[eccr] The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, September 8, 2004

>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, September 8, 2004
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. Dem Advisors Flip Flop Hats
>2. When Is A Front Group Not A Front Group?
>3. The Pampered Press
>4. Spreading Freedom at the RNC
>5. Oily (Not Girly) Men
>6. They Fought the Law and the Law Won
>7. The Right Angle
>8. In a Class of Their Own
>9. Back to the Future
>10. Winning the War on Terror?
>11. Moore Bad News
>12. Hijacking Catastrophe
>13. Tick Tock TV Set Convention Coverage
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. DEM ADVISORS FLIP FLOP HATS
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/08/politics/campaign/08adviser.html
>   "Just last week, Stanley Greenberg was the polling mastermind
>   guiding the way three liberal groups spent tens of millions of
>   dollars attacking President Bush and registering voters. But he
>   quit that position to be an unpaid adviser to the Kerry campaign as
>   it presses to sharpen its message in the final 56 days before the
>   election. Mr. Greenberg is just the latest in a procession of top
>   strategists who have moved between the campaigns and advocacy
>   groups called 527's - the very organizations that are not supposed
>   to coordinate their activities under campaign finance rules."
>SOURCE: New York Times, September 8, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2004.html#1094616000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1094616000
>
>2. WHEN IS A FRONT GROUP NOT A FRONT GROUP?
>http://www.prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=221378&site=3
>   "We have been wrongfully labeled as an auto industry front group,"
>   Ron DeFore, communications director for SUV Owners of America, told
>   PR Week. The group is running a campaign opposing proposed
>   regulations in California to limit truck and SUV emissions. Defore
>   is also a principal at Stratacom, a PR firm that counts the auto
>   industry as one of its biggest clients. Defore also told PR Week
>   that Stratacomm had created the non-profit status of the SUV group
>   two years ago after buying the name and other assets from its
>   founder. "There was a tremendous need in the public-policy arena,
>   as well as the media, for some balance to be brought to the
>   coverage on SUVs," Defore said. California represents 10% of the US
>   auto market.
>SOURCE: PR Week (sub. req'd.), September 6, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2004.html#1094600434
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1094600434
>
>3. THE PAMPERED PRESS
>http://www.prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?site=3&ID=221135&site=3&/news/news_story.cfm&setcookie=1
>   "Reporters who cover political conventions are accustomed to tiny
>   workspaces, often shoddy technical setups, and few, if any,
>   luxuries," PR Week writes. "Last week, New York City and the GOP -
>   with the help of GCI Group- went to great lengths to break the
>   mold. Journalists covering the Republican National Convention ...
>   were treated to world-class accouterments, including facials,
>   tailoring services, and gourmet food - drawing a marked contrast
>   from the rather cramped conditions at the Democratic National
>   Convention held last month in Boston. Most of the pampering took
>   place across the street from [Madison Square] Garden in The Barneys
>   Lounge, sponsored by upscale clothier Barneys ... The services were
>   arranged by the 2004 New York City Host Committee and supervised
>   (and aggressively publicized) by GCI." The PR firm told PR Week,
>   "We're basically saying to the reporters, 'We know you're working
>   hard. Let us make your lives easier while you're in New York.'"
>SOURCE: PR Week (sub. req'd.), September 6, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2004.html#1094443200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1094443200
>
>4. SPREADING FREEDOM AT THE RNC
>http://www.alternet.org/election04/19783/
>   "Over the first three nights, the Republican Convention speakers
>   carefully crafted a tri-partite frame for George W. Bush's Thursday
>   acceptance speech: Night 1: The Global War on Terror defines our
>   lives and our generation. Night 2: With enough discipline, all
>   Americans can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and become
>   prosperous. Those girly men have only themselves to blame. Night 3:
>   Kerry is weak, unpatriotic, antimilitary, against national
>   security, without resolve, soft-hearted, confused, and totally
>   unfit to be commander-in-chief," linguistics professor George
>   Lakoff writes. Examining the domestic agenda section of Bush's
>   speech, Lakoff observes, "The 'opportunity society' rhetoric is
>   crafted to sound like it will remedy the same ills that the
>   Democrats are talking about. But it is virtually the opposite in
>   real content." The rest of Bush's speech was on the War on Terror,
>   "though he never once used the phrase. The frame inspiring terror
>   had been well established on previous nights, leaving Bush to talk
>   about spreading freedom. Significantly, he did not once use the
>   phrase 'war on terror,' but did use the word 'liberty' 11 times and
>   'free' or 'freedom' 23 times," Lakoff writes.
>SOURCE: Alternet, September 3, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2004.html#1094184003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1094184003
>
>5. OILY (NOT GIRLY) MEN
>http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/state/9571776.htm?1c
>   "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's ambitious plan to reorganize almost
>   every aspect of state government was influenced significantly by
>   oil and gas giant ChevronTexaco," including "streamlining the
>   permit process for the construction of new oil refineries" and
>   "reorganizing the regulatory process for ... energy facilities,"
>   reports Associated Press. ChevronTexaco, "one of about 20 companies
>   that paid the send the governor and his staff to this week's
>   Republican National Convention," has contributed more than $200,000
>   to Schwarzenegger committees and $500,000 to the California
>   Republican Party since the October recall election. "That is what
>   we are here for," said ChevronTexaco's general manager over state
>   government relations.
>SOURCE: Associated Press, September 3, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2004.html#1094184002
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1094184002
>
>6. THEY FOUGHT THE LAW AND THE LAW WON
>http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/03/protest/
>   "As Republicans inside Madison Square Garden praised the NYPD for
>   keeping order," writes Michelle Goldberg, "grim stories of
>   preemptive, arbitrary arrests, filthy jail conditions and long
>   detentions without access to attorneys circulated among protesters,
>   lawyers and quite a few ordinary New Yorkers who were arrested for
>   being in the wrong place at the wrong time. ... Whenever groups of
>   activists gathered, row upon row of riot cops would surround them
>   with orange plastic netting and often arrest everyone inside,
>   including journalists and bystanders. Police then defied state law
>   by holding many people well over 24 hours without access to
>   attorneys." According to Elspeth Schell, whose daughter was among
>   the detainees, "this is looking more and more like a South American
>   Republic."
>SOURCE: Salon.com, September 3, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2004.html#1094184001
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1094184001
>
>7. THE RIGHT ANGLE
>http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=70970
>   "Stephan Savoia glowed about the picture he would take at the end
>   of the Republican National Convention," writes Karen Brown
>   Dunlap. "He planned it hours before the President's speech by
>   suspending a camera high in Madison Square Garden for the right
>   angle. He imagined the beauty of the moment, but he also growled in
>   anger. 'The picture will be exactly what the White House wanted,'
>   he said. It would show President George W. Bush surrounded by a
>   cheering crowd, family, confetti, and balloons after his nomination
>   acceptance speech. He would be standing on a special stage with the
>   Presidential seal underfoot. 'Why do you think they put the
>   Presidential seal on the floor?' Savoia said. "We're sucked into
>   the photo op.'"
>SOURCE: Poynter Online, September 3, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2004.html#1094184000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1094184000
>
>8. IN A CLASS OF THEIR OWN
>http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=42547
>   "Shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist hijackings, the
>   Pentagon hired the Rendon Group to orchestrate sympathetic media
>   coverage around the globe, including Muslim countries. The firm has
>   worked for the government of Kuwait since the Persian Gulf War. In
>   the 1990s, the CIA hired the Rendon Group to wage a public
>   relations war against Saddam Hussein. ... Rendon helped create and
>   promote the Iraqi National Congress, the exile group headed by
>   Ahmed Chalabi." The PR firm has come under scrutiny again, for
>   receiving more than $14,000 of Massachusetts' anti-terrorism funds
>   to videotape a state police graduation ceremony in August 2002.
>SOURCE: Boston Herald, September 2, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2004.html#1094097603
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1094097603
>
>9. BACK TO THE FUTURE
>http://www.slate.com/id/2106214/
>   "For $2.4 trillion, guess what word other than 'a,' 'and,' and
>   'the' - occurs most frequently in the acceptance speech George W.
>   Bush delivered tonight," writes William Saletan. "The word is
>   'will.' It appears 76 times. This was a speech all about what Bush
>   will do, and what will happen, if he becomes president. Except he
>   already is president. He already ran this campaign. He promised
>   great things. They haven't happened. So, he's trying to go back in
>   time. He wants you to see in him the potential you saw four years
>   ago. He can't show you the things he promised, so he asks you to
>   envision them. ... Bush pointed to the wars he had launched and the
>   bills he had signed, but he couldn't point to the benefits those
>   laws and wars were supposed to deliver. The benefits haven't
>   happened yet. They 'will.'"
>SOURCE: Slate, September 2, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2004.html#1094097602
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1094097602
>
>10. WINNING THE WAR ON TERROR?
>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5889435/
>   "As speakers at the GOP convention trumpet Bush administration
>   successes in the war on terrorism, an NBC News analysis of Islamic
>   terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001, shows that attacks are on the rise
>   worldwide - dramatically," report Robert Rivas and Robert Windrem
>   NBC News. "Of the roughly 2,929 terrorism-related deaths around the
>   world since the attacks on New York and Washington, the NBC News
>   analysis shows 58 percent of them - 1,709 - have occurred this
>   year."
>SOURCE: MSNBC, September 2, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1094097601
>
>11. MOORE BAD NEWS
>http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000623684
>   "Security guards at the Republican National Convention overreacted
>   when USA Today guest columnist Michael Moore entered Madison Square
>   Garden Monday night and were responsible for a disruption that made
>   it difficult for several members of the press, including Moore, to
>   cover the proceedings, said the U.S. House Daily Press Gallery,
>   which oversees press credentials for the convention. The gallery
>   conducted a review of the Monday incident, which it calls the worst
>   case of police media control since the 1968 Chicago convention."
>SOURCE: Editor and Publisher, September 2, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1094097600
>
>12. HIJACKING CATASTROPHE
>http://www.mef.tv/index.php?module=pagesetter&func=viewpub&tid=2&pid=1
>   A new video from the Media Education Foundation examines how the
>   Bush administration uses the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to
>   manipulate Americans. Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the
>   Selling of American Empire places the last three years of White
>   House deceptions in a global context, asking questions seldom posed
>   by mainstream corporate media. The hour-long documentary features
>   nearly twenty political observers, including Lt. Colonel Karen
>   Kwiatkowski, former Chief UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter, former
>   Pentagon analyst Daniel Ellsberg, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jody
>   Williams, international activist Vandan Shiva, journalism academic
>   Robert Jensen, and musician Michael Franti. "By helping us
>   understand how fear is being actively cultivated and manipulated by
>   the current administration, Hijacking Catastrophe stands to become
>   an explosive and empowering information weapon in this decisive
>   year in U.S. history," writes Naomi Klein, author of No Logo.
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2004.html#1094070476
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1094070476
>
>13. TICK TOCK TV SET CONVENTION COVERAGE
>http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2004/08/31/cnn_rnc.html
>   "The idea was to grab a location 'that screamed New York.' And said
>   politics," PressThink's Jay Rosen writes of his meeting with Sam
>   Feist, CNN senior executive producer for political programming, at
>   the Tick Tock Diner, a "real" New York City diner catty corner from
>   Madison Square Garden that is being used as a TV set for CNN's
>   convention coverage. While CNN sees the story of the RNC taking
>   place inside the convention hall, Feist told Rosen the network is
>   ready to cover the protests "a little or a lot, it depends on the
>   size of the protests, it frankly depends on whether any protests
>   turn violent, ... and obviously whether or not the protests disrupt
>   the convention." Rosen asked Feist, "The protests disrupt the
>   convention if they disrupt the televising of the convention-- isn't
>   that so?" He answered, "I don't see that the protests have
>   disrupted the televising of the convention and I don't see that
>   happening." Rosen writes in his blog: "New York and Boston are
>   parallel events, they will get equal coverage. There was nothing to
>   puzzle over, even with the signs of a counter convention on the
>   streets of New York. We cover the news, Sam reasoned. If the
>   protests make news, we'll cover that."
>SOURCE: Press Think, September 1, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2004.html#1094011200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1094011200
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
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