[eccr] The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, January 14, 2004

>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, January 14, 2004
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>The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. Birds of a Feather
>2. Mad Cow's Untold Story
>3. Media Trainees Keep Journalists on a Tight Lead
>4. White House Wrestles Regulatory Control From Agencies
>5. Bush Targetted Saddam Pre-9/11
>6. Clark Dresses Down for the Ladies
>7. Bush and Hitler
>8. Political B.S. Detector
>9. It's Official: Big Business is Pro-Bush
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. BIRDS OF A FEATHER
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11277-2004Jan12.html
>   "The rise of Tony Feather from congressional intern to successful
>   lobbyist is a story of loyalty, of good deeds rewarded -- and of
>   Republicans taking care of their own," the Washington Post writes.
>   Feather is a partner at FLS-DCI, which provides direct-mail,
>   telephone and grassroots lobbying for political parties,
>   corporations, trade associations and others, and the up and coming
>   DCI Group, a Washington lobbying shop with "a long list of clients
>   paying $20,000 to $200,000 every six months." Feather is a
>   registered lobbyist for Intel, Pharmaceutical Research and
>   Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), and Qualcomm. Feather counts as
>   friends White House advisor Karl Rove, Secretary of Commerce Don
>   Evans, and Joe Allbaugh, who heads New Bridge Strategies, a lobby
>   firm focusing on Iraq reconstruction contracts. "In his role as a
>   national political strategist, Feather has been on the cutting edge
>   of a major shift in GOP tactics, moving away from placing the
>   overwhelming emphasis on television, and shifting toward voter
>   mobilization, local organization development -- the political
>   terrain known as 'the ground war,' which is fast becoming the
>   central thrust of the Republican Party and the Bush 2004 campaign,"
>   the Post writes.
>SOURCE: Washington Post, January 13, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1073970000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073970000
>
>2. MAD COW'S UNTOLD STORY
>http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/state/article/0,1299,DRMN_21_2569718,00.html
>   Since the announcement that mad cow disease has been found in the
>   US, John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton have conducted hundreds of
>   interviews based on their 1997 book Mad Cow USA. The US government
>   and the livestock industry have launched a massive PR campaign to
>   hide the fact that they are not taking the necessary steps to stop
>   mad cow disease in the US. However, some excellent reporting is
>   piercing their PR smokescreen. For instance, the Rocky Mountain
>   News writes that "below the drumbeat of reassurances from
>   government and the cattle industry that mad cow disease poses no
>   threat to public health, a small universe of scientists working on
>   a family of related illnesses are finding disturbing evidence to
>   the contrary. ... Little of this research, nor the wary comments of
>   researchers toiling in relative obscurity, reaches a broad public
>   audience, leaving most people to hear the oft-repeated promises of
>   well-funded interest groups or high-profile public officials. Just
>   last week, for example, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association
>   described mad cow disease solely as an animal and economic problem
>   - not a human health problem."
>SOURCE: Rocky Mountain News, January 12, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1073883601
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073883601
>
>3. MEDIA TRAINEES KEEP JOURNALISTS ON A TIGHT LEAD
>http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/1/question-lieberman.asp
>   Columbia Journalism Review editor Trudy Lieberman, after examining
>   transcripts from some 50 major news shows, concludes that
>   "journalism has morphed into a cog in a great public relations
>   machine." Lieberman blames the prevalence of PR-driven media
>   training: "At a time when the audience makes decisions based on
>   perceptions rather than facts, the goal is to create positive
>   perceptions of companies and their products, politicians and their
>   policies." Recent interview excerpts illustrate how "trained"
>   guests can easily gain control, especially when the "unwritten
>   rules" discourage journalists from insisting on real answers.
>SOURCE: Columbia Journalism Review, Monday, January 12, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073883600
>
>4. WHITE HOUSE WRESTLES REGULATORY CONTROL FROM AGENCIES
>http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/emaf.nsf/Popup?ReadForm&db=stltoday%5Cnews%5Cstories.nsf&docid=189564E117AF585586256E17007E600A
>   "Under a new proposal, the White House would decide what and when
>   the public would be told about an outbreak of mad cow disease, an
>   anthrax release, a nuclear plant accident or any other crisis," the
>   St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. "The White House Office of
>   Management and Budget is trying to gain final control over release
>   of emergency declarations from the federal agencies responsible for
>   public health, safety and the environment. The OMB also wants to
>   manage scientific and technical evaluations ... of all major
>   government rules, plans, proposed regulations and pronouncements."
>   But former top agency officials and public interest groups oppose
>   OMB's proposal, saying it "could damage the federal system for
>   protecting public health and the environment." John Graham heads
>   the OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. In December
>   2001, the Washington Post reported that Graham had asked top trade
>   group lobbyists to compile a list of the regulations that they
>   found overly burdensome. "This was a secret campaign to circumvent
>   the process," an unnamed lobbyists told the Post. "With Graham in
>   that job, we figured we could get whatever we want." Before joining
>   the White House, Graham ran the industry-funded Harvard Center for
>   Risk Analysis.
>SOURCE: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 11, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1073797201
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073797201
>
>5. BUSH TARGETTED SADDAM PRE-9/11
>http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml
>   Almost as soon as George W. Bush took office in January 2001, he
>   and his top advisors were plotting a regime change in Iraq, former
>   Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill told CBS' "60 Minutes." At Bush's
>   first National Security Council meeting 10 days after the
>   inauguration, O'Neill said going after Saddam Hussein was topic
>   "A." "It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of
>   it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this,'" said
>   ONeill, who serves as the primary source for a new book about the
>   Bush White House entitled "The Price of Loyalty." O'Neill told the
>   book's author, former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind,
>   that he was surprised that during the first National Security
>   Council meeting questions like "Why Saddam?" and "Why now?" were
>   never asked. Suskind based his book on interviews with O'Neill and
>   several other high level officials as well as 19,000 internal
>   documents provided by O'Neill. Meanwhile a Washington Post
>   editorial warned that U.S. intelligence reports are losing
>   credibility internationally "because of the mounting evidence that
>   U.S. intelligence about Iraq was mistaken -- and because of the
>   Bush administration's refusal to acknowledge it. ... [T]he latest
>   Post report strongly supports a conclusion that much of the case
>   against Iraq made by President Bush and his top aides before the
>   war was wrong." The Post calls for an investigation into why
>   intelligence estimates on Iraq were so flawed.
>SOURCE: CBS "60 Minutes," January 11, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1073797200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073797200
>
>6. CLARK DRESSES DOWN FOR THE LADIES
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/politics/campaigns/09CLAR.html
>   According to Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark's
>   pollster Geoff Garin, Clark appeals less to women than men voters.
>   Part of the campaign's effort to decrease this "gender gap" is to
>   change Clark's wardrobe. "Gone are his navy blue suit, red tie and
>   loafers, replaced by argyle sweaters, corduroys and duck books,"
>   reports the New York Times. Last weekend, at a "Women for Clark"
>   forum, the candidate also stressed his support for reproductive
>   rights and affirmative action. Aides speculate that Clark's gender
>   gap is because "women have not had major experience with military
>   people," but the Women for Clark site offers various campaign
>   goodies under the heading "collateral."
>SOURCE: New York Times, Friday, January 9, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1073624400
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073624400
>
>7. BUSH AND HITLER
>http://www.rnc.org/Newsroom/Releases/Jan04/MoveOn2.htm
>   The Republican National Committee is complaining about
>   advertisements comparing George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler that were
>   posted briefly on on MoveOn.org's "Bush in 30 Seconds" web site,
>   which invites people to submit their own creative TV spots
>   criticizing the Bush administration's performance. MoveOn has
>   responded that the ads were submissions to their contest and that
>   it is "deliberately and maliciously misleading" to accuse MoveOn of
>   "sponsoring" them. "None of these was our ad, nor did their
>   appearance constitute endorsement or sponsorship by MoveOn.org
>   Voter Fund," states MoveOn founder Wes Boyd. "They will not appear
>   on TV. We do not support the sentiment expressed in the two Hitler
>   submissions. They were voted down by our members." The finalists in
>   the contest include some clever submissions. If nothing else, the
>   contest is an interesting way to break down the barrier between
>   advertiser and audience. (Is comparing Bush to Hitler worse than
>   leading Republican strategist Grover Norquist's recent comparison
>   of the estate tax to the Nazi Holocaust?)
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1073519928
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073519928
>
>8. POLITICAL B.S. DETECTOR
>http://www.factcheck.org/
>   Just in time for the elections, there's a new web site out called
>   FactCheck.org. Headed by Brooks Jackson and sponsored by the
>   Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania,
>   it is a "nonpartisan, nonprofit, 'consumer advocate' for voters
>   that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S.
>   politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major
>   U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches,
>   interviews, and news releases. Our goal is to apply the best
>   practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase
>   public knowledge and understanding."
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073516790
>
>9. IT'S OFFICIAL: BIG BUSINESS IS PRO-BUSH
>http://www.thehill.com/news/010704/bush.aspx
>   Ken Mehlman, former Bush political advisor and current Bush-Cheney
>   campaign chair, is working "to boost the political impact of
>   business" in 2004, according to The Hill. Among these efforts is
>   the formation of an "association CEOs for Bush" group. "The
>   campaign finance laws require the group to maintain at least a
>   semblance of nonpartisan independence, but there is no question
>   that it favors Bush's re-election," reports Alexander Bolton. The
>   campaign laws are encouraging businesses to organize along "a labor
>   union model that entails direct advocacy among employees." The
>   get-out-the-business-vote effort complements big GOP fundraisers,
>   including a Phoenix event today where "industry executives can play
>   golf and have dinner with key congressional Republicans ... then
>   'help Congress write its to-do list' on air pollution and energy
>   policy."
>SOURCE: The Hill, January 7, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1073451600
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073451600
>
>
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