(From 2002 until 2005, this mailing list was called the ECCR mailing list)
[Previous message][Next message][Back to index]
[eccr] Fwd: The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, February 12, 2003
Wed Feb 12 08:06:29 GMT 2003
>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, February 12, 2003
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>sponsored by PR WATCH (www.prwatch.org)
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
>further information about current public relations campaigns.
>It is emailed free each Wednesday to subscribers.
>
>SHARE US WITH A FRIEND (OR FIFTY FRIENDS)
>Who do you know who might want to receive Spin of the Week?
>Help us grow our subscriber list! Just forward this message to
>people you know, encouraging them to sign up at this link:
>
>http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>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
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>The Weekly Spin is compiled by staff and volunteers at PR Watch.
>To subscribe or unsubcribe, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html
>
>Daily updates and news from past weeks can be found at the
>Spin of the Day" section of the PR Watch website:
>http://www.prwatch.org/spin/index.html
>
>Archives of our quarterly publication, PR Watch, are at:
>http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues
>
>PR Watch, Spin of the Day and the Weekly Spin are projects
>of the Center for Media & Democracy, a nonprofit organization
>that offers investigative reporting on the public relations
>industry. We help the public recognize manipulative and
>misleading PR practices by exposing the activities of
>secretive, little-known propaganda-for-hire firms that
>work to control political debates and public opinion.
>Please send any questions or suggestions about our
>publications to:
>(editor /at/ prwatch.org)
>
>Contributions to the Center for Media & Democracy
>are tax-deductible. Send checks to:
> CMD
> 520 University Ave. #310
> Madison, WI 53703
>
>To donate now online, visit:
>https://www.egrants.org/donate/index.cfm?ID=2344-0|1118-0
>_______________________________________________
>Weekly-Spin mailing list
>(Weekly-Spin /at/ prwatch.org)
>http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/weekly-spin
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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 - Belgium
T: ++ 32 (0)2-629.18.30
F: ++ 32 (0)2-629.28.61
E-mail: (Nico.Carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
W1: http://www.vub.ac.be/SCOM/smit
W2: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
W3: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~jteurlin/Koccc.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------
ECCR-Mailing list
---
To unsubscribe, send an email message to (majordomo /at/ listserv.vub.ac.be)
with in the body of the message (NOT in the subject): unsubscribe eccr
---
ECCR - European Consortium for Communications Research
Secretariat: P.O. Box 106, B-1210 Brussels 21, Belgium
Tel.: +32-2-412 42 78/47
Fax.: +32-2-412 42 00
Email: (freenet002 /at/ pi.be) or (Rico.Lie /at/ pi.be)
URL: http://www.eccr.info
----------------
[Previous message][Next message][Back to index]
