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THIS WEEK’S NEWS
== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. The Cows Have Come Home
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. Managing the Media Crisis
2. The Education Department’s Paid Apple Polishers
3. International Image Assistance
4. Fleishman-Hillard Hired By Japanese Opposition Leader
5. Preemptive Snipe at Voices of Reason
6. Which Came First – Kenneth Clarke or Controversy?
7. Is That “Anti-war Left” or “Anti-gay Right”?
8. How Low Can He Go?
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== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. THE COWS HAVE COME HOME
by Diane Farsetta Note: This article was written for CorpWatch, and also appears on their website.
Earlier this summer in Minnesota, the well-dressed woman walked briskly across the front of the red brick classroom and up to the microphone. The moderator smiled and nodded in her direction. Looking down at her notes, she began. “Good afternoon. Thanks for holding this session. And while we are here in this room discussing this important issue, 200 people in Gering, Nebraska, are looking for new jobs. Their packing plant closed this week because they could not source enough cattle due to the embargo.” [img_assist|fid=937|thumb=0|alt=Janet Riley|caption=The AMI’s Janet Riley, with black wristband]
Janet Riley, the senior vice-president of public affairs for the American Meat Institute (AMI), was referring to a plant owned by Packerland Packing, a subsidiary of Wisconsin-based Smithfield. The Gering plant processed roughly 320 cattle a day, turning the cows into boxed beef products. But following the May 2003 discovery of mad cow disease across the border in Alberta, a legal challenge by Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund (a small Montana-based advocacy group) caused the United States to impose a ban on Canadian cattle imports, effectively cutting off supplies to the Nebraska plant.
Speaking more slowly, Riley stressed: “Gering is not the first plant, and it won’t be the last.” She continued, “And that’s why I and so many others in this room” – here she lifted one arm over her head and pumped it in the air defiantly – “are wearing these black wristbands, because they are the color of mourning. … And that’s exactly how we feel about our industry. What’s happening is tragic.”
For the rest of this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3968
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. MANAGING THE MEDIA CRISIS
www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspecial/05bush.htm
“The White House rolled out a plan this weekend to contain political damage from the administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina,” reports the New York Times. Led by Bush political adviser Karl Rove and communications director Dan Bartlett, the PR plan includes “visits by cabinet members to the region,” leading up to Bush’s Labor Day return (during “his first visit, on Friday … the president had little contact with residents left homeless”). “Administration officials who went on television on Sunday were instructed to avoid getting drawn into exchanges about the problems of the past week, and to turn the discussion to what the government is doing now.” And, in accordance with “Mr. Rove’s tough political style, the administration is also working to shift the blame away from the White House and toward officials of New Orleans and Louisiana who, as it happens, are Democrats.”
SOURCE: New York Times, September 5, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3963
2. THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT’S PAID APPLE POLISHERS
www.usatoday.com/news/education/2005-09-03-education-funding_x.htm
An “angry op-ed” in the Dallas Morning News claimed the city’s school system was “limiting the future and opportunities for our children” by not enacting policies mandated under the federal No Child Left Behind law more quickly. The author, Marcela Garcini, described herself as a “ninja parent,” neglecting to disclose that the nonprofit organization she heads had “received two unsolicited grants, totaling $900,000, from the U.S. Education Department.” USA Today reports, “Federal investigators probing the department’s public relations contracts … say the department has given nearly $4.7 million to groups including Garcini’s to promote administration education priorities since 2002, but that in 10 of 11 cases examined, the groups didn’t disclose – in print, on radio or in other media, such as brochures or handbooks – that taxpayer funds were used.” Such disclosure is mandated by law, but the department’s Inspector General says these lapses do not constitute “covert propaganda.”
SOURCE: USA Today, September 3, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3962
3. INTERNATIONAL IMAGE ASSISTANCE
english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A58E8BD7-B9F9-418E-9756-E3368DEA11C8.htm
“It’s not all that unusual for Arab countries to enlist U.S. PR firms to help with any image problems that they might be experiencing in the United States,” said PR Week’s Washington DC bureau chief. “These countries need the assistance of people on the ground … who are familiar with the best tactics for earning beneficial media coverage for controversial clients.” And several Arab governments have increased PR efforts since September 11, 2001. Kuwait “hired the New York PR firm Peppercom to market a Kuwaiti-directed documentary about the 11 September attacks,” even sponsoring screenings. Saudi Arabia spent more than $15 million on PR campaigns in 2002, mostly with Qorvis Communications. A Syrian embassy spokesperson said their ambassador to the U.S. “had several informal conversations with New Bridge President Joe Allbaugh, a long-time political ally of President Bush,” though the Syrian government has not officially hired the firm.
SOURCE: Aljazeera.net, September 2, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3961
4. FLEISHMAN-HILLARD HIRED BY JAPANESE OPPOSITION LEADER
mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/features/news/20050905p2g00m0fe024000c.html
Katsuya Okada, the leader of the Democratic Party of Japan and the main rival to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, has hired PR firm Fleishman-Hillard to help buff his image ahead of the September 11 national election. Okada, who has adopted the slogan of “upright and single-minded”, is described as rarely smiling “when he’s out delivering his dead-earnest campaign message.” Koizumi, whose slogan is “Don’t Stop Reform”, called an early election following the defeat of legislation seeking to privatize the publicly owned Post Office, which also provides insurance and banking services. The latest poll suggests that Koizumi’s LDP, which has previously formed a coalition government with minor parties, will win an absolute majority.
SOURCE: Mainichi Daily News, September 5, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3960
5. PREEMPTIVE SNIPE AT VOICES OF REASON
theage.com.au/articles/2005/09/05/1125772418112.html
Nine months before Antony Loewenstein’s book on the conflict in Israel and Palestine, Voices of Reason, has even been published, it’s under attack. Loewenstein, who is a progressive member of the Jewish community and a Sydney-based freelance journalist, unsuccessfully made several attempts to ask the right-wing Australian Labor Party parliamentarian and Jewish community member, Michael Danby, some questions on the issue. Subsequently Danby wrote a letter to the editor of Australian Jewish News, arguing that Loewenstein’s publisher, Melbourne University Press (MUP), “should drop this whole disgusting project. If they proceed, I urge the Australian Jewish community, and particularly the Australian Jewish News, to treat it with dignified silence.” In response, MUP CEO Louise Adler wrote that “condemning a book prior to publication is appalling … Danby’s proposal is inimical to the central Jewish values of tolerance and open debate.”
SOURCE: The Age, September 5, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3959
6. WHICH CAME FIRST – KENNETH CLARKE OR CONTROVERSY?
politics.guardian.co.uk/backbench/comment/0,,1561367,00.html
Writing in the U.K. newspaper the Guardian, Simon Bowers noted the comment from British Conservative Party leadership hopeful Kenneth Clarke, who chairs British American Tobacco’s corporate social responsibility committee, that BAT has “become more controversial since I went on the board.” Bowers contacted BAT, asking if Clarke’s view was shared by the board as a whole. “What Ken said was not meant in any particularly negative way. It was a comment on the public perception of BAT,” they told him. As to whether the company had become more controversial during Clarke’s eight years on the board, the spokeswoman was insistent. “No, certainly not,” she said. Two years ago, at BAT’s annual general meeting, Clarke was asked about BAT’s doing business in Burma. He admitted it was “not one of the most attractive governments in the world.”
SOURCE: Guardian (U.K.), September 2, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3958
7. IS THAT “ANTI-WAR LEFT” OR “ANTI-GAY RIGHT”?
mediamatters.org/items/200508310004
Media Matters caught Sean Hannity on Tuesday blaming the “anti-war left” for protesting at the funeral of a soldier killed in Iraq. In reality, the protesters were members of the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) in Topeka, Kansas, which claims that terrorism and other disasters are divine retribution against America for the “sin” of tolerating homosexuality. WBC members, who held signs saying “God blew up the troops” and “Thank God for dead soldiers,” also have a website called GodHatesAmerica.com, where the rhetoric of America’s religious right sounds ominously like the rhetoric of Al Qaeda: “The American army is a fag army! … WBC rejoices every time the Lord God in His vengeance kills or maims an American soldier with an Improvised Explosive Device.”
SOURCE: Media Matters for America, August 31, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3957
8. HOW LOW CAN HE GO?
www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm
Multiple opinion polls show that President Bush’s approval rating has reached its lowest point ever. Gallup pegs him at 40% approval and 56% disapproval. Gallup’s analysis finds other bad news for the White House. “Some observers had argued that Bush’s approval rating cannot go too much lower as long as Republicans remain robust in their support,” says Gallup editor-in-chief Frank Newport. “Well, we are seeing some signs of slight erosion in the support for the president even among his base in the Republicans.” Gallup also compared Bush’s current standings against the ratings for the six other U.S. presidents who have served two terms since World War II. “Only one of the six presidents in the late summer of the year after they were relected was lower than Bush’s current 40% rating, and that was Richard Nixon. … Of course, at that point he was beset by the woes of Watergate.” In addition to rising oil prices and dissatisfaction with Bush’s domestic policies, the war on Iraq is taking its toll, as nearly two-thirds of Americans now feel the war has made them less safe from terrorism.
SOURCE: The Polling Report
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3956
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