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[eccr] The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Wed Nov 26 07:49:33 GMT 2003
>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, November 26, 2003
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>The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. Help Peel Banana Republicans!
>2. Weapon of Mass Communication
>3. Fox's Rant and Runt Show
>4. Ruining "Reagan"
>5. Klores Flacks for Paris Hilton
>6. Media Kept From Soldier Funerals
>7. So Much for Plan A
>8. Attack on Academic Freedom
>9. The 9/11 President Launches His First TV Ad
>10. Putting Things in Perspective
>11. Chemical Industry Wages War on Environment & Health
>12. Freedom of the Press in Iraq
>13. The Birth of "Journo-Lobbying"
>14. "Transpertainment" Comes to Las Vegas
>15. Scarborough to Lynch: "Shut Up and Take the Cash"
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. HELP PEEL BANANA REPUBLICANS!
>http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Banana_Republicans
> The United States is supposed to be a democracy, but today powerful
> business interests dominate government, most citizens don't even
> vote, civil liberties are surrendered for national security,
> gunboat diplomacy alienates world opinion, and one overtly
> pro-business party dominates all three branches of government and
> the news media. What's going on, and what can be done? PR Watch
> editors Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber are working on a new book,
> titled Banana Republicans: How the New Right is Turning American
> Into a One-Party State. We welcome your help! Please visit our
> Disinfopedia and add your own research on the Republican political
> machine.
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2003.html#1069822800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069822800
>
>2. WEAPON OF MASS COMMUNICATION
>http://www.texasmonthly.com/mag/issues/2003-11-01/feature.php
> "If not for sixteen specious words about African uranium, George W.
> Bush's post-war PR would be humming along," declares Sam Gwynne in
> a mostly gushing profile of Dan Bartlett, the Bush administration's
> director of communications. Gwynne depicts Bartlett as an affable
> Texas good ol' boy who gets "the spit knocked out of him with
> alarming regularity by the velociraptors of the media," while
> acknowledging that he is "the linchpin of the most far-reaching,
> tough-minded, and technologically advanced government
> communications operation in history - one whose sophistication,
> sweep, and scope make even the silken spinners of the Reagan era
> seem primitive by comparison."
>SOURCE: Texas Monthly
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2003.html#1069790238
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069790238
>
>3. FOX'S RANT AND RUNT SHOW
>http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17225
> Hannity & Colmes, Fox News Channel's primetime debate show, figures
> prominently in the network's campaign to market its right-leaning
> programming as "fair & balanced." Actually, the program exemplifies
> the way Fox jiggers the balance to favor conservatives. "The show
> pairs the aggressive conservative Sean Hannity with the mildly
> liberal, often conciliatory Alan Colmes," writes Steve Rendall, in
> "a format where conservatives out-number, out-talk and
> out-interrupt their liberal opponents." Moreover, Colmes "seems to
> see his role as one of policing liberal excess," actually taking
> conservative positions on many issues and rushing to the support of
> conservative figures such as Rudy Giuliani, Trent Lott and Rush
> Limbaugh. "Colmes appears to have no goal other than to maintain
> the illusion of debate on a univocal network," Rendall states.
>SOURCE: FAIR/Extra!
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069777163
>
>4. RUINING "REAGAN"
>http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/TV/11/25/tv.reagans.ap/index.html
> The director of "The Reagans" complained Monday that CBS butchered
> his made-for-TV movie, ultimately making it too incoherent for the
> network to air. According to Robert Ackerman, CBS expressed no
> problems until after a "rough cut" was hurriedly delivered in
> October. At that point, the network ordered changes to the dialogue
> that were "nonnegotiable," he said. "What they were doing with the
> structure of the film, I thought, was making it incoherent,"
> Ackerman said. However, CNN reports, "The film Showtime is airing
> Sunday is exactly as the filmmakers intended -- with the major
> exception of excising the one line that caused the most hubbub."
>SOURCE: CNN, November 25, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069736400
>
>5. KLORES FLACKS FOR PARIS HILTON
>http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0348/musto.php
> Paris Hilton has hired Dan Klores Communications, a PR firm that
> specializes in "crisis communications" for celebrities embroiled in
> scandals, to help her cope with the fallout over public circulation
> of a videotape featuring her having sex with a boyfriend. The
> videotape has sparked a media frenzy, but New York Times columnist
> John Leland jokes that the only thing that could really "damage her
> reputation as a vapid, self-involved rich girl" would be a
> videotape showing her doing something worthwhile with her life,
> such as "developing mathematical models for a low-cost irrigation
> system to be used in the developing world. ... Few celebrities have
> worked as hard at pure tabloid notoriety, or built reputations so
> unsullied by accomplishment or circumspection. Since she was the
> subject of a Vanity Fair profile in 2000, Ms. Hilton, whose
> great-grandfather Conrad Hilton started the Hilton hotel chain, has
> been seized upon by gossip columnists as a chance to construct a
> celebrity from scratch, using only the raw clay of her wealth and
> indiscretion. Though she has done little more than go to
> nightclubs, her name has appeared in more than 90 New York Post
> articles this year alone."
>SOURCE: Village Voice, November 24, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2003.html#1069650001
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069650001
>
>6. MEDIA KEPT FROM SOLDIER FUNERALS
>http://www.prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=195903&site=3
> "The Pentagon took another step in distancing the media from US
> casualties of war last week with the announcement of new
> restrictions on funeral coverage at Arlington National Cemetery
> (ANC)," PR Week's Douglas Quenqua reports. "Any reporter wanting to
> cover a soldier's funeral at the Virginia cemetery will now be
> required to stay within a distant, roped-off area. This 'bullpen'
> is described as an area far enough away from the proceedings that a
> clergyman or family member's words cannot be clearly heard. The new
> restrictions come on the heels of a Pentagon announcement last
> month that reporters were no longer permitted to witness the return
> of soldier's bodies returning from overseas combat. At the time,
> Pentagon spokesman Captain David Romley explained the ban this way:
> 'The media can get a better, more complete understanding of the
> person who has passed by attending and covering funeral services as
> opposed to coffins arriving aboard an air station.' Last week,
> Romley confirmed the new policy, but declined to comment on the
> apparent contradiction between it and his previous explanation.
> Instead, he directed calls to the ANC press office, which did not
> return calls seeking comment."
>SOURCE: PR Week, November 24, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069650000
>
>7. SO MUCH FOR PLAN A
>http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9447
> "For a long time, Bush's poor job approval ratings on domestic
> issues were more than counterbalanced by his strong approval
> ratings on international issues. But that formula for political
> success is falling apart," writes Ruy Texeira. The latest polls
> show that only 48 percent of the public approves of his handling of
> foreign policy and Iraq. A majority believes the war with Iraq was
> not worth the cost and that the Bush administration was hiding
> information or lying about what it knew when it made the case for
> war. "No wonder the Bush team was so happy to see one quarter of
> good economic growth," Texeira writes. "Their plan A (invade Iraq
> in 2003; coast to victory on the national security issue in 2004)
> is now completely out the window. Wise Democrats won't let the
> voters forget just how deceitful and costly that plan A has been;
> even wiser Democrats will have clear ways of explaining to voters
> how we can get out of the mess that plan A has created. By the
> evidence of these polls, voters are ready to listen."
>SOURCE: TomPaine.com
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069614578
>
>8. ATTACK ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM
>http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=23954
> With little fanfare and almost no media coverage, Congress recently
> passed House Resolution 3077, which threatens academic freedom by
> imposing rules on what professors can and can't teach. HR 3077
> focuses in particular on "area studies" (university programs that
> study international culture and politics in specific regions of the
> world). Proponents of the bill, warns Benita Singh, portrayed area
> studies programs as "hotbeds for anti-American sentiment" in order
> to propose "the creation of an advisory board that has the final
> word on curricula taught at Title VI institutions, course materials
> assigned in class, and even the faculty who are hired in
> institutions that accept Title VI funding. ... According to the
> language of the bill, professors whose ideological principles may
> not support U.S. practices abroad can have their appointments
> terminated, any part of a course's curriculum containing criticisms
> of U.S. foreign policy can be censored, and any course deemed
> entirely anti-American can be barred from ever being taught."
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2003.html#1069437372
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069437372
>
>9. THE 9/11 PRESIDENT LAUNCHES HIS FIRST TV AD
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/politics/campaigns/21REPU.html
> President Bush's popularity skyrocketed after 9/11 as the country
> naturally rallied around its leadership. Bush announced that his
> war on terror would define his presidency and the 2004 Republican
> convention will be held in New York city as close as possible to
> the third anniversary of 9/11. Now, the New York Times reports that
> the Republican Party is launchiing "its first advertisement of the
> presidential race, portraying Mr. Bush as fighting terrorism while
> his potential challengers try to undermine him with their sniping.
> The new commercial gives the first hint of the themes Mr. Bush's
> campaign is likely to press in its early days. It shows Mr. Bush,
> during the last State of the Union address, warning of continued
> threats to the nation: 'Our war against terror is a contest of
> will, in which perseverance is power,' he says after the screen
> flashes the words, 'Some are now attacking the president for
> attacking the terrorists.' "
>SOURCE: New York Times, November 21, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069430233
>
>10. PUTTING THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE
>http://truthout.org/docs_03/112103A.shtml
> "A number of explosions tore through the British consulate in
> Turkey today, killing scores of people. George W. Bush is in
> England, surrounded on all sides by enraged British citizens whose
> massive protests have required nearly every police officer in
> London to be put on the line of defense," writes William Rivers
> Pitt. "It is 3:16 p.m. on Thursday afternoon as I write this. CNN
> has been covering, with total exclusivity, a parking lot outside a
> police station for the last hour. They covered an airplane landing.
> They covered the same airplane sitting still on the tarmac. They
> covered the airplane slowly moving into a hangar. All the while,
> talking head after talking head explored every conceivable facet of
> the parking lot, the plane, the tarmac, and the hangar, as well as
> a variety of parallel issues. No stone of data was left unturned.
> Why? Michael Jackson is about to surrender to police."
>SOURCE: Truthout.org, November 21, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2003.html#1069390800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069390800
>
>11. CHEMICAL INDUSTRY WAGES WAR ON ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH
>http://www.ewg.org/briefings/acc/
> A news release from the Environmental Working Group reveals that
> "the chemical industry plans to conduct a covert campaign attacking
> the growing movement in California for more chemical safety
> testing, with tactics including the creation of phony front groups
> and spying on activists, according to an internal American
> Chemistry Council (ACC) memo. ... It recommends to ACC members that
> they pay $120,000 a year to Nichols-Dezenhall, a Washington-based
> firm that hires former FBI and CIA agents, to conduct 'selective
> intelligence gathering ... about the plans, motivations and allies
> of opposition activists... Focus on the PP [Precautionary
> Principle] movement leadership in the U.S., and in particular,
> California.' The memo says Nichols-Dezenhall would also 'create an
> independent PP watchdog group to act as an information
> clearinghouse and criticize the PP in public and media forums...
> The group could be structured as a tax-exempt organization.'" The
> EWG release spawned articles in the San Francisco Chroncile and the
> Oakland Tribune.
>SOURCE: Environmental Working Group, November 20, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2003.html#1069304401
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069304401
>
>12. FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IN IRAQ
>http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1120-08.htm
> "Freedom of the press is beginning to smell a little rotten in the
> new Iraq," reports Robert Fisk, listing some of the fatwas that
> U.S. Proconsul Paul Bremer has issued against Al Jazeera and other
> Arab media. "Things are no better in the American-run television
> and radio stations in Baghdad. The 357 journalists working from the
> Bremer palace grounds have twice gone on strike for more pay and
> have complained of censorship. According to one of the reporters,
> they were told by John Sandrock - head of the private American
> company SAIC, which runs the television station - that 'either you
> accept what we offer or you resign; there are plenty of candidates
> for your jobs.'" On the other hand, more than 100 newspapers have
> sprung up, some of which "have carried blatantly untruthful stories
> about the occupation army, claiming that U.S. soldiers have been
> involved in distributing pornographic pictures to schoolgirls or
> taking Iraqi women to the bedrooms of the Palestine Hotel. One
> problem is that many journalists for the Iraqi papers are either
> converts from the old regime or new writers who have no
> journalistic training in fairness or fact checking."
>SOURCE: Capitol Times (Madison, WI), November 20, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069304400
>
>13. THE BIRTH OF "JOURNO-LOBBYING"
>http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17222
> "James Glassman and TCS have given birth to something quite new in
> Washington: journo-lobbying. It's an innovation driven primarily by
> the influence industry. Lobbying firms that once specialized in
> gaining person-to-person access to key decision-makers have
> branched out. The new game is to dominate the entire intellectual
> environment in which officials make policy decisions, which means
> funding everything from think tanks to issue ads to phony
> grassroots pressure groups. But the institution that most affects
> the intellectual atmosphere in Washington, the media, has also
> proven the hardest for K Street to influence -- until now."
>SOURCE: Washington Monthly, November 19, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2003.html#1069218000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069218000
>
>14. "TRANSPERTAINMENT" COMES TO LAS VEGAS
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/18/business/media/18adco.html
> Nextel Communications "is becoming a principal sponsor of a
> monorail system that is scheduled to start serving Las Vegas in
> January, underwriting the branding of the Convention Center stop as
> well as one of nine four-car trains with the Nextel name, logo and
> colors. ... Coca-Cola is also negotiating with the Las Vegas
> Monorail Company to become a sponsor there, along with companies
> that include Discovery Communications and General Motors. Bacardi
> and Motorola have signed letters of intent to become sponsors ... .
> ... Patrick Pharris, president and chief executive of Promethean
> Partners in Las Vegas, which is selling the sponsorships for the
> monorail system [comments] 'the biggest brands in the world are
> saying, we understand consumers are perhaps numbed to traditional
> advertising, and we have to engage them in our experience. Then the
> consumers are more likely to become brand proponents and tell their
> friends about it. If you can convert transportation to
> 'transpertainment' it becomes a better experience for the consumer
> and the advertiser.' "
>SOURCE: New York Times, November 18, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069131603
>
>15. SCARBOROUGH TO LYNCH: "SHUT UP AND TAKE THE CASH"
>http://www.msnbc.com/news/993155.asp
> Now that Private Jessica Lynch has told the truth about the
> conditions of her capture and rescue in Iraq, right-wing
> telebabbler Joe Scarborough is complaining that she "started
> whining about the Pentagon PR machine and the fact that they told
> parts of the stories that may have made her more of a hero than she
> considered herself to be. ... Well, Jessica, I've got bad news to
> break to you. It was because of the Pentagon PR machine that turned
> you into an American hero - that got book publishers interested in
> paying you $1 million to tell your story. It was the Pentagon PR
> machine that told America how you were a hero that got NBC
> interested in doing a movie about your story. It was the Pentagon
> PR machine that's turned you into a millionaire."
>SOURCE: MSNBC, November 12, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1068613206
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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Carpentier Nico (Phd)
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