[eccr] The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, July 28, 2004

>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, July 28, 2004
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>The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. Trading Places
>2. CIA's Favorite PR Firm, Rendon Group, Rocks The DNC
>3. A Different Kind of Workplace Organizing
>4. US Army Needs A Few Good Ideas
>5. Democratic National Ritual 2004
>6. Asking for Trouble
>7. Conventional Coverage
>8. Friends in High Places
>9. Lobbying for Solitude, Oil
>10. Not-So-Democratic Convention
>11. Past Entanglements and Present Dangers
>12. Compassionate Conventions
>13. 9/11 Commission Uses Edelman For PR Work
>14. When Is A Terrorist A Terrorist?
>15. Bending Like a Reed in the Wind
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. TRADING PLACES
>http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/26/1090693902122.html
>   "Two senior United States trade negotiators who sealed the trade
>   deal with Australia have accepted plum jobs representing U.S.
>   medical and drug companies," reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
>   Ralph Ives, the current U.S. trade representative for
>   pharmaceutical policy, will become the industry group AdvaMed's
>   vice-president for global strategy. Claude Burcky, head U.S.
>   negotiator for intellectual property trade issues, will become
>   Abbott Laboratories' director of global government affairs. "This
>   may help explain why the Australian trade agreement is designed to
>   undercut access to affordable medicines for Americans and
>   Australians alike," said U.S. Representative Sherrod Brown. Wexler
>   and Walker Public Policy Associates, an independent unit of PR firm
>   Hill & Knowlton, lobbied on behalf of U.S. businesses in support of
>   the American-Australian Free Trade Agreement.
>SOURCE: Sydney Morning Herald, July 27, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090900800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1090900800
>
>2. CIA'S FAVORITE PR FIRM, RENDON GROUP, ROCKS THE DNC
>http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/0726rendon.htm
>   The CIA's favorite PR firm, "the Rendon Group is playing a major
>   behind-the-scenes role at the Democratic National Convention in
>   Boston, arranging first-time/real-time video broadcasts each
>   morning to each of the 56 caucuses, serving as the event's project
>   manager, and coordinating 20 convention-related events, Rick
>   Rendon, co-founder of the firm, told O'Dwyer's. Rendon hired
>   Polycom Video Systems to set up secure servers in 22 hotels so
>   leading Democrats can address each caucus at their 8 a.m. breakfast
>   for a 'virtual convention.' ... Rendon said the Boston convention
>   will mark the first time that each delegation will be connected in
>   real-time. 'I remember how hard it was to speak to the different
>   delegations when I worked for Jimmy Carter,' said Rendon. TRG has
>   or will run 20 convention events, ranging from an educational
>   reception for young female Democrats featuring former Texas
>   Governor Ann Richards to the 'Rock the Vote' concert. An Associated
>   Press July 25 photo featured TRG staffer Jim King giving John
>   Kerry's daughters Vanessa and Alexandra a tour of the FleetCenter.
>   King is one of TRG's 'lean and mean' convention team, said Rendon.
>   'It's been crazy,' he added."
>SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily, July 26, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090814405
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1090814405
>
>3. A DIFFERENT KIND OF WORKPLACE ORGANIZING
>http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=41124
>   "The Business Industry Political Action Committee's 'Prosperity
>   Project' program targets 20 million employees in battleground
>   states" and "pushes their companies' views of political candidates
>   to employees via Web sites and interoffice e-mails," reports
>   Advertising Age. BIPAC "is especially concerned about confirmation
>   of pro-business judges and has focused most of its attention on
>   congressional races." BIPAC president Greg Casey said his group
>   tells workers "how the issues impact them," but doesn't tell them
>   how to vote. Casey also said that John Kerry "is not a business
>   candidate. He hasn't even pretend [sic] to be."
>SOURCE: Advertising Age, July 26, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090814404
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1090814404
>
>4. US ARMY NEEDS A FEW GOOD IDEAS
>http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=41118#
>   The U.S. Army's $200 million advertising account is in review.
>   According to the trade journal Advertising Age, the five-year-old
>   "Army of One" tagline may be "out of touch" with the reality of
>   war. The Army will use its ad campaign as its most public face as
>   it tries to recruit 80,000 new soldiers next year. But the Army has
>   to be "careful," Evan Wright, a Rolling Stone journalist and author
>   of Generation Kill. Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America and the New
>   Face of American War, told Advertising Age. "It really damages
>   morale if they do a bait and switch," Wright said. The Army sells
>   "kids on this idea of playing with really cool guns, machines,
>   tanks, radios and computers, that they will have so much high
>   technology they'll be an 'Army of One.'" But the primary images of
>   war, according to Wright, "are burning Army Humvees. In the field,
>   the technology doesn't seem so cool." The Army says its advertising
>   is "based on real-life stories. ... If you look at our '2400/7'
>   series [of ads], it demonstrates what soldiers are doing in their
>   jobs. It's reality TV. We don't use actors. Our research tells us
>   that these kids want to know what the deal is."
>SOURCE: Advertising Age, July 26, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090814403
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1090814403
>
>5. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL RITUAL 2004
>http://www.therevealer.org/archives/main_story_000583.php
>   In his essay, "A Cultural Approach to Communication," Columbia
>   University journalism professor James W. Carey identifies two views
>   of communication -- "transmission" and "ritual." In Carey's words,
>   the "ritual view" is communication "linked to terms such as
>   'sharing,' 'participation,' 'association,' 'fellowship,' and the
>   'possession of a common faith.' ... A ritual view of communication
>   is directed not toward the extension of messages in space but
>   toward the maintenance of society in time." Media critic and
>   academic Jay Rosen describes the "transmission view" as "the most
>   common in our culture. Here communication is equated with the
>   delivery of 'messages' across distance." Rosen, who is covering the
>   Democratic Nation Convention on his weblog PressThink, suggests
>   journalists keep Carey's essay in mind while covering the
>   convention. Why? "Because if you try to understand a political
>   ritual with a transmission view in your head, you will miss much of
>   what's going on. And because at the deepest roots of their
>   thinking, journalists see the transmission of new information as
>   real and important, whereas ritual communication is fake, newsless
>   and ultimately unimportant," Rosen writes.
>SOURCE: The Revealer.org, July 26, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090814402
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1090814402
>
>6. ASKING FOR TROUBLE
>http://www.boston.com/news/politics/conventions/articles/2004/07/26/pbs_anchor_chides_big_3_networks_as_shirking_convention_duty/
>   "Fear has increased in every newsroom in America," said CBS's Dan
>   Rather during a discussion of "The Press and the Election" at
>   Harvard University. That's fear of "a torrent of e-mails and phone
>   calls" complaining about media coverage of controversial issues.
>   Rather said journalists might think, "when you run this story,
>   you're asking for trouble. ... Why run it?" NBC's Tom Brokaw
>   mentioned the Media Research Center and said conservatives "feel
>   they have to go to war against the networks every day." ABC's Peter
>   Jennings added, "I hear more about conservative concerns than I
>   have in the past. ... I feel the presence of anger all the time."
>SOURCE: The Boston Globe, July 26, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090814401
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1090814401
>
>7. CONVENTIONAL COVERAGE
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/26/politics/campaign/26anchors.html
>   PBS anchor Jim Lehrer blasted the major TV networks for limited
>   coverage of the political conventions, since "we're about to elect
>   a president of the United States at a time when we have young
>   people dying in our name overseas, [and] we just had a report from
>   the 9/11 commission which says we are not safe." NBC's Tom Brokaw
>   countered, "These conventions are so managed, so over-managed"
>   there's not much to report. Brokaw complained about Kerry campaign
>   media control, saying, "There is a politburo running this
>   convention." For a joint CBS/NBC interview, campaign "staff wanted
>   the questions to concern Mr. Kerry's expectations for the
>   convention, nothing more" - a request that was "swiftly denied."
>SOURCE: New York Times, July 26, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090814400
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1090814400
>
>8. FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES
>http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/329/7459/189?etoc
>   U.S. Congressman Maurice Hinchey says the Food and Drug
>   Administration's chief counsel "is aggressively intervening against
>   the public on behalf of drug companies and medical device
>   manufacturers" and this "pattern of collusion" has "corrupted [the
>   FDA's] mission to protect the public health." Daniel Troy, who
>   lobbied for drug and tobacco companies before being appointed as
>   USDA counsel, reportedly told drug companies to inform him of
>   lawsuits so that the FDA could strengthen their defense. "Make it
>   sound like a Hollywood pitch," he advised. Troy has filed USDA
>   briefs on behalf of former client Pfizer, SmithKline Beecham
>   Consumer Products and GlaxoSmithKline.
>SOURCE: British Medical Journal, July 24, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090641600
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1090641600
>
>9. LOBBYING FOR SOLITUDE, OIL
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1267572,00.html
>   The Iraqi Kurdish region's "leaders try to project a united front
>   in Baghdad and abroad, but few Kurds in the north or Arabs in the
>   south have forgotten that" the Kurdish Democratic Party and the
>   rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan "spent four of their Saddam-free
>   years fighting a civil war." Now, the KDP "has retained Barbour
>   Griffith & Rogers as its lobbyist to ensure that Iraqi Kurdistan
>   maintains its autonomy" and to push for "the return of oil-rich
>   Kirkuk," reports O'Dwyer's PR Daily. Former Bush I assistant Ed
>   Rogers will be the KDP's chief lobbyist, along with International
>   Republican Institute founder Keith Schuette.
>SOURCE: The Guardian (UK), July 23, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090555201
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1090555201
>
>10. NOT-SO-DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION
>http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/07/23/judge_deplores_but_oks_site_for_protesters/
>   "One cannot conceive of other elements [that could be] put in place
>   to create a space that's more of an affront to the idea of free
>   expression," said U.S. District Judge Douglas Woodlock, after
>   touring the Democratic National Convention's "free speech" protest
>   zone in Boston. The zone is "bordered by cement barriers, a double
>   row of chain-line fencing, heavy black netting, and tightly woven
>   plastic mesh," with "coils of razor wire" along elevated train
>   tracks. A lawyer for activists challenging the zone compared it to
>   "a maximum security prison, Guantanamo Bay, or a zoo" - comparisons
>   Woodlock called "an understatement," although he upheld the zone
>   for security reasons.
>SOURCE: Boston Globe, July 23, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090555200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1090555200
>
>11. PAST ENTANGLEMENTS AND PRESENT DANGERS
>http://daily.nysun.com/Repository/getmailfiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:ArticleToMail&Type=text/html&Path=NYS/2004/07/22&ID=Ar00501
>   One day after the re-re-launch of the Committee on the Present
>   Danger, PR pro Peter Hannaford resigned as its managing director.
>   Several CPD members called for Hannaford's resignation, after it
>   was reported that he lobbied for the political party of Austrian
>   nationalist Joerg Haider, who once commended the "orderly
>   employment policy" of the Third Reich and paid a "solidarity visit"
>   to Saddam Hussein in 2002. Laura Rozen, who broke the story, writes
>   that Hannaford also lobbied for China, Saudi Arabia and Algeria and
>   asks, "Who is funding [the CPD]?" Justin Raimondo suggests that CPD
>   member Hedieh Mirahmadi might also want to resign, given her
>   support of Uzbekistan's leader, who the U.S. is urging to hold
>   elections and end torture.
>SOURCE: New York Sun, July 22, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090468801
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1090468801
>
>12. COMPASSIONATE CONVENTIONS
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/22/nyregion/22volunteers.html
>   "On Saturday, [Republican] convention officials will begin a highly
>   organized nationwide campaign to get volunteers to donate blood,
>   feed the hungry and operate community health fairs. Initially, it
>   will be part of a broader effort to draw attention away from the
>   Democratic National Convention. But the campaign - known as
>   Compassion Across America - will continue at the Republican
>   National Convention," reports Jennifer Steinhauer. She wonders if
>   "here is a television image that organizers of the Republican
>   National Convention are fantasizing about: Protesters clog the area
>   around Madison Square Garden, inconveniencing commuters ... [while]
>   Republican delegates [are] feeding the homeless."
>SOURCE: New York Times, July 22, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090468800
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1090468800
>
>13. 9/11 COMMISSION USES EDELMAN FOR PR WORK
>http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/0720edelman_911commision.htm
>   "The 9/11 Commission will use Edelman PR Worldwide to generate
>   political support for its recommendations on how to beef up U.S.
>   defenses against terrorism," trade publication O'Dwyer's PR Daily
>   reports. Rob Rehg, who runs Edelman's Washington, D.C. office, told
>   O'Dwyer's that the firm "will then conduct an ongoing media
>   campaign pairing the Commissioners two-by-two - one Republican and
>   Democrat - to talk to the media and government officials about the
>   need to put its recommendations into place."
>SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily, July 20, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090296003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1090296003
>
>14. WHEN IS A TERRORIST A TERRORIST?
>http://www.dmregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040718/NEWS01/407180386&SearchID=73178342703448
>   Of the 35 federal terrorism-related cases in Iowa since the Sept.
>   11, 2001 attacks, the Des Moines Register reports that "most
>   defendants had questionable links to violent extremism. Those
>   defendants who could be identified by the newspaper were, in most
>   cases, charged with fraud or theft and served just a few months in
>   jail." Apparently, the "terrorism-related" label has more to do
>   with the type of illegal activity that the suspect is being
>   prosecuted for than evidence of actual terrorist connections or
>   motives. "'Bona fide' terrorism is a matter of semantics,"
>   Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Murphy, who heads the criminal
>   division of the U.S. attorney's office in Cedar Rapids, told the
>   Register. "I don't think you can draw conclusions based on what a
>   person is convicted of." U.S. Senator Charles Grassley (R-Ia.)
>   questioned the rationale of lumping minor crimes under the
>   terrorism label. "When people read that they're doctoring the
>   numbers, aren't they going to have less confidence in the Justice
>   Department and the war on terror?" asked Grassley. "You can't say
>   that somebody's a terrorist when he isn't a terrorist."
>SOURCE: Des Moines Register, July 18, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090123201
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1090123201
>
>15. BENDING LIKE A REED IN THE WIND
>   Former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed's public affairs firm
>   Century Strategies "has raked in millions of dollars by mounting
>   grassroots lobbying drives" for corporations, Republicans and
>   "controversial lobbyists." Reed is also the Bush campaign's
>   southeast regional chair; campaign manager Ken Mehlman called Reed
>   "fabulous" for "outreach to the Jewish community, to the
>   African-American community, and to the evangelical community." Reed
>   organized a "pastors' reception" following the Southern Baptist
>   Convention, where ministers "were asked to sign pledges to endorse
>   Bush publicly, to organize a party for the president ... close to
>   Election Day," and other activities. Some conservatives criticize
>   Reed's lobbying for the school-focused media company Channel One,
>   and coordinating with (and perhaps accepting money from) casino
>   lobbyists to block new, competing casinos.
>SOURCE: The National Journal, July 17, 2004
>Web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090036801
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1090036801
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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