Archive for June 2005

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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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