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THIS WEEK’S NEWS
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. Stop the Fake News Dummies!
2. Self-Hating Media Moguls Take More Airwaves
3. U.S. Exports of Corporate Spin Are Up
4. Spreading Democracy, for Shah
5. Sowing Seeds of Discontent
6. Praise the Lord and Pass the Vioxx
7. International Aid and Image Assistance
8. Dezenhall Bemused by Environmentalists’ Wins
9. From Britain, with Love – and Focus Groups
10. Different Shade of Lipstick, Same Pigheaded Policies
11. Advertainment Reigns
12. Oiling The Wheels Of Fake News
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== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. STOP THE FAKE NEWS DUMMIES!
https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=1118
Video news releases (like those featuring Karen Ryan) and pundit payola (like Armstrong Williams’ promotion of the No Child Left Behind Act) are just two examples of how corporate and government interests have infiltrated news media, turning reporters and commentators into ventriloquists’ dummies. The Center for Media and Democracy is working hard to stop these fake news blockheads – and we need your support! Last week, our fund appeal for our growing “No Fake News!” campaign generated only a few donations. While we thank who did donate, we’ve got a long way to go. The good news is, we’ve got at least one Federal Communications Commission commissioner on our side. At the May 2005 National Conference on Media Reform, the FCC’s Jonathan Adelstein said, “We’re going to shut down this fraud that is being perpetrated on the American people by the media. And you’re the ones to do it.” Please, if you haven’t already, donate to the Center today! You can use the above link to access our secure, online donation page, or mail a check made out to “CMD” to CMD, 520 University Ave, Suite 227, Madison, WI 53703.
SOURCE: Center for Media and Democracy
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3730
2. SELF-HATING MEDIA MOGULS TAKE MORE AIRWAVES
www.nytimes.com/2005/05/30/business/media/30clear.html
“For weeks, it sounded as if amateurs had been bleeding their voices into the broadcasts of stations in Akron, Ohio, owned by Clear Channel, the corporate radio giant.” The pirate broadcasters’ website contained “a manifesto about ‘corporate-controlled music playlists’ that took potshots at several local Clear Channel stations.” But it was all a Clear Channel marketing campaign, to promote an Akron station’s switch to a “progressive talk” format. “We tried to get into the mindset of people who would listen to this new station,” said the company’s local marketing manager – a mindset that “may involve a suspicion of Clear Channel itself.” “It’s the heart of the problem with Clear Channel,” said Carrie McLaren, the editor of Stay Free magazine. “’We’re this huge corporation and we do everything to fake being local.’” Stay Free reported on the outing of “Radio Free Ohio” by a (truly) independent Ohio radio station.
SOURCE: New York Times, May 30, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3734
3. U.S. EXPORTS OF CORPORATE SPIN ARE UP
prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=238434&site=3
Three new PR ventures “represent the globalization of a strategic concept that’s been de rigeur in Washington for more than a decade: executing corporate PR campaigns as if they were political battles, in which someone wins, someone loses, and the client is the candidate,” writes PR Week. One such effort is 360Advantage, a joint Burson-Marsteller and Quinn Gillespie venture. Another is Fleishman-Hillard’s new “global network of public affairs shops,” VOX Global Mandate. The third is ViaNovo, which will “offer management and communications consulting services,” reports O’Dwyer’s. ViaNovo’s founders include Tucker Eskew, “who headed the White House’s global communications office to coordinate the ‘war on terror’”; Matthew Dowd, a Republican National Committee and Bush-Cheney campaign media staffer; and Democrats Blaine Bull and James Taylor, both formerly of Public Strategies Inc.
SOURCE: PR Week (sub. req’d.), May 27, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3729
4. SPREADING DEMOCRACY, FOR SHAH
www.nytimes.com/2005/05/29/international/middleeast/29iran.html
“The Bush administration is expanding efforts to influence Iran’s internal politics,” including increasing aid to exile groups and airing “longer broadcasts criticizing the Iranian government” on Voice of America satellite TV programs. Under secretary of state for political affairs R. Nicholas Burns said the United States is “taking a page from the playbook” on Ukraine and Georgia. In those two countries, “opposition and pro-democracy groups” given U.S. funding “later supported the peaceful overthrow of the governments in power.” Through the National Endowment for Democracy, the U.S. State Department has already spent $500,000 to investigate “human rights, business enterprise and women’s rights” in Iran. Over the next year, the State Department will spend $3 million, “for the benefit of Iranians living inside Iran,” including on “broadcast activities, Internet programs and ‘working with people inside Iran.’”
SOURCE: New York Times, May 29, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3728
5. SOWING SEEDS OF DISCONTENT
counterpunch.org/tokar05262005.html
“Close to 100 New England towns have passed resolutions opposing the unregulated use of GMOs (genetically modified organisms); nearly a quarter of these have called for local moratoria on the planting of GMO seeds. In 2004, three California counties, Mendocino, Trinity and Marin, passed ordinances banning the raising of genetically engineered crops and livestock.” In response, “fifteen states recently have introduced legislation removing local control of plants and seeds. Eleven of these states have already passed the provisions into law.” The move to deny local control over food was launched at a May 2004 American Legislative Exchange Council forum, where industry groups proposed a “Biotechnology state uniformity resolution.” Previously, the tobacco industry used a similar approach. A Philip Morris employee explained, “By introducing preemptive statewide legislation, we can shift the battle away from the community level back to the state legislatures where we are on stronger ground.”
SOURCE: CounterPunch, May 26, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3725
6. PRAISE THE LORD AND PASS THE VIOXX
prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=238374&site=3
The industry lobby group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) is launching “an aggressive new PR plan,” highlighting its new CEO, former Congressman and cancer survivor Billy Tauzin. According to PhRMA senior vice-president of communications Ken Johnson, the new plan includes reorganizing media relations “almost like a beat system,” with point people for “state, federal, or international outreach.” PhRMA has also launched a radio series called Healthcare Now, “which Johnson likens to an ANR (audio news release) that can be played in small markets without health reporters.” PhRMA is also “building an onsite studio” to allow Tauzin to do more television interviews and speaking events. Johnson said part of PhRMA’s PR strategy is to make Tauzin “an evangelist for the pharmaceutical industry.”
SOURCE: PR Week (sub. req’d.), May 26, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3724
7. INTERNATIONAL AID AND IMAGE ASSISTANCE
www.odwyerpr.com/members/0527usaid.htm
A U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) advertising campaign, coinciding with Laura Bush’s Middle East visit last week and designed to improve America’s image among Palestinians, lacked a Palestinian spokesperson. “None of the Palestinian entertainers or athletes approached by the agency would serve as ‘goodwill ambassador’,” so an “Israeli Arab soccer player” was recruited. Billboards and TV ads highlight USAID education and water projects in the Palestinian territories, in line with recent Council on Foreign Relations suggestions to make U.S. aid to Muslim countries more visible. But USAID “cancelled plans to contract a firm to develop an integrated communications plan for its initiative to foster public-private alliances in its overseas work,” the Global Development Alliance. No reason was given for canceling the plan to promote “USAID’s successes.”
SOURCE: O’Dwyer’s PR Daily (sub. req’d.), May 27, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3723
8. DEZENHALL BEMUSED BY ENVIRONMENTALISTS’ WINS
www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=GREENCOMPANIES-05-25-05&cat=AN
Joan Lowy notes that environmental groups like Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network and the Texas Campaign for the Environment are having success with campaigns that bypass government and directly lobby corporations instead. The trend bemuses Eric Dezenhall, the president of Dezenhall Resources, a Washington D.C. PR firm with a reputation for promoting aggressive strategies against activist groups. “The desire of corporations to be accepted by the marketplace and to be personally liked has spawned an entire industry of activism and corporate capitulation that I’ve never seen before – it’s unprecedented … I’ve seen situations where companies are simply being harassed so badly that it pays to get out of a certain endeavor just to make the harassment stop,” he said.
SOURCE: Scripps Howard News Service, May 25, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3722
9. FROM BRITAIN, WITH LOVE – AND FOCUS GROUPS
www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1491840,00.html
The Iranian presidential campaign of Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf, “a conservative former revolutionary guard air force commander whose candidacy has the blessing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,” is patterned after that of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, reports the Guardian. “The Qalibaf campaign is deploying focus groups,” using them to compile “a list of 10 key priorities, including unemployment, inflation, social security and quality of life issues.” In the campaign office, “strategists and policy wonks confer daily on how to market Mr. Qalibaf … to Iran’s vast army of young voters as a vigorous moderniser.” The campaign is playing down Mr. Qalibaf’s “strong religious convictions,” showing him “without a beard” and “moonlighting as a commercial pilot for a local airline.” Some Iranian reformers are criticizing “Mr. Qalibaf’s carefully honed image of studied reasonableness,” pointing to his 1999 call to crack down on student demonstrators.
SOURCE: Guardian, May 25, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3721
10. DIFFERENT SHADE OF LIPSTICK, SAME PIGHEADED POLICIES
www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0505/S00328.htm
A new report from the Council on Foreign Relations suggests that better U.S. communications with Muslim countries require “listening more, a humbler tone, and focusing on bilateral aid and partnership, while tolerating disagreement on controversial policy issues.” The report, which was based on focus groups held in Morocco, Egypt and Indonesia, says U.S. tsunami relief, the Iraqi election and new Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts provide “a window of opportunity to change Muslim attitudes.” Specific recommendations include engaging “local and regional media via press releases, interviews, Op-Eds, press conferences, and site visits,” and launching “an advertising campaign on U.S. aid and support for reform in local and regional media, and acknowledge the U.S. government as the source.” Focus group members “do not take seriously U.S. government media, such as Radio Sawa, al-Hurra TV, and Hi magazine, as information sources.”
SOURCE: Scoop (New Zealand), May 26, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3720
11. ADVERTAINMENT REIGNS
www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-payola26may26.story
Product placements on television shows are booming, with this year’s market expected to total $4.2 billion. “Advertisers pay as much as $2 million an episode to get their products featured on NBC’s ‘The Apprentice,’” reports the Los Angeles Times. At the TV industry’s annual sales drive, actor Amanda Bynes of WB’s “What I Like About You” said of her show’s characters, “This season we found out, like, they eat Pringles and use Herbal Essence shampoo. Next season, we hope to find out what cellphones they’re using and what cars they drive.” Other recent product placements include a couple on Fox’s “The O.C.” looking at AmericanAirlines.com, a character on ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” working for Buick LaCrosse, and contestants on CBS’ “Survivor:Palau” using Home Depot tools. The Federal Communications Commission’s Jonathan Adelstein said the current standard of listing paid sponsorships in the show’s closing credits is inadequate disclosure.
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, May 26, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3719
12. OILING THE WHEELS OF FAKE NEWS
www.digitalproducer.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=25474
In a column for Digital Producer magazine, Steven Klapow recounts that a producer of video news releases for an oil company was under strict instructions to avoid including images, including on B-roll footage, that may not look good for the sponsoring company. “We have to avoid any shots that can be taken out of context,” the producer said. The sort of shots that could cause problems, Klapow wrote, includes “steam emitting from a refinery could be perceived or described as smoke” and “any dirty areas in shots that are captured at filling stations.” The producers of fake news are opposing the on-screen disclosure of the sponsors of corporate videos.
SOURCE: Digital Producer, May 26, 2005.
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3718
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