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THIS WEEK’S NEWS
== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. Crashing the USDA’s Dog-and-Pony Show
2. The Drug Industry Gets a Dose of The Blues
3. Pfizer’s Fickle Philanthropy
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. An Agency of One
2. Last Gasp For Racketeering Case Against Big Tobacco
3. Another Company that Just Needs to Tell Its Story Better
4. Above the Law & Order
5. How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Perchlorate
6. The Campaign For The Bush Agenda
7. Industry Trade Groups Forced to Cut Costs
8. Have You Herd?
9. Something Phony About Fake News
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== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. CRASHING THE USDA’S DOG-AND-PONY SHOW
by John Stauber The online free encyclopedia Wikipedia defines “dog-and-pony show” as a public “display that is somewhat pathetically contrived.” That’s what the new U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Johanns, is convening this Thursday, June 9, in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Secretary Johanns will lead a roundtable discussion dominated by the most powerful agricultural lobby organizations in the United States to spread the good news that mad cow disease is no longer a problem in North America. The invited participants include the American Farm Bureau, the American Meat Institute, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the National Meat Association, the National Milk Producers and the National Renderers Association. Not a single consumer, human health or public interest group was invited to speak, nor were any scientists who research mad cow and related diseases, such as Nobel laureate Dr. Stanley Prusiner. The USDA hopes to convince the assembled news media that it’s time to open the U.S. border to Canadian cattle and time for Japan and Korea to accept U.S. beef and cattle.
There’s just one problem with this rosy picture of mad cow disease in North America: it has little or no basis in fact.
For the rest of this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3745
2. THE DRUG INDUSTRY GETS A DOSE OF THE BLUES
by Bob Burton In the heart of Sydney’s Ryde Valley – Australia’s drug industry alley – fifty marketing managers and PR advisers from major drug companies, including Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline, pondered the industry’s poor public standing.
The drug industry representatives ‚Äì used to hustling everything from drugs for guys struggling with their love life to cancer cures ‚Äì were seriously depressed. “I am appalled by our reputation,” Group Vice-President Far East Region for Schering Plough, Rod Unsworth, told a panel of industry heavy-hitters discussing “reputation management” at the third Australian Pharma Marketing Congress.
Unsworth, who describes himself as a “passionate” supporter of the industry, bluntly told the mid-May gathering that the drug industry in Australia was way behind even the tobacco industry in its efforts to rebuild its political stocks.
Unsworth warned the panel of the potentially fatal consequences of the Australian industry’s defensive posture. “If we say we are going to just look after the opinion leaders and we don’t give a damn about the public, we are dead. And if we let the debate be about price, we are dead,” he said.
For the rest of this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3726
3. PFIZER’S FICKLE PHILANTHROPY
by Bob Burton In a series of announcements in the aftermath of the tsunami that swept that swept through East Asia and parts of Africa on December 26, 2004, Pfizer committed itself to contribute a total of $20 million in cash and $60 million worth of medicines. Pfizer’s staff chipped in a further $2 million.
On its U.S. website, Pfizer listed its tsunami response as an example of its commitment to corporate social responsibility.
However, at a recent drug industry marketing conference in Sydney, Pfizer Australia’s Manager of Government Affairs, David Miles, said that the company would have been better off being less generous. “We would be better off giving five million and shutting up,” Miles said, only a little jokingly. “As soon as you get into big numbers people think you can double or triple it.”
For the rest of this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3733
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. AN AGENCY OF ONE
The Army is looking for full-service marketing and PR agencies to submit proposals for an $800 million, five-year recruitment push. PR Week reports the contract would include “everything from advertising to promotional and publicity programs, internet campaigns, event marketing, and media relations.” Leo Burnett Worldwide has overseen earlier the Army recruitment efforts. in May, the Army’s recruiting commander Maj. Gen. Michael Rochelle said the the advertising campaign would be geared to potential recruits, as well as to influencers. Meanwhile, the Army faces a recruiting crisis, falling short of it’s goals. Conservative columnist Robert Novak noted, “[T]he focus at the Defense Department has been on the excesses of desperate recruiters, 37 of whom reflected their frustration in trying to meet quotas by going AWOL over the last 2-1/2 years.”
SOURCE: PR Week (sub. req’d), June 6, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3744
2. LAST GASP FOR RACKETEERING CASE AGAINST BIG TOBACCO
www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tobacco7jun07,0,2585839.story?coll=la-home-headlines
The final courtroom hearing in U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) long-running racketeering case against major tobacco companies – including Philip Morris and British American Tobacco – is scheduled for this Thursday. “Despite the industry’s dismal reputation, it is eager to avoid the stigma of a racketeering verdict ‚Äî which would be the first such judicial finding against a major industry,” the Los Angeles Times reports. When Bill Clinton gave the go-ahead for the DOJ case in 1999 BSMG WorldWide was hired by Philip Morris to hose down potentially adverse reporting. Across the Atlantic, the Independent reports that four top German public health experts were “funded for years by the German Association of Cigarette Manufacturers, mainly via innocuous-sounding medical foundations in an attempt by the industry to play down the dangers of smoking.”
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, June 7, 2005.
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3743
3. ANOTHER COMPANY THAT JUST NEEDS TO TELL ITS STORY BETTER
www.nytimes.com/2005/06/02/business/media/02adco.html?
The drug company Merck is launching a $20 million, 6-month advertising campaign with the slogan “Merck. Where patients come first.” The campaign, which was created by Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, will include television ads showing “cute children reacting in charming confusion to requests to define ‘measles,’ ‘mumps’ and ‘chicken pox.’ ‘Most kids today don’t have a clue about diseases adults remember, thanks to Merck’s scientists,’ a female announcer says.” Other ads will tout Merck programs offering reduced-price or free drugs to some people. Ogilvy & Mather’s Michael Guarini said it’s “simply not the case” that Merck’s campaign is a response to the Vioxx scandal. In fact, work on the campaign began two years ago. While acknowledging Merck’s and other drug companies’ image problems, Guarini said, “it’s always good to engage in dialogue, to make sure the public has true, balanced accurate information.”
SOURCE: New York Times, June 2, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3742
4. ABOVE THE LAW & ORDER
www.odwyerpr.com/members/0603sb.htm
On a recent episode, a character on NBC’s “Law & Order” who was investigating the murder of a federal judge said, “Maybe we should put out an APB for somebody in a Tom DeLay T-shirt.” In response, the Free Enterprise Fund (which “advocates limited government and ‘pro-growth’ economic policies”) worked with their PR firm, Shirley & Banister Public Affairs, to challenge the “witch-hunt to discredit Tom DeLay and the agenda he represents,” in the words of FEF vice-president Lawrence Hunter. They had 450 T-shirts made, with DeLay’s picture on the front and the words “Who’s afraid of [’Law & Order’ executive producer] Dick Wolf?” on the back. Shirley & Banister then organized a June 2 rally of T-shirt-clad DeLay supporters on Washington DC’s Capitol Hill and promoted it to the media. Fox News, CNN and Roll Call covered the rally.
SOURCE: O’Dwyer’s PR Daily (sub. req’d.), June 3, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3741
5. HOW WE LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE PERCHLORATE
www.pe.com/breakingnews/local/stories/PE_News_Local_D_perch03.eac43.html
A study used to determine “safe” levels of the rocket-fuel chemical perchlorate in drinking water is coming under increasing scrutiny. Perchlorate “can impair thyroid function and result in neurological impairment of fetuses and babies, metabolic disorders and other problems.” The study – funded with $310,250 from perchlorate manufacturers and users Lockheed Martin, Kerr-McGee, Aerojet and Boeing, and submitted on behalf of the Perchlorate Study Group – was used to support Defense Department arguments for a 200 parts per billion limit. But independent analyses of the study’s data by the Environmental Protection Agency and health officials in California, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine suggest that perchlorate affects thyroid function at lower levels, especially in “fetuses, infants and people with impaired thyroids.” The study, as originally published, did not disclose that three of seven people exposed to “safe” perchlorate levels for two weeks exhibited significant changes in thyroid function.
SOURCE: The Press-Enterprise (California), June 3, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3740
6. THE CAMPAIGN FOR THE BUSH AGENDA
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/27/AR2005052701736.html
Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman recently told NBC News’ Elizabeth Wilner his assessment of the media’s coverage of the White House. She writes, “He ventured that we were treating President Bush’s Social Security proposal like a political campaign rather than what it really is: a legislative effort.” But “it’s no accident” says Wilner. “The techniques of the campaign trail have become a staple of the Bush White House’s approach to pushing its legislative agenda.” The group Progress for America may best exemplify the synthesis between electoral work and legislative advocacy. The group has recently been in the news pushing Bush’s judicial appointments, opposing judicial filibusters, attacking Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid, and promoting Social Security privatization. The Progress for America Voter Fund, a 527 group, spent $35,631,378 in support of Bush’s reelection, making it the eighth largest spending 527 group of 2004. Democratic strategist Jim Jordan called the efforts, “supersized versions of the fights by business interests,” Wilner writes.
SOURCE: Washington Post, May 29, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3738
7. INDUSTRY TRADE GROUPS FORCED TO CUT COSTS
www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/060105/associations.html
Industry trade associations are having to “tighten their belts,” The Hill reports. Member companies responding to “new competitive pressures in a global marketplace” are insisting their representatives in Washington keep their costs down – a demand that “continues to reshape trade groups in town.” For example, the American Chemistry Council lost member companies and saw its head fired because chemical industry executives were “frustrated by what they saw as the slow pace of the cost cutting” at ACC. Trade associations are adopting a “value-based dues system,” focusing more heavily on lobbying, and looking for ways to generate non-dues revenue, like charging for white papers, conventions and membership in special consortia. “Though not necessarily a revenue raiser for trade associations, spin-off coalitions are an increasingly popular lobbying device,” The Hill reports.
SOURCE: The Hill, June 1, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3737
8. HAVE YOU HERD?
online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111755564979447168,00.html?mod=todays_us_money_and_investing
The Wall Street Journal obtained a memo showing that, “five months after Canada disclosed its first case of mad-cow disease in May 2003, a U.S. Agriculture Department agency made unpublicized policy changes that helped the U.S. meat industry gain access to more beef products from Canada, despite safety concerns.” Then-deputy administrator of USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (and current administrator) Ron DeHaven sent the memo, which warned that the “significant change” would increase “the possibility that higher risk product may be imported.” In related news, the World Organization of Animal Health relaxed its standards for countries’ mad cow disease status, “allowing for a lifting of bans on U.S. and European Union meat.” And in Britain, three young mad cows represent “the first time three cases born after 1996 have been linked to one farm.” The cases are significant, since Britain banned all mammalian protein from cattle feed in 1996.
SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (sub. req’d.), May 31, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3736
9. SOMETHING PHONY ABOUT FAKE NEWS
prweek.com/thisweek/index.cfm?ID=238459&site=3
During a video news release (VNR) producers’ roundtable discussion, Medialink’s Larry Moskowitz suggested that “what The New York Times” and members of Congress “found venal” were VNR voice-overs, the scripted audio mimicking reporters’ narration. So Medialink is “formulating a plan to advise government to not use a voice-over.” Roundtable participants opposed on-screen disclosure, which the Truth in Broadcasting Act would require for government VNRs. “It’s meant to create a question that it’s not reporting,” complained West Glen Communications’ Stan Zeitlin. “It says that there’s something phony about it, something that’s not quite right.” Alan Weiss Productions’ Alan Weiss said “another production company” had used actors for supposedly unsolicited “people on the street” interviews. Weiss decried such “slanted” VNRs, satellite media tours and B-roll video footage, but added, “What’s neat about our country is that there’s no censorship. … We are journalists if we’re supplying videos to a journalistic organization.”
SOURCE: PR Week (sub. req’d.), May 30, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3735
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