| |
Sponsored by the nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy:
www.prwatch.org
To support our work now online visit:
https://www.egrants.org/donate/index.cfm?ID=2344-0|1118-0
--------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
SHARE US WITH A FRIEND (OR FIFTY FRIENDS)
Who do you know who might want to receive “The Weekly Spin”? Help
us grow our subscriber list! Just forward this message to people
you know, encouraging them to sign up at this link:
www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------
THIS WEEK’S NEWS
== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. Is “Vets for Freedom” A Republican Front Group ?
2. Scandals, Scandals, Scandals — Part II: The Investigations
3. Technorati-Edelman Mashup
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. Please tell CMD what you think!
2. Ready for Review: The Best War Ever
3. Wal-Mart Fights Healthcare Bill with Fake News
4. Big Tobacco Attack Ads Blow Smoke in California
5. Coming Soon To a Theater Near You: Docuganda!
6. Know Your Fake Radio News
7. The Fork in the Road
8. Coal Miner Buys Support
9. Boosting Business With Nuclear Power
10. Will Philly PR Exec Turned Media Mogul Silence Liberty Bell?
11. Telecom Firms Dial Up Ad Spending
12. Not a PR Job for the Faint of Heart
--------------------------------------------------------------------
== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. IS “VETS FOR FREEDOM” A REPUBLICAN FRONT GROUP ?
by John Stauber
Who and what is behind the organization Vets for Freedom, a lobby group for staying the Administration’s course in the war in Iraq? Contributors to our investigative website SourceWatch are wondering exactly that. The current article can be reached by clicking here on the name Vets for Freedom. The group has a feel good name — how many vets are against freedom? — but its supposedly non-partisan patriotic agenda is looking rather suspect. Will it become to the 2006 Congressional elections what the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were in 2004? A Republican front for waging ad hominem attacks, this time on politicians like John Murtha who are calling for an end to the US occupation?
For the rest of this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4868
2. SCANDALS, SCANDALS, SCANDALS — PART II: THE INVESTIGATIONS
by Conor Kenny
Add new revelations that House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) may be under investigation by the Justice Department to the FBI’s recent raids on Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.), and you could be forgiven for not being able to keep track of the many members of Congress under investigation. At Congresspedia, however, we live and breathe this stuff, so we’ve created a handy cheat sheet of all the members under investigation by the congressional ethics committees, law enforcement agencies and grand juries. The full list is below, but for future reference you can just check the “Members of Congress under investigation” link in the “Quick links” section—we’ll make sure to keep it updated for you.
For the rest of this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4862
3. TECHNORATI-EDELMAN MASHUP
by Sheldon Rampton
Technorati, the leading search engine devoted specifically to bloggers, has partnered with the Edelman PR firm. According to Technorati vice president Peter Hirshberg, Edelman is providing support for an “accelerated development effort” to create Technorati offerings in languages including Chinese, Korean, German, Italian and French. In exchange, says Edelman CEO Richard Edelman, his firm will get “an exclusive right to offer Technorati’s analytic tools” in those languages.
The result, he says, will give companies “world-wide reach” so they can find out what people are saying about them in different languages, and will give Edelman “the ability to improve our work product; specifically, to make PR people valued contributors to the discussion, not the often-reviled spinmeister or hype artist lampooned in the media.”
For the rest of this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4859
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. PLEASE TELL CMD WHAT YOU THINK!
Please take a few minutes to take a survey about the Center for Media and Democracy. This is a chance for you to help us improve our effectiveness and incorporate your input as CMD plans for the future, refines our organizational identity, and develops a logo.
Please click here to complete the survey now, or paste this link into your browser: survey.prwatch.org/public/survey.php?name=CMD_opinion_survey_6_06
If you complete the survey by Wednesday, June 14th, you will be entered in a drawing to win a signed first-edition copy of Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber’s next book, The Best War Ever, to be published September 14th.
Thanks for your input!
SOURCE:
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4865
2. READY FOR REVIEW: THE BEST WAR EVER
www.prwatch.org/books/tbwe
Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber have finished writing The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies and the Mess in Iraq. It is their sixth book together for the Center and a sequel to their 2003 bestseller Weapons of Mass Deception. If you review books or interview authors, please contact us to request a free advance review copy. Our new book won’t be in stores until September, but you can place an advance order here. You can also view the book’s provocative cover by cartoonist Tom Tomorrow, and read the chapter titles and the back-cover description which begins, “They told us so. The first authors to expose the blatant deceptions that got us into the Iraq War now reveal how the same lies have led us toward defeat. … Now that even US generals agree that war critics were right in the first place, Rampton and Stauber show us how to wake up and not be misled again.”
SOURCE: Center for Media and Democracy, June 5, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4866
3. WAL-MART FIGHTS HEALTHCARE BILL WITH FAKE NEWS
biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060602/nyf081.html?.v=46
The radio segment begins, “As summer vacation season gets underway, high fuel prices and high air fares are limiting the ability of vacationers to travel far. And close to home, new legislation may force costs to soar even higher.” The segment — an audio news release (ANR) from Wal-Mart — warns of proposed legislation in New York that would require large employers to put a minimum percentage of their payroll towards employee healthcare. The bill is one of dozens introduced in response to Wal-Mart employees’ reliance on publicly-funded health programs. The ANR features Mark Alesse of New York’s National Federation of Independent Business, who says that while “health insurance is vitally important,” better coverage won’t be accomplished by “adding an eight and a half billion dollar job-killing tax to the economy. If we do that, we’ll not only have more uninsured, we’ll have more unemployed” people. If you hear this ANR, please contact the Center for Media and Democracy!
SOURCE: PR Newswire, June 2, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4863
4. BIG TOBACCO ATTACK ADS BLOW SMOKE IN CALIFORNIA
www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-horton2jun02,1,9238.story
It’s not surprising that big tobacco is funding attack ads around the primary election for California’s State Board of Equalization, which regulates state cigarette sales and oversees $40 billion in tax collections. What is surprising is that the mailing, from a group called the California Political Empowerment Committee, accuses one candidate of “being a shill for Big Tobacco,” according to the Los Angeles Times. The group has received at least $57,000 from Altria’s Kraft subsidiary, Lorillard and UST. Its mailing targeted state Assemblywoman Judy Chu, saying she “accepted money from tobacco companies and then voted to reduce penalties on them for illegally selling cigarettes to minors.” Chu is actually a “staunch foe of the industry and refuses to accept its campaign cash.” Public health activists called the mailing “a cynical attempt to drive voters toward her opponent,” state Assemblyman Jerome Horton, who is “one of the Legislature’s biggest beneficiaries of tobacco money.”
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, June 2, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4857
5. COMING SOON TO A THEATER NEAR YOU: DOCUGANDA!
www.csmonitor.com/2006/0602/p01s02-ussc.html
Several recent and forthcoming documentaries are, according to PR professionals, “docugandas.” Those noted include “An Inconvenient Truth,” which features Al Gore warning about global warming, last year’s “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price,” “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room,” and 2004's “Super Size Me,” as well as the upcoming film “Who Killed the Electric Car?” “We need to clarify that this new wave of ‘documentaries’ are not, in fact, documentaries,” says Christopher Ian Bennett of New School Media, a communications and public-relations firm in Vancouver. “They fail to meet the Oxford Dictionary definition, in that they editorialize, and opine far too much.” Robert Greenwald, director of “Wal-Mart” and 2004's “Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism” comes at it from a slightly different perspective. When asked whether he feels the need to present more than one side of an issue, Greenwald said, “Is it my job to tell the story that everyone is already getting over and over 24/7? I don’t think so. In a democratic system you want to hear something that hasn’t been told.”
SOURCE: Christian Science Monitor, June 2, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4856
6. KNOW YOUR FAKE RADIO NEWS
www.prweek.com/us/search/article/559085/Media+relations+tips+options+ANR+placement/
In its “PR Toolbox” section, PR Week answers the question, “What is the difference between a guaranteed-placement ANR (audio news release) and a traditional one?” According to Maury Tobin of Tobin Communications, “Research indicates that most radio stations do not use ANRs.” PR Week explains, “Some vendors offer guaranteed-placement ANRs — or Sponsored Radio Features (SRFs). … Unlike a traditional ANR, a guaranteed-placement one is certain to air because advertising time is purchased.” Tobin adds that his firm “includes an indentification of the organization sponsoring the piece,” for guaranteed-placement ANRs. “This is clear: Guaranteed-placement ANRs or SRFs would not exist if radio stations really ran traditional ANRs.”
SOURCE: PR Week (sub req’d), May 22, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4854
7. THE FORK IN THE ROAD
www.edelman.com/speak_up/blog/archives/2006/05/the_fork_in_the.html
“How serious is it for PR that the man who runs the foremost center for press and public policy in the US is fundamentally skeptical about our profession?” asks Richard Edelman, CEO of the Edelman PR firm. On his blog, Edelman reports on comments by Alex Jones of Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center at a recent gathering of the PR Seminar, a rather secretive annual gathering of top PR executives. Jones said that news is moving away from objectivity, as “subjectivity, finding underserved markets, ideologically targeted, is a viable business strategy.” The result is that we are “fast approaching a time of relative truths, resulting in an even more toxic partisan environment.” Jones lamented the cheapening of news, saying that “media with reduced staff is looking for packaged content. The temptation will be high for PR people to do in print what has been done in video news releases.” Edelman calls Jones’ remarks a “very important speech” and calls on PR pros to “to recognize that with our enhanced opportunity comes a very real responsibility” to “be more credible” and adopt a policy of “total transparency.” Maybe they should start by lifting the veil of secrecy that has shrouded PR Seminar events for more than half a century.
SOURCE: Edelman.com, May 30, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4850
8. COAL MINER BUYS SUPPORT
www.ethicalinvestor.com.au
Private landowners who sell their land to Centennial Coal for a new coal mine in New South Wales have been offered an extra $A25,000 if they sign contract provisions that require them to support the mine. One contract clause states that “the landholder must not in any way make any objection or complaint to any authority regarding the grant of project approval.” Another clause states that the landowner “must do all things and sign all documents reasonably required by Centennial to support the grant of project approval.” Asked what a landowner could be required to support, the Managing Director of Centennial Coal, Bob Cameron, retreated, stating, “There probably will be none. What we are saying, though, is that you cannot actively oppose the project, having entered into a contract.”
SOURCE: Ethical Investor (Australia), June 1, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4849
9. BOOSTING BUSINESS WITH NUCLEAR POWER
afr.com/premium/articles/2006/05/31/1148956414914.html
A report (PDF) prepared for the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) by British nuclear proponent Professor John Gittus optimistically concluded that nuclear power in Australia would be cost-competitive with coal and gas. In a synopsis of his report Gittus is described only as “a consultant and adviser to government ministries, public bodies and private industry.” But Australian Financial Review journalists Adrian Rollins and Julie Macken report, “Professor Gittus’s Who’s Who entry says he helps run Lloyd’s of London Insurance Syndicate 1176, the biggest commercial insurer of nuclear power stations and other facilities in the world.” ANSTO insures its small research reactor with Lloyd’s of London. ANSTO defended Gittus from conflict of interest concerns stating that there were more details of Gittus’s background “in Annex 12 of the main report.” However, the full report, including Annex 12, has not been publicly released.
SOURCE: Australian Financial Review (sub req’d), June 1, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4848
10. WILL PHILLY PR EXEC TURNED MEDIA MOGUL SILENCE LIBERTY BELL?
www.philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=12286
Philadelphia Weekly profiles Brian Tierney, the public relations and advertising executive who will be heading Philadelphia’s former Knight-Ridder papers. As a PR man, “when reporters called his customers,” Tierney “called the reporters — and their editors.” Reviewing Tierney’s often-heated arguments with reporters on their coverage of the Philadelphia Orchestra, banking executives, and — most infamously — the Catholic Church, Steve Volk writes, “The most disconcerting thing about his taking control of the [Philadelphia] Inquirer and Daily News may not even be Tierney’s noted conservative tilt, which is considerable. … What really has some people quaking is Tierney’s unique diet, which for a time included journalists. For breakfast, lunch and dinner.” Former Inquirer reporter Ralph Cipriano, whose story on the Catholic Diocese’s questionable spending was squashed by the newspaper after Tierney’s repeated contacts, said of Tierney, “He doesn’t understand what reporters do, and more important, he doesn’t think it should be done.”
SOURCE: Philadelphia Weekly, May 31 – June 6, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4846
11. TELECOM FIRMS DIAL UP AD SPENDING
www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-LWCN1149016201609.html
“Telecommunications companies are spending serious green on advertising in recent weeks,” as several telecom-related bills, including on network neutrality, come before Congress. A study by Arlen Communications estimates that the U.S. Telecom Association, which “represents the majority of the Bell telecommunications firms,” has spent $250,000 a week over six weeks. And SBC/AT&T has spent some $600,000 a week, according to Arlen. A U.S. Telecom executive would not comment on the numbers, but said TV ads have been effective in “the campaign to allow telecom companies to compete with cable companies for TV service.” Ads on the network neutrality issue, which criticize “proposed legislation that would block telecom and cable companies from charging preferred customers higher rates for high-speed Internet access,” are more recent. These ads have appeared “anywhere a congressional staffer is likely to be — including the Washington area transit system” and “at Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport,” and direct people to sites like Handsofftheinternet.com.
SOURCE: National Journal’s Insider Update, May 31, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4845
12. NOT A PR JOB FOR THE FAINT OF HEART
www.odwyerpr.com/members/0531apco_merck.htm
“APCO Worldwide is supporting Merck’s PR efforts for the controversial” — and deadly — “arthritis drug Vioxx, which was found to increase heart attack risk in patients,” reports O’Dwyer’s. The PR boost comes as the pharmaceutical company “acknowledged that it misidentified a statistical method used in the study that led it to pull Vioxx from the market,” reports the Wall Street Journal. The admission calls into question Merck’s claim that patients were only at risk if they took Vioxx for 18 months or longer. Doctors who oversaw the study “are planning to release new data” that “show risk as soon as four months after taking the drug,” according to O’Dwyer’s. More than 11,000 Vioxx-related lawsuits have been filed against Merck. The company had retained Burson-Marsteller for a $20 million “image campaign,” after withdrawing Vioxx in 2004.
SOURCE: O’Dwyer’s PR Daily (sub req’d), May 31, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4843
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The Weekly Spin is compiled by staff and volunteers at the Center
for Media and Democracy (CMD), a nonprofit public interest
organization. To subscribe or unsubcribe, visit:
www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html
Daily updates and news from past weeks can be found in the “Spin of
the Day” section of CMD’s website:
www.prwatch.org/spin
Archives of our quarterly publication, PR Watch, are at:
www.prwatch.org/prwissues
CMD also sponsors SourceWatch, a collaborative research project
that invites anyone (including you) to contribute and edit
articles. For more information, visit:
www.sourcewatch.org
PR Watch, Spin of the Day, the Weekly Spin and SourceWatch are
projects of the Center for Media & Democracy, a nonprofit
organization that offers investigative reporting on the public
relations industry. We help the public recognize manipulative and
misleading PR practices by exposing the activities of secretive,
little-known propaganda-for-hire firms that work to control
political debates and public opinion. Please send any questions or
suggestions about our publications to:
editor@prwatch.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Contributions to the Center for Media and Democracy are
tax-deductible. Send checks to:
CMD
520 University Avenue, Suite 227
Madison, WI 53703
To donate now online, visit:
https://www.egrants.org/donate/index.cfm?ID=2344-0|1118-0 |