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[eccr] The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Wed Jul 14 06:48:41 GMT 2004
>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, July 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. Armey's Army Marches for Nader
>2. The Blog Is The Message
>3. Censorious or Sensitive?
>4. Of Foxes and Guerrillas
>5. A Funny Way To Show You Care
>6. Bypassing the Broadcast Media
>7. Ad Infinitum
>8. Oppose the Status Quo, but Don't Change
>9. Deceptive Defectors
>10. Revenge of the Teletubbies
>11. Mega Mediasaurus
>12. The Importance of Timing
>13. How Conspiracy Theories Took Us To War
>14. High-rise Blitz
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. ARMEY'S ARMY MARCHES FOR NADER
>http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR071304.htm
> "Citizens for a Sound Economy, a national organization led by
> former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R., Texas), is widening
> its efforts to help presidential candidate Ralph Nader get on the
> ballot in pivotal states. A recent news release from the
> corporate-backed group says it plans to pursue those efforts 'in
> key battleground states like Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan,
> Pennsylvania and elsewhere.' John Stauber, founder and executive
> director of the Center for Media and Democracy, said today: 'The
> Republican machine is mobilizing for Nader. Major Republican
> funders are sending checks to Nader, and a far-right
> industry-funded front group, Citizens for a Sound Economy, is
> organizing to get Ralph on the November ballot in a number of swing
> states. Nader, the sworn enemy of corporate power and influence,
> has become its not-so-secret weapon for the November election.' "
>SOURCE: Institute for Public Accuracy news release, July 13, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1089691200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1089691200
>
>2. THE BLOG IS THE MESSAGE
>http://www.globalprblogweek.com/archives/jay_rosen_pr_needs_t.php
> "Public relations should first understand that to the extent that
> its art is a form of 'spin' - whether it's reasonable spin,
> accepted spin, good spin, bad spin, terrible spin - it is selling a
> service for which there is less and less value, and less mind is
> paid to it. Spin was possible in the era of few-to-many media, and
> a small number of gatekeepers who could be spun," media critic and
> Press Think blogger Jay Rosen tells Micro Presuasion blogger Steve
> Rubel, who also takes part in Global PR Blog Week 1.0, an online
> forum on PR and blogs. With the rise of participatory journalism,
> which has been facilitated by the Internet and weblogs, Rosen says
> journalistic bloggers create a "second wave" effect that has an
> impact on the traditional press. "A little orchestra of
> interpreters instantly comes along and does something to
> journalism, plays back its significance, but first editing out all
> the noise. It's like a reply. Smart journalists are tuning into
> that because its an intelligent use of their work - and a departure
> point, a place where criticism flashes," Rosen says.
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1089673543
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1089673543
>
>3. CENSORIOUS OR SENSITIVE?
>http://nytimes.com/2004/07/12/nyregion/12billboard.html
> Clear Channel Communications refused to display a peace group's
> billboard ad in New York's Times Square during the Republican
> Convention. The ad features a red, white and blue bomb graphic with
> the words "Democracy Is Best Taught by Example, Not by War." The
> peace group says Clear Channel also rejected their alternative ad,
> in which a dove replaced the bomb graphic. (Clear Channel says they
> found the dove ad acceptable.) A Clear Channel marketing executive
> explained that New Yorkers "are extremely sensitive to references
> to war." A peace group spokesperson remarked, "I guess we can have
> a war, but we can't talk about it."
>SOURCE: New York Times, July 12, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1089604800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1089604800
>
>4. OF FOXES AND GUERRILLAS
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/11/magazine/11FOX.html
> Robert Greenwald employs "a 'guerrilla' method of documentary
> filmmaking, creating timely political films on short schedules and
> small budgets and then promoting and selling them ... through
> partnerships with grass-roots political organizations like
> MoveOn.org." His latest, "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on
> Journalism," includes "interviews with former Fox employees, leaked
> policy memos ... and extensive footage from Fox News, which
> Greenwald is using without the network's permission." Greenwald
> worked with "a team of media volunteers ... who monitored Fox News
> 24 hours a day for months." While praising "Outfoxed," Don Hazen
> asks, "Do we run the danger of making Fox News appear more powerful
> than it is?" In any case, Fox News has gone ballistic over the
> film. If you want to see it, MoveOn is sponsoring screenings at
> theaters and house parties throughout the United States.
>SOURCE: New York Times, July 11, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1089518401
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1089518401
>
>5. A FUNNY WAY TO SHOW YOU CARE
>http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/9127309.htm
> GOP pollster Frank Luntz's advice against 1998 rookie Senate
> candidate John Edwards - "it's almost impossible to go too far when
> it comes to demonizing lawyers" - wasn't successful, but Luntz
> remains influential. Molly Ivins writes that Luntz is now focusing
> on women undecided voters. Noting that many women feel pressured,
> he advises, "It's not about issues, it's about empathy. They have
> to know that you care." After Bush administration attacks on family
> leave, Head Start, services for domestic violence survivors, equal
> pay and anti-discrimination law enforcement, Ivins wonders "how
> Bush could convince 'the ladies' that he has helped take stress out
> of their lives."
>SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer, July 11, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1089518400
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1089518400
>
>6. BYPASSING THE BROADCAST MEDIA
>http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/001466.php
> "In the strongest evidence to date that Americans are routinely
> using the Internet to bypass traditional media, a new report finds
> that about one quarter of Net users say they go online to find news
> coverage and images they can't get from the mainstream media. Net
> users say they have sought out graphic Iraq war images in
> particular."
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1089446477
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1089446477
>
>7. AD INFINITUM
>http://livingroomcandidate.movingimage.us/election/index.php?nav_action=election&nav_subaction=overview&campaign_id=174
> If you're interested in reliving the TV advertisements from
> previous presidential elections, the American Museum of the Moving
> Image has put together an archive featuring every ad from every
> election since TV first infected politics in 1952. Our favorite is
> "Failure," a 1968 ad by candidate Richard Nixon. Campaigning
> against the Democrats for leading America into Vietnam, the Nixon
> ad asks, "How can a party that lets the country get bogged down in
> an endless war against a fourth rate military power promise
> anything but decades of conflict?" Pretty good question, huh?
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1089445158
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1089445158
>
>8. OPPOSE THE STATUS QUO, BUT DON'T CHANGE
>http://news.findlaw.com/news/s/20040709/madcowfdadc.html
> The Food and Drug Administration "banned brains and other cattle
> parts that could carry mad cow disease from use in cosmetics and
> dietary supplements, but delayed some similar safeguards in animal
> feed for up to two years." In January, Health and Human Services
> Secretary Tommy Thompson proposed an "interim final rule" (first
> discussed in 2002) to strengthen animal feed regulations. "We must
> never be satisfied with the status quo," he said. But new feed
> regulations have now been downgraded to an "advance notice of
> proposed rulemaking," which delays possible implementation. Today,
> Thompson explained, "We cannot be content with the status quo."
>SOURCE: Reuters, July 9, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1089345601
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1089345601
>
>9. DECEPTIVE DEFECTORS
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/09/politics/09defe.html
> Iraqi defectors who stepped forward with stories about Saddam
> Hussein's weapons of mass destruction were coached by senior
> figures in Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, according to a
> former INC field leader. To back up his claim, Muhammad al-Zubaidi
> has provided provided his handwritten diaries from 2001 and 2002,
> and his existing reports on the statements originally made by the
> defectors. "According to the documents," writes Jim Dwyer, "the
> defectors, while speaking with precision about aspects of Iraqi
> military facilities like its stock of missiles, did not initially
> make some of the most provocative claims about weapons production
> or that an Iraqi official had met with Mr. bin Laden." According to
> Zubaidi, "They intentionally exaggerated all the information so
> they would drag the United States into war. ... I don't want to
> criticize U.S. agencies, but it's strange that the U.S. with all
> its powerful agencies, the C.I.A., could not manage to know the
> truth from the lies in these people."
>SOURCE: New York Times, July 9, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1089345600
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1089345600
>
>10. REVENGE OF THE TELETUBBIES
>http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0708/p11s01-wmgn.html
> "When a beautiful girl walks up to you, and she's wearing the TV
> commercial on her chest, you just can't get away from it," enthused
> Adam Hollander, head of The Brand Marketers and creator of T-Shirt
> TV. The shirts contain speakers and 11-inch TV screens, which can
> show video ads, flash animation or slides. T-Shirt TVs worn by
> "aggressively friendly" young women will be part of a 10 city
> marketing campaign for the movie "I, Robot." Advertising executive
> David Helm commented, "Advertising is obnoxious so that it gets
> attention. And then that doesn't work anymore, so it gets more
> obnoxious."
>SOURCE: Christian Science Monitor, July 8, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1089259200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1089259200
>
>11. MEGA MEDIASAURUS
>http://www.metropulse.com/dir_zine/dir_2004/1428/t_cover.html
> Conservatives and liberals alike are concerned by growing media
> consolidation, notes Jack Bradigan Spula, but he warns that "this
> outrage is being channeled into a national debate about
> 'indecency,' 'values' and moral policing." The Federal
> Communications Commission, headed by Michael Powell, recently
> announced large fines for broadcasters whose programming is deemed
> indecent. The problem is that the large fines will still be just a
> drop in the bucket for large networks but "will burden small
> independents disproportionately - and thus tilt the playing field
> even more to mega-corporate advantage." Monty Pythonite Eric Idle
> has commented on the trend with a song dedicated to the FCC.
> (Warning: It contains profanity. Idle says that at $5,000 per
> F-word, his song will cost half a million in fines to any station
> that broadcasts it.)
>SOURCE: Metro Pulse (Knoxville, TN), July 7, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1089172801
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1089172801
>
>12. THE IMPORTANCE OF TIMING
>http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040719&s=aaj071904
> Wondering why the Bush administration only "significantly increased
> its pressure on Pakistan to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, his
> deputy, Ayman Al Zawahiri, or the Taliban's Mullah Mohammed Omar"
> this spring, The New Republic interviewed Pakistani security
> officials. One member of Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services
> Intelligence said, "The Pakistani government ... wants to flush out
> bin Laden and his associates after the latest pressures from the
> U.S. administration to deliver before the U.S. elections." Another
> ISI official claimed that a White House aide told ISI's director,
> "It would be best if the arrest or killing of [High Value Targets]
> were announced on 26, 27 or 28 July" - during the Democratic
> National Convention.
>SOURCE: The New Republic, July 7, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1089172800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1089172800
>
>13. HOW CONSPIRACY THEORIES TOOK US TO WAR
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1254072,00.html
> Peter Bergen, a professor of international studies and author of a
> recent book about Osama Bin Laden, takes a look at Laurie Mylroie
> of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), whose theory that Iraq
> was behind Al Qaeda exerted strong influence on the Bush
> administration's decision for war. "She is a conspiracy theorist
> whose political conceits have consistently been proved wrong,"
> Bergen says. "So why were Bush and his aides so keen to swallow
> Laurie Mylroie's theories on Saddam and terrorism?" Juan Cole, a
> professor of Middle East studies, says part of the answer lies in
> the role that think tanks like AEI play in pushing ideas forward:
> "In the academic world," Cole observes, "we don't get to publish
> our books at academic presses without peer review. When Princeton
> University Press considered my book, written out of the Egyptian
> National Archives, on the 19th century Urabi Revolt, the editor
> sent the manuscript to eminent experts in 19th century Egyptian
> history. Now, I lived in the Arab world for 6 years, have a degree
> in Arabic studies from Cairo, and had a Fulbright grant for my
> research. I spent a year working almost daily in the archives in
> Cairo. I had an academic position in a major department at a major
> university. But Princeton University Press did not trust me. They
> still had the book refereed. In contrast, the American Enterprise
> Institute publishes anything Mylroie hands into them, no matter how
> fantastic. She does not speak Arabic, has never been in any Iraqi
> archive, and has no standing in the Middle East field. Her books
> don't have to be refereed, apparently. ... And then the mere fact
> of the book's existence can become a reference-point in political
> debate. ... I guess if you have the backing of enough incredibly
> rich people, you can get away with almost anything."
>SOURCE: Guardian (UK), July 5, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1089000001
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1089000001
>
>14. HIGH-RISE BLITZ
>http://www.sfexaminer.com/article/index.cfm/i/070504n_condos
> Ed McGovern, a Democratic political consultant in the San Francisco
> Bay area, is helping local developer Glenborough-Pauls as the
> company fights environmentalists opposed to a controversial
> condominium project. The PR campaign, calling itself the "Know All
> the Facts Coalition," is using print advertising and bringing
> together union representatives, elected officials and government
> employees in an effort to stymie a petition drive that seeks to
> halt the project.
>SOURCE: San Francisco Examiner, July 5, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1089000000
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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