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THIS WEEK’S NEWS
== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. New additions to Congresspedia
2. Food Flack Nation Attacks Journalist Eric Schlosser
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. All the World News that Didn’t Get Printed
2. HHS Moves Closer To Drowning in a Bathtub
3. After Congress, K Street Beats Main Street
4. Big Tobacco Lobbyists Seek To Axe Texas Taxes
5. AANRs: Australian Audio News Releases
6. Alaska Spends Cool $3 Million on Arctic Oil Campaign
7. Wal-Mart Seeks Boosters Among Biz Partners
8. Spinning (and Unspinning) Nuclear Power Worldwide
9. The War on Terror Meets the War on Drugs
10. Fake TV News Show Covers Fake TV News Report
11. Chemical Association’s PR To Make You Safer
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== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. NEW ADDITIONS TO CONGRESSPEDIA
by Conor Kenny
It’s been a busy week on Congresspedia. New additions to the site include:
* lots of contributions by members of the Congresspedia/SourceWatch community on bribery scandals, new legislation, heavyweight corporate campaign contributors, censuring the president and federal investigations into an “improper relationship” with a lobbyist (see full list)
* a new page on the Colbert Report with links to the videos of each of his “Better Know a District” member of Congress interviews
* and a fancy new tool for looking up your particular member of Congress by your home address.
Also well worth checking out is the muckraking action over at the Sunlight Foundation blogs. The new Congresspedia article contributions include:
For the rest of this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4802
2. FOOD FLACK NATION ATTACKS JOURNALIST ERIC SCHLOSSER
by John Stauber
“Fast Food Nation” mega-selling author Eric Schlosser must be doing something right. He’s under vicious attack from food industry lobbyists and front groups mimicking his book title in their website smearing him. Fleishman-Hillard’s Becky Johnson and her fellow flustered food flacks risk publicizing Schlosser’s writings in their over-the-top efforts to condemn him.
The industrial food lobby is freaking-out over “Chew On This”, his new book with Charles Wilson aimed at youngsters, and the fact that his “Fast Food Nation” is being made into a major Hollywood movie with the same title. Best Food Nation is the food industry’s sound-alike website funded by the American Farm Bureau Federation, American Meat Institute, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Council of Chain Restaurants, and 14 other food lobbies. The website highlights anti-Schlosser rants by industry-funded front groups including Heartland Institute and the American Council on Science and Health.
For the rest of this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4800
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. ALL THE WORLD NEWS THAT DIDN’T GET PRINTED
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33238
“Every year, the U.N.’s Department of Public Information (DPI) unveils its list of the world’s 10 most under-reported stories,” reports IPS. This year’s list, released May 15, includes Liberia’s post-war reconstruction, upcoming elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo, children affected by conflict in Nepal, drought and war in Somalia, problems with tsunami relief efforts, successful efforts to resolve conflicts over water resources, renewed violence in Cote d’Ivoire, and the many challenges facing refugees and asylum seekers. UN DPI head Shashi Tharoor blamed the “if it bleeds it leads” media phenomenon. “Development issues can make good stories too,” he said, calling on “readers, viewers and listeners” to “let editors know that they’d like to see more of such stories.” This year, Malaysia, which chairs the 114-member Non-Aligned Movement, launched the Non-Aligned News Network. Tharoor said the new network had the potential to broaden world news coverage.
SOURCE: Inter Press Service news, May 15, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4810
2. HHS MOVES CLOSER TO DROWNING IN A BATHTUB
www.odwyerpr.com/members/0516dhhs.htm
One of twelve units of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is contemplating outsourcing its communications office, reports O’Dwyer’s. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality is collecting “proposals from PR firms that can handle its public affairs, publishing, research and web operations.” The firm would replace the agency’s Office of Communications and Knowledge Transfer, which employs 32 full-time staff. (Current staff would be offered the “’right of first refusal’ to outsourced jobs for which they are qualified.”) The agency’s move follows Office of Management and Budget guidelines, which say “’commercial activities’ performed by government workers should be subject to competition when possible.” The agency carries out an annual report on healthcare quality in each U.S. state, and recently reported that alcohol abuse-related problems cost $2 billion a year in hospital costs.
SOURCE: O’Dwyer’s PR Daily (sub req’d), May 16, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4809
3. AFTER CONGRESS, K STREET BEATS MAIN STREET
thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Business/051606_brief.html
Part of the Washington DC government-industry revolving door has been quantified: 318 former members of Congress currently lobby their former colleagues, according to a new report by PoliticalMoneyLine. They include former Rep. Billy Tauzin, now head of the Pharamaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America; former Sen. John Breaux, now at Patton Boggs; former Sen. Don Nickles, who started his own lobbying firm; and former Rep. Jack Quinn, now a vice-president at Cassidy & Associates. Quinn told The Hill, “I was never someone who thought ‘lobbyist’ was a dirty word.” PoliticalMoneyLine’s website lists the clients of former official-turned-lobbyist William Lowery. His friend, current Rep. Jerry Lewis, has been accused of steering government contracts to Lowery’s clients.
SOURCE: The Hill, May 16, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4808
4. BIG TOBACCO LOBBYISTS SEEK TO AXE TEXAS TAXES
www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/
stories/051206dntextobaccolobby.223e4e1e.html
“Big Tobacco’s toughest fight in years is being waged by a band of highly paid, talented and experienced former legislators, political appointees and close friends of the most powerful people in Texas. They’re fighting an uphill battle with such finesse that they’re actually, occasionally, winning,” reports Karen Brooks. At issue is a state measure to increase cigarette taxes by one dollar per pack. Lobbyists retained by Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds include Governor Rick Perry’s former chief of staff, Texas’ former secretary of state and former state legislators. Their arguments against the tax increase include that it will hurt retailers and that for “working-class people who can’t afford to get away … having a smoke is their version of a vacation.” Tobacco companies are also running radio ads that are “offensive,” “demeaning” and “condescending,” according to one state senator, who pledged to oppose the industry-backed countermeasures after hearing the ads.
SOURCE: The Dallas Morning News, May 12, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4806
5. AANRS: AUSTRALIAN AUDIO NEWS RELEASES
www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s1639005.htm
The Australian TV show Mediawatch notes our study on video news releases and goes on to report, “We haven’t found any examples as bad as that on Australian TV, but the radio equivalent — the audio news release — has definitely arrived.” Mediawatch tracked one ANR, paid for by Telstra and produced and distributed by Professional Public Relations, that was aired by radio stations in Dubbo and Canberra. Another ANR, promoting a security company’s fire alarms, was distributed by Media Game and aired by radio stations in Wagga and Young. “Under resourced news services that don’t have time to do their own stories are the most vulnerable to PR strategies,” notes Mediawatch. “Which means real local news is pushed aside for phoney corporate spin.”
SOURCE: Mediawatch, ABC Television (Australia), May 15, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4805
6. ALASKA SPENDS COOL $3 MILLION ON ARCTIC OIL CAMPAIGN
www.prweek.com/uk/news/article/558738/
Pac-West+prepares+oil+exploration+push+AK/
The government of Alaska has signed a $3 million contract with the Oregon-based PR firm Pac/ West Communications, for a campaign promoting oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Pac/West president and CEO Paul Phillips told PR Week that market research is currently being conducted on where “the issue sits with the American people, with all the other discussion about energy floating around these days.” The Alaskan government also allocated $750,000 for lobbying, in addition to the efforts of the business lobby group, Arctic Power. Pac/West staff are busy on other campaigns, too. Former timber industry lobbyist and current Pac/West director Tim Wigley is the campaign director of the Save Our Species Alliance, which aims to weaken the provisions of the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
SOURCE: PR Week (sub req’d), May 11, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4804
7. WAL-MART SEEKS BOOSTERS AMONG BIZ PARTNERS
www.nytimes.com/2006/05/12/business/12walmart.html
The Wal-Mart-launched and -funded advocacy group, Working Families for Wal-Mart, is recruiting “Wal-Mart suppliers to join the public relations offensive — a move that some vendors say puts improper pressure on them,” reports Michael Barbaro. While Working Families for Wal-Mart “describes itself as autonomous … at least half of the steering committee’s members have business ties to Wal-Mart” or the group itself. Examples are Andrew Young, whose consulting firm works for the group, and Terry Nelson, a former Bush campaign director whose firm consults for both the group and Wal-Mart. The recruiting effort “challenges Wal-Mart’s longstanding policy of keeping suppliers at arm’s length and shows how eager the company is to fend off a well-organized union-backed campaign critical of its wages and benefits,” notes Barbaro. A Wal-Mart spokesperson said, “There is no tie between joining Working Families for Wal-Mart and a supplier’s ability to do business” with the retail giant.
SOURCE: New York Times, May 12, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4801
8. SPINNING (AND UNSPINNING) NUCLEAR POWER WORLDWIDE
www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/articles/2006/05/09/
nuclear_industry_adopts_new_policies_on_radioactive_water/
“The nuclear industry took steps … to head off a growing public relations — if not health — problem, promising to closely monitor leaks of slightly radioactive groundwater at power plants,” reports AP. “Water containing tritium has been released into groundwater at half a dozen plants over the past decade,” including in Illinois, Arizona and New York. The industry group Nuclear Energy Institute is launching “a voluntary program to closely monitor such leaks.” A recent AlterNet article describes the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, an industry / Bush administration plan to “dramatically expand nuclear energy production at home, encourage new nuclear generation abroad and import other countries’ spent fuel for reprocessing in the United States.” And a new website by our European colleagues at SpinWatch, called Nuclear Spin, tracks “key pro-nuclear advocates in the UK,” where the government’s energy review was criticized as window dressing for plans to expand nuclear power.
SOURCE: Associated Press, May 10, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4797
9. THE WAR ON TERROR MEETS THE WAR ON DRUGS
www.odwyerpr.com/members/0511afghan.htm
Hill & Knowlton will head “a complex $3.8M PR effort” for the U.S. State Department, “targeting Afghan citizens and stakeholder groups to dissuade Afghan farmers from cultivating poppies and boosting global drug trade.” Poppy production has soared since the 2001 U.S. invasion. Afghanistan provided 86 percent of the world’s heroin in 2005, and “planting has significantly increased in 2006,” according to a State Department official. Hill & Knowlton will “deploy communications through seven Afghan provinces” and “build capability” within the Agriculture, Interior and Counter-narcotics Ministries, by providing “communications professionals” and developing each ministry’s own communications office. “Foreign and domestic media will be brought along” on poppy eradication missions, and “alternative livelihood efforts” will be promoted in the PR campaign. Current messages include, “Growing poppies is against Islam and harmful for the reputation of Afghanistan.” Previous U.S.-funded PR work, by the Rendon Group and others, has been called costly and ineffective by Afghan officials.
SOURCE: O’Dwyer’s PR Daily (sub req’d), May 11, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4795
10. FAKE TV NEWS SHOW COVERS FAKE TV NEWS REPORT
www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/videos/lewis_black/index.jhtml
We’re happy to say that the premier U.S. fake news show covered our report, “Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed.” On May 10, Daily Show commentator Lewis Black held forth on video news releases (VNRs), showing footage from the Stiefel Laboratories VNR promoting its new prescription-strength skin cream (better for your skin than sitting in a tub of ranch dressing, said Black) and from the Siemens VNR touting the “ethanol boom.” Considering Medialink Worldwide publicist Kate Brookes — who appeared on screen on at least four TV stations that aired that VNR, as though she were a reporter — Black suggested that, like ethanol, she could be considered a renewable resource. Hmmm… we never thought of it quite like that.
SOURCE: The Daily Show, May 10, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4794
11. CHEMICAL ASSOCIATION’S PR TO MAKE YOU SAFER
www.americanchemistry.com/s_acc/bin.asp?CID=206&DID=2033&DOC=FILE.PDF
The American Chemistry Council wants you to know that you’re safer than you may think when toxic chemicals end up in your local groundwater and air. ACC has announced the hire of ex-Environmental Protection Agency spokesperson Lisa Harrison as its new vice president of communications. Says Ms. Harrison, in celebrating her new position: “I am excited at the challenge of educating and informing opinion leaders about the benefits of American chemistry in our every day lives, and the value that the industry and the ACC bring to Washington D.C.” Among her Administration appearances: defending the EPA’s “Clear Skies” program that exaggerated cuts in airborne sulfur dioxide emissions and defending toxic sludge. A few days before Harrison joined ACC, the organization released a new defense of the Bush Administration’s proposed rollback of the Toxics Release Inventory. The Environmental Working Group has led a blistering critique of the proposed rollbacks.
SOURCE: American Chemistry Council, April 26, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4792
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