[eccr] The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, December 31, 2003

>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, December 31, 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. US Fights Mad Cow Disease with PR, Not Prevention
>2. Their Photos Tell the Story
>3. "Mad Cow USA" is Free Online
>4. Shh...Offshoring In Process
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. US FIGHTS MAD COW DISEASE WITH PR, NOT PREVENTION
>http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17466
>   The United States has spent millions of dollars on PR convincing
>   Americans that mad cow could never happen here, and now the US
>   Department of Agriculture is engaged in a crisis management plan
>   that has federal and state officials, livestock industry flacks,
>   scientists and other trusted experts assuring the public that this
>   is no big deal. Their litany of falsehoods include statements that
>   a "firewall" feed ban has been in place in the United States since
>   1997, that muscle meat is not infective, that no slaughterhouse
>   waste is fed to cows, that the United States tests adequate numbers
>   of cattle for mad cow disease, that quarantines and meat recalls
>   are just an added measure of safety, that the risks of this
>   mysterious killer are miniscule, that no one in the United States
>   has ever died of any such disease, and on and on. The latest spin
>   is to blame the United States mad cow crisis on Canada.
>SOURCE: Alternet.org, December 30.2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2003.html#1072842224
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1072842224
>
>2. THEIR PHOTOS TELL THE STORY
>http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/ny-nybres303605595dec30,0,3683920.column?coll=ny-news-print
>   As the U.S. casualty rate accelerates in Iraq, the Army Times, a
>   civilian newspaper that is sold mainly on military bases, has used
>   eight pages of its year-end review to run photos of almost all of
>   the more than 500 soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.
>   According to the paper's managing editor, Robert Hodierne, getting
>   the photos was a struggle because "The military doesn't give out so
>   many photos of the dead." According to Jimmy Breslin, "The chilling
>   photos run at a time when the government tries to describe the war
>   as a civic venture, and nearly all of the news industry doesn't
>   know how to object. This probably is the worst failure to inform
>   the public that we have seen. ... The complaint about the military
>   holding back pictures is one part of the attempt to make you as
>   unaware as possible that soldiers are dying in Iraq. ... And the
>   dead are brought back here almost furtively. There are no
>   ceremonies or pictures of caskets at Dover, Del., air base, where
>   the dead are brought. ... The wounded are flown into Washington at
>   night. There are 5,000 of them and for a long time you never heard
>   of soldiers who have no arms and legs." CNN and the Washington Post
>   also maintain photo galleries with faces of the fallen.
>SOURCE: Newsday, December 30, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2003.html#1072760400
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1072760400
>
>3. "MAD COW USA" IS FREE ONLINE
>http://www.prwatch.org/books/madcow.html
>   Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber's 1997 hardcover book Mad Cow USA:
>   Could the Nightmare Happen Here? predicted that mad cow disease
>   would come to the U.S. because of the failed and dangerous policies
>   of the USDA, FDA and the meat industry. Now, Mad Cow USA has
>   apparently become a collector's item, difficult to find with used
>   copies advertised on Amazon.com as high as $126. A paperback
>   version will be published in 2004, but you don't have to wait to
>   read the book, you can get it right here, online for FREE. Simply
>   click here, then scroll down to the words "Mad Cow USA is now
>   available as a free download" and click on the PDF icon. The book
>   will download into your computer in an easy to read format, all 245
>   pages with footnotes and glossary. All proceeds from the sale of
>   this and our other books benefit our non-profit Center for Media &
>   Democracy and support the Center's investigative reporting on this
>   and other issues. If you appreciate the Center's work and this free
>   copy of Mad Cow USA, please contribute to our work by clicking
>   here.
>SOURCE: Center for Media & Democracy, December 26, 2003
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2003.html#1072414800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1072414800
>
>4. SHH...OFFSHORING IN PROCESS
>http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_506801,001300460000.htm
>   "US corporations are picking up the pace in shifting well-paid
>   technology jobs to India, China and other low-cost centres, but
>   they are keeping quiet for fear of a backlash," reports David
>   Zielenziger. "Morgan Stanley estimates the number of US jobs
>   outsourced to India will double to about 150,000 in the next three
>   years. Analysts predict as many as two million US white-collar jobs
>   such as programmers, software engineers and applications designers
>   will shift to low cost centers by 2014." But the companies using
>   'offshoring' to cut costs -- including Microsoft, IBM, AT&T, Walt
>   Disney, CNN and Fox News -- aren't talking about it publicly. "The
>   problem is that companies aren't sure if it's politically correct
>   to talk about it," said Jack Trout, a principal of Trout &
>   Partners, a marketing and strategy firm. "Nobody has come up with a
>   way to spin it in a positive way."
>SOURCE: Reuters, December 24, 2003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1072242001
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>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)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Katholieke Universiteit Brussel - Catholic University of Brussels
Vrijheidslaan 17 - B-1081 Brussel - Belgium
T: ++ 32 (0)2-412.42.78
F: ++ 32 (0)2/412.42.00
Office: 4/0/18
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University of Brussels
Centre for Media Sociology (CeMeSO)
Pleinlaan 2 - B-1050 Brussels - Belgium
T: ++ 32 (0)2-629.18.30
F: ++ 32 (0)2-629.28.61
Office: C0.05
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
E-mail: (Nico.Carpentier /at/ kubrussel.ac.be)
Web: 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
----------------