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[eccr] The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Wed Mar 24 09:21:20 GMT 2004
>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, March 24, 2004
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>The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. Dirty Is Clean, Gray Is Green - Vote for Me!
>2. No FREE Lunches
>3. Ground (Beef) Zero
>4. One Person's Propaganda Is Another's News
>5. The Apparat
>6. Smile, And That's An Order
>7. Lights, Cameras, Capture!
>8. Iraqi Human Rights, One Year Later
>9. The Play's the Thing
>10. Iraq on the Record
>11. State of the News
>12. World Opinion, One Year Later
>13. Spun Out of Office
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. DIRTY IS CLEAN, GRAY IS GREEN - VOTE FOR ME!
>http://www.thedesertsun.com/news/stories2004/election/20040323010458.shtml
> "Republicans can't stress enough that extremists are screaming
> 'Doomsday!'" reads a leaked memo from the U.S. House of
> Representatives' Republican Conference communications office to GOP
> members. The memo isn't referring to the Middle East -- it's
> offering advice on how to dismiss environmental issues raised by
> Democratic challengers. Suggestions include: "Global warming is not
> a fact," "links between air quality and asthma in children remain
> cloudy," and the Environmental Protection Agency is "exaggerating"
> water pollution claims. The House memo echoes an earlier warning
> from GOP pollster Frank Luntz that the party is "most vulnerable"
> on environmental issues.
>SOURCE: Gannett News Service, March 23, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1080018001
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1080018001
>
>2. NO FREE LUNCHES
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16251-2004Mar22.html
> Three federal appellate court judges have been urged to resign from
> the board of the Foundation for Research in Economics and
> Environment (FREE). FREE, which receives funding from companies
> including Texaco, ExxonMobil and Monsanto, says it "harmonizes
> environmental quality with responsible liberty and economic
> progress." FREE pays for judges to attend seminars and "visit
> resorts in the area around Yellowstone National Park" -- to the
> tune of $10,000 per person, according to tax records. The dean of
> New York University's law school remarked: "A judge should not sit
> on the board of a group like FREE or any other group with a
> strident ideological profile on isues of a kind that come before
> the court."
>SOURCE: Washington Post, March 23, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1080018000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1080018000
>
>3. GROUND (BEEF) ZERO
>http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB107974244799560780,00.html?mod=americas_business_whats_news
> "Canadian investigators have identified... the probable source of
> recent cases of mad-cow disease in North America," reports the Wall
> Street Journal. Canada imported 192 cattle from Britain in the
> 1980s. After one of the British cows tested positive for mad cow
> disease in 1993, Canadian officials tried to "remove" them from
> domestic herds. But 68 cows were missing, "most likely because they
> already had been slaughtered." Canada's Food Inspection Agency
> concluded that "the infected U.S. dairy cow and a Canadian beef cow
> diagnosed" with mad cow disease last year "most likely" ate feed
> from at least two separate mills contaminated with rendered meat
> from the missing British cattle. If true, this scenario suggests
> more cases which "may just now be surfacing."
>SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal, March 22, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1079931601
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1079931601
>
>4. ONE PERSON'S PROPAGANDA IS ANOTHER'S NEWS
>http://www.prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=205608&site=3
> The General Accounting Office is investigating whether the
> Department of Health and Human Services' video news releases
> touting the new Medicare law constitute illegal "covert
> propaganda." Some PR pros think it's much ado about nothing: "VNRs
> have been around since the dawn of TV," said the CEO of Medialink.
> But the director of the National Association of Government
> Communicators warned that the VNR "Hollywood approach" could
> undermine public trust. Karen Ryan, the "reporter" in the Medicare
> spots, told the Columbia Journalism Review's Campaign Desk she
> feels like "political roadkill." Ryan, a former journalist, heads
> her own PR firm. Karen Ryan Group Communications was hired by Home
> Front Communications, which was hired by Ketchum Advertising, which
> was hired by HHS to do the VNRs. According to Campaign Desk
> reporter Zachary Roth, "The real question, however, is: How did so
> many television stations end up running the segment? While taking
> ultimate responsibility for their error, many news directors
> pointed the finger at two other targets: the Bush administration
> and CNN," whose "CNN Newsource" service is a "sort of wire service
> for TV," but gets paid for mixing VNRs with genuine news stories.
> "It mixes in the client's material with legitimate, CNN-produced
> news stories to be used by local stations - acting as a paid 'news
> launderer' on behalf of the VNR producers," Roth writes.
>SOURCE: PR Week, March 22, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1079931600
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1079931600
>
>5. THE APPARAT
>http://www.mediatransparency.org/stories/apparat.html
> Jerry M. Landay has written a detailed report, showing how
> "hundreds of tax-exempt organizations of the far right have been
> exploiting the twilight zone of campaign and IRS regulations for
> three decades -- receiving billions of dollars in grants and
> contributions to wage ideo-political warfare for far-right ideas,
> causes, and Republican candidates ... a vast machine that, in the
> judgment of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy
> (NCRP) has 'played a critical role in helping the Republican Party
> to dominate state, local and national politics.' It is now
> operating at full throttle to keep Bush in office. ... The endgame
> for the apparat is a one-party state in which elections project
> only a vestigial appearance of democratic process."
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1079806836
>
>6. SMILE, AND THAT'S AN ORDER
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6089-2004Mar18.html
> When George W. Bush visited Fort Campbell as a warm up to the
> one-year anniversary of the Iraq invasion, he was met by happy
> soldiers waving flags and chanting "U.S.A!" "Bush outlined the
> triumphs of the 101st Airborne as a way to describe U.S. successes
> in Iraq over the past year. He celebrated the division's killing of
> Hussein's sons, the capture of various Iraqi cities, the
> construction of schools and medical clinics, and the preparation
> for Iraqi elections," the Washington Post's Dana Milbank writes.
> But the warm welcome wasn't exactly spontaneous. Soldiers on the
> base, which has lost 65 soldiers in Iraq and seven more in
> Afghanistan, were given small U.S. flags before Bush's arrival and
> told, "We're going to show him a lot of love by waving flags. ...
> You're going to wave and clap and make a lot of noise. ... You must
> smile. We are happy campers here."
>SOURCE: Washington Post, March 19, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1079672401
>
>7. LIGHTS, CAMERAS, CAPTURE!
>http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-media19mar19,1,7601355.story?coll=la-headlines-world
> "It's not in the budget, but we're doing what we have to do," said
> the senior vice-president for news at CBS. "Clearly, if and when
> Osama is found, having resources over there is going to be
> critical," said ABC's senior vice-president for international news.
> Thousands of Pakistani troops and "a dozen or so" American
> intelligence agents are carrying out an intensive raid against
> Al-Quaeda leaders believed to be in Pakistan's South Waziristan
> region. CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN and Fox are getting reporters in place.
> It's a ratings war: "From a financial standpoint, the capture of
> Bin Laden can't come soon enough for some network executives." On
> Thursday, Colin Powell accorded Pakistan "major non-NATO ally"
> status, which allows the country to buy depleted uranium weapons
> and receive U.S. financing for weapons purchases.
>SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, March 19, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1079672400
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1079672400
>
>8. IRAQI HUMAN RIGHTS, ONE YEAR LATER
>http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE140062004
> "A year after US-led forces launched war on Iraq, the promise of
> improved human rights for Iraqis remains far from realized," warns
> Amnesty International in a detailed new report. "Most Iraqis still
> feel unsafe in a country ravaged by violence," the report states.
> Moreover, "Coalition Forces appear in many cases to be using the
> climate of violence to justify violating the very human rights
> standards they are supposed to be upholding. They have shot Iraqis
> dead during demonstrations. They have tortured and ill-treated
> prisoners and detainees. They have arrested people arbitrarily and
> held them indefinitely without charge and without access to a
> lawyer. They have demolished houses and other property in acts of
> revenge and collective punishment. And they are operating in a
> legal framework that offers no mechanism in Iraq for bringing
> members of the Coalition Forces to justice for such acts."
>SOURCE: Amnesty International, March 18, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1079586001
>
>9. THE PLAY'S THE THING
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/18/international/middleeast/18CAIR.html?8hpib
> "It allows people to exercise a kind of hour of hate, or whatever
> George Orwell called it," said the drama critic for Egypt's largest
> newspaper, explaining the popularity of "a harshly anti-American
> show" called "Messing with the Mind." The writer, director and
> star, Khaled al-Sawy, said: "Most plays just weep about our general
> situation... I felt people wanted a play that talks about
> resisting." The U.S. TV network broadcasting to the Middle East,
> Al-Hurra, is satirized in one scene where George Bush, on
> "Democracy Television," says: "We just want to clean you up, make
> you human beings." Another scene features a CNN reporter gushing:
> "Our boys have entered Umm Qasr, and everybody was hugging them and
> ululating."
>SOURCE: New York Times, March 18, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1079586000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1079586000
>
>10. IRAQ ON THE RECORD
>http://www.house.gov/reform/min/features/iraq_on_the_record/
> Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) has released a report and database that
> identifies 237 specific misleading statements about the threat
> posed by Iraq uttered by the five Administration officials most
> responsible for providing public information and shaping public
> opinion on Iraq: President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard
> Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin
> Powell, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. Covering
> 125 public appearances in the time leading up to and after the
> commencement of hostilities in Iraq, "Iraq on the Record" can be
> searched by any combination of speaker, subject, keyword, or date.
> The Nation's David Corn writes, "If the commission Bush
> begrudgingly appointed to study the prewar intelligence on Iraq's
> WMDs is going to investigate whether Bush abused the intelligence,
> this website would be of tremendous value to it. ... But Waxman's
> report practically makes it unnecessary for the commissioners to
> worry if Bush falsely characterized the prewar intelligence. After
> all, why bother investigating a question with such an obvious
> answer?"
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1079562132
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1079562132
>
>11. STATE OF THE NEWS
>http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org
> The Project for Excellence in Journalism has produced a detailed
> report on "The State of the News Media 2004." It points to eight
> major trends, including the following: "Much of the new investment
> in journalism today - much of the information revolution generally
> - is in disseminating the news, not in collecting it. Most sectors
> of the media are cutting back in the newsroom, both in terms of
> staff and in the time they have to gather and report the news.
> While there are exceptions, in general journalists face real
> pressures trying to maintain quality. In many parts of the news
> media, we are increasingly getting the raw elements of news as the
> end product. This is particularly true in the newer, 24-hour media.
> In cable and online, there is a tendency toward a jumbled, chaotic,
> partial quality in some reports, without much synthesis or even the
> ordering of the information. There is also a great deal of effort,
> particularly on cable news, that is put into delivering essentially
> the same news repetitively without any meaningful updating." And
> there's good news for flacks: "Those who would manipulate the press
> and public appear to be gaining leverage over the journalists who
> cover them."
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1079530150
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1079530150
>
>12. WORLD OPINION, ONE YEAR LATER
>http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=206
> "A year after the war in Iraq, discontent with America and its
> policies has intensified rather than diminished," concludes a new
> international survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the
> People and the Press. "Opinion of the United States in France and
> Germany is at least as negative now as at the war's conclusion, and
> British views are decidedly more critical. Perceptions of American
> unilateralism remain widespread in European and Muslim nations, and
> the war in Iraq has undermined America's credibility abroad. Doubts
> about the motives behind the U.S.-led war on terrorism abound, and
> a growing percentage of Europeans want foreign policy and security
> arrangements independent from the United States. Across Europe,
> there is considerable support for the European Union to become as
> powerful as the United States."
>SOURCE: Pew Research Center, March 16, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1079413202
>
>13. SPUN OUT OF OFFICE
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,2763,1169666,00.html
> "We have won without lies," chanted the crowd outside the Madrid
> headquarters of Spain's socialist party, PSOE, which swept to
> victory in the country's March 14 elections. "Spin was indeed at
> the centre of PSOE's extraordinary, unexpected triumph," notes
> reporter David Mathieson. "There is no word in Spanish for 'spin,'
> but there has been no absence of the practice in Madrid over the
> last year - and especially in the past few days. The spectacular
> gains made by PSOE ... were in large part a result of the
> government's clumsy attempts at media manipulation following the
> Madrid bombs on Thursday." Anxious to avoid the impression that its
> support for the war in Iraq had attracted the terrorist attack,
> Spain's ruling Popular Party attempted to pin the bombings on
> Basque separatists in the face of mounting evidence that Al Qaeda
> was actually responsible. "On top of the agony of the bomb, people
> were furious at government attempts to hide the truth," Mathieson
> writes. "Yesterday, voters took their revenge."
>SOURCE: Guardian (UK), March 15, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1079326801
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1079326801
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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