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THIS WEEK’S NEWS
== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. Anxious Al Caruba
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. The Republican-Lobbyist-Military-Industrial Complex
2. Asbestos Lobbying: Everyone’s Doing It
3. Fake News without the Gatekeepers
4. Exxon To Explain Their Profits Away
5. The Politics of Product Placement
6. The Nuclear ‘Renaissance’ Will Be Advertised
7. Mideast Oil Reduction Not Meant Literally
8. Mis-Statements of the Union
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== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. ANXIOUS AL CARUBA
by Bob Burton
Alan Caruba is a public relations professional who is so anxious about issues like environmentalism, immigration and the United Nations that he runs the National Anxiety Center. Caruba, who states on his website that his clients include or have included “chemical and pharmaceutical companies, think tanks [and] trade associations,” writes a weekly column, called “Warning Signs,” which is run by conservative websites.
In last week’s column, Caruba, an “adjunct fellow” at Ron Arnold’s anti-environmentalist Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise (CDFE), expressed anxiety over our SourceWatch article on his friend Michael Fumento. The title of his column was “Smearing Conservative Writers.”
For the rest of this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4441
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. THE REPUBLICAN-LOBBYIST-MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
www.thenation.com/doc/20060220/scahill
“While Abramoff, DeLay and Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham dominate the headlines,” the Alexander Strategy Group (ASG) “deserves to be heavily scrutinized for its role in each of those scandals and others not yet on the mainstream radar,” reports Jeremy Scahill. “Recently, ASG was on the cutting edge of one of the fastest-growing industries … private security,” working for Blackwater USA and an image-boosting industry coalition, the International Peace Operations Association. ASG’s clients also included Republican fundraiser and “Bush Pioneer” Brent Wilkes, whose companies have collected “some $90 million in military contracts” over the past decade. Previous to hiring ASG, Wilkes retained Patrick McSwain, Duke Cunningham’s former chief of staff, as a lobbyist. McSwain went on to found another “high-powered GOP lobbying firm,” Northpoint Strategies, whose clients included the Carlyle Group and Titan Corporation (”of Abu Ghraib fame”). Scahill concludes that such connections speak “volumes to how far and wide these investigations should extend.”
SOURCE: The Nation, February 2, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4445
2. ASBESTOS LOBBYING: EVERYONE’S DOING IT
thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Business/020706_asbestos1.html
The U.S. Senate’s “long war over the proposed asbestos-litigation trust fund has given the lobbying industry its biggest contracts and busiest revolving door, bringing a virtual army of ex-leadership aides back to their former bosses’ doorsteps.” Fortune 500 companies with “more than $75 million in liability to injured workers” have retained 20 firms to promote the bill, in addition to their in-house lobbyists and the National Association of Manufacturers. The Asbestos Study Group, a business coalition, has a $23 million contract with the Democratic lobbying firm Swidler Berlin (and also worked with the now-defunct Republican firm Alexander Strategy Group). Mark Tipps, “former chief of staff and longtime adviser to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist,” is lobbying for the bill at Akin Gump. Lobbying against the bill are Patton Boggs, for the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, and Fleishman-Hillard, for the Coalition for Asbestos Reform, “a group of smaller businesses.”
SOURCE: The Hill, February 7, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4444
3. FAKE NEWS WITHOUT THE GATEKEEPERS
publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=39353
It’s “the most aggressive example yet in a growing trend of marketers utilizing broadband video downloading to bypass traditional TV outlets,” writes Joe Mandese. During the ABC network’s Super Bowl coverage, Anheuser-Busch debuted “Bud TV,” a “direct-to-consumer network … offering viewers the opportunity to download advertising, programming and branded entertainment content directly to their computers, iPods and other devices.” Bud TV is run by Maven Networks, which previously ran a “limited channel” for PepsiCo’s Mountain Dew. General Motors is readying similar efforts for Chevrolet trucks. The PR firm Medialink Worldwide recently “announced the creation of its own direct-to-consumer distribution channel with the release of a new VNR (video news release) for General Motors’ Buick division featuring golf superstar Tiger Woods.” Medialink CEO Larry Moskowitz calls the approach “narrative marketing,” and says it gives “marketers more control over their messages than relying on traditional TV news department gatekeepers.”
SOURCE: MediaDailyNews, February 2, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4439
4. EXXON TO EXPLAIN THEIR PROFITS AWAY
www.prweek.com/us/news/article/539632/exxon-buoys-pr-amid-oil-industry-backlash/
After enjoying the largest profits of any company, ever, in 2005, Exxon Mobil has the resources — and the need — for expanded PR. The new campaign will “educate consumers and media about the inner workings of the oil industry, and the costs of producing, shipping, and refining crude,” reports PR Week. It will include “PR, advertising, and media tours,” as well as opinion pieces and meetings with editorial boards, including with regional and local media. Exxon will also give its “Energy Outlook” talk “at college campuses, high schools, and to academics.” According to PR Week, “while Exxon works with a number of PR firms, including Weber Shandwick,” the new campaign is “entirely in-house.” After earning a record-breaking $36.1 billion last year, Exxon wants to avoid backlash from consumers angry about high gas prices and weaken support for the Windfall Profits Tax proposals before Congress.
SOURCE: PR Week (sub req’d), February 3, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4437
5. THE POLITICS OF PRODUCT PLACEMENT
www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6304942.html?display=News&referral=SUPP
In an interview with Broadcasting & Cable, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said product placement “is permissible, so long as it is disclosed,” but that the FCC “could be more aggressive in monitoring the material that goes out. … But given that we are not set up as an investigatory agency, we’re going to rely heavily on outsiders to provide us information.” While some broadcasters have “enhanced their disclosure” of product placement arrangements voluntarily, sometimes “it is virtually impossible for the average viewer to see because it is so small and passes by so quickly during the closing credits,” Adelstein said. “We do have requirements about the size and length of disclosure for political advertising. I don’t see why we shouldn’t have the same for any advertising that needs to be disclosed. The current regulations require full and fair disclosure, but we have never spelled out what that means.”
SOURCE: Broadcasting & Cable, February 6, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4436
6. THE NUCLEAR ‘RENAISSANCE’ WILL BE ADVERTISED
online.wsj.com/article/SB113918919762465643.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
“The nation’s nuclear-power industry is set to roll out a multiyear advertising campaign to build public support for a generation of new plants,” reports the Wall Street Journal. The ad campaign, run by the PR firm Hill & Knowlton for the industry group Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), promotes a “nuclear renaissance.” NEI’s Scott Peterson said the goal is to “build a broader base of bipartisan support, both in Washington and across the country.” Last week, NEI selected Alex Flint as its new head lobbyist. Flint will remain at his current job, as the majority staff director of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, until joining NEI in April 2006. O’Dwyer’s reports that Weber Shandwick is promoting British Nuclear Fuels’ move to sell Westinghouse Electric to Japan’s Toshiba for $5.4 billion. U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez had lobbied British officials in favor of General Electric’s bid for Westinghouse.
SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, February 6, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4435
7. MIDEAST OIL REDUCTION NOT MEANT LITERALLY
www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13767738.htm
“One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America’s dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn’t mean it literally,” Knight-Ridder’s Kevin Hall reports. “What the president meant, they said in a conference call with reporters, was that alternative fuels could displace an amount of oil imports equivalent to most of what America is expected to import from the Middle East in 2025.” In his State of the Union address, Bush spelled it out: “America is addicted to oil.” Why did Bush call to “break this addication” to Middle East oil when he didn’t really mean it? “[O]ne administration official said Bush wanted to dramatize the issue in a way that ‘every American sitting out there listening to the speech understands,” Hall writes, adding, “The official spoke only on condition of anonymity because he feared that his remarks might get him in trouble.”
SOURCE: Knight Ridder, February 1, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4430
8. MIS-STATEMENTS OF THE UNION
www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3097
Middle East expert and author Stephen Zunes dissected some of George W. Bush’s “simplistic formulations” made during the State of the Union (SOTU) address. Bush stated, “there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success, and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure. Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy.” Zunes countered, “Recognizing that the [Iraq] war is probably unwinnable is not defeatism. It is realism. Aiming for an unachievable military ‘success’ is not responsible. It is a folly of tragic proportions. And insisting the Bush administration be held accountable for the lies, the negligence, and the tragic blunders which have resulted from this ongoing tragedy is a patriotic duty.”
SOURCE: Foreign Policy in Focus, February 1, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4429
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