[eccr] Fwd: The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, August 13, 2003

>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, August 13, 2003
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>The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. Fox Sues Franken
>2. WMD Sells, Despite Media Blackout
>3. Techies, Politics Now Click
>4. White House Exaggerated Iraq's Nuclear Threat
>5. GIs Say: "Bring Us Home"
>6. White House Accused Of Distorting And Suppressing Data
>7. Suit Challenges Global Warming Report
>8. Free Cigs For Celebs
>9. Ashcroft Goes On Victory Tour
>10. Bad Call on Iraq
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. FOX SUES FRANKEN
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/12/nyregion/12FRAN.html
>   The Fox News Network is suing comedian Al Franken in an effort to
>   block publication of his upcoming new book, Lies and the Lying
>   Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. The
>   lawsuit claims that Franken's title infringes Fox's copyright on
>   the phrase "fair and balanced," and characterizes Franken as
>   "shrill and unstable," a "parasite" whose behavior is "either
>   intoxicated or deranged." Evidently the network is still fuming
>   over Franken's hilarious, televised run-in with Fox commentator
>   Bill O'Reilly at a recent book publishers' convention.
>SOURCE: New York Times, August 12, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2003.html#1060660800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1060660800
>
>2. WMD SELLS, DESPITE MEDIA BLACKOUT
>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/08/10/RVBESTSELLERS.DTL&type=printable
>   The mainstream broadcast media in the U.S. have thus far avoided
>   reviewing Weapons of Mass Deception, the new book by PR Watch
>   editors Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber. Nevertheless, the book
>   debuted this week at #4 on the San Francisco Chronicle's paperback
>   best-seller list. The book has also received strong reviewed from a
>   number of newspapers and from national media outlets in England and
>   Australia. Check out our updated list of reviews, including our
>   Friday interview on Democracy Now.
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2003.html#1060652112
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1060652112
>
>3. TECHIES, POLITICS NOW CLICK
>http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-geeks11aug11000416,1,3687057.story?coll=la-headlines-business-manual
>   "After years as political agnostics, the programmers and engineers
>   who orchestrated the technological revolution of the 1990s are
>   trying to reboot government," writes Joseph Menn. "They have money,
>   earned during the boom. They have time, found since the bust. And
>   they are using their technological savvy to recruit even casual
>   Internet users to their causes." Menn looks at the new
>   "techno-populists" such as MoveOn.org and DigitalConsumer.org.
>SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, August 11, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2003.html#1060574400
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1060574400
>
>4. WHITE HOUSE EXAGGERATED IRAQ'S NUCLEAR THREAT
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39500-2003Aug9.html
>   In an article based on "interviews with analysts and policymakers
>   inside and outside the U.S. government, and access to internal
>   documents and technical evidence not previously made public," the
>   Washington Post's Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus report the White
>   House overstated Iraq's nuclear threat in its case to go to war.
>   "The new information indicates a pattern in which President Bush,
>   Vice President Cheney and their subordinates -- in public and
>   behind the scenes -- made allegations depicting Iraq's nuclear
>   weapons program as more active, more certain and more imminent in
>   its threat than the data they had would support. On occasion
>   administration advocates withheld evidence that did not conform to
>   their views. The White House seldom corrected misstatements or
>   acknowledged loss of confidence in information upon which it had
>   previously relied," Gellman and Pincus write.
>SOURCE: Washington Post, August 10, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1060488001
>
>5. GIS SAY: "BRING US HOME"
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1015711,00.html
>   Breaking the traditional silence of military families during time
>   of war, Susan Schuman is complaining loudly about the government
>   decisions that sent her son Justin to Iraq. "I want them to bring
>   our troops home," she says. "I am appalled at Bush's policies. He
>   has got us into a terrible mess." Soldiers and their families are
>   airing their grievances using a weapon not available during
>   previous wars: the Internet. "Somewhere down the line, we became an
>   occupation force in [Iraqi] eyes. We don't feel like heroes any
>   more," writes Private Isaac Kindblade of the 671st Engineer
>   Company. Criticism is coming from retired soldier David Hackworth,
>   Veterans for Common Sense, and Military Families Speak Out.
>SOURCE: Guardian (UK), August 10, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2003.html#1060488000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1060488000
>
>6. WHITE HOUSE ACCUSED OF DISTORTING AND SUPPRESSING DATA
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/08/politics/08REPO.html
>   A new study says the "Bush administration persistently manipulates
>   scientific data to serve its ideology and protect the interests of
>   its political supporters," the New York Times writes. The 40-page
>   report, Politics and Science in the Bush Administration, was
>   prepared at the request of Rep. Henry Waxman, the Government Reform
>   Committee's ranking Democrat. From agricultural pollution to global
>   warming to workplace safety, the Bush administration has
>   compromised the scientific integrity of federal research,
>   monitoring and regulatory institutions and "has manipulated the
>   scientific process and distorted or suppressed scientific
>   findings," the report says. "The administration's political
>   interference with science has led to misleading statements by the
>   president, inaccurate responses to Congress, altered Web sites,
>   suppressed agency reports, erroneous international communications
>   and the gagging of scientists," adds the report. White House press
>   secretary Scott McClellan dismissed the report. According to the
>   Times, McCellen "contended that its sponsor, Mr. Waxman, who is
>   widely known for his aggressive inquiry into the tobacco industry,
>   was seeking to score political points."
>SOURCE: New York Times, August 8, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2003.html#1060315200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1060315200
>
>7. SUIT CHALLENGES GLOBAL WARMING REPORT
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/07/politics/07DATA.html?ei=1&en=e9368ec46a4cfa2d&ex=1061278901&pagewanted=print&position=
>   The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington DC-based think
>   tank that is funded by right-wing foundations and industries that
>   deny global warming, sued the Bush administration over its 2000
>   report on climate change. The New York Times reports CEI is trying
>   to stop the government from distributing the report, saying it is
>   inaccurate and biased. The suit says the report violates the
>   Federal Data Quality Act, a little known law passed in December
>   2000 that requires information disseminated by the government to
>   pass standards for objectivity, quality, and utility. While
>   sounding like reasonable lawmaking, the watchdog group Public
>   Citizen warns that FDQA is "susceptible to misuse by opponents of
>   regulatory safeguards who may attempt to exploit the Act to
>   dissuade agencies from disseminating information to the public or
>   engaging in protective rulemaking."
>SOURCE: New York Times, August 7, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2003.html#1060228801
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1060228801
>
>8. FREE CIGS FOR CELEBS
>http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030807/APN/308070620
>   "A tobacco company is offering a free lifetime supply of cigarettes
>   to celebrity smokers as part of a guerrilla marketing campaign to
>   raise the public profile of its recently launched brand," the
>   Associated Press reports. "In a tersely worded pitch, Freedom
>   Tobacco International Inc. said it was seeking to 'seed' its
>   cigarettes with adult celebrities. The appeal was made Tuesday to
>   publicists through a Web-based network subscribed to by hundreds of
>   public relations agencies. ... Freedom paid covert actresses,
>   called 'leaners,' to smoke the cigarettes in Manhattan bars and
>   nightclubs for several weeks this spring in a New York effort to
>   promote the fledgling brand, company spokeswoman Nancy Tamosaitis
>   said. The company is also behind the Right to Smoke Coalition, a
>   group organized to fight bans against public smoking, like the one
>   recently enacted in New York City," AP reports.
>SOURCE: Sarasota Herald Tribune, August 7, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1060228800
>
>9. ASHCROFT GOES ON VICTORY TOUR
>http://www.nydailynews.com/08-06-2003/news/wn_report/story/106872p-96686c.html
>   "Attorney General John Ashcroft is hitting the road to rally
>   support for the Victory Act, which would further expand his powers
>   to go after Al Qaeda and narcoterrorists," the New York Daily News
>   reports. Ashcroft's 10-day tour will visit 20-states promoting his
>   Vital Interdiction of Criminal Terrorist Organizations Act. Critics
>   say expanding Ashcroft's powers would further erode civil
>   liberites. The Victory Act if passed would "clamp down on Arab
>   hawala transactions, where cash exchanged in an honor system has
>   been funneled to terrorists; get business records without a court
>   order in terrorism probes and delay notification; track wireless
>   communications with a roving warrant; and increase sentences for
>   drug kingpins to 40 years in prison and $4 million in fines," the
>   Daily News reports. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch
>   (R-Utah) is expected to introduce the Victory Act next month.
>SOURCE: New York Daily News, August 6, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2003.html#1060142401
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1060142401
>
>10. BAD CALL ON IRAQ
>http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Hacks%20Target.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=28&rnd=151.93229315426774
>   Maverick ex-soldier David Hackworth believed the Bush
>   administration's claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction
>   until recently, but now he's steamed. "A whole bunch of folks here
>   in the USA and around this beat-up globe are all worked up over
>   George W. Bush's 16 shifty words in his 'Let's Do Saddam' State of
>   the Union speech when they should be taking a harder look at the
>   president's judgment on the most critical matter to a state: war,"
>   Hackworth writes. "Don't have heartburn over those 16 words. Have
>   it instead over the folks who've gotten our nation in a megamess
>   that might cost hundreds more casualties and around $100 billion by
>   Christmas, a figure this regime's Liars Club is busy doing its best
>   to hide."
>SOURCE: Soldiers for the Truth, August 5, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1060056000
>
>
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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: C0.05
Pleinlaan 2 - B-1050 Brussels - Belgium
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