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[eccr] The Weekly Spin, May 11, 2005
Mon May 16 09:18:01 GMT 2005
>THE WEEKLY SPIN, May 11, 2005
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>http://www.prwatch.org
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>The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
>further information about media, political spin and propaganda.
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>
>== BLOG POSTINGS ==
>1. Why Armstrong Williams Wants Us To Forgive and Forget
>
>== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
>1. Job Opening for CMD Webmaster
>2. Media Training Booms in Middle East
>3. Fake News as Free Speech
>4. "Ecomagination": Beyond Electric
>5. Weird Science
>6. Pro-Nuclear Rhetoric Meltdown
>7. Avoiding Non-Combat (Not Non-Combatant) Deaths
>8. It's Her Lobbying Firm, Too
>9. Pop Music Propaganda
>10. KFC Tries Silencing More Than The Chickens
>11. One Small Step Towards Full Disclosure
>12. PR Firms Don't Grow on Trees
>13. Let the Lobbyists Soar
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>== BLOG POSTINGS ==
>
>1. WHY ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS WANTS US TO FORGIVE AND FORGET
>by Bob Burton
> There's an old PR trick that if bad news can't be suppressed, its
> release should be stalled until late on a Friday afternoon or just
> before a holiday break. It's a trick that served the U.S. Department
> of Education well when, late on Friday April 15, it released its
> Office of Inspector General's damning final report into the
> $240,000 Armstrong Williams contract to promote the No Child Left
> Behind (NCLB) legislation.
> The strategy behind the late Friday afternoon news dump is
> simple: most media outlets will be squeezed for space to cover a
> late-breaking story, looming deadlines will ensure harried
> journalists don't have time to get much further than the executive
> summary, and by the time Monday rolls around, it will be seen as
> stale news by editors with the attention span of a gnat.
> Reading the 20-page report, which was prompted by Greg Toppo's
> exposé on the Williams contract in USA Today, it's easy to see why
> the Education Department wanted to bury it. The report chronicles
> the deception, bungling and mismanagement behind the Williams
> contract.
>For the rest of this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3632
>
>== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
>
>1. JOB OPENING FOR CMD WEBMASTER
>http://www.prwatch.org/webmaster
> The Center for Media and Democracy is looking for a webmaster to
> help develop its online activism projects, including the PR Watch
> website (www.prwatch.org) and SourceWatch (www.sourcewatch.org).
> Candidates should have a strong knowledge of HTML, PHP and MySQL, as
> well as some experience with CSS. Experience in online activism and
> fundraising is also strongly desired, and experience with open
> source software including specifically Civicspace/Drupal and
> MediaWiki is helpful. For a detailed job description, visit
> www.prwatch.org/webmaster. Please send resume and letter of
> application by May 27 to: CMD, 520 University Ave., Suite 227,
> Madison, WI 53703; email (editor /at/ prwatch.org). No phone calls, please.
>SOURCE: Center for Media and Democracy
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3659
>
>2. MEDIA TRAINING BOOMS IN MIDDLE EAST
>
> "Newsroom managers throughout the Middle East recognize the need for
> improved standards among the region's journalists, and training
> programs are proliferating," writes Gordon Robinson, director of the
> Middle East Media Project, in the summary to his report "Tasting
> Western Journalism: Media Training in the Middle East." (PDF)
> Robinson finds that media training is turning into a "large and
> growing business" paid for, in part, by U.S. funds, including the
> Departments of State and Defense, the U.S. Agency for International
> Development, the National Democratic Institute for International
> Affairs and the International Republican Institute. Britain, the
> European Union and Japan also support media training programs as
> well as private foundations like John S. and James L. Knight
> Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. "Some,
> however, question the utility of it all. By some estimates as much
> as $30 million was spent on media training in the Balkans and, by
> some accounts, things are worse now than they were before the
> well-meaning Westerners arrived. Moreover, the training environment
> in the Middle East now involves many of those same players. So in
> the Middle East, it needs to be asked when the money is spent, what
> the trainees really will take back to their newsrooms," Robinson
> writes.
>SOURCE:
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3658
>
>3. FAKE NEWS AS FREE SPEECH
>http://prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=237944&site=3
> PR Week reports on the video news release industry's response to
> Senator Byrd's one-year measure and the Truth in Broadcasting Act,
> both of which require disclaimers for pre-packaged "news" segments.
> The CEO of D S Simon Productions believes "the temporary amendment
> was preferable to the permanent ban because it is tied to specific
> spending." The CEO of Medialink said of the Truth in Broadcasting
> Act, "I think this is a law written by people not in the
> broadcasting or PR business," and warned that the legislation "could
> limit free speech." The president of the Radio-Television News
> Directors Association called the legislation "unnecessary," since
> the "accepted standard is to clearly identify material from outside
> sources." She also said that "government regulation of news content"
> would be "unprecedented and unconstitutional."
>SOURCE: PR Week (sub. req'd.), May 9, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3656
>
>4. "ECOMAGINATION": BEYOND ELECTRIC
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/09/AR2005050901169.html
> General Electric began "heavily advertising" its "new company-wide
> environmental initiative" called "ecomagination." Its goals are "to
> decrease pollution from its products and to double research and
> development spending on cleaner technologies." (According to Grist"
> target="_blank">Grist, one TV ad "features scantily clad models
> dusted with soot," as an announcer says, "Thanks to
> emissions-reducing technologies from GE, the power of coal is
> getting more beautiful every day.") The "ecomagination" launch
> followed a year of "planning and packaging," and was assisted by
> Edelman, O'Dwyer's reported. Some environmentalists "praised the
> effort for having measurable performance targets" and addressing
> global warming. The Sierra Club's Hudson River Program was less
> enthusiastic. "When you scratch beneath the public relations
> surface, I'm afraid they have unfinished business in terms of
> environmental protection," said director Chris Ballantyn, referring
> to GE's stalling on cleaning up PCBs that leaked into the Hudson
> from its factories.
>SOURCE: Washington Post, May 10, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3655
>
>5. WEIRD SCIENCE
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1480279,00.html
> "It is hard to convey just how selective you have to be to dismiss
> the evidence for climate change," writes George Monbiot. He traces a
> claim by botanist David Bellamy, that the world's glaciers "are not
> shrinking but in fact are growing." The World Glacier Monitoring
> Service verified to Monbiot that "most of the world's glaciers are
> retreating." Monbiot tracks Bellamy's claim to a self-published book
> by a "former architect," then to a Lyndon LaRouche-associated
> magazine, then to online mentions by climate change skeptic
> Professor Fred Singer, the Cooler Heads Coalition and National
> Center for Public Policy Research, among others. Singer cites a 1989
> Science article, which, according to Monbiot, doesn't exist.
> Finally, Bellamy misrepresented his faulty source, due to a typing
> error. The UK Times also reports on bad science - a study funded by
> Dow Chemical Company claiming their employees have "favourable
> mortality patterns" compared to the general population, despite high
> incidences of "an asbestos-related lung cancer."
>SOURCE: The Guardian, May 10, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3654
>
>6. PRO-NUCLEAR RHETORIC MELTDOWN
>http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1479279,00.html
> As predicted, the British government has launched a post-election
> push for more nuclear power stations. The Director-General of Energy
> Policy advised incoming ministers to raise the issue now, as "it is
> generally easier to push ahead on controversial issues early in a
> new parliament." The Nuclear Industry Association is lobbying for
> ten new reactors, "to combat climate change." The Independent
> reports that one-third of the members of the British Committee on
> Radioactive Waste Management "have serious conflicts of interest."
> Four of 12 members are paid consultants to firms employed by the
> committee. Yet, "Ministers recognise that to gain public support for
> a pro-nuclear policy, they first have to resolve the problem of what
> to do with existing nuclear waste." The New York Times reports that
> nuclear energy will not reduce oil imports, as President Bush has
> claimed, because less than three percent of oil consumed in the
> United States goes towards electricity production.
>SOURCE: The Observer, May 8, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3653
>
>7. AVOIDING NON-COMBAT (NOT NON-COMBATANT) DEATHS
>http://prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=237943&site=3
> Concerned at rising rates of soldiers' non-combat deaths, the U.S.
> Army Combat Readiness Center hired two PR firms, Pario and Reingold,
> to "sell" safety measures. The three-year, $800,000 campaign will
> include "brochures, web teasers, and movie trailers to play in the
> Army theater," as well as messages for "the Army's news and
> television services." In its research, Pario found that "safety
> messages don't resonate with young people who believe they are
> invincible, but they are still concerned about the safety of their
> peers." Pario's CEO said, "Don't let your unit down - that's what
> resonates. It's safety, but we do it without saying safety." From
> fiscal year 2004 to 2005, "aviation and off-duty ground accidents in
> the Army have risen more than 17%."
>SOURCE: PR Week (sub. req'd.), May 9, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3652
>
>8. IT'S HER LOBBYING FIRM, TOO
>http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1115528661236920.xml
> Former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency head Christine Todd
> Whitman has opened a consulting firm, the Whitman Strategy Group,
> "whose first client is a chemical company negotiating with the EPA
> over the cleanup of arsenic-contaminated soil at a factory near
> Buffalo, N.Y." The company, FMC Corporation, "is responsible for 136
> Superfund sites across the country," "has been subject to 47 EPA
> enforcement actions," and has, over the past seven years, "spent
> more than $16.5 million on lobbying." Whitman hasn't worked directly
> with FMC, but said she would probably help them "improve their
> image" and gain "access to the people they need to speak to." Eileen
> McGinnis, formerly "Whitman's chief of staff at the EPA," is "the
> only partner at Whitman's firm who has worked with FMC" to date.
> McGinnis called FMC "a good corporate citizen."
>SOURCE: The Star-Ledger (New Jersey), May 8, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3651
>
>9. POP MUSIC PROPAGANDA
>http://www.cjr.org/issues/2005/3/peinVOA.asp
> While U.S. propaganda for foreign audiences is nothing new,
> questions of how to promote U.S. policy and polish the U.S. image
> persist. Radio Sawa, a U.S. supported radio channel broadcast in the
> Middle East, combines Arabic and Western pop music with news written
> by Voice of America staff. "Itâ¬"s tough to independently assess
> Sawa content from afar, but program summaries and interview
> transcripts from the State Department help," the Columbia Journalism
> Review's Corey Pein writes. "Sometimes, the questions asked by Sawa
> correspondents are more revealing than the answers:
> * "Can you please state what is our stated policy towards the
> fence that the Israelis are building right now?
> * "What is the U.S. going to do, in order to swipe away this
> illusion and this fear of the Arabs and the Iraqis of something
> called the 'U.S. occupation,' which is not really what the U.S. is
> doing in Iraq? "Iraqis accustomed to road checkpoints and
> house-by-house raids may not easily be convinced that they are
> living through an 'illusion' of occupation. And whatever 'our'
> policy is, 'fence' is a loaded term for the concrete wall snaking
> through Israel and Palestine," Pein writes.
>SOURCE: Columbia Journalism Review, May/June 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3649
>
>10. KFC TRIES SILENCING MORE THAN THE CHICKENS
>http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/30701/story.htm
> Two members of the animal welfare committee of Yum Brands Inc, KFC's
> parent company, resigned after being asked to sign a confidentiality
> agreement which would have required them to refer all media
> inquiries to KFC's corporate headquarters. Over the last three years
> Dr. Temple Grandin of Colorado State University and Dr. Ian Duncan
> of the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, have advised KFC on
> improving animal welfare standards. Both objected to the proposed
> agreement as amounting to censorship. "I feel very strongly that I
> can talk freely to the press about how the program's working, what's
> been going on with the program," Grandin told Reuters. Duncan said
> that his reading of the agreement was that "If someone phoned me up
> and said 'You are on the KFC animal welfare committee,' I was bound
> to say 'No comment'."
>SOURCE: Reuters, May 6, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3648
>
>11. ONE SMALL STEP TOWARDS FULL DISCLOSURE
>http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=8378804
> For one year, U.S. government agencies will be banned "from issuing
> video news releases that do not clearly identify" the government as
> the source of the footage. Congressional members "agreed to include
> the measure in an emergency spending bill," which is why the
> restriction expires after one year. The Truth in Broadcasting Act,
> scheduled for a Senate Commerce committee hearing on May 12, would
> make the ban permanent. The Center for Media and Democracy and the
> media reform group Free Press urged lawmakers not only to pass
> permanent restrictions, but also to ban the covert airing of both
> government- and corporate-funded "fake news."
>SOURCE: Reuters, May 3, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3647
>
>12. PR FIRMS DON'T GROW ON TREES
>http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=522
> The U.S. Forest Service "is weighing replacement of 100 of its
> public information staff with private public relations firms,"
> according to documents obtained by Public Employees for
> Environmental Responsibility. The move is in response to "pressure
> from the Bush White House to put more federal jobs out to bid by
> private contractors in order to 'increase the cost-effectiveness of
> Forest Service work.'" By June 30, the agency will review 100 of its
> 700 public affairs, communications and graphics positions, to
> determine whether they should be outsourced. PEER's Jeff Ruch
> warned, "Civil servants are under a legal obligation to tell the
> public the truth while PR firms specialize in shading it." Last
> year, the Forest Service's PR contract with OneWorld Communications
> was criticized for, among other things, brochures deemed "very
> misleading" by environmental groups that promoted increased logging
> in the Sierra Nevada.
>SOURCE: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, May 5, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3646
>
>13. LET THE LOBBYISTS SOAR
>http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/042805/ashcroft.html
> Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft is opening a lobbying
> firm, the Ashcroft Group, to provide "strategic consulting, security
> and internal investigative services, and crisis counseling" to
> countries, corporations, and industry and political associations.
> According to a spokesperson, the new firm expects "to grow rapidly."
> Ashcroft Group staff include David Ayres, formerly Ashcroft's chief
> of staff, and Juleanna Glover Weiss, a lobbyist at the Clark &
> Weinstock firm, where she "helped the Iraqi Governing Council's U.S.
> rep on 'messaging'," according to O'Dwyer's PR Daily. Previously,
> Glover Weiss was Vice-President Dick Cheney's press secretary. The
> Center for Responsive Politics' Larry Noble said Ashcroft is
> "clearly trading off the whole anti-terrorism and 9/11 aspect of his
> being attorney general. ... I think he'll probably find it very
> profitable."
>SOURCE: The Hill, May 1, 2005
>For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3641
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>The Weekly Spin is compiled by staff and volunteers at the
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