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THIS WEEK’S NEWS
== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. Environmental Defense or Nanotech Defense?
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. Fish Story
2. Talking About a PR Solution
3. Lead Paint Balloons for the Kids
4. Blair Son To Learn PR, U.S. Politics
5. Skeptical Journalism?
6. Fumento’s Genetically Engineered Columns
7. Senators Just Say Whoa To Drug “Education”
8. Abramoff Stink Extends To Media
9. The Lobbying Scandal Across the Pond
10. Pfizer Controls the Healthcare Debate
11. Pentagon Will Better Plan Propaganda in 2006
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== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE OR NANOTECH DEFENSE?
by Bob Burton
If you have concerns about the development of nanotechnology, you might want to keep an eye on the ‘partnership’ between the chemical industry giant DuPont and Environmental Defense (ED), the New York-based environmental group.
The project, according to a joint media release issued in October 2005 by ED’s Fred Krupp and DuPont’s Chad Halliday, is to “identify, manage and reduce potential health, safety and environmental risks of nano-scale materials across all lifecycle stages.” Once developed, the framework will “then be pilot-tested on specific nano-scale materials or applications of commercial interest to DuPont.”
The announcement implies that DuPont has yet to bring any nano-products to market. However, a promotional webpage on Teflon — a DuPont technology — indicates otherwise. “Invista: built on DuPont innovation,” the website states. “TeflonŽ works on the nano scale,” Invista boasts, before waxing lyrical about the product’s water and oil repelling properties. (DuPont’s Textiles & Interiors division was spun off as a separate business, renamed Invista in September 2003, and sold to Koch Industries shortly afterwards.)
To be fair, ED has flagged concerns about there being inadequate health and environmental assessments of nanotechnologies to date. However, ED hasn’t mentioned publicly what they think about DuPont’s placing nanotech Teflon and similar products on the market, without such assessments.
For the rest of this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4273
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. FISH STORY
villagevoice.com/people/0603,hunter,71775,24.html
Washington, DC lobbyist Rick Berman must have a new client. Recently his front group, the Center for Consumer Freedom, launched a new website called FishScam.com along with a multimedia PR blitz including billboard and radio ads decrying the “hype” about health hazards of mercury in fish. “It’s really extraordinary and extremely irresponsible,” says Consumers Union director of food policy Jean Halloran. “Many people have educated themselves about this issue, but I’m concerned that less-educated women who don’t realize he is industry-funded will take his advice.”
SOURCE: Village Voice, January 17, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4379
2. TALKING ABOUT A PR SOLUTION
www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/brown01112006/
“The Pentagon has been criticized for not winning the ‘hearts-and-minds’ war overseas, as a recent Defense Science Board report [pdf] contends. So, in my view, what the Pentagon did in reaction to these criticisms was to ‘outsource’ the handling of public opinion in Iraq to private firms, to show Congress and other critics that the military was ‘doing something’ about the ‘foreign opinion problem.’ The result: a PR disaster, both domestically and internationally, which has backfired against the U.S. and its armed forces,” former State Department employee John H. Brown told Press Action, responding to a question on the effectiveness and legitimacy of Pentagon contracts with the Lincoln Group and the Rendon Group. “I think what the American public is increasingly discovering is that the current administration sees foreign policy as just one more way to mold American domestic opinion.”
SOURCE: Press Action, January 11, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4375
3. LEAD PAINT BALLOONS FOR THE KIDS
www.projo.com/news/content/projo_20060114_lead14.22167bb9.html
Testimony in Rhode Island’s case against four companies that produced and sold lead-based paint – Atlantic Richfield, Millennium Holdings, NL Industries and Sherwin Williams – detailed how they “continued to use children in advertisements … years after medical literature and industry documents made clear that lead was a threat to children’s health.” Columbia University science and public health professor David Rosner said the companies “engaged in a wide promotion of the use of toys and children’s furniture” to sell their paint. The campaigns included hand puppets and coloring books from Dutch Boy (now NL Industries); ads promoting Millennium Holdings paint for nurseries and playrooms, “because of the normal wear and tear of activity”; and White Lead Promotion, an extensive joint campaign from NL and Sherwin Williams, that promoted “the use of lead-based paints in schools” and in homes.
SOURCE: The Providence Journal (Rhode Island), January 14, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4373
4. BLAIR SON TO LEARN PR, U.S. POLITICS
today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-01-13T140321Z_01_WRI350348_RTRUKOC_0_UK-BRITAIN-BLAIR
Reuters reports that British Prime Minister “Tony Blair’s eldest son Euan is to gain work experience with financial public relations company Finsbury.” Finsbury, which is owned by the WPP advertising firm, offers “corporate strategic advice, UK and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, investor relations and crisis management.” Clients include Vodafone, BSkyB and J Sainsbury. Euan Blair will also spend three months interning with “Republican staff in the U.S. House of Representatives.”
SOURCE: Reuters, January 13, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4372
5. SKEPTICAL JOURNALISM?
www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17815217%255E28737,00.html
“Take a step back and get the science right first, writes a special correspondent,” is the teaser for a 920-word feature on climate change in The Australian’s Inquirer section. “The public and political debate has tended to be dominated by the convenient but highly political argument that blames industry and industrial activity for its emissions of carbon dioxide,” the correspondent complained, echoing the arguments of climate change skeptics. Who was this “special correspondent” to The Australian, the national newspaper of Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited? The footer disclosed only that “the correspondent is employed by a resources lobby.” Why an opinion column was not on the opinion pages, but in a section normally reserved for features by real journalists, went unexplained. Nor was it explained why a newspaper printed an entire article by an anonymous contributor, when it won’t print anonymous letters to the editor.
SOURCE: The Australian, January 14-15, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4369
6. FUMENTO’S GENETICALLY ENGINEERED COLUMNS
www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jan2006/nf20060113_2851_db035.htm
“Scripps Howard News Service announced Jan. 13 that it’s severing its business relationship with columnist Michael Fumento, who’s also a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute. The move comes after inquiries from BusinessWeek Online about payments Fumento received from agribusiness giant Monsanto — a frequent subject of praise in Fumento’s opinion columns and a book.” Scripps Howard general manager Peter Copeland said Fumento “did not tell SHNS editors, and therefore we did not tell our readers, that in 1999 Hudson received a $60,000 grant from Monsanto.” The grant was for Fumento’s book BioEvolution. Fumento called himself “extremely pro-biotech” and said he told Monsanto about the book, “The biotech industry is going to look really good, and you should contribute.” Fumento said his recent columns, including a January 5 piece praising new Monsanto products, were not “quid pro quo.” He added, “I think there’s a statute of limitations on that.”
SOURCE: BusinessWeek, January 13, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4368
7. SENATORS JUST SAY WHOA TO DRUG “EDUCATION”
www.nytimes.com/2006/01/11/business/11grant.html
“A Congressional investigation of the money that drug companies give as supposed educational grants has found that the payments are growing rapidly and are sometimes steered by marketing executives to doctors and groups who push unapproved uses of drugs.” In 2004, 23 drug companies spent $1.47 billion on educational grants, a 20 percent increase from 2003. The U.S. Senate Finance Committee is “seeking more information” from the companies “about their use of educational grants.” Senator Grassley said, “It’s hard to see how you could call some of these grants ‘educational.’” Companies are only allowed to market drugs for approved uses, though doctors can prescribe drugs for “off-label” uses. Off-label uses may account for up to half of all U.S. prescriptions. The industry group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America pointed to its “comprehensive voluntary guidelines … that are designed to help keep marketing practices ethical.”
SOURCE: New York Times, January 11, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4367
8. ABRAMOFF STINK EXTENDS TO MEDIA
www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=47427
Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s media clients included the Magazine Publishers Association (MPA) and Primedia. For MPA, Abramoff “and an unidentified Congressional aide worked to stave off an increase in postal rates – a significant benefit for an industry that depends on the postal service,” reported the New York Times. In 2000, MPA contributed $25,000 to “Toward Tradition,” a group Abramoff allegedly used to funnel money. Primedia employed Abramoff and associate Tony Rudy from 1999 through 2003, to lobby for Channel One. “Although it is not clear what Mr. Abramoff’s firm did for Channel One, the network has faced a number of legislative threats,” reports AdAge, including proposed “regulations to limit how marketers reach students. Channel One also derived much of its ad revenue from government agencies, including the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and military recruitment efforts.” A Primedia spokesman said Abramoff’s Channel One work “did not include any effort to secure government agency advertising.”
SOURCE: Advertising Age, January 11, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4366
9. THE LOBBYING SCANDAL ACROSS THE POND
www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,17129-1983322,00.html
“The nuclear, pharmaceutical and drinks industries are funding and even writing policy reports in the name of influential all-party groups (APG)” in British Parliament, reports The Times. There are almost 300 APG groups, and “two thirds are now being assisted by special interest groups,” often “investigating controversial policies in which they have a commercial interest.” Examples include the All-Party Parliamentary Nuclear Group, administered by Miranda Kirschel of the Nuclear Industry Association, a trade group representing more than 100 nuclear companies; and the All-Party Pharmacy Group, which “admitted that lobbyists working on behalf of the pharmacy industry wrote the reports on behalf of the group.” The Pharmacy APG had listed the PR and lobbying firm Luther Pendragon as a source of “administrative support,” without identifying the ultimate client, as is required by law.
SOURCE: The Times (London, UK), January 13, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4365
10. PFIZER CONTROLS THE HEALTHCARE DEBATE
www.prweek.com/us/home/article/535194/pfizers-spectrum-science-encourages-health-policy-debate/
Bringing “together politicians and academics on different ends of the political spectrum to participate in forums on health policy,” with the goal of reforming “the nation’s healthcare system” sounds like a good idea. But the organizer is the drug company Pfizer, through its public affairs agency, Spectrum Science Communications. The “Ceasefire on Healthcare” town meetings are funded by Pfizer and American University, and have featured Senator Hillary Clinton and former Congressman Newt Gingrich. “The thrust of the campaign … is to make incremental changes,” said Spectrum Science’s Claire Barnard. C-Span is covering the town meetings, which started in June 2005 and have been held at the Brookings Institution, Heritage Foundation and National Press Club.
SOURCE: PR Week (sub req’d), January 11, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4363
11. PENTAGON WILL BETTER PLAN PROPAGANDA IN 2006
www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N11382187.htm
“We are in a new and very challenging communications environment out there and we tend to focus our efforts to ensuring that the combatant commander has all of the capabilities that he needs to accomplish his missions,” a “senior defense official” told Reuters. The military’s investigation of its own activities, via the Lincoln Group, to pay Iraqi journalists and plant Pentagon-written stories in Iraqi newspapers “is almost complete.” But Gen. John Abizaid, the head of U.S. Central Command, which includes Iraq, “has thus far not ordered any halt to the media payments.” The anonymous official said that part of the Pentagon’s next Quadrennial Defense Review, which will be submitted to the White House and Congress in February, will be a “strategic communications” plan. “Developing clear guidance for communicating with the public at home and abroad is a key issue” for the Pentagon this year, Reuters reported.
SOURCE: Reuters, January 11, 2006
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4362
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