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[eccr] The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, December 24, 2003
Wed Dec 24 08:18:42 GMT 2003
>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, December 24, 2003
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>sponsored by PR WATCH (www.prwatch.org)
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>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.
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. Mad Cow USA: The Nightmare Is Here
>2. Humans Eating Downer Cows
>3. Tried By the Media
>4. The Killing in Shilling
>5. Black's Hacks
>6. Keeping Secrets
>7. The Governator's Judgment Day
>8. Thank You, Molly Ivins !
>9. GM Watch Exposes 'The Biotech Brigade'
>10. MADD's Dash of Brandy
>11. "Fearless Pursuit of Truth"? Hah!
>12. White House Web Scrubbing
>13. No WMDs? No Big Deal, Says Bush
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. MAD COW USA: THE NIGHTMARE IS HERE
>http://www.prwatch.org/books/madcow.html
> Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber's 1997 book Mad Cow USA warned
> that unless the US adopted the same strict regulations implemented
> in Britain, including a ban on feeding rendered slaughterhouse
> waste as animal feed, mad cow disease would eventually emerge in
> the US. The US failed to act and late Tuesday the Secretary of
> Agriculture Ann Veneman announced that the first US case of mad cow
> disease has appeared in a "downer cow" in the state of Washington.
> Within minutes of USDA's news conference John Stauber was
> interviewed live on CNN and interviewed in <A HREF="The New York
> Times and other media refuting the reassuring spin of the USDA.
> Center for Consumer Freedom, a tobacco, booze and food industry
> front group, wasted no time attacking Stauber on behalf of its
> corporate funders such as Excel/Cargill, National Steak & Poultry,
> Outback Steak House, Tyson Foods, Wendy's, Whitecastle and others.
> The first case of mad cow disease in North America was found in
> Canada in May, 2003. You can read an interview Stauber gave this
> August warning that the disease was likely also in the US. In
> related news, Nature reports what might be the first case of human
> mad cow disease spread by blood transfusion. In laboratory
> experiments blood plasma can spread mad cow-typed diseases, but the
> US government allows calves to be fed milk formula containing
> cattle blood plasma as a source of protein.
>SOURCE: Various, December 24, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2003.html#1072242000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1072242000
>
>2. HUMANS EATING DOWNER COWS
>http://www.kirotv.com/station/2249324/detail.html
> After Seattle, Washington TV station KIRO-TV aired an investigation
> last year into the cattle industry's continuing sale of downer cows
> for human consumption, the station came under attack from the
> industry as well as state and national government regulators.
> According to KIRO reporter Chris Halsne, "The USDA public relations
> folks in Washington DC are spinning 'pure' fantasy to imply KIRO-TV
> played 'gotcha journalism.' Perhaps, the USDA didn't want proof
> that their meat inspectors failed repeatedly to perform a proper
> inspection of downer cows outside a slaughterhouse in Chehalis. ...
> Big-money beef and dairy promoters are out to protect themselves,
> their industry, their profits and their political interests by
> silencing future journalists who dare question them." KIRO's
> investigative team found that "meat from dying, sick or diseased
> cows" is "getting into your food." After the report aired, a "host
> of state agencies" spent "tax money in a campaign to discredit our
> findings." KIRO stands by its story, even though "The Washington
> Beef and Dairy Commissions have been conducting a public relations
> campaign, criticizing KIRO-TV for broadcasting the stories of
> downer cows you just saw. You may not know, but you're paying for
> this government agency to attack our investigation."
>SOURCE: KIRO-TV, Seattle, Washington
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2003.html#1072239778
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1072239778
>
>3. TRIED BY THE MEDIA
>http://www.cmonitor.com/stories/news/opinion/other2003/jackson122303_2003.shtml
> We've done our best to ignore the media's latest feeding frenzy
> over singer Michael Jackson -- until now, that is. The filing of
> nine felony counts against Jackson "was orchestrated by a Hollywood
> public relations company, Tellem Worldwide," reports Tim Rutten.
> Tellem "is providing pro bono services to the Santa Barbara
> prosecutors. As special correspondent Linda Deutsch and reporter
> Tim Molloy of Associated Press reported last week, the company's
> other clients include the Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon. The
> company will be handling all media inquiries during the case."
> According to District Attorney Thomas Sneddon Jr., the unusually
> long interval between Jackson's arrest and the formal filing of
> charges was necessary, "so that the county could set up a Web site
> to release information to hundreds of news organizations following
> the case."
>SOURCE: Christian Science Monitor, December 23, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2003.html#1072155601
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1072155601
>
>4. THE KILLING IN SHILLING
>http://nydailynews.com/front/story/147144p-129729c.html
> "Every holiday season, the Toy Guy, aka Christopher Byrne, appears
> on scores of local and national television and radio shows with his
> selections of the best and hottest toys," reports William Sherman.
> ""But what the parents and children don't know, and are not told by
> anchors and reporters, is that Byrne is paid hundreds of thousands
> of dollars annually by those toy manufacturers to hawk their
> products." Byrne is an employee of Litsky Public Relations, which
> charges $10,000 per product mention.
>SOURCE: New York Daily News
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1072151985
>
>5. BLACK'S HACKS
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/22/business/media/22CONR.html
> Conservative columnist George Will doesn't think it's anybody's
> business that he's been paid $25,000 a year by scandal-plagued
> media magnate Conrad Black. Will is one of several mostly
> conservative pundits and politicians who got paid to sit on the
> advisory board of Black's company, Hollinger International. Others
> included William F. Buckley, Jr., Margaret Thatcher, ValEry Giscard
> d'Estaing, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard N. Perle and Dwayne O.
> Andreas. Buckley, who has pocketed an estimated $200,000 from Black
> over the years, recently defended him publicly while claiming that
> Black "has never donated a nickel to any of my enterprises."
>SOURCE: New York Times, December 22, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2003.html#1072069201
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1072069201
>
>6. KEEPING SECRETS
>http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/031222/usnews/22secrecy.htm
> "For the past three years, the Bush administration has quietly but
> efficiently dropped a shroud of secrecy across many critical
> operations of the federal government - cloaking its own affairs
> from scrutiny and removing from the public domain important
> information on health, safety, and environmental matters," report
> Christopher H. Schmitt and Edward T. Pound. "The result has been a
> reversal of a decades-long trend of openness in government while
> making increasing amounts of information unavailable to the
> taxpayers who pay for its collection and analysis." Schmitt and
> Pound have compiled a detailed report on the extent of the new
> secrecy and the impact it is having on Americans' right to know.
> Health and environmental activists are raising public awareness
> about the dangers of secrecy surrounding chemical sites with a new
> TV advertisement that concludes, "President Bush, don't let a
> Chemical 911 happen on your watch."
>SOURCE: US News and World Report, December 22, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2003.html#1072069200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1072069200
>
>7. THE GOVERNATOR'S JUDGMENT DAY
>http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/millercomp1.html
> A Los Angeles woman who came forward during the California
> gubernatorial campaign to accuse Arnold Schwarzenegger of previous
> instances of sexual harassment has sued the former star of "True
> Lies" and "Conan the Barbarian," claiming that he and his campaign
> smeared her as a convicted felon when she made her charges. Former
> stuntwoman Rhonda Miller charges that the Schwarzenegger camp told
> reporters she had an extensive rap sheet for theft, forgery, drugs
> and prostitution, a dirty trick meant to discount her credibility
> when it came to the harassment charges. Miller claims that the
> Schwarzenegger smear began an hour after she made her charges
> public, with campaign spokesman Sean Walsh sending journalists an
> e-mail directing them to the Superior Court's web site, where they
> could access Miller's lengthy criminal history. The felon in
> question, however, was a different Rhonda Miller.
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2003.html#1071946076
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1071946076
>
>8. THANK YOU, MOLLY IVINS !
>https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=1118&referer=http%3A%2F%2
> Consider this holiday gift suggestion from Bushwacked author Molly
> Ivins. She writes in her current column, "We can knock off our
> entire Christmas or Hanukkah gift lists without ever going near a
> mall. The perfect answer is to give money to a worthy cause in the
> name of your friends and loved ones. ... Two outfits I especially
> like that watch the media are the Center for Media and Democracy,
> which specializes in analyzing public relations and propaganda
> campaigns, and FAIR, the overworked folks trying to keep up with
> right-wing lies in the corporate media. The Center can be reached
> through prwatch.org [or 520 University Ave. #227, Madison, WI
> 53703] and FAIR is FAIR.org (or 112 W. 27th St., New York, NY
> 10001.) This should be our shining hour." Thanks so much Molly, and
> we sure hope folks will follow your wonderful suggestion!
>SOURCE: Molly Ivins, December 19, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2003.html#1071810000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1071810000
>
>9. GM WATCH EXPOSES 'THE BIOTECH BRIGADE'
>http://www.gmwatch.org
> A new global directory on the massive and deceptive PR push behind
> genetically engineered food is now available free online from the
> British organization GM Watch. The directory examines many of the
> key PR operators, front groups, corporate-friendly scientists,
> lobbyists, media scams and and political networks that are active
> in this field. The directory provides extensive information on
> professional media manipulators, many of whom are active over a
> wide range of environmental, agricultural and trade issues. Writer
> George Monbiot recently drew on the new directory for an article
> exposing how a far right network had infiltrated a whole series of
> science-media related groups.
>SOURCE: GM Watch
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2003.html#1071803438
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1071803438
>
>10. MADD'S DASH OF BRANDY
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9677-2003Dec17.html
> Brandy Anderson, a former director of public policy for Mothers
> Against Drunk Driving (MADD), has gone to work for the Century
> Council, a nonprofit organization founded and funded by major
> liquor distillers including Allied Domecq Spirits, Bacardi and
> Pernod Ricard. Anderson has also worked as a senior manager at the
> Washington, D.C., PR firm Blakey & Agnew.
>SOURCE: Washington Post, December 18, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1071723603
>
>11. "FEARLESS PURSUIT OF TRUTH"? HAH!
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9926-2003Dec17.html
> A new annual journalism award has been created in honor of Michael
> Kelly, who edited publications including The New Republic, National
> Journal, Atlantic Monthly before he was killed while covering the
> war in Iraq. The Michael Kelly Award will recognize a journalist
> "whose work exemplifies a quality that animated Michael Kelly's own
> career: the fearless expression and pursuit of truth." It's rather
> ironic, since Kelly is the guy who nurtured the embarrassing career
> of Stephen Glass, one of the most notorious journalistic frauds of
> the past century. The Daily Howler has taken a genuinely fearless
> look at Kelly's career, calling him "a relentless dissembler and
> the equivalent of a loud, angry drunk. He did deep damage to his
> country's discourse - and as such, he harmed the public interest."
>SOURCE: Washington Post, December 18, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2003.html#1071723602
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1071723602
>
>12. WHITE HOUSE WEB SCRUBBING
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9821-2003Dec17.html
> "It's not quite Soviet-style airbrushing, but the Bush
> administration has been using cyberspace to make some of its own
> cosmetic touch-ups to history," writes Dana Milbank. "White House
> officials were steamed when Andrew S. Natsios, the administrator of
> the U.S. Agency for International Development, said earlier this
> year that U.S. taxpayers would not have to pay more than $1.7
> billion to reconstruct Iraq -- which turned out to be a gross
> understatement of the tens of billions of dollars the government
> now expects to spend. Recently, however, the government has purged
> the offending comments by Natsios from the agency's Web site."
> Moreover, Milbank adds, "This is not the first time the
> administration has done some creative editing of government Web
> sites."
>SOURCE: Washington Post, December 18, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2003.html#1071723601
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1071723601
>
>13. NO WMDS? NO BIG DEAL, SAYS BUSH
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1110221,00.html
> "The man leading the US hunt for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction
> [David Kay] will leave his post prematurely in the next few months
> amid dwindling expectations that there is anything to be found. ...
> 'This is a big blow to the administration and it will signal the
> effective end of the search for weapons of mass destruction,' said
> Joseph Cirincione, a weapons expert at the Carnegie Endowment
> Institute for Peace in Washington. 'Some will continue looking but
> very, very few expect there to be any significant finds at this
> point.' ... But the White House has not mentioned weapons of mass
> destruction as a justification for the war in recent months,
> stressing the removal of Saddam instead. In a television interview
> this week, President George Bush appeared to deny there was a
> distinction between his pre-war claims that Saddam had an arsenal
> of non-conventional weapons, and his administration's current
> argument that the regime was planning to restart its weapons
> programmes. When an interviewer for ABC television, Diane Sawyer,
> reminded him of claims of the "hard fact that there were weapons of
> mass destruction, as opposed to the possibility that he could move
> to acquire those weapons", Mr Bush asked: "What's the difference?"
>SOURCE: The Guardian, December 18, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1071723600
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
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