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[eccr] The Weekly Spin, June 22, 2005
Sat Jun 25 09:27:44 GMT 2005
>THE WEEKLY SPIN, June 22, 2005
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>The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>
>== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
>1. Manufacturing Uncertainty
>2. Science Under Siege
>3. The Junk Food Lobby Wins Again
>4. Campus Crusader
>5. Propaganda's War on Human Rights
>6. Deals On Wheels
>7. Singers Off-Key on Debt-Relief
>8. Old-Fashioned Paid Punditry
>9. Biotech Industry Uses Fake Famine To Promote GM Food
>10. Brushing Up On PR
>11. The Rise of 'Newsvertisements'
>12. Viewers Say Label Fake News
>13. Editing Away Environmental Concerns, Part Two
>14. Post-Revolutionary Marketing
>15. Payola Rulez!
>16. Senators Say USDA's Fake News Not Fair and Balanced
>17. The End of the World for Fake News
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
>
>1. MANUFACTURING UNCERTAINTY
>http://chronicle.com/free/v51/i42/42a01501.htm>http://chronicle.com/free/v51/i42/42a01501.htm
> There is a growing concern that occupational- and
> environmental-health research is in crisis. With funding for this
> type of research a low priority at government agencies, researchers
> have had to turn to industry for information and money. "Critics of
> industry-sponsored research argue that even the most forthright
> agreements between researcher and industry carry risks of bias in
> results or interpretation that benefit the sponsors," the Chronicle
> of Higher Education writes. "Even under the best of circumstances,
> there's some understanding that future funding depends at least in
> part on the results you find this time," Anthony Robbins, a
> professor of public health and family medicine at Tufts University
> and a former director of the National Institute for Occupational
> Safety and Health, told the Chronicle. But industry's influence
> doesn't stop at funding issues. "Industry has found it worthwhile to
> challenge all of the studies that suggest there might be a link
> between some exposure and some kind of disease or illness," Robbins
> told the Chronicle. "Industry is in the business of manufacturing
> uncertainty."
>SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education, June 21, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3781
>
>2. SCIENCE UNDER SIEGE
>http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=18445&c=39
> The American Civil Liberties Union has issued a new report which
> charges that the Bush administration is using the war on terror as a
> pretext to tighten restrictions on information. It states that the
> administration "has sought to impose growing restrictions on the
> free flow of scientific information, unreasonable barriers on the
> use of scientific materials and increased monitoring of and
> restrictions on foreign university students. ... The government is
> seeking to graft the values of security agencies - secrecy, control
> and confinement of information - onto the world of science, where
> information must be uncontrolled, open to all and distributed as
> broadly as possible."
>SOURCE: American Civil Liberties Union, June 21, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3780
>
>3. THE JUNK FOOD LOBBY WINS AGAIN
>http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/22259/
> Last week, Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell vetoed "what would have
> been the nation's strongest school-based nutrition law," writes
> Michelle Simon. "With one stroke of the pen, she put to rest an
> extremely contentious three-year battle to rid Connecticut schools
> of soda and junk food. Similar scenarios are being played out in
> state capitals all over the nation, where high-paid lobbyists of
> multi-national corporations such as Coca-Cola are swooping in to
> foil the efforts of local nutrition advocates, educators. With
> rising rates of childhood obesity and diabetes, state legislatures
> have become a major battleground over the sale of junk food in
> public schools."
>SOURCE: AlterNet, July 17, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3778
>
>4. CAMPUS CRUSADER
>http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=69
> Bill Berkowitz reports on the latest activities of [[David
> Horowitz]], the former Marxist turned right-wing ranter who is now
> campaigning for an "Academic Bill of Rights" that could, if passed,
> require university biology professors to teach "alternatives" to the
> theory of evolution and would allow students to sue their professors
> if they feel the professors are not sufficiently respectful of their
> views. "For a biologist for whom evolution is no more a theory than
> is the law of gravity, to have to present 'alternative'
> religiously-oriented or inspired views would be contrary to his very
> understanding of the scientific method," responds a Florida
> professor who opposes the bill. "That would be comparable to Galileo
> being forced to recant his scientific observations that the earth
> revolved around the sun, and not the opposite as ordained by the
> Church."
>SOURCE: Media Transparency, June 16, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3777
>
>5. PROPAGANDA'S WAR ON HUMAN RIGHTS
>http://www.tiger-tail.org/propaganda.htm
> British public relations consultant [[Liz Harrop]], who specializes
> in "public awareness activity for human rights campaigning
> organisations and humanitarian projects," has written a report that
> analyzes the relationship between war propaganda and human rights,
> focusing on the U.S. and British governments in relation to the
> Iraqi rabbit hole. "States wage war in the name of peace and
> democracy," she writes. "Yet war propaganda can violate human rights
> and undermine the democratic principles it seeks to champion.
> Despite this it is rarely acknowledged, by the media, governments,
> or even anti-war campaigners, that war propaganda is illegal under
> international human rights law. ... As a point of optimism, although
> war propaganda diminishes human rights, so respect for human rights
> can diminish the effects of war propaganda. Accurate and timely
> human rights investigations can dispel the propaganda and rumours
> which fan the flames of conflict."
>SOURCE: Tiger Tail Communications
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3775
>
>6. DEALS ON WHEELS
>http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/perks-of-the-job-a-halfprice-car/2005/06/20/1119250928016.html
> At a preview of Hyundai's new Sonata sedan last week the company's
> local boss, Bong Gou Lee, announced a special offer for Australian
> motoring journalists in attendance: "Half price for journalists,
> tonight only." Sydney Morning Herald reporter Tony Davis, who was
> not present, confirmed that "several journalists gave credit card
> numbers and specified models and colours on a deal that would have
> saved more than $A17,000 and delivered a new car at below cost."
> After Davis began making inquiries Lee withdrew the offer. Hyundai's
> spokesman, Richard Power, said the offer was a joke. One anonymous
> journalist told Davis "there's no way people joke about things like
> that and take names and colours ... I bought one. Plenty of people
> did." Hyundai now insist that journalists would only be eligible for
> the "conventional six-month long-term evaluation" loan of a car.
>SOURCE: Sydney Morning Herald, June 21, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3774
>
>7. SINGERS OFF-KEY ON DEBT-RELIEF
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1510808,00.html
> The British journalist George Monbiot warns the dangers of the
> upcoming G8 summit in Scotland are not that the public protests will
> be dangerous, "but that they will be far too polite. Let me be more
> precise. The danger is that we will follow the agenda set by Bono
> and Bob Geldof." While Monbiot acknowledges the pair are "genuinely
> committed to the cause of poverty reduction" and have raised money
> and awareness in support of it, Monbiot points to the singers'
> response to the G7 finance ministers' debt-relief package for the
> world's poorest countries. "Anyone with a grasp of development
> politics who had read and understood the ministers' statement could
> see that the conditions it contains - enforced liberalisation and
> privatisation - are as onerous as the debts it relieves. But Bob
> Geldof praised it as 'a victory for the millions of people in the
> campaigns around the world' and Bono pronounced it 'a little piece
> of history'. Like many of those who have been trying to highlight
> the harm done by such conditions - especially the African
> campaigners I know - I feel betrayed by these statements. Bono and
> Geldof have made our job more difficult," Monbiot writes.
>SOURCE: The Guardian (UK), June 21, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3773
>
>8. OLD-FASHIONED PAID PUNDITRY
>http://spinwatch.server101.com/modules.php?name=NukeWrap&page=/plog/index.php?op=ViewArticle%26articleId=42%26blogId=4
> SpinWatch's Eveline Lubbers recently read Karen S. Miller's 1999
> book The Voice of Business, Hill & Knowlton and Postwar Public
> Relations. While Hill & Knowlton's work for the tobacco industry in
> the fifties has been covered by PR Watch and others, the PR firm's
> earlier work for the steel industry is not as widely known. Miller,
> who teaches PR and media history at the University of Georgia,
> documents that H&K "took part in preparation for testimony before a
> congressional committee investigating the industryâ¬"s record of
> suppression of laborâ¬"s civil rights in June 1936. This
> subcommittee of the Senate and Labor Committee, chaired by Robert La
> Follette, exposed four antiunion practices which had frustrated
> labor organization for decades: espionage, industrial munitions,
> strikebreaking, and private police," Lubbers writes. "The committee
> revealed that Hill and Knowlton sponsored antiunion messages
> appearing in the news media. George Sokolsky, a columnist for the
> New York Herald Tribune and periodicals such as the Atlantic Monthly
> received $28,599 from H&K from June 1936 to February 1938, chiefly
> for consultation to the American Iron and Steel Institute. When
> writing against the steelworkers union, the articles failed to
> mention his connection to H&K or the Institute."
>SOURCE: SpinWatch.org, June 15, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3772
>
>9. BIOTECH INDUSTRY USES FAKE FAMINE TO PROMOTE GM FOOD
>http://www.freezerbox.com/archive/article.asp?id=339
> " The PR exploitation of drought and hunger in Zambia shows that for
> the [genetically modified (GM) food] lobby there are no limits, even
> when it involves rewriting history and manufacturing crimes against
> humanity," GM Watch's Jonathan Matthews writes. In 2002, Zambia
> sparked a firestorm when it refused to accept U.S. donations of GM
> corn to offset a looming famine. The Zambia government had concerns
> about the safety of GM foods. Industry-friendly experts, the U.S.
> State Department and U.S. trade officials began savaging the Zambian
> government and the environmental movement. For example, the Hudson
> Institute's Alex Avery attacked Dr. Charles Benbrook, a former
> Executive Director of the Board on Agriculture for the US National
> Academy of Sciences, for having the "blood of the starvation
> victims" on his hands. "Benbrook's crime had been to tell the
> Zambian scientists during their fact-finding mission that there was
> no shortage of non-GM foods which could be offered to Zambia and
> that, 'To a large extent, this â¬Ücrisis' has been manufactured ...
> by those looking for a new source of traction in the evolving global
> debate over agricultural biotechnology,'" Matthews writes.
>SOURCE: Freezerbox.com, June 20, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3771
>
>10. BRUSHING UP ON PR
>http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-06/20/content_452869.htm
> Liu Xu, a staffer with Burson-Marsteller in China, told a reporter
> that in mid-April he only managed a few hours sleep a night while he
> helped Colgate reassure Chinese government agencies on the safety of
> using the suspected human carcinogen triclosan in toothpaste.
> Reporting for ''China Business Daily'' on the growth of the PR
> industry in China, Liu Jie noted that Colgate were not alone in
> calling on international PR firms for their crisis management
> skills. "Similar cases have involved Lipton, of Unilever; SKII, of
> P&G; and Nestle. Their contracted PR companies, such as Profuture,
> Hill & Knowlton and Ketchum Newscan, have played major roles in
> combating the crises," Liu Jie notes. In March this year a
> delegation from the Public Relations Society of America met with
> China International Public Relations Association and offered
> suggestions to help China's emerging PR industry "in terms of
> legislation, self-discipline and talent training."
>SOURCE: ChinaDaily.com, June 20, 2005.
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3770
>
>11. THE RISE OF 'NEWSVERTISEMENTS'
>http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/news_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_86_3846857,00.html
> "Don't you love local TV news stories about critical topics like
> Supernanny, The Apprentice or Survivor?" Cause Communications' Jason
> Salzman asks in his Rocky Mountain News column. Salzman lists
> several examples of stories produced by Denver's local TV news
> programs and finds that most of the stories focused on entertainment
> programming run by the stations' respective networks. "I think
> what's more obvious is that journalists at local outlets should give
> their news judgment an extreme makeover and drop most entertainment
> news tie- ins," Salzman writes. "[I]f the local TV outlets insist on
> broadcasting 'news' about entertainment programming, they should
> inform viewers when they have a financial interest in the success of
> the show mentioned. Without proper disclosure, these local stories
> should be seen by viewers as advertisements embedded in the
> newscasts. I can't decide whether to call them 'advernewsments' or
> 'newsvertisements.'"
>SOURCE: Rocky Mountain News, June 11, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3768
>
>12. VIEWERS SAY LABEL FAKE NEWS
>http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA608087.html?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP
> "Eight out of 10 viewers would not be turned off if news programs
> always disclosed the source of third-party video--i.e., video news
> releases," Broadcasting and Cable writes about a recent poll by VNR
> distributor D S Simon Productions. Out of a phone poll of 1000
> respondents, 42 percent say they would be even more likely to watch
> a program that disclosed video sources. "If news directors or TV
> producers fear using or disclosing third-party video to viewers, the
> survey indicates that disclosing the source of footage could
> actually boost ratings, not threaten them," said Doug Simon, who
> supports labeling on a voluntary basis. VNR producers and
> distributors are currently trying to head off new regulations that
> may require mandatory labeling of their products. Join the Center
> for Media and Democracy and Free Press in our campaign to expose
> VNRs and other kinds of fake news. Visit our "No Fake News!" web
> page for more information.
>SOURCE: Broadcasting and Cable, June 13, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3767
>
>13. EDITING AWAY ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS, PART TWO
>http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-group-climate.html?
> "A new draft communique on climate change for next month's Group of
> Eight summit has removed plans to fund research" on clean energy
> technologies. Other edits "put into question top scientists'
> warnings that global warming is already under way," by removing
> references to current weather changes and marking such phrases as
> "our world is warming" for possible deletion. The new draft also
> "explicitly endorses the use of 'zero-carbon' nuclear power." In
> contrast, the May 3rd draft of the document endorsed "ambitious
> targets and timetables" for reducing carbon emissions from
> buildings. The editing (reminiscent of former White House staff
> Philip Cooney's work) bodes ill for Prime Minister Tony Blair, who
> has "pledged to put the fight against climate change at the heart of
> Britain's year-long presidency of the G8." The Washington Post and
> the Observer (UK) have also reported on U.S. pressure to weaken the
> G-8 climate plan.
>SOURCE: Reuters, June 15, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3764
>
>14. POST-REVOLUTIONARY MARKETING
>http://www.marketingprofs.com/5/egherman1.asp?f=evrl
> One candidate in Iran's presidential election, Akbar Hashemi
> Rafsanjani, "has done more than the others to market his particular
> presidential brand," writes Tehran-based design consultant Tori
> Egherman. The Rafsanjani campaign, in a move "particularly
> unconventional for post-revolutionary Iran," has employed as
> guerrilla marketers "Iran's hip youth." The young, unpaid
> campaigners "wrap themselves in Hashemi stickers, tape his poster on
> their backs, celebrate soccer success in his name." Even referring
> to the candidate as "Hashemi" breaks convention, writes Egherman.
> "In a country where wives often call their husbands by formal names
> like Engineer (Mondandes) or Mister (Agha) and young girls are often
> called Young Ma'am (Dokhtar Khanum), the use of a name other than
> the surname is more than familiar: it is intimate." Another
> candidate, Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf, is reaching out to young voters
> with "casual and stylish clothes, chic glasses and sponsors such as
> Efes Zero Alcohol beer."
>SOURCE: MarketingProfs.com, June 14, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3763
>
>15. PAYOLA RULEZ!
>http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tvpromo15jun15,1,3240067.story?coll=la-headlines-business%20FCC%20Asks%20for%20Help%20on%2
> The Federal Communications Commission added a web page outlining the
> restrictions against pay-for-broadcast arrangements and explaining
> how individuals can report suspected payola. The move happened as
> "the agency comes under growing pressure to investigate stealth
> product promotions on television and radio shows," notes the Los
> Angeles Times. FCC Commissioner Adelstein compared the effort to a
> Neighborhood Watch program and said, "The American people have a
> right to know who is promoting a product, policy or message to
> them." FCC Chair Martin pointed out that complaints are necessary to
> launch an investigation. Although the last FCC enforcement on payola
> was five years ago, recent news reports have exposed pundits
> receiving funds from the Bush administration and consumer "experts"
> promoting the products of companies that have paid them.
>SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, June 15, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3762
>
>16. SENATORS SAY USDA'S FAKE NEWS NOT FAIR AND BALANCED
>http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0506160132jun16,1,6096846.story?coll=chi-business-hed
> As PR Watch previously reported, the U.S. Department of
> Agriculture's Broadcast Media and Technology Center seems to be
> pushing the controversial Central American trade agreement CAFTA in
> its audio and video news releases. BMTC "has churned out three dozen
> radio and television news segments since the first of the year" that
> "promote" CAFTA, writes the Chicago Tribune. In one radio segment,
> Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns says that voting against CAFTA is
> "voting against our producers." Senators Akaka and Landrieu sent a
> letter to Johanns expressing concern that "many listeners in rural
> America may believe these releases are objective news reports,
> rather than political statements ... intended to advance a specific
> trade agenda." A USDA spokesperson defended BMTC's work, saying,
> "They are reports about what the secretary of agriculture has said."
>SOURCE: Chicago Tribune, June 16, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3761
>
>17. THE END OF THE WORLD FOR FAKE NEWS
>http://www.prsa.org/_Publications/magazines/0605news.asp
> "In 1938, Orson Wellesâ¬" radio broadcast of 'The War of the Worlds'
> caused thousands of people to panic, believing they were listening
> to a genuine newscast of a Martian invasion of New Jersey," writes
> Katie Sweeney for Public Relations Tactics, the trade publication of
> the [[sw:Public Relations Society of America]]. "Later, many
> expressed outrage, with some even calling for the government to
> regulate broadcasters to prevent such confusion from happening
> again." Something similar is happening, she argues, with regard to
> public outrage over [[sw:video news releases]] (VNRs) and
> [[sw:satellite media tours]] (SMTs), two PR techniques that plant
> fake news on television. Due to public protests (including our own
> No Fake News campaign), "stations may be soon forced to label all
> VNR material that comes from the federal government."
>SOURCE: Public Relations Tactics, June 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3760
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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