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[eccr] The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, January 21, 2004

Wed Jan 21 07:58:31 GMT 2004


>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, January 21, 2004
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>The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. 'Healthy Marriage' Healthy For PR
>2. Mad Cow:  It's What's For Dinner
>3. A Hard Spin: War Crimes Suspect to President
>4. Army Will Continue To Tell Its Own Story
>5. The State of the Campaign
>6. Bush Sweet On Sugar
>7. A Wall By Any Other Name
>8. Watching the Campaign Watchers
>9. Harvard Center Is A Front for Mad Cow PR
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. 'HEALTHY MARRIAGE' HEALTHY FOR PR
>http://www.prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=199847&site=3
>   "A strong America must also value the institution of marriage,"
>   Bush declared in his State of the Union address. PR Week's Douglas
>   Quenqua writes that the administration may soon be "on the hunt for
>   a PR firm to lead a controversial campaign educating the American
>   public about the skills required to sustain a marriage. Such a
>   campaign, which has been blasted by gay-rights advocates, lies at
>   the heart of a $1.5 billion proposal now before Congress. The
>   'Healthy Marriage' initiative, already approved by the House,
>   proposes a massive increase in funding for federally run programs,
>   particularly in low-income communities, offering classes in
>   conflict resolution, communication, and other skills the
>   administration feels are essential to maintaining lifelong
>   partnerships." The Department of Health and Human Services says it
>   will "absolutely" seek private-sector PR help. The campaign "would
>   carry two central messages: successful marriages require skills,
>   not luck; and there are classes available to help people acquire
>   those skills."
>SOURCE: PR Week, January 19, 2004; CNN, January 20, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1074574802
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074574802
>
>2. MAD COW:  IT'S WHAT'S FOR DINNER
>http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~30541~1902162,00.html
>   The Denver Post reports that "livestock organizations are launching
>   a $5.5 million media campaign to promote domestic demand for beef
>   in the face of mad-cow concerns. A $4 million series of television
>   ads will launch Monday. They were originally scheduled to start
>   January 12, but the beef groups decided to delay the campaign for
>   two weeks while news coverage of mad cow disease eased up. ...
>   'From a marketing perspective, consumers watching (mad cow) news
>   clips followed by 'Beef, it's what's for dinner' was not what we
>   wanted,' said Mark Thomas, vice president of global marketing for
>   the [National Cattlemen's Beef Association]. U.S. beef exports have
>   been virtually shut down since the mad- cow case, causing wholesale
>   prices to fall 25 percent. ... The new $5.5 million beef campaign
>   includes $1.3 million from the industry's "crisis fund" to help
>   sway public opinion. The crisis fund will help launch a radio
>   advertising and promotional campaign that will piggyback on the new
>   TV ads." The US government still refuses to take the only steps
>   known to control mad cow disease, a total ban on feeding
>   slaughterhouse waste to livestock, and the testing of millions of
>   cows. In the past month more than 70,000 people have downloaded a
>   free copy of Mad Cow USA, our 1997 investigation of this issue, and
>   25,000 people a day are getting their mad cow information from the
>   website of the Organic Consumers Association.
>SOURCE: Denver Post, January 20, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1074574801
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074574801
>
>3. A HARD SPIN: WAR CRIMES SUSPECT TO PRESIDENT
>http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20040119.E03&irec=2
>   Indonesia will hold its first-ever direct presidential elections in
>   July 2004. Noting that Indonesia is "a thriving democracy where
>   public opinion matters," a partner in the Jakarta-based PR firm
>   Maverick writes in today's Jakarta Post that "the more
>   forward-thinking" candidates "have already appointed their image
>   gurus." Not every candidate will clean up well, though. General
>   Wiranto, who is waging a well-financed and politically
>   well-regarded campaign, stands accused of crimes against humanity
>   by the United Nations. The charges stem from Indonesian military
>   and militia violence in East Timor in 1999, when people in that
>   country voted for independence from Indonesia in an UN-organized
>   referendum.
>SOURCE: The Jakarta Post, January 20, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1074574800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074574800
>
>4. ARMY WILL CONTINUE TO TELL ITS OWN STORY
>http://www.prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=199639&site=3
>   "The Army has abandoned plans to outsource nearly one in six of its
>   jobs to the private sector, a move that could have resulted in the
>   loss of thousands of public affairs positions worldwide and a
>   windfall of contracts for private PR firms," PR Week reports. "The
>   outsourcing plan, first announced in late 2002, was part of
>   President Bush's directive to trim the government by farming out
>   all work not 'inherently governmental.' The Army also cited an
>   interest in directing more of its resources to national security
>   and the war on terrorism. The public affairs office had submitted a
>   request that most of its positions be spared on the grounds that
>   'telling [the Army's] story' is something only an Army officer
>   could do, said a spokesman last year. ... The initiative was
>   pronounced all but dead last month when Army spokeswoman Jennifer
>   Gunn said, 'It has been put on hold, and nothing has been done or
>   sent up to the Army leadership about it.'"
>SOURCE: PR Week, January 19, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074488401
>
>5. THE STATE OF THE CAMPAIGN
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/19/politics/19UNIO.html
>   Today's New York Times quotes an unnamed Republican "close to the
>   Bush campaign" who says the timing of the State of the Union speech
>   -- one day after the Iowa caucuses -- is no accident. The goal is
>   "to get people to focus on the president's positive agenda after
>   two weeks of people beating his brains in and criticizing every
>   aspect of his policies." Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New
>   York counters: "There's more excitement now in the Democratic
>   primaries than there is in the State of the Union." Meanwhile, the
>   online public interest journal TomPaine.com is encouraging readers
>   to download a State of the Union Scorecard to rate the accuracy of
>   this year's speech.
>SOURCE: The New York Times, January 19, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1074488400
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074488400
>
>6. BUSH SWEET ON SUGAR
>http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1125730,00.html
>   The World Health Oragnization's leading scientists are accusing the
>   Bush administration of putting the sugar industry's interests ahead
>   of the global fight against obesity. The Observer reports,
>   "Professor Kaare Norum, leader of the World Health Organisation's
>   fight to prevent millions developing diet-related diseases, has
>   sparked an international war of words with a highly critical letter
>   to US Health Secretary Tommy Thompson. In it he tells of his grave
>   concern over American opposition to the WHO's blueprint to combat
>   obesity. He accuses the US of making the health of millions of
>   young Americans 'a hostage to fortune' because it has failed to
>   take action over the fat epidemic as a result of its business
>   interests, particularly the sugar lobby." The Bush administration
>   says weight control is a matter for the individual, not the state,
>   and has criticized the WHO strategy for its lack of sound science.
>   Bush and fellow senators have received hundreds of thousands of
>   dollars in funding from "Big Sugar." According to the Observer,
>   sugar baron Jose 'Pepe' Fanjul, head of Florida Crystals, has
>   raised at least $100,000 for Bush's re-election campaign.
>SOURCE: Observer (UK), January 18, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1074402000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074402000
>
>7. A WALL BY ANY OTHER NAME
>http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3977598/
>   The Israeli government refers to the controversial barrier it's
>   building in the West Bank as a "security fence," but that may soon
>   change. The Associated Press reports that a new name, the "terror
>   prevention fence," was discussed at a recent meeting between Prime
>   Minister Ariel Sharon and high-ranking officials. According to AP,
>   the name change is part of an effort "to improve its international
>   image" prior to a case on the barrier's legality before the
>   International Court of Justice in The Hague next month. Israel says
>   the barrier is needed to keep out suicide bombers, while
>   Palestinian groups (who refer to it as the "Berlin Wall" or
>   "apartheid wall") call it a land grab.
>SOURCE: Associated Press, Friday, January 16, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074229200
>
>8. WATCHING THE CAMPAIGN WATCHERS
>http://campaigndesk.org/
>   The Columbia Journalism Review has started up a new web site, the
>   CampaignDesk, devoted to analyzing their coverage of reporters
>   covering the election campaign. According to Steve Lovelady, the
>   site's managing editor, journalists are the site's primary
>   audience. "Most blogs are 99.9 percent opinion," he said. "This is
>   a Web site run by and staffed by responsible journalists whose job
>   is to monitor, critique and praise the campaign press, on a daily
>   basis."
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1074184056
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074184056
>
>9. HARVARD CENTER IS A FRONT FOR MAD COW PR
>http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Harvard_Center_for_Risk_Analysis
>   In our book Trust Us, We're Experts! we describe the "third party
>   technique" that PR experts use. Reassuring words come from the
>   mouths of supposed objective scientific experts to convince the
>   public that a crisis is really no problem at all. A current example
>   would be the industry front group called the Harvard Center for
>   Risk Analysis. This organization has an impressive sounding name,
>   but it is funded by and fronts for industry. Under Clinton's
>   Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman it received $800,000 to
>   produce an elaborate risk analysis study concluding that mad cow
>   disease would be no problem in the US. Now that the disease is
>   here, the US Department of Agriculture is refusing to take the
>   necessary steps to stop it. Instead, the Harvard Center is all over
>   the news media assuring the public that mad cow disease in the US
>   is no big deal. Unfortunately, most news media so far are falling
>   for this trick, treating the Harvard Center with a respect that it
>   does not deserve instead of exposing its paid role in the
>   government and industry PR campaign on mad cow disease.
>SOURCE: January 14, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1074056400
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074056400
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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