Archive for June 2004

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[eccr] The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, June 23, 2004

Wed Jun 23 05:46:13 GMT 2004


>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, June 23, 2004
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>The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. Thompson Spreads 'Gospel of Personal Responsibility'
>2. Not Wrong, Just Misunderstood
>3. Exxon's Secret Sponsorship of Climate Skeptics
>4. Industry Warned of Activist Threat
>5. Fact-checking Michael Moore
>6. What the President Said
>7. War Is Still Sell
>8. Clamping Down, Down Under
>9. The CIA's Secret Failings
>10. 'NRA News' Seeks to  Pistol-Whip McCain/Feingold Law
>11. Mac Attack Down Under
>12. A Load of Manure
>13. Another Setback for the E-voting Lobby
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. THOMPSON SPREADS 'GOSPEL OF PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY'
>http://www.informedeating.org/newsletters/040615.htm
>   The media giants have taken interest in America's obesity epidemic
>   - recently sponsoring a three-day conference - but the food
>   industry appears to be calling the shots when it comes to dealing
>   with the issue. "What I found most striking at the [Time/ABC News
>   Obesity Summit] was the utter lack of leadership from our federal
>   government officials," writes Center for Informed Food Choice's
>   Michele Simon. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy
>   Thompson's keynote speech "had all the cheerleading you might
>   expect, but none of the substance. He was long on showing off
>   government programs ostensibly addressing the problem, but short on
>   acknowledging how they could do better. The chilling call to go out
>   and 'spread the gospel of personal responsibility' is still ringing
>   in my ears. Just as disturbing was the glowing praise for industry,
>   including at least one mischaracterization of their promises.
>   Contrary to Thompson's statement, Coca-Cola has not vowed to end
>   exclusive contracting in schools, and certainly has not done so.
>   Moreover, the secretary's glee over the increasing 'low-carb' menu
>   options in restaurants (he referenced this 'good news' more than
>   once) was especially startling for its nutritional dubiousness,"
>   Simon writes.
>SOURCE: The Informed Eating Newsletter, June 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2004.html#1087940682
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1087940682
>
>2. NOT WRONG, JUST MISUNDERSTOOD
>http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=10381
>   When it comes to acknowledging the widespread anti-American anger
>   in the Arab World, the Bush administration refuses "to engage in
>   self-criticism," according to James Zogby, president of the Arab
>   American Institute. "The fault, they insist, must be elsewhere. And
>   so they maintain that Arabs are only angry at us because they are
>   being taught to hate us and their regimes use that hatred to
>   deflect from their own inadequacies. ... While reform in the Arab
>   World is, in fact, needed and its need should not be understated,
>   the way current US thinking presents that need is not as a
>   desirable end in itself - but as an alternative to any change in US
>   policy - as in, 'we do not have to change or press Israel to
>   change, it is the Arabs who have to change,' and when they do, they
>   won't be angry at us anymore. ... In fact, while 'public diplomacy'
>   is presented as a way of convincing the Arabs of America's values -
>   its real target is self-justification. 'We are not doing anything
>   wrong - Arabs just don't understand us,'" Zogby writes.
>SOURCE: Middle East Online, June 22, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2004.html#1087876800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1087876800
>
>3. EXXON'S SECRET SPONSORSHIP OF CLIMATE SKEPTICS
>http://www.exxonsecrets.org/
>   Despite the best PR efforts of industry, global warming is a
>   growing concern to an increasing number of people in the world.
>   That's because corporate propaganda addresses only the perception
>   of climate change, distorting science and corrupting regulatory
>   processes, and not the reality. The new website ExxonSecrets.org
>   explores the links between Exxonmobil, think tanks, corporate
>   friendly scientists, and government officials. The interactive
>   website, sponsored by Greenpeace and based on the research of CLEAR
>   (Clearinghouse on Advocacy and Environmental Research), illustrates
>   how Exxonmobil has funneled over $12 million dollars since 1998 to
>   influencing the global debate on climate change. For example,
>   Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works chair James Inhofe
>   (R-OK), who once suggested that global warming "could be the
>   greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," has ties to
>   both the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Annapolis Center
>   for Science-Based Public Policy, which jointly account for over $2
>   million of Exxonmobil largess since 1998.
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2004.html#1087858783
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1087858783
>
>4. INDUSTRY WARNED OF ACTIVIST THREAT
>http://www.prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=214332&site=3
>    "One of the most compelling speakers at the recent Biotechnology
>   Industry Organization conference ... wasn't a researcher or a
>   venture capitalist, but a representative of a special agency with
>   the FBI," Paul Holmes writes for PR Week. Conference attendees were
>   warned that "most of their companies were on a list of more than
>   1,000 potential corporate targets circulating among activists" and
>   urged "to take a more public stand on the issue." Radical animal
>   rights groups were described as "the country's leading domestic
>   terrorist threat." While industry trade groups like BIO are
>   confronting activists, Holmes writes, they "are often reduced to
>   responding to angry rhetoric and graphic images with dry facts
>   about the benefits of research. To counter the emotional appeal of
>   the activists, the industry needs individuals - both researchers
>   and the patients whose lives they have saved - to tell their
>   equally powerful stories." Corporate activist and PR guru Ross
>   Irvine suggests that PR people have taken the "easy way out" by
>   avoiding confrontations with activists. Ross advises PR folks to
>   take a look at how "activists take a much broader and more complex
>   approach to communicating issues than corporate PR folks. ... It
>   shows what can and needs to be done to if corporate PR folks want
>   to battle activists successfully."
>SOURCE: PR Week, June 21, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1087790400
>
>5. FACT-CHECKING MICHAEL MOORE
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/20/movies/20SHEN.html
>   Michael Moore's previous films have generated a cottage industry of
>   conservative commentators eager to find examples of sloppiness and
>   exaggeration, but as New York Times reporter Philip Shenon
>   observes, "if 'Fahrenheit 9/11' attracts the audience Mr. Moore and
>   his distributors are predicting, Mr. Moore may face an onslaught of
>   fact-checking unlike anything he - or any other documentary
>   filmmaker - has ever experienced. After all, White House officials
>   and the Bush family began impugning the film even before any of
>   them had seen it." Shenon, who has spent a year covering the
>   federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, viewed the
>   film's premiere and says, "it seems safe to say that central
>   assertions of fact in 'Fahrenheit 9/11' are supported by the public
>   record (indeed, many of them will be familiar to those who have
>   closely followed Mr. Bush's political career)." To make doubly
>   sure, Moore has hired outside fact-checkers to vet the film.
>SOURCE: June 20, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1087704000
>
>6. WHAT THE PRESIDENT SAID
>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/06/18/MNGP278BI61.DTL
>   The White House is spinning furiously in response to the 9/11
>   commission's recent report, which contradicts one of the
>   administration's key arguments for war with its finding that there
>   was no working relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Bush still
>   insists that "there was a relationship," while adding, "This
>   administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated
>   between Saddam and al Qaeda." But even that's a lie. Here's what he
>   told Congress in March 2003: "I have also determined that the use
>   of armed force against Iraq is consistent with the United States
>   and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions
>   against international terrorists and terrorist organizations,
>   including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned,
>   authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred
>   on September 11, 2001."
>SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, June 18, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2004.html#1087531200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1087531200
>
>7. WAR IS STILL SELL
>http://news.findlaw.com/news/s/20040617/securitycommissioncheneydc.html
>   The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
>   reported, "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda
>   cooperated." Will Bush administration officials and other
>   Republican politicians now stop saying there's a connection? "Hell
>   no!" replied one official, when asked whether Dick Cheney would
>   retract his recent statement that Saddam Hussein had "long
>   established ties with al Qaeda." George Bush maintained, "The
>   reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq
>   and Saddam and al Qaeda [is] because there was a relationship
>   between Iraq and al Qaeda." House GOP members are also sticking to
>   their story. "The common link is that they hate America," said Rep.
>   Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. According to Rep. Chris Shays, al Qaeda and
>   Iraq are "like peas in a pod." Rep. Dana Rohrabacher did admit, in
>   response to a question about the wisdom of hyping a highly
>   conjectural Osama bin Laden - Saddam Hussein link, "Was it a
>   well-thought out sales pitch? Probably not."
>SOURCE: Reuters, June 17, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2004.html#1087444800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1087444800
>
>8. CLAMPING DOWN, DOWN UNDER
>http://www.facs.gov.au/internet/minister1.nsf/content/government_ngo_relationship.htm
>   The Australian government is using a report by the right-wing think
>   tank Institute for Public Affairs to determine "the most effective
>   ways to ensure that the transparency of the growing engagement
>   between Government and Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) is
>   maintained." The report, titled "Managing Relations with
>   Non-Government Organisations," maintains that NGOs enjoy
>   "privileged positions which are not accorded to other members of
>   the community." It suggests that "information [be] made public
>   about both the relationship itself, and about the NGO with which
>   the Department has a relationship." Report co-author Gary Johns
>   wrote in an opinion piece, "If the far more complex matter of
>   corporate performance can be presented in simple terms, the same
>   can be achieved for charitable NGOs."
>SOURCE: Press release, Australian Family and Community Services, June 16, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2004.html#1087358403
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1087358403
>
>9. THE CIA'S SECRET FAILINGS
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/16/politics/16repo.html
>   "The Central Intelligence Agency has ruled that large portions of a
>   report by the Senate Intelligence Committee that is highly critical
>   of the agency includes material too sensitive to be released to the
>   public," reports Douglas Jehl.
>SOURCE: New York Times, June 16, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1087358402
>
>10. 'NRA NEWS' SEEKS TO  PISTOL-WHIP MCCAIN/FEINGOLD LAW
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/16/national/16nra.html
>   "In a direct challenge to federal limits on political advocacy, the
>   National Rifle Association plans to begin broadcasting a daily
>   radio program on Thursday to provide news and pro-gun commentary to
>   400,000 listeners. The group says its jump into broadcasting with
>   its program, 'NRANews,' means that it should be viewed as a media
>   organization that does not have to abide by provisions of a
>   sweeping campaign finance law from 2002. That law stops
>   organizations from using unregulated 'soft' money to buy political
>   advertising that directly attacks or praises federal candidates in
>   the weeks before federal elections and primaries." The N.R.A. says
>   its three-hour program constitutes news and commentary, not
>   advertising. As a result, when other advocacy groups are required
>   to stop running political commercials, "NRANews" intends to
>   continue broadcasting its reporting and commentary against
>   politicians who favor gun control to Nov. 2.
>SOURCE: New York Times, June 16, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1087358401
>
>11. MAC ATTACK DOWN UNDER
>http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/13/1087065034025.html
>   In Australia, McDonald's launched an unprecedented, multi-million
>   dollar advertising and PR campaign to counter the release of the US
>   documentary "Super Size Me," which follows filmmaker Morgan
>   Spurlock on a month long McDonald's binge. Until recently, the
>   fast-food giant chose to ignore the hit movie. But McDonald's now
>   fears for its reputation. Its advertisements feature McDonald's
>   Australia chief Guy Russo, saying Spurlock's 30-day McDonald's diet
>   is "stupid."
>SOURCE: The Age, June 14, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2004.html#1087185604
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1087185604
>
>12. A LOAD OF MANURE
>http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/6/prweb133293.htm
>   A university study comparing the amount of bacteria on
>   conventionally-grown and organically-grown produce found that the
>   level of the common bacteria E. coli on certified organic produce
>   was "not statistically different from that in conventional
>   samples." Alex Avery, of the right-wing Hudson Institute's project
>   the Center for Global Food Issues, attacked the researchers for
>   their pro-organic "bias" in an editorial posted on the USDA's Food
>   Safety Research Information Office's website. Avery claims, "The
>   concern about manure and bacterial contamination of organic foods
>   was originally raised in 1997 by a physician with the Centers for
>   Disease Control." That would be Dr. Robert Tauxe, who told the New
>   York Times in August 2000, "The big question is how to properly
>   compose manure ... but our concern applies to both organic and
>   conventional farms."
>SOURCE: June 14, 2004, PR Web
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2004.html#1087185603
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1087185603
>
>13. ANOTHER SETBACK FOR THE E-VOTING LOBBY
>http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-06-14-league-women-voters-redux_x.htm
>   Bowing to the demands of hundreds of angry members, the League of
>   Women Voters has rescinded its support of paperless voting
>   machines. About 800 delegates who attended LWV's biennial
>   convention in Washington voted overwhelmingly in favor of a
>   resolution that supports "voting systems and procedures that are
>   secure, accurate, recountable and accessible."
>SOURCE: Associated Press, June 14, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2004.html#1087185602
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1087185602
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
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