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[eccr] The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, August 4, 2004

Wed Aug 04 06:27:53 GMT 2004


>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, August 4, 2004
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>The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. The Carbon PR Cycle
>2. Who's Your Sugar Daddy?
>3. Race, Elections and the Media
>4. Painting Happy Faces on Black Boxes
>5. Heal Thyself!
>6. Mine, All Mine
>7. Al Qaeda at the DNC
>8. Triumph of the Trivial
>9. Crossed Wires and Banana Republicans
>10. A Match Made... Well, Somewhere
>11. Riddle of the Sphinx
>12. One Straight Shooter
>13. Can Monsanto's Raider Vanquish Nader?
>14. PR: Making Words Obscure Actions
>15. Convention 'Hospitality'
>16. Iraq's War on Unwarranted Criticism
>17. They Blacklist, You Decide
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. THE CARBON PR CYCLE
>http://www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin/84/carbon.html#WB
>   "Organized by the World Bank, the International Emissions Trading
>   Association and Koelnmesse (Cologne Trade Fair), Carbon Expo was
>   supposed to be 'the Coming of Age of the Global Carbon Market,'"
>   reports Chris Lang. At a journalists' workshop, World Bank
>   Communications Advisor Sergio Jellinek said the Bank wanted to help
>   journalists "in terms of getting the story right. You set the tone
>   of the debate. It's a debate we want to be involved in," he
>   stressed. "Carbon emission trading, a vehicle for development. Is
>   this a story that's worth telling? I think it is."
>SOURCE: World Rainforest Movement Bulletin
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1091567777
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1091567777
>
>2. WHO'S YOUR SUGAR DADDY?
>http://prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=218037&site=3
>   "A grassroots PR effort that included giving away American flags
>   for the Fourth of July has helped Donald Trump win the right to
>   build a new casino in Orange County, an economically depressed area
>   in Indiana," reports PR Week. Competition for the casino license
>   was fierce; Indianapolis PR firm MZD promoted Trump as experienced
>   and caring. Trump "pledged to give $5 million each to refurbish two
>   local resort hotels." MZD offered "to replace [businesses' and
>   families'] worn-out American flags with new ones. One citizen at a
>   public meeting mentioned [the free flags] as a sign that Trump
>   truly cared."
>SOURCE: PR Week (sub. req'd), August 2, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1091419202
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1091419202
>
>3. RACE, ELECTIONS AND THE MEDIA
>http://www.citylimits.org/content/articles/weeklyView.cfm?articlenumber=1562
>   "Gaining access to the Republican National Convention has become a
>   tortuous struggle for a slew of local ethnic publications," reports
>   a New York City weekly. In Arizona, a Bush-Cheney organizer
>   "insisted on knowing the race of a ... journalist assigned to
>   photograph Vice President Dick Cheney," saying the information was
>   needed "to distinguish her from someone else who might have the
>   same name" - which seems unlikely, since her name is Mamta Popat.
>   In New Mexico, "Democrats who signed up to hear [Cheney] speak ...
>   were refused tickets unless they signed a pledge to endorse
>   President Bush." One media analysis company estimates that, with
>   Iraq coverage dominating the news, "67 percent of stories on Bush
>   were negative, while only 36 percent were negative for Kerry."
>SOURCE: City Limits, August 2, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1091419201
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1091419201
>
>4. PAINTING HAPPY FACES ON BLACK BOXES
>http://alternet.org/election04/19423/
>   "It's amazing how far the reputation of electronic voting has
>   fallen," writes Center for Media and Democracy researcher Diane
>   Farsetta. On November 9, 2000, one company bragged, "If Florida had
>   used an e-voting system, we'd know the winner already." But over
>   the past few years, as "expert critiques of and troubling incidents
>   with e-voting systems multiplied to the point of attracting major
>   media attention," the multi-industry group Information Technology
>   Association of America "urged e-voting companies to unite under a
>   public relations banner." A longer version of this article ran in
>   the Center's quarterly journal, PR Watch. Subscribe today and be
>   among the first to read future exposes!
>SOURCE: AlterNet, August 2, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1091419200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1091419200
>
>5. HEAL THYSELF!
>http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/329/7460/247?etoc
>   Just 13 percent of Americans think pharmaceutical companies are
>   "generally honest and trustworthy," according to a recent survey.
>   "Public confidence in drug companies has plunged harder and faster
>   than for any other industry," putting them "on a par with tobacco,
>   oil and [HMOs]." With medical journals not identifying drug study
>   authors' "relevant conflicts of interest," Schering-Plough pleading
>   guilty to defrauding Medicaid, Bristol-Myers Squibb settling
>   charges of financial improprieties, and GlaxoSmithKline withholding
>   information about its antidepressants' usefulness for adolescents,
>   it's not too hard to understand the survey results.
>SOURCE: British Medical Journal, July 31, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1091246400
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1091246400
>
>6. MINE, ALL MINE
>http://www.montanaforum.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=580&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
>   Montana's citizen-passed ban on cyanide leach mining may be
>   repealed in a November initiative supported by the group Miners,
>   Merchants and Montanans for Jobs and Economic Opportunity. The
>   group receives almost all of its funding from Colorado's Canyon
>   Resources Corp. - which may explain a "little-known part" of the
>   initiative "that would restore mining rights that any company or
>   person had when the cyanide method was banned in 1998." Initiative
>   opponents, concerned at the environmental effects of cyanide
>   mining, have formed a "Save the Blackfoot" group, whose board
>   consists "largely of southwestern Montana residents, some of them
>   Blackfoot River users."
>SOURCE: Associated Press, July 30, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1091160003
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1091160003
>
>7. AL QAEDA AT THE DNC
>http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2004/07/30/queda_came.html
>   Journalism professor Jay Rosen, who attended the Democratic
>   national convention, says the "great overlooked story in all the
>   reporting" was the heightened security situation. "It was in your
>   face, nonstop, in thousands of ways inside what was called, in
>   military terms, The Perimeter," Rosen writes. "It came lunging at
>   you as you approached the site and enveloped all when you were on
>   site. You could have your credentials checked twenty times on a
>   single trip from the ground floor to your seats. ... It was telling
>   us that we live in a different world than the last time there was a
>   political convention. ... What was all this security about? And who
>   authored it? Ultimately, Al Queda did. ... Al Queda also came to
>   the convention."
>SOURCE: PressThink, July 30, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1091160002
>
>8. TRIUMPH OF THE TRIVIAL
>http://nytimes.com/2004/07/30/opinion/30krugman.html?hp
>   New York Times' columnist Paul Krugman looks into why Americans
>   haven't heard much about John Kerry's proposal to extend health
>   insurance to lower- and middle-income families. After "reading 60
>   days' worth" of transcripts from major cable and broadcast TV
>   networks Krugman writes, "Never mind the details - I couldn't even
>   find a clear statement that Mr. Kerry wants to roll back recent
>   high-income tax cuts and use the money to cover most of the
>   uninsured. When reports mentioned the Kerry plan at all, it was
>   usually horse race analysis - how it's playing, not what's in it.
>   On the other hand, everyone knows that Teresa Heinz Kerry told
>   someone to 'shove it,' though even there, the context was missing."
>   Krugman continues, "Somewhere along the line, TV news stopped
>   reporting on candidates' policies, and turned instead to trivia
>   that supposedly reveal their personalities. We hear about Mr.
>   Kerry's haircuts, not his health care proposals. We hear about
>   George Bush's brush-cutting, not his environmental policies. ... In
>   short, the triumph of the trivial is not a trivial matter. The
>   failure of TV news to inform the public about the policy proposals
>   of this year's presidential candidates is, in its own way, as
>   serious a journalistic betrayal as the failure to raise questions
>   about the rush to invade Iraq."
>SOURCE: New York Times, July 30, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1091160001
>
>9. CROSSED WIRES AND BANANA REPUBLICANS
>http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-na-florida30jul30,1,4532416.story?coll=la-headlines-technology
>   Florida's Republicans are getting mixed signals about November.
>   Governor Jeb Bush "has tried for months to persuade Florida voters
>   touch-screen [electronic] voting machines are reliable." But the
>   state GOP party is circulating a flier that reads, in part, "The
>   new electronic voting machines do not have a paper ballot to verify
>   your vote in case of a recount. Make sure your vote counts. Order
>   your absentee ballot today." Meanwhile, Miami-Dade County elections
>   officials are "very pleased" that they found a compact disk
>   containing the votes cast on e-voting machines in the 2002
>   gubernatorial primary; the information had been reported lost.
>SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, July 30, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1091160000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1091160000
>
>10. A MATCH MADE... WELL, SOMEWHERE
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22128-2004Jul28.html
>   "Citizens for a Sound Economy and Empower America have merged to
>   form FreedomWorks, a grass-roots advocacy and political group to
>   bolster their fight for 'lower taxes, less government and more
>   economic freedom,'" reports Judy Sarasohn. The new group will be
>   co-chaired by Dick Armey, C. Boyden Gray and Jack Kemp, with Matt
>   Kibbe as president. Freedom Works is "intended, in part, to
>   challenge political liberal groups such as MoveOn.org for voters
>   this campaign season" and will engage in "lobbying, political
>   fundraising and political activities, including voter education and
>   get-out-the-vote efforts in key campaigns," according to Armey.
>SOURCE: Washington Post, July 29, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1091073601
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1091073601
>
>11. RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX
>http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109104875075676781,00.html?mod=health%5Fhs%5Fpolicy%5Flegislation
>   "The pyramid has crumbled," said a food industry consultant. The
>   U.S. Department of Agriculture's Center for Nutrition Policy and
>   Promotion hired the Porter Novelli PR firm to redesign the Food
>   Pyramid, or, as one PR pro called it, the "Food Guidance System, so
>   it's not prejudiced that it's going to be a pyramid." Food is a
>   $500 billion industry, so "everybody and their dog" is interested,
>   said the Wheat Foods Council president. Concerned groups include
>   the U.S. Potato Board, the Malaysian Palm Oil Board, Atkins
>   Nutritionals and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. The
>   USDA will pay Porter Novelli at least $1.6 million over the next
>   year, for the redesign, slogan, Internet work and educational
>   materials, reports Adweek.
>SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, July 29, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1091073600
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1091073600
>
>12. ONE STRAIGHT SHOOTER
>http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000589029
>   Ohio's concealed carry law allows "only the media to find out the
>   names of those obtaining such permits" for weapons. So Cleveland's
>   newspaper, The Plain Dealer, published the "names, ages and home
>   counties of the 3,000 residents who have taken out such permits,
>   citing the public's right to know." In response, Ohioans for
>   Concealed Carry posted the newspaper editor's home address, phone
>   number and other personal information on their website, along with
>   a map to his house, saying, "The editor believes in open records."
>   The editor's home phone has received "a steady stream of phone
>   calls, some of them obscene."
>SOURCE: Editor and Publisher, July 28, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090987203
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1090987203
>
>13. CAN MONSANTO'S RAIDER VANQUISH NADER?
>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001990673_nader28.html
>   Toby Moffett is a well-connected Washington lobbyist employed at
>   the Livingston Group, a powerful lobby firm begun by former
>   Republican representative Robert Livingston. One of Moffett's close
>   colleagues at Livingston is Lauri Fitz-Pegado who worked for the
>   front group Citizens for a Free Kuwait. Moffett was previously a
>   vice-president of Monsanto, the giant genetic engineering and
>   pesticide company. In his youth Moffett worked for Ralph Nader and
>   now as he did in 2000 he is trading on his "Nader's Raider" past to
>   raise hefty contributions for a well-oiled attack campaign against
>   Nader's run for the presidency. According to the Seattle Times,
>   "anti-Nader groups have been organized for months. But the efforts
>   have taken 'a huge move' recently in fund raising, research and a
>   detailed attack plan, Moffett said. 'This guy [Nader] is still a
>   huge threat,' he said. 'We're just not going to make the same
>   mistake we made in 2000.' ... A memo given to potential supporters
>   said Moffett's group, United Progressives for Victory, will do
>   research, community organizing, media outreach and Internet
>   marketing aimed at weakening Nader's standing. Last night, Nader
>   called it a smear campaign and said, 'It's the Democrats'
>   undemocratic attempt' to quash third-party candidates."
>SOURCE: Seattle Times, Wednesday, July 28, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090987202
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1090987202
>
>14. PR: MAKING WORDS OBSCURE ACTIONS
>http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/0728apco_indonesia.htm
>   The international PR firm APCO Worldwide "is spreading the word
>   that Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, is a
>   staunch U.S. ally committed to combating terrorism." APCO signed a
>   six-month agreement with Indonesia's Ministry of Communication and
>   Information "to promote positive U.S./Indonesia ties," including a
>   high-level delegation to Washington DC, after Indonesia's
>   presidential run-off election in September. Yet "Indonesian police
>   ... dropped plans to charge militant cleric Abu Bakar Baasyir with
>   involvement in the 2002 Bali bombings following a court ruling last
>   week that curbed the use of a tough antiterrorism law," reports the
>   Wall Street Journal.
>SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily, July 28, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090987201
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1090987201
>
>15. CONVENTION 'HOSPITALITY'
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19546-2004Jul27.html
>   Candidates, delegates, protesters and media aren't the only folks
>   attending the Democratic and Republican conventions this summer.
>   Lobbyists, by the thousands, are doing "what amounts to the only
>   real work going on at the convention - the nonstop currying of
>   favor of elected officials by the most powerful interests in the
>   country," the Washington Post writes. Representing their
>   well-heeled clients, lobbyists are hosting hundreds of events at
>   the conventions hoping to make connections that will pay off for
>   them in the future. Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), played down
>   the $19,000 luncheon given in his honor by the Chicago Board
>   Options Exchange, the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago
>   Mercantile Exchange. Durbin, an original co-sponsor of the
>   McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, called the luncheon an
>   extension of his "day-to-day contact with business from my state."
>   "It's hospitality at the convention, and I think that's part of the
>   experience," he told the Post.
>SOURCE: Washington Post, July 28, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090987200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1090987200
>
>16. IRAQ'S WAR ON UNWARRANTED CRITICISM
>http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1087374001384
>   "In a difficult security situation, we need to fight the terrorists
>   by all means, and one of the main means is the media. We need them
>   all to co-operate, even the private sector. It's for national
>   security," said Ibrahim Janabi, a former Iraqi intelligence officer
>   who Prime Minister Iyad Allawi just appointed as the head of the
>   new Higher Media Commission. The Commission, which will be housed
>   in the old Information Ministry building, will "impose restrictions
>   on print and broadcast media." Janabi said the restrictions would
>   include "unwarranted criticism of the prime minister."
>SOURCE: Financial Times (UK), July 27, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090900801
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1090900801
>
>17. THEY BLACKLIST, YOU DECIDE
>http://www.tvweek.com/article.cms?articleId=25615
>   "All PR people pitch stories to reporters, but Fox is unusually
>   forceful ... and active in letting reporters know when it is
>   unhappy," writes Alex Ben Block. "Among the hundreds of reporters
>   with whom the [Fox News Channel] publicists regularly deal, some
>   have written things that are deemed so offensive that Fox just
>   stops talking to them." The "blacklisted" include an Associated
>   Press reporter who wrote an article about Paula Zahn leaving Fox
>   for CNN and a Baltimore Sun reporter who, in late 2001, "noted that
>   Fox correspondent Geraldo Rivera was not actually at the scene of a
>   battle [in Afghanistan], as he had described."
>SOURCE: TV Week, July 25, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090728000
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
>    http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1090728000
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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