(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, May 7, 2003
Wed May 07 07:14:34 GMT 2003
>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, May 7, 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. Aaron Brown Turning PR Flack for Phony 'Newscasts'
>2. Bush's War on Iraq: Was it Just for the Photo Ops?
>3. Networks Largely Ignore War's Long-Term Impact
>4. Israel Hopes Christian Right Will Help Ditch 'Road Map'
>5. Nature Conservancy Benefits Its Benefactors
>6. INC Seeks Enhanced Credibility
>7. Nature Conservancy Goes for the Black Gold
>8. Nature Conservancy Rakes in Corporate Cash
>9. Counterterrorism and Risk Management Expert Takes Over In Iraq
>10. Selling the 9/11 President - Image Is Everything
>11. All the President's Lies
>12. Celebrity Speaks Out On Celebrities Speaking Out
>13. Two Different Languages
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. AARON BROWN TURNING PR FLACK FOR PHONY 'NEWSCASTS'
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/07/business/media/07DRUG.html?ex=1053276529&ei=1&en=178cb1461f05f6ff
> "Aaron Brown of CNN, Walter Cronkite and other broadcast
> journalists have been hired to appear in videos resembling
> newscasts that are actually paid for by drug makers and other
> health care companies, blurring the line between journalism and
> advertising. ... For years, local news stations, as part of their
> newscasts, have broadcast [video news releases (VNRs)] created by
> drug companies' public relations agencies -- a practice that
> critics equate to publishing unedited press releases. Now,
> production companies are expanding that marketing tactic to public
> television and the Web and using celebrity journalists to add to
> the videos' credibility. ... Critics of the news media say that the
> videos mislead viewers by packaging promotional material to look
> like news."
>SOURCE: New York Times, May 7, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1052280000
>
>2. BUSH'S WAR ON IRAQ: WAS IT JUST FOR THE PHOTO OPS?
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/06/opinion/06KRUG.html?ex=1053276675&ei=1&en=3da0de8eee941752
> Paul Krugman asks "why is the failure to find any evidence of an
> active Iraqi nuclear weapons program, or vast quantities of
> chemical and biological weapons ... a big deal? Mainly because it
> feeds suspicions that the war wasn't waged to eliminate real
> threats. This suspicion is further fed by the administration's
> lackadaisical attitude toward those supposed threats once Baghdad
> fell. For example, Iraq's main nuclear waste dump wasn't secured
> until a few days ago, by which time it had been thoroughly looted.
> So was it all about the photo ops? Well, Mr. Bush got to pose in
> his flight suit. And given the absence of awkward questions, his
> handlers surely feel empowered to make even more brazen use of the
> national security issue in future."
>SOURCE: New York Times, May 6, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1052193603
>
>3. NETWORKS LARGELY IGNORE WAR'S LONG-TERM IMPACT
> "Media have been quick to declare the U.S. war against Iraq a
> success, but in-depth investigative reporting about the war's
> likely health and environmental consequences has been scarce,"
> media watchdog Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting writes. "Two
> important issues getting shortchanged in the press are the U.S.'s
> controversial use of cluster bombs and depleted uranium weapons.
> According to a May 5 search of the Nexis database, there have been
> no in-depth reports about cluster bombs on ABC, CBS or NBC's
> nightly news programs since the start of the war. There have been,
> however, a few passing mentions of cluster bombs -- enough so that
> viewers may be aware of their existence. Not so with depleted
> uranium. Since the beginning of the year, the words 'depleted
> uranium' have not been uttered once on ABC World News Tonight, CBS
> Evening News or NBC Nightly News, according to Nexis."
>SOURCE: FAIR, May 6, 2003
>Web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2003.html#1052193602
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1052193602
>
>4. ISRAEL HOPES CHRISTIAN RIGHT WILL HELP DITCH 'ROAD MAP'
>http://www.webactive.com/pacifica/demnow/dn20030506.html
> New York-based 5W PR counts as clients the Christian Coalition, the
> Zionist Organization of America, and Israel's Ministry of Tourism,
> according to O'Dwyer's PR Daily. Representatives from these
> organizations are apparently now working to derail Bush's "road map
> for peace." Democracy Now reports Israeli Tourism Minister Benny
> Elon is lobbying the U.S. Congress and Christian fundamentalists --
> including Christian Coalition President Roberta Combs and former
> presidential candidate Gary Bauer and Pat Robertson -- against the
> U.S. peace plan. The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reports Elon is
> presenting a different plan that will call for the establishment of
> a Palestinian state in Jordan. Ha'aretz reports that Elon said:
> "What we are now seeing across the Muslim world is not a powerful
> surge of faith but the dying embers of Islam. ... Within a few
> years a Christian crusade against Islam will be launched, which
> will be the major event of this millennium."
>SOURCE: Democracy Now, May 6, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2003.html#1052193601
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1052193601
>
>5. NATURE CONSERVANCY BENEFITS ITS BENEFACTORS
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17955-2003May5.html
> In the last of its investigative series the Washington Post reports
> on how a multi-billion dollar environmental charity takes care of
> its own. For example, "on New York's Shelter Island, the Nature
> Conservancy three years ago bought an undeveloped, 10-acre tract
> overlooking its Mashomack Preserve ... just a stone's skip from the
> exclusive Hamptons. Cost to the charity: $2.1 million. Seven weeks
> later, it resold the land, with some development restrictions, to
> James Dougherty, former chairman of the charity's regional chapter,
> and his wife, Nancy, a trustee at the Conservancy's preserve. Cost
> to the Doughertys: $500,000. ... Time and again, the nonprofit has
> bought raw land and resold it at a loss to a trustee or supporter."
>SOURCE: Washington Post, May 6, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1052193600
>
>6. INC SEEKS ENHANCED CREDIBILITY
> "Burson-Marsteller is working to enhance the credibility of the
> Iraqi National Congress as it seeks to establish itself as a
> legitimate force in postinvasion Iraq," writes The Holmes Report, a
> PR trade publication. "B-M has been working with the Congress, led
> by highprofile Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi, since 1999, under a state
> department contract. Chalabi and the Congress have close ties with
> the Bush administration, but some critics are concerned that their
> support within Iraq is shallow. 'We've been the communications
> vehicle on the outside as the INC moved into northern Iraq, then to
> Nasiriya, and to Baghdad,' K. Riva Levinson, who heads the INC
> account for Burson out of Washington, told reporters. 'We were
> helping the INC get out statements and videos that made clear that
> the exiled opposition was consolidating and moving. It's been a
> tremendous ride for them and for us.'"
>SOURCE: The Holmes Report, May 5, 2003
>Web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2003.html#1052107201
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1052107201
>
>7. NATURE CONSERVANCY GOES FOR THE BLACK GOLD
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13933-2003May4.html
> The second part of the Post's examination of a multi-billion dollar
> tax exempt corporation: "Eight years ago, Mobil Oil gave the Nature
> Conservancy what was one of the group's largest corporate
> donations, a patch of prairie that encompassed the last native
> breeding ground of a highly endangered bird. ... The Conservancy
> ... started acting like an oil company. The Conservancy sank a well
> under the bird's nesting ground. Drilling in sensitive areas is
> opposed as destructive by most environmentalists. But the
> Conservancy subscribes to an aggressive form of 'compatible
> development,' a pragmatic approach that seeks to accommodate the
> needs of business as well as environmentalism. The Conservancy
> wanted the Texas City Prairie Preserve to be a national model to
> show that drilling can be accomplished without harming the
> environment. It would use the drilling profits to buy more habitat
> for the birds. That's not the way things worked out."
>SOURCE: Washington Post, May 5, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1052107200
>
>8. NATURE CONSERVANCY RAKES IN CORPORATE CASH
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9888-2003May3.html
> In the first of three articles the Washington Post takes a long
> look at the Nature Conservancy, "the world's richest environmental
> group, amassing $3 billion in assets by pledging to save precious
> places. ... Yet the Conservancy has logged forests, engineered a
> $64 million deal paving the way for opulent houses on fragile
> grasslands and drilled for natural gas under the last breeding
> ground of an endangered bird species. ... Its governing board and
> advisory council now include executives and directors from one or
> more oil companies, chemical producers, auto manufacturers, mining
> concerns, logging operations and coal-burning electric utilities.
> ... It is also the leading proponent of a brand of environmentalism
> that promotes compromise between conservation and corporate
> America."
>SOURCE: Washington Post, May 4, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2003.html#1052020800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1052020800
>
>9. COUNTERTERRORISM AND RISK MANAGEMENT EXPERT TAKES OVER IN IRAQ
>http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=2675685
> A former State Department counterterrorism expert and crisis
> consulting CEO will step into the fray in Baghdad. Reuters reports
> L. Paul Bremer is replacing retired general Jay Garner as the top
> U.S. civilian official in postwar Iraq. Between 1986-89, Bremer
> served as President Ronald Reagan's ambassador-at-large for
> counterterrorism, "a post that made him responsible for crafting
> U.S. policies to combat terrorism." After leaving the State
> Department, Bremer worked at Kissinger Associates, former Secretary
> of State Henry Kissinger's consulting firm. In 2002, Bremer was
> appointed to the President's Homeland Security Advisory Council.
> Bremer serves as chairman and CEO of the Crisis Consulting Practice
> of Marsh Inc. According to its website, Marsh's mission is "to
> create and deliver risk solutions and services that make our
> clients more successful." With an annual revenue of $5.9 billion,
> Marsh is active in more than 100 countries. According to Reuters,
> in a January Washington Times column entitled "Charting a course
> for war," Bremer wrote: "This fight cannot be won on the defensive
> ... So we must go on the offensive. To be blunt, we have to kill
> the terrorists before they kill us."
>SOURCE: Reuters, May 2, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2003.html#1051848001
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1051848001
>
>10. SELLING THE 9/11 PRESIDENT - IMAGE IS EVERYTHING
>http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-woplan023264874may02,0,7998934.story?coll=ny-worldnews-print
> "In a city where image is everything ... the White House has
> created an indelible, and formidable, image by having Bush land
> aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln to deliver a speech signaling the
> end of the military phase of the war with Iraq. ... The attention
> the event generated was a political consultant's dream, said
> Michael Deaver, who was President Ronald Reagan's White House image
> guru. ... Paul Begala, a former Clinton aide, called the flight a
> 'tax-subsidized commercial.' ... Navy officials were unable
> yesterday to provide the per-hour cost to operate two S-3B Vikings,
> one carrying the president and the other his chief of staff."
>SOURCE: Newsday, May 2, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1051848000
>
>11. ALL THE PRESIDENT'S LIES
>http://www.prospect.org/print/V14/5/bennett-d.html
> "Other presidents have had problems with truth-telling," write
> Drake Bennett and Heidi Pauken. "But George W. Bush is in a class
> by himself when it comes to prevarication. It is no exaggeration to
> say that lying has become Bush's signature as president." They
> detail the gap between words and deeds in Bush's policies on
> education, health and the environment. (Unfortunately, the article
> is inaccurately titled. Bennett and Pauken caught a few of the
> president's lies, but certainly not "all" of them.)
>SOURCE: American Prospect, May 1, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1051761600
>
>12. CELEBRITY SPEAKS OUT ON CELEBRITIES SPEAKING OUT
>http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15780
> "I'm so public about this because I've been asked to do so and
> because I painfully felt that the anti-war movement was being
> ignored," comedian and anti-war activist Janeane Garofalo told The
> Progressive's Elizabeth DiNovella. "It became abundantly clear that
> no one was getting on TV talking about this. ... I can't stand
> watching history roll right over us. It's like they're asking you
> to bend over, put your head in the sand, and put a flag in your
> ass." Garofalo, who's been active with Win Without War, has
> appeared on Crossfire, Inside Politics, Good Morning America, Fox
> News Sunday, MSNBC, and CNN. She accused the press of wasting
> America's time with celebrity bashing. "You can book a guest you
> can respect or you can respect the guest you book. They love to
> pretend that if you are in entertainment, that's what defines you
> and you can't possibly have any knowledge of what's going on in the
> news. So you have grown adult anchors and media people who are
> literally acting like twelve year olds, saying, 'You shut up. You
> don't know anything.' Literally treating you with the contempt of a
> schoolyard bully," Garofalo said.
>SOURCE: Alternet, April 30, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/April_2003.html#1051675200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1051675200
>
>13. TWO DIFFERENT LANGUAGES
>http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15778
> MSNBC correspondent Ashleigh Banfield was reprimanded by her
> network following a speech she gave at Kansas State University
> about U.S. news coverage of the war in Iraq. Too bad, because it
> was a pretty good speech. Banfield criticized the "glorious,
> wonderful picture" that the media painted of the war, saying it
> "wasn't journalism." But she also provided valuable insights into
> the "two different languages" with which the combatants on opposing
> sides of conflicts see the world. "You cannot negotiate when
> someone can't hear you or refuses to hear you or can't even
> understand your language," she said, "and that's clearly what's
> happening in a lot of places in the world right now, the West Bank,
> Gaza and Israel, not the least of which there's very little
> listening and understanding going on."
>SOURCE: Alternet, April 29, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1051588801
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>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: C0.05
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://smit.vub.ac.be/
W2: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------
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]
