THE WEEKLY SPIN, January 5, 2005
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THIS WEEK’S NEWS

== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. Milloy Blames Environmentalists First
2. Smart ALEC in the Classroom

== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. A Front Group Affront
2. Let the Sun Shine In
3. A War Room of One’s Own
4. Losing Hearts, Minds and Air Time
5. FOIA Eyes Only
6. The Secrets War
7. Republicans ‘Outorganized and Outthought’ Democrats
8. Flacks Attack “Determined Detractors”
9. AIDS Action Befriends Bush
10. Lobbying Bill Tops $1.1 Billion For First Half of 2004
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== BLOG POSTINGS ==

MILLOY BLAMES ENVIRONMENTALISTS FIRST•by Sheldon Rampton• Steven Milloy, the self-proclaimed critic of junk science at Fox• News, rarely misses an opportunity to bash environmentalists.• Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, he falsely claimed• that the collapse of the World Trade Towers could have been delayed• if only the builders had used more asbestos. He also has a habit of• distorting other people’s words when it serves his agenda. (A recent• example of this was featured on RealClimate.org, a weblog for climate scientists.) Milloy’s response to the Asian tsunami is similar. In a column for Fox News, Milloy accuses environmentalists of exploiting the disaster by trying to blame it on global warming. In order to make this seem plausible, however, he has to misquote the environmentalists he is attacking. For the rest of this story, visit: www.prwatch.org/node/3159

2. SMART ALEC IN THE CLASSROOM by Sheldon Rampton
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a corporate-funded conservative advocacy group that specializes in lobbying state legislatures for enactment of favorable legislation, has issued a “2004 Report Card on American Education” that provides an instructive example of the ways that industry-funded organizations manipulate information to reach foreordained conclusions. ALEC’s report, which comes packaged with a glossy clip-art cover showing a pencil, ruler and other classroom implements, was authored by Andrew T. LeFevre, the President of LeFevre Associates, a PR/lobby firm based in northern Virginia. It was edited by Lori Drummer, who heads ALEC’s education task force, which is “responsible for overseeing the development of ALEC policy related to education reform and school choice programs” – euphemisms for school privatization, which ALEC advocates. For the rest of this story, visit: www.prwatch.org/node/3150

== SPIN OF THE DAY ==

A FRONT GROUP AFFRONT
www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8984
An American Prospect article on Rick Berman of the front group Center for Consumer Freedom notes, “Berman’s strategy turns on a simple rhetorical gimmick: By employing the language of consumer freedom, he protects his client industries by demonizing (and, hopefully, discrediting) their critics.” Berman “stands out, if only for the sheer, unparalleled audacity with which he’s straddled his dual roles as consumer ‘advocate’ and industry lobbyist. … In addition to running the Center for Consumer Freedom,” Berman is “the founder and president of an influential Washington lobbying firm, Berman & Co.” The firm “has performed for-profit lobbying for – you guessed it – many of the same industries served by the center,” including restaurant chains and alcohol companies. SOURCE: The American Prospect, January 3, 2004 For more information or to comment on this story, visit: www.prwatch.org/node/3166

2. LET THE SUN SHINE IN
prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=231598&site=3
The American Society of Newspaper Editors and other media organizations are organizing “Sunshine Week” in mid-March, to encourage print, broadcast and online media outlets “to address the issue of a more open government through news coverage, editorials, commentaries, and editorial cartoons.” The organizations are “alarmed by a trend toward secrecy at all levels of government.” A similar effort, OpenTheGovernment.org, has been launched by dozens of organizations “to advance the public’s right to know and to reduce secrecy in the government.” The managing director of the PR Consulting Group, which is promoting OpenTheGovernment.org, said, “As Americans concerned about the erosion of our constitutionally protected freedoms, this is a very important client for us.” SOURCE: PR Week (reg. req’d.), January 3, 2005 For more information or to comment on this story, visit: www.prwatch.org/node/3165

3. A WAR ROOM OF ONE’S OWN
prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=231599&site=3
The “first permanent communications war room for Democrats on Capitol Hill,” the Senate Democratic Communications Center, has been launched. The SDCC’s 15 staff members are led by Jim Manley, Senator Edward Kennedy’s press secretary, and Phil Singer, former Kerry-Edwards campaign spokesperson. Manley said the SDCC’s goal is “to amplify the Senate Democratic agenda,” conceding, “the Republicans have been successful … with a unified set of talking points.” Senior Fleishman-Hillard partner Jon Haber also noted the Republican Party’s “message discipline,” and said Democrats are trying “to position themselves as helping individuals, families and workers.” SDCC plans include a dedicated website and regular media outreach. SOURCE: PR Week (reg. req’d.), January 3, 2004 For more information or to comment on this story, visit: www.prwatch.org/node/3164

4. LOSING HEARTS, MINDS AND AIR TIME
www.nytimes.com/2005/01/02/magazine/02ARAB.html
“The United States government’s primary strategy with the Arab media has been to create its own outlets – the satellite-news station Al Hurra and Radio Sawa – at a cost of $100 million, rather than engage aggressively with existing Arab media,” notes the New York Times, in an in-depth article on Al Arabiya, a privately-owned TV news station established as “a more moderate alternative to Al Jazeera.” One station executive said, “To my surprise, the [Iraqi] opposition is doing better, P.R.-wise, than the official Americans and Iraqis, who are not as readily available for comment. … The militants are ready with a video of masked men and a person available for comment a half-hour after the story breaks.” SOURCE: New York Times, January 2, 2004 For more information or to comment on this story, visit: www.prwatch.org/node/3163

5. FOIA EYES ONLY
slate.msn.com/id/2111638/fr/rss/
“Over the past month, the biggest scoops in the news business have come from … an organization that’s not in the news business,” writes Eric Umansky. “Using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the American Civil Liberties Union has uncovered thousands of government documents detailing torture of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay.” So how did the ACLU beat the nation’s top news organizations to the punch? To begin with, it bothered to file a FOIA request. The only news organization to do so was the Washington Post. For another thing, the government has been stalling on the requests it has received. The Post is still waiting for a response to the request it filed last spring, and the ACLU only got its documents because it took the government to court and won (something that none of the newspapers did). “But even that has been just a partial victory,” Umansky notes. “The Pentagon has held onto many documents – ‘There are far more documents that haven’t been released than have,” says the ACLU’s Jameel Jaffer – and the CIA insists that it doesn’t even need to confirm whether the requested documents exist, let alone release them. Even in the memos and e-mails that have been let loose, there’s a generous use of whiteout. One series of e-mails from the Defense Department has the subject header, ‘re: potential torture involving Iraqi detainees.’ The whole thread adds up to four pages, and with the exception of the subject headers, all are now blank.” SOURCE: Slate, December 31, 2004 For more information or to comment on this story, visit: www.prwatch.org/node/3157

6. THE SECRETS WAR
www.campaigndesk.org/archives/001209.asp
“A huge door is closing within our government,” warns Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy expert at the Federation of American Scientists. Aftergood is referring to new efforts by the Department of Homeland Security to keep sensitive – but unclassified – information out of the public domain. According to a department directive, “employees and contractors can be searched at any place or any time to ensure they are in compliance with the policy. They can also face administrative, civil or criminal penalties if they violate the rules.” Susan Stranahan warns that “the cloak of secrecy is spreading rapidly under the guise of enhancing national security. … But the secrets guarded by those in Washington don’t only involve Star Wars programs run amok, or abuses of civil rights in a time of war, or poor management of an agency vital to national security. Denial of access to information of all sorts is growing ‘at an epidemic rate,’ according to Associated Press President and CEO Tom Curley.” SOURCE: CJR Campaign Desk, December 29, 2004 For more information or to comment on this story, visit: www.prwatch.org/node/3155

7. REPUBLICANS ‘OUTORGANIZED AND OUTTHOUGHT’ DEMOCRATS
www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35062-2004Dec29?language=printer
The 2004 presidential race was the most expensive in history. While Republicans did outspend Democrats — $1.14 billion to $1.08 billion — the difference wasn’t that much. “Despite their fundraising success, Democrats simply did not spend their money as effectively as Bush,” the Washington Post’s Thomas Edsall and James Grimaldi report. “In a $2.2 billion election, two relatively small expenditures by Bush and his allies stand out for their impact: the $546,000 ad buy by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the Bush campaign’s $3.25 million contract with the firm TargetPoint Consulting. The first portrayed Kerry in unrelentingly negative terms, permanently damaging him, while the second produced dramatic innovations in direct mail and voter technology, enabling Bush to identify and target potential voters with pinpoint precision. Those tactical successes were part of the overall advantage the Bush campaign maintained over Kerry in terms of planning, decision making and strategy. The Kerry campaign, in addition to being outspent at key times, was outorganized and outthought, as Democratic professionals grudgingly admit.” SOURCE: Washington Post, December 30, 2004 For more information or to comment on this story, visit: www.prwatch.org/node/3154

8. FLACKS ATTACK “DETERMINED DETRACTORS”
www.nytimes.com/2004/12/27/business/media/27adco.htm
BuzzMetrics, a New York-based specialist in word-of-mouth marketing, is among the companies working to tame the internet by going after “determined detractors,” which the New York Times defines as “persistent critics of a company or product that mount their own public relations offensive, often online.” According to Paul Rand, managing director at Ketchum Midwest in Chicago, “One determined detractor can do as much damage as 100,000 positive mentions can do good.” Detractors, he said, can become “reputation terrorists” who have a personal interest in publicly criticizing a company. “These are the folks we have to track and stay on top of,” he said. “To not do so can cost money.” SOURCE: New York Times, December 27, 2004 For more information or to comment on this story, visit: www.prwatch.org/node/3152

9. AIDS ACTION BEFRIENDS BUSH
direland.typepad.com/direland/2004/12/aids_action_jum.html
“It’s mind-boggling: Marsha Martin, the executive director of AIDS Action – the AIDS community’s largest, most visible, and wealthiest Washington lobby, with a multi-million dollar budget – has jumped into bed with the Bush-Rove Republicans with both feet,” political journalist Doug Ireland writes on his blog Direland. “In a perfectly scandalous act of betrayal of the AIDS community, Martin is one of a small committee sponsoring a pricey celebration of Bush’s November victory, and that of the Republicans in Congress. And guess who gets the money from this orgy of felicitations to the GOP? A front group for Big Pharma that crusades against giving cheap, generic AIDS-fighting meds to the world’s poorest victims of the AIDS pandemic.” The event is a benefit for the Aids Responsibility Project, which counts as “partners” the giant trade association Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), Daimler Chrysler, drug maker Pfizer, U.S. Agency for International Development and the free-market website Tech Central Station. SOURCE: Direland, December 24, 2004 For more information or to comment on this story, visit: www.prwatch.org/node/3149

10. LOBBYING BILL TOPS $1.1 BILLION FOR FIRST HALF OF 2004 www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-lobby29dec29,0,1314503.story?coll=la-home-headlines
“As President Bush campaigned for reelection pledging to protect doctors and insurance companies from patient lawsuits while easing the tax burden on businesses, industry groups spent record amounts of money lobbying to influence the White House, Congress and their constituents,” the Los Angeles Times’ Peter Wallsten writes. According to public records filed with the Senate, industry groups spent $1.1 billion on lobbyists and advertising campaigns for the first half of 2004, a new record. The top spenders were the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Medical Association. According to the watchdog group PoliticalMoneyLine.com, the two groups spent a combined $39 million to advocate medical liability limits. “Businesses and other interests sense an opportunity, and they are going to be spending a tremendous amount of money to ensure that they get their way,” said Center for Responsive Politics’s Larry Noble. Other big spenders include “General Electric Co., which spent $8.44 million on various issues, such as Iraq contracts and broadcast policies, and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which spent about $8 million on legislation affecting Medicare, drug issues and other healthcare matters,” the Times reports. SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, December 29, 2004 For more information or to comment on this story, visit: www.prwatch.org/node/3148

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