[eccr] The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, February 11, 2004

>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, February 11, 2004
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>The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. Now They Tell Us
>2. In Search of the Magic Phrase
>3. Just What They Need
>4. Janet Jackson "Raises the Bar" for PR
>5. Losing Hearts and Minds
>6. Voices at the Crash Site
>7. A Hard Sell
>8. Mad Cow Spreading in USA for a Decade
>9. Same Money Politics. Less Accountability.
>10. Lobbying Makes DC a PR Capital
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. NOW THEY TELL US
>http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16922
>   "In recent months, US news organizations have rushed to expose the
>   Bush administration's pre-war failings on Iraq," notes Michael
>   Massing. "Watching and reading all this," he says, "one is tempted
>   to ask, where were you all before the war? Why didn't we learn more
>   about these deceptions and concealments in the months when the
>   administration was pressing its case for regime change -- when, in
>   short, it might have made a difference? Some maintain that the many
>   analysts who've spoken out since the end of the war were mute
>   before it. But that's not true. Beginning in the summer of 2002,
>   the 'intelligence community' was rent by bitter disputes over how
>   Bush officials were using the data on Iraq. Many journalists knew
>   about this, yet few chose to write about it." Massing's examination
>   of the media's role echoes a reader's complaint several months ago
>   to the Washington Post: "Why shouldn't Bush cling to dubious
>   allegations? He gets to repeat them over and over in prime time in
>   front of a huge national audience and your analysis of their
>   truthfulness is tucked away on page 13. No wonder such a large
>   percentage of Americans believe that Hussein was directly tied to
>   9/11."
>SOURCE: New York Review Of Books
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/February_2004.html#1076473767
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1076473767
>
>2. IN SEARCH OF THE MAGIC PHRASE
>http://www.state.gov/r/adcompd/rls/29213.htm
>   The "apparatus of public diplomacy" (the official government
>   euphemism for overseas public relations) "has proven inadequate,
>   especially in the Arab and Muslim World," says Harold Pachios, a
>   commissioner on the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy.
>   In testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives, Pachios
>   noted that "everything our leaders say and do is of consequence to
>   ordinary people everywhere." Moreover, "international public
>   opinion does have the power to interfere with our foreign policy
>   objectives." Nevertheless, he concluded, "I do not suggest that we
>   modify the direction this government takes based on international
>   public opinion. However, if we are going to succeed in a global
>   media market, we must understand that we can utilize a different
>   phrase or a different word to make a great deal of difference in a
>   foreign land."
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1076471941
>
>3. JUST WHAT THEY NEED
>http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/0210aristide.htm
>   As political unrest grows in Haiti, the United Nations warns of an
>   impending humanitarian crisis and dozens of people are killed,
>   there is some good news for Jean Bertrand Aristide: "Global Market
>   Solutions, which is based in Washington, DC, is rallying to the
>   side of [the] beleaguered Haitian president." The PR firm "has
>   promoted Aristide's willingness to talk with the rebels and
>   commitment to democracy." Robert Maguire, Director of International
>   Affairs & Haiti Programs at Trinity College, says "the underlying
>   cause [of the recent violence] is both economic and political."
>   Amnesty International called on "all actors, whether in government,
>   opposition parties or in armed groups... to halt the breakdown in
>   the rule of law."
>SOURCE: O Dwyer's PR Daily, February 10, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/February_2004.html#1076389200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1076389200
>
>4. JANET JACKSON "RAISES THE BAR" FOR PR
>http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=39756
>   "For those in the business of masterminding public-relations
>   stunts... Janet Jackson's big expose during CBS's airing of the
>   Super Bowl has raised a serious issue: how to top it," reports
>   Claire Atkinson for Advertising Age. Desiree Gruber, whose firm
>   Full Picture handles PR for Lisa Marie Presley and Arnold
>   Schwarzenegger, agreed that the uproar is benefiting Jackson.
>   "Janet is a brand, just as much as Frito-Lay is... She sells and
>   she sells directly to the public," she explained. Sometimes more
>   directly than others.
>SOURCE: Advertising Age, February 9, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1076302801
>
>5. LOSING HEARTS AND MINDS
>http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0209/dailyUpdate.html?s=entt
>   In Margaret Tutwiler's first public appearance as the State
>   Department's public diplomacy head, she admitted that America's
>   international standing has fallen so far that "many years of hard,
>   focused work" are needed to restore it. This week, the al-Hurra
>   ("Free One") network begins broadcasting from Virginia. The $62
>   million project will tell "the truth about the values and the
>   policies of the United States" to Middle Eastern countries and
>   overcome "hateful propaganda... in the Muslim world," according to
>   George Bush. Aljazeera reports that its new competitor has already
>   been discounted. "Until the United States does something about [the
>   Palestinian situation], all the PR in the world will not make a
>   difference," said Richard Curtiss of the Washington Report on
>   Middle East Affairs.
>SOURCE: Christian Science Monitor, February 9, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/February_2004.html#1076302800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1076302800
>
>6. VOICES AT THE CRASH SITE
>http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2004/02/07/crash_site.html
>   What went wrong in the Howard Dean campaign, which looked like a
>   winner until voters showed up at the primaries? Maybe Dean was
>   never really ahead, says Clay Shirky. A senior Dean campaign aide
>   agrees: "Even though we looked like an 800-pound gorilla, we were
>   still growing up. We were like the big lanky teenager that looked
>   like a grown man." And why did the media think otherwise? According
>   to Jay Rosen, "the way campaign coverage was organized helped
>   inflate and sustain a news bubble. ... The press bubble was blown
>   around the figure, 'front runner in Iowa and New Hampshire,' a
>   narrative device activated by Dean's poll numbers and bank
>   account."
>SOURCE: PressThink, February 7, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/February_2004.html#1076130000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1076130000
>
>7. A HARD SELL
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17593-2004Feb5.html
>   "You've heard a lot of Halliburton lately. Criticism is okay. We
>   can take it." Thus opens a new television ad, part of the oil and
>   gas services company's first public PR campaign. With the slogan
>   "Proud To Serve Our Troops," Halliburton hopes to overcome negative
>   "war profiteer" charges stemming from reports of kickbacks,
>   overcharging for gas and food in Iraq, and no-bid government
>   contracts. "Halliburton gets beaten up every day by people who
>   don't have the facts," said company spokesperson Wendy Hall. The PR
>   campaign seems to echo talking points in a leaked 2003 company
>   memo, in which CEO David Lesar asked employees to write letters
>   stressing that "Halliburton makes our troops more comfortable in a
>   difficult environment."
>SOURCE: Washington Post, February 6, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/February_2004.html#1076043600
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1076043600
>
>8. MAD COW SPREADING IN USA FOR A DECADE
>http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/107598594853210.xml
>   "Mad cow disease probably has been established in North America for
>   more than a decade, and Americans should be prepared for the
>   discovery of more domestic cases as it spreads through herds. A
>   panel of international experts released these findings Wednesday to
>   U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, also urging the Department
>   of Agriculture to toughen protections put into place following the
>   Dec. 23 discovery of an infected Holstein in Washington state.
>   Those protections, while helpful, are not sufficient to keep mad
>   cow disease from spreading further, or 'amplifying,' within the
>   North American herd, the researchers concluded. 'We need more, much
>   more,' said Ulrich Kihm, a Swiss scientist who led the advisory
>   panel. 'If we don't accept and implement measures -- strong
>   measures --then we have this amplification cycle going on and on.'
>   ... Kihm also said he disagreed with a study from the Harvard
>   Center for Risk Analysis concluding that existing precautions, such
>   as the feed ban, had arrested the spread of mad cow and eventually
>   would eradicate the disease. 'The disease will spread, spread all
>   over the place' if no additional steps are taken, he said."
>SOURCE: Oregonian, February 5, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/February_2004.html#1075957200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1075957200
>
>9. SAME MONEY POLITICS. LESS ACCOUNTABILITY.
>http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB107594922670921444,00.html?mod=mm%5Fhs%5Fadvertising
>   "Same Medicare. More Benefits." is the theme of a publicly-funded
>   $12.6 million advertising effort promoting the new Medicare law.
>   Critics of the ad campaign include Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy
>   and the conservative National Taxpayers Union, who called it "an
>   election-year ploy." The Wall Street Journal reports that National
>   Media, a firm already working for the Bush/Cheney campaign, is
>   getting a piece of the new ad campaign pie. Firm partner Alex
>   Castellanos "is well-known for creating sharp attack ads" including
>   the one "in 2000 that subtly flashed the word 'RATS'" over Al
>   Gore's picture. MoveOn.org is urging CBS, which plans to broadcast
>   the Medicare ads, to "either pull the White House ads or run ours."
>SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/February_2004.html#1075870800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1075870800
>
>10. LOBBYING MAKES DC A PR CAPITAL
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4354-2004Feb1.html
>   Everyone from the highway construction industry to the mining
>   industry, environmental groups and the healthcare and tobacco
>   industry has a stake in Washington politics. As a result, reports
>   the Washington Post, "Pasting ads all over Capitol Hill has become
>   a big business -- so big that Washington is the nation's
>   second-largest public relations market after New York, even though
>   the District is only the 21st-largest city in the country, behind
>   places like Phoenix, Memphis and Milwaukee."
>SOURCE: Washington Post, February 1, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1075611600
>
>
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>
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