gulf war in 1991, advertising spending almost entirely dried up for
>   two months. Many advertisers also pulled existing campaigns and
>   delayed the launch of new ones in the wake of the September 11
>   attacks on the United States."
>SOURCE: Reuters, February 5, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1044421200
>
>14. DON'T LOOK AT PICASSO
>http://www.artdaily.com/news.asp?not=11&idn=2&fnot=2/2/2003
>   A reproduction of the "Guernica" work by Pablo Picasso, which
>   depicts the horrors of war, has been covered with a curtain at the
>   United Nations because it is apparently an "inappropriate" backdrop
>   for discussions of the pending war with Iraq: "A diplomat stated
>   that it would not be an appropriate background if the ambassador of
>   the United States at the U.N. John Negroponte, or Powell, talk
>   about war surrounded with women, children and animals shouting with
>   horror and showing the suffering of the bombings."
>SOURCE: Art Daily, February 2, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/February_2003.html#1044162001
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1044162001
>
>15. PR-INFLICTED NIGHTMARE HITS CELL THERAPEUTICS
>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/134626205_cti010.html
>   "A public-relations firm is dealing with a public-relations
>   nightmare after unintentionally e-mailing journalists and others
>   documents about one of its clients, Seattle-based Cell
>   Therapeutics. The mass e-mail from Shepardson Stern + Kaminsky on
>   Wednesday revealed the candid views of Cell Therapeutics managers
>   and outside analysts on the strengths and weaknesses of the
>   biotechnology company. SS+K asserts that the message was sent out
>   as the result of a computer virus. The report, a summary of
>   interviews conducted by SS+K, cites 'skepticism' and 'outright
>   cynicism' about Cell Therapeutics from both within and outside the
>   biotech firm. The company's chief drug in development, Xyotax, an
>   anti-cancer drug, 'risks being over-hyped and overpromised,' the
>   report says. Additionally, it says, the clinical division of Cell
>   Therapeutics, which tests drugs on humans, 'has failed in the past
>   and not yet addressed the root causes of that failure.' ... Hours
>   after the report was dispatched, SS+K sent another e-mail warning
>   recipients to delete the earlier one without opening it. 'An email
>   sent from my mailbox earlier today contains a serious virus and
>   should not be opened, said the message from SS+K employee Susan
>   Pierson Brown."
>SOURCE: Seattle Times, February 1, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/February_2003.html#1044075600
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1044075600
>
>
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Carpentier Nico (Phd)
Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University Brussels
Studies on Media, Information & Telecommunication (SMIT)
Centre for Media Sociology (CeMeSO)
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