Archive for June 2004

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[eccr] The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, June 2, 2004

Wed Jun 02 06:08:50 GMT 2004


>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, June 2, 2004
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. Celebrate With Us on June 18th in Madison
>2. Public Radio, by the Numbers
>3. Why AARP Sold Out Seniors
>4. The Manipulator
>5. Is America Being America?
>6. Miller's Crossing
>7. Blame It On Your Genes
>8. Taking a Break from Message Discipline
>9. Coming Clean at the Times
>10. Mad Cow Flack Gets a Platinum Trumpet
>11. Eco-Terrorism Is as Eco-Terrorism Does
>12. Out on a Limb, Looking for Votes
>13. Dying for a Bacon-Wrapped Cheeseburger
>14. Color Code Me Surprised
>15. The O'Franken Factor
>16. Trading Places?
>17. Be All That You Can Afford To Be
>18. Lend Me Your Ears
>19. Weapons of Mass Communication
>20. It's About Times ...
>21. Asking Questions to Power
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. CELEBRATE WITH US ON JUNE 18TH IN MADISON
>http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/tenth.html
>   Join us on Friday, June 18th, in celebrating the tenth anniversary
>   of our Center for Media and Democracy. Join John Stauber, Sheldon
>   Rampton and other CMD staff and board members and supporters at
>   Madison, Wisconsin's, Club Majestic from 6pm to 9pm for an evening
>   of great food and friendship. Our very special guest speaker will
>   be Amy Goodman of Pacifica Radio's award-winning news show,
>   Democracy Now! Of course we'll also be celebrating the release of
>   our new book Banana Republicans: How the Right Wing is Turning
>   America into a One-Party State.
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2004.html#1086148800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1086148800
>
>2. PUBLIC RADIO, BY THE NUMBERS
>http://www.fair.org/press-releases/npr-study-response.html
>   The media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
>   looked at on-air sources for four National Public Radio news shows
>   in June 2003, and think tanks and regular commentators on NPR from
>   May to August 2003. FAIR found: "government officials, professional
>   experts and corporate representatives" represented the majority of
>   sources; Republican sources outnumbered Democrats by more than 3 to
>   2; centrist think tanks predominated; and regular commentators were
>   more diverse than in 1993. NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin agreed:
>   "NPR is putting more conservatives on the radio than it used to,"
>   and maybe "the pendulum has swung too far," while taking issue with
>   some of FAIR's classifications. FAIR's response to the response
>   clarified: "The tilt toward Republicans ... is not based on which
>   party is in power," comparing 1993 and 2003 numbers.
>SOURCE: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, June 1, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2004.html#1086062403
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1086062403
>
>3. WHY AARP SOLD OUT SENIORS
>http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=7702
>   Last year, as the debate over a Medicare prescription-drug bill
>   heated up, the American Association for Retired Persons (AARP)
>   sided with the Republican plan, which marked a major step toward
>   the party's goal of privatizing Medicare and decimating
>   employer-based health coverage. Why did AARP support the plan,
>   which will cause millions of seniors to lose more generous employer
>   and state-coordinated drug benefits while providing only limited
>   help to others? Barbara T. Dreyfuss looks at the role played by
>   William Novelli, who went from heading the Porter-Novelli PR firm
>   to heading the AARP, thanks in part to conservative agitator Grover
>   Norquist, whose "K Street Project" worked to help get him the job.
>SOURCE: American Prospect, June 7, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2004.html#1086062402
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1086062402
>
>4. THE MANIPULATOR
>http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040607fa_fact1
>   In a detailed profile of Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National
>   Congress, Jane Mayer includes some fairly candid admissions by
>   Francis Brooke, the INC's PR guru. Without Chalabi, he says, "This
>   war would not have been fought. ... We thought very carefully about
>   this, and realized there were only a couple of hundred people" in
>   Washington who were influential in shaping policy toward Iraq -
>   people like Trent Lott, Newt Gingrich, Richard Perle and Dick
>   Cheney. During the Clinton years, the INC targeted conservatives
>   with what Brooke describes as "naked politics": "We took a
>   Republican Congress and pitted it against a Democratic White House.
>   We really hurt and embarrassed the President." Following 9/11, his
>   marketing strategy switched to terrorism and weapons of mass
>   destruction: "I sent out an all-points bulletin to our network,
>   saying, 'Look, guys, get me a terrorist, or someone who works with
>   terrorists. And, if you can get stuff on WMD, send it!'" Meanwhile,
>   the New York Times reported that former Pentagon advisor Richard
>   Perle, former CIA director James Woolsey, and a few other
>   Washington influencers met recently with National Security Adviser
>   Condoleezza Rice to complain about the "smear campaign" they say is
>   being waged against Chalabi.
>SOURCE: The New Yorker, June 7, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2004.html#1086062401
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1086062401
>
>5. IS AMERICA BEING AMERICA?
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/01/politics/campaign/01motto.html
>   John Kerry's presidential campaign has adopted and dropped several
>   slogans, including a "better set of choices," "safer, stronger,
>   more secure," the "courage to do what's right for America," "the
>   real deal," "bring it on," "change starts here," "build a stronger
>   America," and a "lifetime of service and strength," reports the New
>   York Times. The campaign's current (and perhaps longer-lasting)
>   catch phrase comes from Hughes - Langston, not Karen - "Let America
>   be America again," the title of a 1938 poem. Political messaging
>   expert Kathleen Jamieson commented: "It works because you think
>   that America isn't being America, and that something's getting in
>   the way of that, and that John Kerry could be the vehicle of
>   getting the America that you want."
>SOURCE: New York Times, June 1, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2004.html#1086062400
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1086062400
>
>6. MILLER'S CROSSING
>http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/index.html
>   Franklin Foer has written a lengthy and unflattering profile of New
>   York Times reporter Judith Miller, less than a week after an
>   editors' note in her newspaper criticized some of her Iraq-related
>   reporting. Foer identifies former Executive Editor Howell Raines as
>   the key enabler for some of her shoddiest work. He refers to
>   Miller's "seemingly bottomless ambition," and her "pair of big feet
>   that would stomp on colleagues in her way and even crunch a few
>   bystanders," but many of the most critical comments come from
>   Miller's colleagues at the paper. Some reporters at the Times claim
>   they have told their editors they will never share a byline with
>   her. "She considers us to be her minions," says one. Foer also
>   explains how the neoconservatives got Miller to publish their
>   propaganda: "While Miller might not have intended to march in
>   lockstep with these hawks, she was caught up in an almost
>   irresistible cycle. Because she kept printing the neocon party
>   line, the neocons kept coming to her with huge stories and great
>   quotes, constantly expanding her access."
>SOURCE: New York Magazine, May 31, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1085976000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1085976000
>
>7. BLAME IT ON YOUR GENES
>http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1227918,00.html
>   Secret documents reveal that British-American Tobacco has spent
>   millions of pounds funding university research to back the
>   controversial theory of "genetic predisposition," which argues that
>   some people are more susceptible to lung cancer than others because
>   they have "bad genes." The environmental group Gene Watch has
>   obtained internal memos from BAT showing that research into "bad
>   genes" was by far BAT's largest area of university funding in the
>   early 1990s. "In conjunction with the anti-smoking group Ash,
>   GeneWatch is preparing to publish a list of UK scientists who have
>   received BAT funding but not declared it in their research papers,
>   something which opens them up to the accusation that they failed to
>   declare a conflict of interest," reports Jamie Doward. Ash and
>   GeneWatch are also preparing to release a major new collection of
>   tobacco industry documents.
>SOURCE: The Observer (UK), May 30, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1085889602
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1085889602
>
>8. TAKING A BREAK FROM MESSAGE DISCIPLINE
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/30/weekinreview/30sang.html
>   "Message discipline" seems to be breaking down within the Bush
>   administration, notes David Sanger: "For months now, the same
>   administration whose members once prided themselves on never
>   contradicting one another in public has been riven by conflicting
>   pronouncements. Senior officials keep missing opportunities to keep
>   their signals straight, prompting cases of vicious backbiting that
>   one senior member of Mr. Bush's national security staff said with
>   disgust the other day 'make us sound like Democrats.' Reporters who
>   spent the first two-thirds of Mr. Bush's term looking for any crack
>   between the tight-lipped members of the administration suddenly
>   feel as if they have stepped into an amusement park, with different
>   hawkers openly selling disparate policies, explanations and
>   critiques. ... Many think it is a casualty of Iraq: When the
>   occupation turned south, the backbiting and second-guessing were
>   inevitable. ... Another theory is that while the president is
>   thinking about his second term, many of those in his cabinet are
>   thinking about getting out."
>SOURCE: New York Times, May 30, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1085889601
>
>9. COMING CLEAN AT THE TIMES
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/30/weekinreview/30bott.html
>   The New York Times, which published a mea culpa on May 26 for its
>   flawed reporting that helped promote war fever against Iraq, has
>   now published a second, harder-hitting self-criticism by Times
>   ombudsman Daniel Okrent. "The failure was not individual, but
>   institutional," Okrent writes. "War requires an extra standard of
>   care, not a lesser one. But in The Times's WMD coverage, readers
>   encountered some rather breathless stories built on unsubstantiated
>   'revelations' that, in many instances, were the anonymity-cloaked
>   assertions of people with vested interests. Times reporters broke
>   many stories before and after the war - but when the stories
>   themselves later broke apart, in many instances Times readers never
>   found out. ... Other stories pushed Pentagon assertions so
>   aggressively you could almost sense epaulets sprouting on the
>   shoulders of editors. ... The aggressive journalism that I long
>   for, and that the paper owes both its readers and its own
>   self-respect, would reveal not just the tactics of those who
>   promoted the WMD stories, but how The Times itself was used to
>   further their cunning campaign."
>SOURCE: New York Times, May 30, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1085889600
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1085889600
>
>10. MAD COW FLACK GETS A PLATINUM TRUMPET
>http://www.publicity.org/trumpet2004gold.htm
>   The Publicity Club of Chicago, a PR industry trade association, has
>   given its "Platinum Trumpet" award to Sarah Sarosi of the
>   Burson-Marsteller PR firm, which worked on behalf of the National
>   Cattlemen's Beef Association in the U.S. and "responded immediately
>   when a Canadian case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (or 'Mad
>   Cow' disease) was diagnosed."
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1085862522
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1085862522
>
>11. ECO-TERRORISM IS AS ECO-TERRORISM DOES
>http://counterpunch.org/potter05292004.html
>   "The War on Terrorism has come home," warns Will Potter. "FBI
>   agents rounded up seven American political activists ... and the
>   U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey" announced "'terrorists' have
>   been indicted." The seven are charged under the Animal Enterprise
>   Terrorism Act of 1992 and could face up to three years in prison
>   and $250,000 fines. The activists are with Stop Huntingdon Animal
>   Cruelty, which uses "demonstrations, phone and email blockades, and
>   ... aggressive rhetoric to pressure companies to cut ties" with
>   Huntingdon Life Science, an animal testing lab that's "been exposed
>   multiple times for violating animal welfare laws." On May 26, the
>   Greenpeace environmental group marked the anniversary of the French
>   government's 1985 bombing of their Rainbow Warrior boat, as it
>   protested French nuclear testing in the South Pacific. The sunken
>   ship is now an artificial reef in New Zealand's Matauri Bay.
>SOURCE: Counterpunch, May 29, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1085803200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1085803200
>
>12. OUT ON A LIMB, LOOKING FOR VOTES
>http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/108574570588130.xml
>   Bush-Cheney campaign chair Marc Racicot announced "the formation of
>   a natural resources coalition ... to counter environmental groups'
>   grass-roots effort to turn out anti-Bush voters" in Oregon, a swing
>   state. "We believe President Bush has a very strong environmental
>   record," said Racicot. The Superior Lumber Company president heads
>   the coalition, which "includes several other people connected with
>   the state's forestry industry as well as business people and
>   legislators." Bush-Cheney's Oregon volunteer director, a pesticide
>   industry lobbyist, said Bush's environmental policies have "given
>   these people hope." But Greenpeace, an environmental group, is
>   establishing a "forest rescue station" in southern Oregon. "This
>   whole area is emblematic of some of the most important ancient
>   forests left on public lands. This area is representative of the
>   Bush rollback of environmental policies," said Greenpeace
>   spokeswoman Celia Alario.
>SOURCE: The Oregonian, May 28, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1085716802
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1085716802
>
>13. DYING FOR A BACON-WRAPPED CHEESEBURGER
>http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=525609
>   Saying "he was seduced 'with a bacon-wrapped cheeseburger',"
>   Florida millionaire Jody Gorran filed a lawsuit against Atkins
>   Nutritionals and the estate of the late Dr. Atkins. Gorran required
>   surgery to open a 99 percent blocked coronary artery after
>   following the high-fat, high-protein Atkins diet for two years. In
>   addition to $28,000 in damages, Gorran is "seeking an injunction to
>   prevent [Atkins Nutritionals] from selling their products, books,
>   or having their website without a warning, because they know
>   one-third of the people on the diet will have what Atkins referred
>   to as 'less favorable cholesterol'." The Physicians Committee for
>   Responsible Medicine, which Atkins Nutritionals called an
>   "extremist animal rights vegan group," is assisting with the
>   lawsuit. Atkins Nutritionals called the suit a "scare tactic ...
>   designed to convince the American public to stop eating animal
>   protein of any sort."
>SOURCE: Independent (UK), May 28, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1085716801
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1085716801
>
>14. COLOR CODE ME SURPRISED
>http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-uswarn283821917may28,0,6420375.story?coll=ny-worldnews-headlines
>   "The Homeland Security Department was surprised by the announcement
>   Wednesday by Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert
>   Mueller that a terrorist attack was increasingly likely in the
>   coming months," reports Newsday. But Homeland Security Secretary
>   Tom Ridge called the threats "not the most disturbing that I have
>   personally seen." Homeland Security officials believe the
>   intelligence behind the warning "was not new or specific enough to
>   merit an announcement," according to the Wall Street Journal. The
>   Journal attributes this contradiction to "turf battles that have
>   emerged since Homeland Security was created... one year ago." The
>   San Francisco Chronicle notes: "with an election five months away
>   and polls showing President Bush's approval ratings slipping...
>   there was rampant speculation that politics had prompted the
>   announcement."
>SOURCE: Newsday, May 28, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1085716800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1085716800
>
>15. THE O'FRANKEN FACTOR
>http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0405270273may27,1,6621136.story
>   "Despite ongoing financial woes, Air America Radio appears to have
>   garnered a significant audience during its first month on the air,
>   particularly among the younger listeners sought by advertisers,"
>   reports John Cook. "An analysis of recently released figures from
>   Arbitron, the radio ratings service, showed that in New York Air
>   America beat Rush Limbaugh's station among 25-to-54-year-olds
>   during the period that Limbaugh and Al Franken, the host of the
>   flagship show 'The O'Franken Factor,' go head-to-head. In Chicago,
>   even though the network was available for only 28 days in April,
>   Air America increased the average share of 25-to-54-year-old
>   listeners on WNTD-950 AM from a 0.1 percent share in February to a
>   2 percent share in April."
>SOURCE: Chicago Tribune, May 27, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1085630402
>
>16. TRADING PLACES?
>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1-1124710,00.html
>   After being arrested by Israeli secret service agents "on suspicion
>   of having arranged a television interview with Mordechai Vanunu in
>   violation of state gagging orders," British journalist Peter Hounam
>   was released today. Hounam was in Israel working on a BBC
>   documentary about Vanunu, a former nuclear technician turned
>   whistleblower. In 1986, Hounam's reporting "helped to reveal
>   Israel's nuclear secrets," after Vanunu came forward with weapons
>   programs information. Vanunu, who was recently released after
>   serving an 18 year prison sentence, called the reporter's detention
>   "a farce"; one Israeli opposition legislator called it "dangerous
>   for democracy." Reporters Without Borders stated: "This arrest and
>   the blackout that followed it are serious violations of press
>   freedom."
>SOURCE: The Times (London), May 27, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1085630401
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1085630401
>
>17. BE ALL THAT YOU CAN AFFORD TO BE
>http://news.findlaw.com/ap_stories/a/w/1152/5-27-2004/20040527011501_8.html
>   In a May 11 memo obtained by the Associated Press, the head of the
>   Army's Installation Management Activity command, Major General
>   Anders Aadland, announced that the Army will "take additional risk
>   in environmental programs; terminate environmental contracts and
>   delay all non-statutory enforcement actions" until after October,
>   the start of the 2005 fiscal year. AP reports that commanders were
>   also told to "implement these actions now and ensure resources are
>   best used to support the war effort." Jeff Ruch, who heads the
>   group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, noted,
>   "the Pentagon is now the planet's most prolific and persistent
>   polluter" and said the memo authorized the "pollution of American
>   soil, when it saves money."
>SOURCE: Associated Press, May 27, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1085630400
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1085630400
>
>18. LEND ME YOUR EARS
>http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/05/26/rush_limbaugh/index.html
>   Eric Boehlert, citing Media Matters for America observations,
>   writes: "Between March 15 and April 29 'Limbaugh used the term
>   "femi-Nazis" eight times; he suggested that women want to be
>   sexually harassed; he repeatedly equated Democrats with
>   terrorists'... Is it appropriate for a military audience to be
>   repeatedly beamed these messages?" At issue is the hour of Rush
>   Limbaugh's right-wing radio talk show aired daily on
>   taxpayer-funded American Forces Radio, which broadcasts "stereo
>   audio services to over 1,000 outlets in more than 175 countries and
>   U.S. territories, and on board U.S. Navy ships." Given that
>   "overseas military ballots were an important element" of the 2000
>   election, Boehlert writes: "The influence of what amounts to
>   propaganda beamed daily to U.S. troops must be considered a
>   domestic political factor of no small consequence."
>SOURCE: Salon.com, May 26, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1085544003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1085544003
>
>19. WEAPONS OF MASS COMMUNICATION
>http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,63604,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1
>   The Pentagon is worried. "The rapid proliferation of digital
>   cameras, phonecams and wireless gadgets among soldiers and military
>   contractors," according to Wired News, has Pentagon officials
>   "telling commanders in the field to strictly monitor the use of
>   consumer wireless technology through Directive 8100.2," which
>   allows only devices with "strong authentication and encryption
>   technologies." In addition, "Defense Department lawyers may be
>   reviewing how the spread of consumer digital-imaging technology ...
>   affects the military's obligation to abide by a Geneva Convention
>   article against holding prisoners up to public ridicule." Noting
>   that "the first impulse of government is to put a lid on
>   information about itself, even when the public has a right to
>   know," Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page suggests digital
>   cameras be given to all servicemembers.
>SOURCE: Wired News, May 26, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1085544002
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1085544002
>
>20. IT'S ABOUT TIMES ...
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/international/middleeast/26FTE_NOTE.html?pagewanted=1&8dpc
>   Declaring "it is past time" to shine "the bright light of hindsight
>   ... on ourselves," The New York Times assessed its pre-war and
>   early invasion Iraq coverage as "in most cases ... an accurate
>   reflection of the state of our knowledge at the time." The Times
>   acknowledges there were "a number of instances of coverage that was
>   not as rigorous as it should have been." Editor & Publisher writes
>   that the Times' mea culpa "does not ... go nearly far enough and is
>   buried on Page A10," and calls it "nothing less than a primer on
>   how not to do journalism, particularly if you are an enormously
>   influential newspaper with a costly invasion of another nation at
>   stake." Times editors reassured staff that their Iraq coverage
>   assessment "is not an attempt to find a scapegoat or blame
>   reporters."
>SOURCE: New York Times, May 26, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1085544001
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1085544001
>
>21. ASKING QUESTIONS TO POWER
>http://www.niemanwatchdog.org
>   Harvard University's Nieman Foundation for Journalism launched a
>   new website, "to encourage watchdog reporting by drawing on
>   authorities in various fields to suggest questions for the press to
>   ask," according to the press release announcing NiemanWatchdog.org.
>   In an introductory commentary, website editor Barry Sussman writes:
>   "Targeted, insightful questions are typically more difficult for
>   public officials, candidates and others in public life to dodge,
>   mislead or even lie about." Among the questions already on the
>   website are: "Aren't hair-trigger nuclear missiles a target for
>   terrorists?"; "Abu Ghraib aside; where is the reporting on U.S.
>   prisons?"; and "What's the progress with 'leave no child behind?'."
>SOURCE: NiemanWatchdog.org, May 24, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1085371203
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1085371203
>
>
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