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The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to further information about media, political spin and propaganda. It is emailed free each Wednesday to subscribers.
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THIS WEEK’S NEWS
== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. New Update: Exposing Earmarks
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. Sept 7 in Milwaukee: Future of Media FCC Hearing
2. Coca-Cola’s Demon Drinks
3. Inclusive Fake News Practices
4. Online References on Iraq Planning and Lying
5. Hijacking 9/11
6. Drug Company SLAPP’s Over Lindane For Lice
7. Oil and PR Open Doors for Kazakh Leader
8. FDA Goes, Hat in Hand, To the Drug Industry
9. Kenneth Tomlinson Caught Horsing Around
10. Just What Iraq Needs: More Spin
11. GM Tries To Drive Young Journalists
12. Wanted: Wisconsin Media Activists for FCC Hearing
== UPCOMING EVENTS ==
1. Milwaukee, WI – FCC town meeting
2. Hold the Media Accountable: Fighting Bob Fest Kick-Off Benefit
3. Fighting Bob Fest
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== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. NEW UPDATE: EXPOSING EARMARKS
by Elliott Fullmer
The secret is out!
After the blogging community helped produce denials from 98 senators, spokespersons for Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) finally admitted that they had placed anonymous holds preventing the Coburn-Obama-Carper-McCain earmark reform bill from reaching the floor.
For the rest of this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/5142
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. SEPT 7 IN MILWAUKEE: FUTURE OF MEDIA FCC HEARING
www.prwatch.org/node/5112 Do you want more quality journalism? Are you concerned about the consolidation of media ownership? Is your community fairly represented in the media? Tell the U.S. Federal Communications Commission directly, at tomorrow’s “Town Meeting on the Future of Media” in Milwaukee! The Center for Media and Democracy is co-sponsoring the September 7 event, at which members of the public will share media concerns with FCC Commissioners Copps and Adelstein. See our website or Free Press’ website for more information. At a similar hearing in Los Angeles this week, FCC Commissioners heard from people concerned “that the consolidation of station ownership had led to a pronounced decline in in-depth news reporting, diversity of viewpoints and quality children’s programming,” and from Hispanic community members concerned about media labor practices and racist radio programming, reports the LA Times.
SOURCE: Center for Media and Democracy, September 6, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/5153
2. COCA-COLA’S DEMON DRINKS
www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2006/09/03/1157222010877.html
Coca-Cola’s new advertising campaign – titled “Drink, Choose, Live” – is aimed at reassuring parents that it has products other than soft drinks. The company states, “If you’re not in the mood for water, it’s OK to also reach for something else you enjoy, like juice or a soft drink. Of course water is always the best choice; it’s just not the only one.” Earlier in the week, the company’s Beverage Institute for Health & Wellness organized a breakfast session for those attending the International Congress on Obesity in Sydney. One of those speaking at the session was John Foreyt, the director of the Behavioural Medicine Research Centre at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. High-sugar drinks, he complained, have been “demonised ??? it’s a single-culprit theory.”
SOURCE: Sydney Morning Herald, September 4, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/5152
3. INCLUSIVE FAKE NEWS PRACTICES
www.prweek.com/us/features/article/589308/Sponsorships-steady-despite-tough-times/
PR Week has good news for marketers and PR professionals seeking to reach Black audiences: there are “about 1,100 [radio] stations in the U.S. programmed toward African Americans. … And even in the age of new media, these hip-hop, urban contemporary, R&B, jazz, and gospel stations are often the first source of news for this audience.” Medialink Worldwide’s Michele Wallace said there’s no need to produce different audio news releases (ANRs) or public service announcements for each city, but to include “market-specific information in your support materials.” PR Week counsels against relying on ANRs, since “most African-American radio stations prefer their own hosts to handle interviews.”
SOURCE: PR Week (sub req’d), August 24, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/5150
4. ONLINE REFERENCES ON IRAQ PLANNING AND LYING
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB198/index.htm
Newly-available documents detailing the early work of the “Future of Iraq Project,” the U.S. State Department’s massive planning effort for post-regime change Iraq, have been posted online by the National Security Archive, a non-profit research institute. The new documents “provide a behind-the-scenes look at the formation of 17 working groups consisting of ‘free’ Iraqis and experts, 14 of which met throughout 2002 and early 2003 to plan for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq,” according to the National Security Archive. “The first planning meeting with Iraqis took place at the Middle East Institute in Washington D.C. from April 9-10, 2002.” In other Iraq news, Mother Jones magazine has launched “Lie by Lie,” a timeline seeking to answer the question, “What did our leaders know and when did they know it?” The online reference currently covers from August 1990 to March 2003.
SOURCE: The National Security Archive, September 1, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/5149
5. HIJACKING 9/11
www.firedoglake.com/2006/09/04/hijacking-911
The FireDogLake weblog has featured an article by Sheldon Rampton describing the ABC television network’s plan to broadcast a right-wing “docudrama” that attempts to place a lion???s share of the blame for the 9/11 terrorist attacks on alleged failures of the Clinton administration. Under fire, ABC has erased the show???s official blog, after it attracted multiple comments from the public criticizing the film’s inaccuracies. However, a Google cache of the blog still exists, and ThinkProgress.org has save a copy of some of the content that the Google cache missed.
SOURCE: FireDogLake, September 4, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/5148
6. DRUG COMPANY SLAPP’S OVER LINDANE FOR LICE
www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=9574
The specialty drug manufacturer Morton Grove Pharmaceuticals has filed a legal suit against the Ecology Center of Ann Arbor, Michigan. The drug company is upset at the Center’s opposition to the continued use of lindane as a fallback treatment for head lice. The suit, filed in the federal court in Chicago, accuses the Ecology Center and two pediatricians of “disseminating false, misleading, and libelous statements about the safety profile and effectiveness of Lindane.” In early August, the Environmental Protection Agency announced the withdrawal of all agricultural products in the U.S. containing the pesticide. “It makes no sense that lindane can’t be used on pets or plants or persons serving in the military, but it can still be used on children,” Mike Garfield, director of the Ecology Center, wrote in a statement. “It’s a clear and simple harassment lawsuit intended to silence us.”
SOURCE: Metro Times (Michigan), August 23, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/5147
7. OIL AND PR OPEN DOORS FOR KAZAKH LEADER
www.odwyerpr.com/members/0829kazakhstan_beacon.htm
“SML Strategic Media, the Washington, D.C. PR and editorial shop, placed a four-page advertorial in the September / October Foreign Affairs, the high-brow political journal, extolling progress made in Kazakhstan under the leadership of Nursultan Nazarbayev.” But Gregoire de Bourgues, who coordinated the “advertorial,” was stabbed to death in Kazakhstan while doing research for it. According to O’Dwyer’s, “An official at Kazakhstan’s Journalists in Danger organization suspects that de Bourgues may have uncovered information about the recent murders of two prominent opposition leaders.” Kazakh president Nazarbayev will “visit the White House later this year, and spend some time at the Bush family compound in Maine.” The Washington Post reports that Nazarbayev “has banned opposition parties, intimidated the press and profited from his post. … But he also sits atop massive oil reserves that have helped open doors in Washington.”
SOURCE: O’Dwyer’s PR Daily (sub req’d), August 29, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/5145
8. FDA GOES, HAT IN HAND, TO THE DRUG INDUSTRY
online.wsj.com/article/SB115707824013151485.html
“Regulators usually don’t negotiate their budgets with the industries they oversee,” writes Anna Wilde Mathews, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does. In the early 1990s, drug companies started paying the FDA millions of dollars in user fees, to speed the drug approval process. The fees “now fund more than half the agency’s critical drug-review process.” Industry groups and the FDA renegotiate the fees and how they’re used every five years, giving drug makers “considerable input into which programs receive funding.” The FDA is currently negotiating the next agreement, with the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and Biotechnology Industry Organization. The industry groups are pushing for faster decisions on “labels and other conditions on approval” of new drugs, and faster review of ads voluntarily submitted to the agency. The FDA wants more funding to monitor drugs’ safety following their approval.
SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (sub req’d), September 1, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/5144
9. KENNETH TOMLINSON CAUGHT HORSING AROUND
www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/washington/30broadcast.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
The State Department Inspector General has released a report finding that Kenneth Tomlinson, the head of the agency overseeing most government broadcasts to foreign countries has used his office to run a ???horse racing operation??? and that he improperly put a friend on the payroll. Tomlinson was ousted from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting last year when another inquiry found evidence that he had violated rules meant to insulate public television and radio from undo political influence. Congress is currently considering Tomlinson???s renomination to a new term as chair of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the State Department office that oversees foreign broadcasts, including the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe.
SOURCE: New York Times, August 29, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/5143
10. JUST WHAT IRAQ NEEDS: MORE SPIN
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/30/AR2006083003011.html
The U.S.-led military force in Iraq is asking for bids on a two-year, $20 million PR contract. The goal is “to effectively communicate Iraqi government and coalition’s goals, and build support among our strategic audiences.” The work includes monitoring “Iraqi, pan-Arabic, international and U.S. national and regional markets media in both Arabic and English,” including U.S. TV, wire services and newspapers like the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. News of “security, reconstruction activities, ‘high profile’ coalition force activities and events in which Iraqi security forces are ‘in the lead’” will receive special attention. An anonymous PR practitioner told the Post that military commanders want news “to be received by audiences as it is transmitted … they don’t like how it turns out.” O’Dwyer’s PR Daily reports that the contract is currently held by the Rendon Group, and “appears to mirror efforts initially handled by the Lincoln Group.”
SOURCE: Washington Post, August 31, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/5141
11. GM TRIES TO DRIVE YOUNG JOURNALISTS
weblogs.jomc.unc.edu/talkingbiznews/?p=1320
“It seems what young student journalists would be ‘learning’ from this experience is how to take a free trip and meals from one of the company’s larger corporations,” wrote University of North Carolina business journalism professor Chris Roush. He had just received an email from one of General Motors’ PR people, asking for help in promoting GM’s “First College Journalists Event,” in Las Vegas on September 9 and 10. “GM will pay for travel, hotel and meals for students that attend,” GM’s Diedra Wylie wrote. “While in Las Vegas the college journalists will have the opportunity to meet with professional journalists and GM executives.” The event might be an extension of GM’s previous efforts to buy favorable news coverage. Three of the 36 video news releases tracked in the Center for Media and Democracy’s “Fake TV News” report were from GM, making it the most frequent fake news client of the report.
SOURCE: “Talking Biz News,” University of North Carolina blog, August 30, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/5140
12. WANTED: WISCONSIN MEDIA ACTIVISTS FOR FCC HEARING
www.prwatch.org/node/5111
Do you want more quality journalism? Are you concerned about the consolidation of media ownership? Do you think important issues don’t get enough air time? Is your community fairly represented in the media? If you live in Wisconsin, in a few days you can tell the Federal Communications Commission directly! The Center for Media and Democracy is organizing a September 5 workshop on FCC issues in Madison, and is co-sponsoring a September 7 “Town Meeting on the Future of Media” in Milwaukee. At the town meeting, members of the public will share their media concerns with FCC Commissioners Copps and Adelstein. CMD is also organizing buses from Madison to the Milwaukee town meeting; see our website or Free Press’ website for more information.
SOURCE: Center for Media and Democracy, August 30, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/5139
== UPCOMING EVENTS ==
1. MILWAUKEE, WI – FCC TOWN MEETING
Date: 09/07/2006 – 18:30 to 09/07/2006 – 23:00 Do you want more quality journalism? Are you concerned about the consolidation of media ownership? Do you think important issues don’t get enough air time? Is your community fairly represented in the media?
Here’s your chance to tell the Federal Communications Commission!
On Thursday September 7, FCC Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps will be in Milwaukee, for a “Town Meeting on the Future of Media.” Members of the public will raise media issues with the Commissioners directly.
Location: UW-Milwaukee Helen Bader Concert Hall, Helene Zelazo Center for the Performing Arts, 2419 E. Kenwood Blvd.
Organizer: Free Press
URL: freepress.net/future/=milwaukee
For the further information, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/5112
2. HOLD THE MEDIA ACCOUNTABLE: FIGHTING BOB FEST KICK-OFF BENEFIT
Date: 09/08/2006 – 19:00 to 09/08/2006 – 22:00 Fighting Bob Fest Kick-Off Benefit: Hold the Media Accountable!
Featuring: Greg Palast, ???Armed Madhouse??? John Nichols, The Capital Times & The Nation Robert McChesney, Free Press, Univ. of Illinois Matt Rothschild, The Progressive John Stauber, ???The Best War Ever,??? Center for Media and Democracy Diane Farsetta, Center for Media and Democracy Ed Garvey, FightingBob.com
Tickets $5 per person at the door; all proceeds go to FightingBob.com
Location: Barrymore Theater, 2090 Atwood Avenue, Madison
Organizer: FightingBob.com and The Capital Times
URL: fightingbobfest.org/
For the further information, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/5125
3. FIGHTING BOB FEST
Date: 09/09/2006 – 06:00 to 09/09/2006 – 06:00 John Stauber, Amy Goodman, Jim Hightower, Tammy Baldwin, Greg Palast, Tom Harkin and Doris ???Granny D??? Haddock will speak at the fifth annual Fighting Bob Fest in Baraboo, Wisconsin on Saturday, September 9, 2006. The theme is perfect for the moment: ???Hold Them Accountable???.
Location: Sauk County Fairgrounds, Baraboo, Wisconsiin
URL: fightingbobfest.org/
For the further information, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/5014
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