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[eccr] The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Wed Mar 17 09:55:03 GMT 2004
>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, March 17, 2004
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. Testing Like Mad
>2. INC Fed Media False Stories
>3. Not a Real Journalist, but Playing One on TV
>4. Occupation Is Sell
>5. Ringing the Bell for Democracy
>6. Democracy for Sale
>7. Stern's Schwing Voters
>8. Lost in Translation
>9. Because You're Mine, I Walk the Line
>10. E-voting Fails the Beta Test
>11. It's a Small Workforce, After All
>12. Log Cabin Republicans Come Out Against Bush's Marriage Amendment
>13. Can't See the Forest for the Forest Fuels
>14. Some Spies Saw Through the Lies & Blew the Whistle
>15. Another WMD Post-mortem
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. TESTING LIKE MAD
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61585-2004Mar15.html
> The U.S. Department of Agriculture, "under fire for the way it has
> handled the discovery of mad cow disease" in the U.S., announced
> plans to test hundreds of thousands of cattle over a 12 to 18 month
> period. USDA Chief Veterinary Officer Ron DeHaven indicated the
> goal was 201,000 to 268,000 cattle, but later admitted: "For me to
> predict how many samples we will be able to collect in a new
> program that we don't have any experience from would simply be a
> wild guess." Japanese officials said the new testing was not
> sufficient to lift their ban on U.S. beef. In Britain, "a sensible
> precautionary measure" was passed blocking anyone who received a
> transfusion since 1980 from donating blood. In December, a death
> from vCJD, the human form of mad cow disease, was traced to an
> infected blood donor.
>SOURCE: The Washington Post, March 16, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1079413201
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1079413201
>
>2. INC FED MEDIA FALSE STORIES
>http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/8197503.htm
> "The former Iraqi exile group that gave the Bush administration
> exaggerated and fabricated intelligence on Iraq also fed much of
> the same information to newspapers, news agencies and magazines in
> the United States, Britain and Australia," Knight Ridder reports.
> "A June 26, 2002, letter from the Iraqi National Congress to the
> Senate Appropriations Committee listed 108 articles based on
> information provided by the Iraqi National Congress's Information
> Collection Program, a U.S.-funded effort to collect intelligence in
> Iraq. The Information Collection Program was financed out of the at
> least $18 million that the U.S. Congress approved for the Iraqi
> National Congress, led by Ahmed Chalabi, now a member of the Iraqi
> Governing Council, from 1999 to 2003. The group remains on the
> Pentagon's payroll. The assertions in the articles reinforced
> President Bush's claims that Saddam Hussein should be ousted
> because he was in league with Osama bin Laden, was developing
> nuclear weapons and was hiding biological and chemical weapons."
>SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, March 16, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1079413200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1079413200
>
>3. NOT A REAL JOURNALIST, BUT PLAYING ONE ON TV
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/15/politics/15VIDE.html?th
> Since the December passage of the Medicare bill, "there have been a
> lot of questions about how the law will help older Americans and
> people with disabilities. Reporter Karen Ryan helps sort through
> the details." This is the suggested lead in for local stations
> running new video news releases prepared by the Department of
> Health and Human Services. The spots have aired in Okalahoma,
> Louisiana and other states, without any indication of their source
> or disclaimer that "reporter" Karen Ryan is actually an employee of
> Home Front Communications reading "a script prepared by the
> government." An HHS spokesperson correctly notes that VNRs are "a
> common, routine practice in government and the private sector";
> studies have estimated that up to 40 percent of "the news" comes
> from VNRs and other forms of PR. VNRs "became more prominent in the
> 1980's, as more and more television stations cut news-gathering
> budgets."
>SOURCE: The New York Times, March 15, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1079326800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1079326800
>
>4. OCCUPATION IS SELL
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56474-2004Mar13.html
> The White House is marking "this Friday's first anniversary of the
> invasion of Iraq with a week-long media blitz arguing that the
> overthrow of Saddam Hussein was essential to combating global
> terrorism and making the United States safer." Another goal is to
> set "realistic expectations" for the rebuilding of Iraq. The media
> outreach includes "a show-and-tell" with Libyan centrifuge parts,
> TV coverage marking the 1988 gassing of Kurds in Halabja on two
> U.S. government stations broadcasting to the Middle East, and a
> four hour debate on a resolution before the House of
> Representatives saying "that the world is better off without
> Hussein in power."
>SOURCE: The Washington Post, March 14, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1079240400
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1079240400
>
>5. RINGING THE BELL FOR DEMOCRACY
>http://www.holmesreport.com/holmestemp/story.cfm?edit_id=4138&typeid=1
> The Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq has selected British PR
> firm Bell Pottinger Communications to promote the establishment of
> democracy, according to PR trade publication the Holmes Report. The
> large-scale $5.8 million PR campaign will precede the transition of
> government to Iraqis in June. The firm is headed by Lord Bell, a
> Conservative who masterminded Margaret Thatcher's rise to power in
> 1979. Lord Bell told the UK's Independent that the message would be
> that democracy was "the route to peace and prosperity," adding,
> "There's no Arab word for democracy. That's one of the
> difficulties. If you say, 'Isn't democracy wonderful?' and they
> don't have a word for it, then it is not surprising that they do
> not have the same view." The campaign will use TV, print, outdoor
> posters, leaflets and town hall meetings to get its message out.
> The Dubai-based advertising agency Bates PanGulf and the media
> services company Balloch & Roe, which already has offices in
> Baghdad, will also be working on the account.
>SOURCE: The Holmes Report, March 13, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1079154001
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1079154001
>
>6. DEMOCRACY FOR SALE
>http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=500711
> Documents released in response to a Freedom of Information Act
> request revealed that, in 2002, the U.S. gave more than a million
> dollars to Venezuelan political groups opposing President Hugo
> Chavez, via the National Endowment for Democracy. Jeremy Bigwood, a
> freelance reporter who obtained the documents, remarked: "This
> repeats a pattern started in Nicaragua in the election of 1990 when
> [the U.S.] spent $20 per voter to get rid of [Sandinista President
> Daniel] Ortega. It's done in the name of democracy but it's rather
> hypocritical." In April 2002, Chavez was briefly ousted by his
> U.S.-supported opponents. He now faces a possible recall referendum
> and violent street demonstrations, in which at least eight people
> have died.
>SOURCE: The Independent, March 13, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1079154000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1079154000
>
>7. STERN'S SCHWING VOTERS
>http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/03/12/stern/
> Declaring a "radio jihad" against President Bush, radio shock jock
> Howard Stern "has emerged almost overnight as the most influential
> Bush critic in all of American broadcasting," writes Eric Boehlert,
> "as he rails against the president hour after hour, day after day
> to a weekly audience of 8 million listeners. Never before has a
> Republican president come under such withering attack from a radio
> talk-show host with the influence and national reach Stern has."
>SOURCE: Salon.com, March 12, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1079067602
>
>8. LOST IN TRANSLATION
>http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/columnists/ny-livit0312,0,3618648.column?coll=ny-li-columnists
> "It is the not-so-secret secret of every presidential campaign that
> most crowds at most campaign stops are so much stage prop," writes
> Paul Vitello. Case in point: George Bush's visit to U.S.A.
> Industries in Bay Shore, Long Island, NY on Thursday. Bush "gave
> his speech... in front of a sign that said 'Strengthening America's
> Economy'." It was only after Bush left that reporters could
> interview the audience -- many of whom spoke little or no English
> -- "the work force of a small auto parts factory whose owner has
> received tax breaks from the Republican-run state and town
> governments, and who employs large numbers of non-English speaking
> immigrants happy to work for $6 to $9 an hour with few benefits."
>SOURCE: Newsday, March 12, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1079067601
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1079067601
>
>9. BECAUSE YOU'RE MINE, I WALK THE LINE
>http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/la-na-reelect12mar12,1,7430989.story?coll=la-politics-pointers
> Not unexpectedly, months of high-profile Bush-bashing by Democratic
> presidential contenders haven't helped the Bush campaign. "On the
> Democratic side, you saw pictures of their campaigns busy with guys
> out in their shirt-sleeves, yelling and screaming and working hard.
> Our guys were Bush and Cheney going to hotel dining rooms [for
> fundraisers]," observed a "prominent Republican in one swing
> state." Eric Dezenhall, a Reagan administration PR person and
> President of Dezenhall Resources, a PR firm specializing in
> countering activist groups, is concerned about the Bush campaign's
> use of 9/11 imagery. "There is a tissue-thin line that separates
> braggadocio from appropriate sentimentality," warned Dezenhall. And
> if Bush appears to be on the wrong side of that line? "Backlash."
>SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, March 12, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1079067600
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1079067600
>
>10. E-VOTING FAILS THE BETA TEST
>http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,62627,00.html
> California legislators want to stop the use of all paperless
> electronic voting machines in the state, fearing the same type of
> fiasco that plagued Florida in the 2000 election. State Sens. Don
> Perata (D-Oakland) and Ross Johnson (R-Irvine), the chairman and
> vice chairman of the Senate election committee, have written a
> letter to Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, urging him to decertify
> all paperless touch-screen voting machines before the general
> election. The March 2 primary "was a test-flight of widespread use
> of these machines. I think it's fair to say the test flight crashed
> and burned," said Perata. The senators cited malfunctions in
> e-voting machines that resulted in voters being turned away from
> the polls, ballots being cast for the wrong legislative districts,
> and numerous delays. "The existing generation of machines are no
> better than beta test machines," said Tom Stanionis, data
> processing manager for Yolo County's election division, adding that
> elections should not be a test-bed for vendors to work out problems
> with their machines.
>SOURCE: Wired, March 11, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1078981201
>
>11. IT'S A SMALL WORKFORCE, AFTER ALL
>http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/0311reuters.htm
> It's "not outsourcing... it's simply moving the work" explained
> Reuters' global managing editor about the news service's hiring six
> reporters in Bangalore, India to cover small and mid-size U.S.
> companies. In Congress, Republicans are touting "insourcing," or
> foreign companies hiring U.S. citizens. "You can't get upset about
> outsourcing without considering the benefits of insourcing," said
> the director of the Organization for International Investment
> (OFII), a trade group representing the U.S. subsidiaries of large
> international companies like Toyota, Nestle and Siemens. OFII
> coined the term "insourcing" after considering alternatives like
> "onshoring." And the Bush administration's leading candidate for
> manufacturing czar, Tony Raimondo, withdrew from consideration
> after it was revealed he had outsourced, offshored, or simply moved
> some of his company's manufacturing jobs to China.
>SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily, March 11, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1078981200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1078981200
>
>12. LOG CABIN REPUBLICANS COME OUT AGAINST BUSH'S MARRIAGE AMENDMENT
>http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/0310wc.htm
> "Witeck-Combs Communications is helping the Log Cabin Republicans,
> a band of GOP members who support gay rights, with a wide-reaching
> PR and ad campaign to fight their own party on a constitutional
> amendment which would ban gay marriage," O'Dwyer's PR Daily
> reports. "The Log Cabiners will kick off a $1 million ad campaign
> -- the first ad blitz in the group's 27-years -- March 11 across
> the Washington, D.C., area and several swing states like Ohio,
> Florida and Wisconsin. The overall campaign begins today with
> lobbying and PR efforts in D.C., along with grassroots work and the
> revamp of the group's website, logcabin.org. A print ad campaign is
> also planned. Colleen Dermody, VP at W-C, said her firm has
> specialized in gay and lesbian marketing and PR work, advising
> companies like IBM and Ford on issues related to that group. She
> noted that W-C has generally been associated with left-of-center
> groups in the past and the current work for the Log Cabiners is its
> first for that group."
>SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily, March 10, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1078894803
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1078894803
>
>13. CAN'T SEE THE FOREST FOR THE FOREST FUELS
>http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/03/10/BAG295HLG71.DTL
> In an "unusual, if not unprecedented" move, the U.S. Forest Service
> paid the San Francisco-based PR firm OneWorld Communications
> $90,000 to promote its controversial Sierra Nevada forest
> management plan. In a leaked memo, OneWorld suggested the slogan
> "Forests With A Future" to promote the plan, which will triple
> commercial logging and allow larger trees to be cut. A Forest
> Service spokesperson said the PR firm was hired to help "convey the
> enormous dangers California faces if our current inability to
> reduce forest fuels continues." The director of the Sierra Nevada
> Forest Protection Campaign commented: "They can't defend their
> work, so they had to hire a bunch of spin doctors to do it."
>SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, March 10, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1078894802
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1078894802
>
>14. SOME SPIES SAW THROUGH THE LIES & BLEW THE WHISTLE
>http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2004/03/03_400.html
> "When David Kay, the CIA's former chief weapons inspector in Iraq,
> announced earlier this year that his team had found no stockpiled
> weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he touched off an explosion of
> blame, finger-pointing, denial, and hasty 'clarifications' about
> the extent and accuracy of the intelligence that the Bush
> Administration used to buttress its decision to invade Iraq. Kay's
> startling conclusion, though, came as no surprise to many analysts
> in the U.S. intelligence community -- particularly the members of a
> self-described 'movement' of some 35 retired and resigned
> high-level U.S. intelligence operatives. The group, 'Veteran
> Intelligence Professionals for Sanity,' has produced some of the
> most credible, and critical, analyses of the Bush Administration's
> handling of intelligence data in the run-up to the March, 2003
> invasion of Iraq."
>SOURCE: Mother Jones, March 10, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1078894801
>
>15. ANOTHER WMD POST-MORTEM
>http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000456632
> The Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland has
> published a new study on "Media Coverage of Weapons of Mass
> Destruction," and the picture isn't pretty. "Most media outlets
> represented WMD as a monolithic menace, failing to adequately
> distinguish between weapons programs and actual weapons or to
> address the real differences among chemical, biological, nuclear,
> and radiological weapons," the report states. "Most journalists
> accepted the Bush administration's formulation of the 'War on
> Terror' as a campaign against WMD, in contrast to coverage during
> the Clinton era, when many journalists made careful distinctions
> between acts of terrorism and the acquisition and use of WMD. Many
> stories stenographically reported the incumbent administration's
> perspective on WMD, giving too little critical examination of the
> way officials framed the events, issues, threats, and policy
> options. Too few stories proffered alternative perspectives to
> official line, a problem exacerbated by the journalistic
> prioritizing of breaking-news stories and the 'inverted pyramid'
> style of storytelling." Nevertheless, it says, "Poor coverage of
> WMD resulted less from political bias on the part of journalists,
> editors, and producers than from tired journalistic conventions."
>SOURCE: Editor and Publisher, March 9, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1078808401
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1078808401
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
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