[eccr] The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, May 12, 2004

>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, May 12, 2004
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. Banana Appeal
>2. The Mighty Windbags
>3. False Dichotomies
>4. Hummer Bummers
>5. Counter-Attack of the Killer Clowns
>6. Free the Press!
>7. The Sound of One Invisible Hand Clapping
>8. Torture, Brand America and the Bottom Line
>9. Putting the Bold in Diebold
>10. The Power of Pictures
>11. Identity Crisis at SBC
>12. Disinfopedia as Part of the Smart Mobs vs.  Amway
>13. Real Atrocities and Faked Photos
>14. Drink Up
>15. Don't Read This Over an American Hamburger
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. BANANA APPEAL
>http://www.bananarepublicans.org
>   PR Watchers Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber have finished writing
>   their fifth book, Banana Republicans: How the Right Wing Is Turning
>   America Into a One-Party State. It won't be in bookstores until
>   late May, but you can order it now online. You can also find
>   chapter summaries and an excerpt from the book on our new Banana
>   Republicans website. Plus, we've created a section on the
>   Disinfopedia where you can add your own analysis, research and
>   insights regarding the ideas in the book.
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1084334400
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1084334400
>
>2. THE MIGHTY WINDBAGS
>http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2004/05/11/noise/
>   Salon.com has published an excerpt from former right-wing
>   journalist David Brock's new book, The Republican Noise Machine:
>   Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy. In an accompanying
>   interview, Brock talks about how the conservative media's "sets a
>   climate and helps set parameters and helps form impressions. ...
>   One significant problem is that people are in denial about the
>   impact of conservatives in the press. They dismiss something as one
>   story and don't think it will snowball. Liberals don't think these
>   people matter; they think they're crackpots. They may well be
>   crackpots, but they matter. There may be a slow learning curve
>   about understanding that."
>SOURCE: Salon.com, May 11, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1084248002
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1084248002
>
>3. FALSE DICHOTOMIES
>http://thehill.com/news/051104/pows.aspx
>   U.S. prisoners of war during the first Gulf War "are criticizing
>   the Bush administration for fighting their compensation claims
>   while planning to compensate the Iraqi victims of abuse at Abu
>   Ghraib prison," reports The Hill. They're responding to Defense
>   Secretary Don Rumsfeld's remarks last week to the Senate Armed
>   Services Committee that he's "seeking a way to provide appropriate
>   compensation to those [Iraqi] detainees... one way or another." The
>   former U.S. POWs won a $1 billion settlement against the former
>   Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. But the Bush administration has
>   appealed the ruling, saying it "wants to avoid draining funds from
>   the new Iraqi government... the money is needed to help rebuild the
>   country."
>SOURCE: The Hill, May 11, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1084248001
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1084248001
>
>4. HUMMER BUMMERS
>http://news.findlaw.com/business/s/20040511/autoschryslerrecalldc.html
>   Chrysler "is recalling more than 326,000 pickup trucks and Durango
>   sport utility vehicles because of two potential safety problems,"
>   reports Reuters. Meanwhile, Hummer sales were down 21 percent in
>   April, possibly due in part to "rising gasoline prices." General
>   Motors is responding by "offering discounted financing on its
>   Hummer H2, the icon of the market for supersize sport-utility
>   vehicles," according to the Wall Street Journal. GM is also
>   offering dealer incentives "to move out bloated inventories of its
>   Chevrolet Suburban and Cadillac Escalade big SUVs." Declaring,
>   "It's time we started taxing the sins of the 21st century," one
>   Texas lawmaker proposed taxing major air polluters, including
>   "power plants, SUV owners and coal-burning industries." The
>   proposal was made during an emergency legislative session on school
>   funding.
>SOURCE: Reuters, May 11, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1084248000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1084248000
>
>5. COUNTER-ATTACK OF THE KILLER CLOWNS
>http://prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?site=3&ID=209884&site=3&/news/news_story.cfm&setcookie=1
>   As the anti-fast food documentary "Super Size Me" hits theaters,
>   McDonald's is fighting back. "We're responding aggressively because
>   the film is a gross misrepresentation," said a company
>   spokesperson. Helping defend McDonald's are "global nutritionist"
>   Cathy Kapica and the corporate-funded American Council on Science
>   and Health. According to PR Week, ACSH's "aggressive independent
>   third-party response" includes editorials on Tech Central Station,
>   a website published by Republican lobbyists. Also under attack is
>   Coca-Cola, for alleged "complicity in gross human rights
>   violations" in Colombia, reports O'Dwyer's PR Daily. "We plan to
>   destroy the image of Coca-Cola, for which it has spent millions to
>   cultivate," said the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke's director. To
>   "get the facts to all concerned parties," the soft drink giant
>   launched www.cokefacts.org and www.killercoke.com -- the latter to
>   "capture" people seeking the Campaign's website,
>   www.killercoke.org.
>SOURCE: PR Week, May 10, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1084161603
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1084161603
>
>6. FREE THE PRESS!
>http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/05/10/ap_miss_newspaper_sue_over_tape_erasure/
>   The Associated Press and the Mississippi paper Hattiesburg American
>   filed a lawsuit "against the U.S. Marshals Service over an incident
>   in April in which a federal marshal erased reporters' recordings of
>   a speech Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia gave to high school
>   students" about the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit alleges the
>   marshal "violated due process and the constitutional protections
>   from unreasonable search and seizure." Saying "the government's
>   power is overwhelming," Associated Press President Tom Curley
>   announced plans to form a "media advocacy center to lobby in
>   Washington for open government." Curley said the Reporters
>   Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Society of Professional
>   Journalists and others would be invited to help "seek better
>   statutory guarantees for more accessible government information."
>SOURCE: Associated Press, May 10, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1084161602
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1084161602
>
>7. THE SOUND OF ONE INVISIBLE HAND CLAPPING
>http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108414149947006210,00.html?mod=politics%5Fprimary%5Fhs
>   Jackie Calmes writes: "Over the past four years, Mr. Bush has swung
>   from free-market candidate to sometime-protectionist president and
>   back again." But lately, on the campaign trail, "he has re-emerged
>   as a full-throated free trader," even in "the most hotly contested
>   states... with the biggest job losses." Why? "Advisers have made
>   optimism a hallmark of the re-election campaign and argue that an
>   upbeat message trumps pessimism every time, even on trade and even
>   in hard-hit Midwestern manufacturing states." According to The
>   Hill, 37 House Republicans urged Commerce Secretary Don Evans "to
>   continue highlighting the many benefits of foreign-based companies
>   choosing to 'insource' work here in America." Industry groups
>   (including the Coalition for Employment through Exports) "are
>   leading an informal group formed to fend off outsourcing-related
>   measures" like Independent Bernie Sanders' Defending American Jobs
>   Act.
>SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal, May 10, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1084161601
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1084161601
>
>8. TORTURE, BRAND AMERICA AND THE BOTTOM LINE
>http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=518&e=1&u=/ap/20040510/ap_on_re_eu/red_cross_prisoner_abuse
>   In its damning report, the Red Cross states that "physical and
>   psychological coercion were used by [U.S.] military intelligence in
>   a systematic way to gain confessions and extract information and
>   other forms of cooperation" from Iraqi detainees. But look on the
>   bright side: "American companies that sell globally say that they
>   have so far experienced little if any disruption from discontent
>   over the war in Iraq," reports The New York Times. "In a display of
>   the growing sophistication in marketing... many people see products
>   originating from the United States as firmly rooted in their own
>   home nations." But "one of the world's largest market research
>   organizations" found the opposite in their annual 30-country
>   survey: "Diminishing respect for American culture is having a
>   detrimental impact on American brands around the world."
>SOURCE: Associated Press, May 10, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1084161600
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1084161600
>
>9. PUTTING THE BOLD IN DIEBOLD
>http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/business/8625251.htm?1c
>   California's secretary of state said "they broke the law," called
>   their conduct "absolutely reprehensible," and banned their machines
>   in four counties, but maybe the news isn't all bad for e-voting
>   company Diebold Election Systems. "It could affect the stock for a
>   week or two," said corporate branding executive Clayton Tolley, but
>   "generally, it's a passing fad that will fade within six months."
>   Diebold spokesperson Mike Jacobsen pointed out "we're a
>   business-to-business firm... not a consumer company," so negative
>   public opinion doesn't hurt as much. To make sure, Diebold Election
>   Systems just hired a second national PR firm, Edward Howard & Co,
>   to work with Public Strategies Inc to boost the company's
>   reputation. Tolley also suggests the Diebold parent company
>   distance itself from Diebold Election Systems: "I'd try to insulate
>   the business units."
>SOURCE: Akron Beacon Journal, May 9, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1084075200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1084075200
>
>10. THE POWER OF PICTURES
>http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/010346.shtml
>   "By many accounts, the horrible treatment of Iraqi prisoners by
>   U.S. soldiers and mercenaries has been going on ever since the end
>   of the invasion," notes Dan Gillmore. "The Red Cross warned U.S.
>   officials a year ago. Yet it took those appalling photographs to
>   turn this into the huge story that it's become. Which raises some
>   questions: Suppose the Americans hadn't bothered to take pictures
>   of each other in that infamous prison? Suppose they'd just gone on
>   abusing the prisoners without cameras? Does a story exist without
>   pictures?" And Tim Porter makes an interesting observation about
>   the vanishing role of the mass media in unearthing the story. "The
>   two biggest recent stories to emerge from the Iraq - the
>   administration's don't-show-don't-know policy toward the
>   photographing of military caskets and the puerile abuses by Army
>   reservists inside Abu Ghraib prison - were based on digital
>   photographs not made by journalists but by participants in both
>   stories." According to the Associated Press, this reflects "a
>   defining fact of 21st century life," as "the pervasiveness of
>   digital photography and the speed of the Internet make it easier to
>   see into dark corners previously out of reach for the mass media."
>SOURCE: Dan Gillmor Journal, May 7, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1083902400
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1083902400
>
>11. IDENTITY CRISIS AT SBC
>http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/0506fleishman_sbc.htm
>   San Francisco Chronicle reporter David Lazarus is questioning
>   whether Marc Bien, who he interviewed as telecommunications giant
>   SBC's vice-president of corporate communications (as Bien's
>   business cards indicate) broke ethical guidelines when he neglected
>   to tell Lazarus that he's actually an employee of major PR firm
>   Fleishman-Hillard. Lazarus, who's covering a potential
>   Communication Workers of America strike at SBC, notes the irony
>   that the "SBC spokesman" he quoted "defending the company's use of
>   hundreds of outside contractors" is a "nonemployee" himself.
>   Fleishman-Hillard senior vice-president Ed Presberg said the firm
>   "acted ethically and appropriately.... It is no secret that some
>   F-H employees represent SBC. Many of the reporters who cover the
>   company are aware of it. We thought David was aware of it."
>SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily, May 6, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1083816001
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1083816001
>
>12. DISINFOPEDIA AS PART OF THE SMART MOBS VS.  AMWAY
>http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18605
>   "As Howard Rheingold, who literally wrote the book, Smart Mobs,
>   says: 'Civilizations jump in complexity whenever a threshold for
>   collective action is lowered. It's not just street protestors. It's
>   science, democracy, markets, the way people meet and mate, the way
>   people use cities and the way motor vehicles use roadways that are
>   affected ... when mobile communication and pervasive computing
>   enable new forms of collective action,'" Brad deGraf writes for
>   AlterNet. "'Wikis' have become the participatory writing tool of
>   choice, and have revolutionized online collaboration. The
>   Disinfopedia, from the folks at PR Watch, is an encyclopedia of
>   disinformation that anyone can add their two-cents to, using the
>   'Edit this Page' button on every page."
>SOURCE: Alternet, May 6, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1083816000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1083816000
>
>13. REAL ATROCITIES AND FAKED PHOTOS
>http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000762.php
>   The photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib are bad enough,
>   considering that possibly 25 prisoners have died while in American
>   custody. However, some faked photos are also circulating, including
>   pictures of an alleged rape by soldiers that were actually taken
>   from a porno site. Independent journalist Chris Albritton debunks
>   the fakes and criticizes a cavalier attitude toward the truth that
>   "seems to have taken hold in anti-war journalism as well. I have no
>   doubt there are horrible things going on, and that U.S. soldiers
>   are doing some of them," he writes. "But I'm unwilling to report on
>   them unless I can get some confirmation. ... Everyone involved in
>   this mess, including Arab journalists, needs to write as accurately
>   as possible because 'a lie gets halfway around the world before the
>   truth ever gets its boots on.' That's what's happened with the
>   alleged rape photos and people will die because of them. ...
>   [Websites] printing them when they admit they are not confirmed
>   should be ashamed of themselves."
>SOURCE: Back to Iraq, May 5, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1083729603
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1083729603
>
>14. DRINK UP
>http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/news/050504/Local/ST001.shtml
>   A grand jury report on groundwater contamination in Escambia
>   County, Florida, has been released charging that local, state and
>   federal agencies responsible for protecting the environment and
>   public health all failed to inform the public about industrial
>   contamination of the county's water supply, with the Conoco oil
>   company among the area's leading polluters. "The combined failure
>   meant thousands of residents were unaware that more than half of
>   the county's public water wells were laced with harmful
>   contaminants for an untold number of years," reports Steve Mraz,
>   noting that authorities were "more concerned about public relations
>   and financial impacts" of their decisions than "than the health,
>   safety and welfare consequences." As is often the case, the impetus
>   for cleanup came, not from government regulatory agencies, but from
>   Margaret Williams, a local grandmother turned activist, Margaret
>   Williams, and her organization, Citizens Against Toxic Exposure.
>SOURCE: Pensacola New Journal, May 5, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1083729602
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1083729602
>
>15. DON'T READ THIS OVER AN AMERICAN HAMBURGER
>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/05/05/DDGFL6EUPN1.DTL
>   Recently the Center's John Stauber had lunch with journalist Laurel
>   Wellman to discuss the Center's prescient 1997 book by Stauber and
>   Sheldon Rampton, Mad Cow USA. The resulting column in today's San
>   Francisco Chronicle notes that in the month after December's
>   discovery of a mad cow in Washington state, 80,000 people
>   downloaded Mad Cow USA for free off of our website. Meanwhile, the
>   US government continues to cover-up the threat of mad cow in
>   America. For instance, on the meat-industry website
>   meatingplace.com, reporter Dan Yovich today breaks the outrageous,
>   shocking news that a United States Department of Agriculture
>   official ordered that a suspected Texas mad cow NOT be tested for
>   the disease. Instead, it was sent to a rendering plant and
>   destroyed, probably to become food for other animals, which is how
>   the disease is spread.
>SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, May 5, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1083729601
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1083729601
>
>
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