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THIS WEEK’S NEWS
== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. From a Lead to An Article in Two Days
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. Aid Money Goes to PR Effort to Highlight Aid
2. China’s ‘Charm Offensive’
3. Legal Challenge to Australia’s Bid to Deport Activist
4. Exclusive Brethren’s Covert Smear Campaign Unmasked
5. Medical Journal Decries Parent’s Deadly Interest
6. Hughes To Deploy Public Diplomacy ‘SWAT Teams’
7. Spreading Something Besides Democracy in Iraq
8. Journalists Get To Report ‘Unfiltered Experience’
9. Lobbying Up a Storm
10. Spinning A Disaster
11. PR Industry Pitches Role As “Chief Integrity Officer”
12. Harrah’s Hits the Compassion (and Fake News) Jackpot
13. FEMA Keeps Hurricane Victims Under Wraps
14. Yahoo Serious Trouble
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== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. FROM A LEAD TO AN ARTICLE IN TWO DAYS
by Bob Burton I’d never heard of Safia Taleb al-Suhail, an Iraqi woman who George W. Bush praised during his February 2005 State of the Union address until I was sent an email link to an article in The Independent, a major UK newspaper. The article referred to her expressing concern about the impact of draft Iraqi constitution on women.
“When we came back from exile, we thought we were going to improve rights and the position of women. But look what has happened: we have lost all the gains we made over the past 30 years. It’s a big disappointment. Human rights should not be linked to Islamic sharia law at all. They should be listed separately in the constitution,” she complained to Andrew Buncombe of The Independent.
As it was early morning and I had a lot of e-mails to get through, there was no time to dig any further myself. So I posted it to the talk page of a regular SourceWatch contributor, Artificial Intelligence (AI). Within two days AI has compiled an article reviewing Safia Taleb al-Suhail’s background, her role in Iraqi politics and a listing of links to online articles by and about her over the last three years. Hugh Manatee found a photo that could be added in too. It is a small illustration of how a wiki-based project like SourceWatch facilitates collaborative research and writing.
For the rest of this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3953
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. AID MONEY GOES TO PR EFFORT TO HIGHLIGHT AID
www.odwyerpr.com/members/0913indonesia.htm
“The U.S., which saw positive PR results from the millions donated to Indonesia after the tsunami devastation in May, wants a PR firm to spread awareness that Uncle Sam has given over $1 billion to the archipelago over the last 50 years.” The U.S. Agency for International Development requested proposals for a $350,000 to $370,000 campaign promoting American efforts “in partnership with Indonesians to generate prosperity and a better quality of life.” The contract includes research, polling, public service announcements and “other aspects of a social marketing campaign.” APCO, Ogilvy and Weber Shandwick already work in Indonesia, a majority Muslim country and key U.S. ally in the “war on terror.” In Britain, rights campaigners are criticizing their government for inviting Indonesia and other countries with “dubious human rights records” to the Defence Systems and Equipment International arms exhibition. Indonesia was on the “uninvited list” from 1999 to 2004.
SOURCE: O’Dwyer’s PR Daily (sub. req’d.), September 13, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3986
2. CHINA’S ‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’
www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050909/CHINASTRAT09/TPNational/TopStories
Entering the race to win hearts and minds, China has begun an image campaign to bolster its global economic and political ambitions. “Beijing has already opened 27 branches of the Confucius Institute around the world in less than a year, and it has a budget of $200-million (U.S.) annually to teach Chinese to foreigners,” Canada’s Globe and Mail reports. As part of China’s “charm offensive” led by President Hu Jintao, the effort includes plans for 70 more culture and language centers in the next five years. “China is starting to develop a public diplomacy strategy, and it includes not just diplomatic finesse but also public relations and the export of Chinese culture and values,” Yuen Pau Woo, president of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, told the paper. “It’s what you would expect of a rising power. It’s the soft architecture of being a global player.”
SOURCE: The Globe and Mail, September 9, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3985
3. LEGAL CHALLENGE TO AUSTRALIA’S BID TO DEPORT ACTIVIST
www.smh.com.au/news/National/Activist-wants-reason-for-deportation/2005/09/12/1126377250350.html
The Australian Government is facing a legal challenge to its decision to revoke the six-month visitors visa of Scott Parkin, an environmental and peace activist from the Houston Global Awareness Collective. On Saturday Parkin was arrested, six weeks after he arrived in the country, on “character grounds” and imprisoned pending deportation. Government officials have refused to explain the basis for re-assessing his status. Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown suspects Parkin was arrested because of his campaigning against the military contractor Halliburton. Two weeks ago Parkin spoke at a protest outside the Sydney office of KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary. A barrister representing Parkin, Julian Burnside, has indicated he will lodge an appeal against his re-classification with the Migration Review Tribunal. “If all Mr Parkin has done to be assessed a security risk is to peacefully protest his opinions, then we are in serious trouble,” Burnside said.
SOURCE: Sydney Morning Herald, September 12, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3984
4. EXCLUSIVE BRETHREN’S COVERT SMEAR CAMPAIGN UNMASKED
www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10345099
Recently, a brochure letterboxed around New Zealand and authorised by the previously unknown group New Zealand Advocates for Timely Healthcare urged a vote against the Labour Party in the September 17 election. Another, titled The Green Delusion, railed against Green Party policies. Subsequent investigations revealed the Exclusive Brethren, a fundamentalist Christian group who last year endorsed George W. Bush, were behind the $NZ500,000 campaign. The conservative Opposition National Party’s leader, Don Brash, first denied knowledge of the campaign. He later confirmed he had met with the group, but insisted it was for prayer only. He subsequently confirmed he had advance knowledge of the leaflets. The anti-Green Party leaflet distributed in New Zealand is nearly identical to one distributed in Australia before last year’s federal election.
SOURCE: New Zealand Herald, September 12, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3983
5. MEDICAL JOURNAL DECRIES PARENT’S DEADLY INTEREST
www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673605672923/fulltext
The Lancet, a leading medical journal, has requested that its parent company, Reed Elsevier, divest itself of business interests that “threaten human health.” The magazine’s editor made the request after learning that Spearhead Exhibitions, a Reed Elsevier subsidiary, organised the Defence Systems and Equipment international (DSEi) arms fair, which opens this week in London. At the 2003 DSEi exhibition, some of the arms merchants displaying their wares sold cluster bombs. While the company promotes its corporate social responsibility credentials, Reed Elsevier Group spokesman Stephen J. Cowden was unmoved by The Lancet’s appeal. Citing its role as a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact, Cowden wrote that “it is our view that the defence industry is necessary for upholding national security for the preservation of democratic values.” He did not address specific concerns about cluster bombs.
SOURCE: The Lancet, September 10, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3982
6. HUGHES TO DEPLOY PUBLIC DIPLOMACY ‘SWAT TEAMS’
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090801788.html
When George W. Bush’s long-time spin doctor Karen Hughes was sworn-in as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, she said “that our ability to differ freely, openly and respectfully is, in itself, something to be celebrated.” But during a “town hall” meeting for State Department employees, she described her plans to improve US image abroad in militaristic phrases, outlining a “rapid-response unit” and “forward-deploy regional SWAT teams” to “formulate a more strategic and focused approach to all our public diplomacy assets.” The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank writes, “One of her underlings rose to ask how this effort squared with the administration’s famously tight control over its message. … Hughes replied that ambassadors are free to talk — if they use the talking points she sends them. ‘If they make statements based on something I sent them,’ she said, ‘they’re not going to be called on the carpet.’”
SOURCE: Washington Post, September 9, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3980
7. SPREADING SOMETHING BESIDES DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ
www.odwyerpr.com/members/0909lincoln.htm
The Lincoln Group, one of three firms helping “to put more creativity into the Pentagon’s psychological operations,” is hiring. The firm just completed “a three-month image campaign with Iraq-based Al-Wathba Group to develop collateral material and a messaging strategy to introduce U.S. Marines to ‘friendly neighbors’ and promote good will.” Now, they’re looking for senior media and PR staff with Middle East experience, “to guide an advertising and PR campaign to inform the Iraqi people of ‘the Coalition’s’ goals and to gain their support,” reports O’Dwyer’s. They’re also hiring “polling and trend analysis pros to analyze media and compile statistics with the Iraq Centre for Research and Strategic Studies.”
SOURCE: O’Dwyer’s PR Daily (sub. req’d.), September 9, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3979
8. JOURNALISTS GET TO REPORT ‘UNFILTERED EXPERIENCE’
www.observer.com/media_newsstory2.asp
“The unusual reporting environment [caused by Hurricane Katrina] allowed journalists in both print and television to exercise muscles that had long grown stiff,” the New York Observer writes. Several reporters described to the Observer dramatic contradictions between what officials were saying and what they, the reporters, were seeing with their own eyes. “In some ways, it’s refreshing in a way to not have the official line, where your only choice is just to see it in front of you,” The New York Times’ Kate Zernike told the Observer after reporting for her paper from Gulfport, Miss. “We’ve all gotten used to doing Google searches and so forth. This was the unfiltered experience,” Zernike said.
SOURCE: New York Observer, September 12, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3978
9. LOBBYING UP A STORM
online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112622660973036054,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
Following Hurricane Katrina, corporate lobbying of Congress dramatically increased, even on issues that “have little to do with hurricane relief,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “Major U.S. airlines are asking Congress to suspend federal jet-fuel taxes. Oil and gas companies want drilling rights in new parts of the Gulf Coast.” The energy industry is also “pushing to permit oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.” In more hurricane-related lobbying, “Insurance companies want the ability to use tax-free funds to create a multibillion-dollar industry fund to cover future claims from natural disasters. Shipbuilders such as Northrop Grumman Corp. want billions of dollars to help rebuild shipyards in Mississippi. Even small chicken farmers are asking Congress for low-interest loans to fix or replace hundreds of damaged or destroyed chicken coops in Mississippi.”
SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (sub. req’d.), September 9, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3977
10. SPINNING A DISASTER
www.sptimes.com/2005/09/08/Worldandnation/Journalists__outrage_.shtml
The Director of Crisis Media for the PR firm Hill & Knowlton, Paul Clark, had a few words of advice on crisis management for public officials handling the Hurricane Katrina disaster. “One of the first concepts is to accept blame if it applies … people forgive mistakes, but they don’t forgive excuses,” Clark told the St. Petersburg Times. “Make full disclosure of the facts, but don’t speculate on things you don’t know … like death estimates.” Several days earlier, the Associated Press reported that the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Under Secretary of Emergency Preparedness and Response, Michael D. Brown, included a little PR advice in a memo seeking approval for the dispatch of 1,000 Homeland Security employees to the disaster area. In the leaked memo, Brown noted that the deployment of the employees would be expected to “convey a positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community organizations and the general public.”
SOURCE: St. Petersburg Times, September 8, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3976
11. PR INDUSTRY PITCHES ROLE AS “CHIEF INTEGRITY OFFICER”
www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/editorial/12580079.htm
The Knight Professor of Journalism Ethics at Washington and Lee University, Edward Wasserman, worries that the PR industry is doing a better job of attracting “the next generation of idealists” than journalism. He recounts that at a recent media academics conference, PR’s promoters were pitching the role of PR professionals as a “senior counselor not just on what is persuasive and effective, but on what is right — as chief integrity officer.” While noting that for students considering their academic options the pitch “seems to be working,” he wonders “who’s going to hire this new priesthood of in-house scolds” and “what do they know about ethics.” Wasserman will be speaking at the Public Relations Society of America’s 2005 International Conference in Miami Beach, Florida in late October on “Mission PR: Charting an Ethical Course for the Enlightened CEO.”
SOURCE: FortWayne.com, September 7, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3975
12. HARRAH’S HITS THE COMPASSION (AND FAKE NEWS) JACKPOT
prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=240599&site=3
In an article on “the PR industry’s scattered but heartfelt response to the ravages of Hurricane Katrina,” PR Week notes that Harrah’s Entertainment is documenting their good works. The company converted “its Tunica, Mississippi casino into a Red Cross relief shelter” and “asked MultiVu to create b-roll of its efforts, and to capture the survivors’ stories.” MultiVu, which also produces video news releases, audio news releases and satellite media tours, “dispatched a camera crew to interview victims, Harrah’s executives, and a Red Cross spokesman, creating b-roll footage and sound bytes. ‘We believe it got great pick up, especially in Florida and Las Vegas, and we’re re-releasing the content for it today,’” said Alberto Lopez, Harrah’s corporate director of strategic communications. Harrah’s plans to open an employee relief center in Gulfport, Mississippi; “MultiVu will also create footage of that effort.”
SOURCE: PR Week (sub. req’d.), September 6, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3973
13. FEMA KEEPS HURRICANE VICTIMS UNDER WRAPS
www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N07644534.htm
“This is about managing images and not public taste or human dignity,” said the director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, after the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) refused to include reporters and photographers on post-Hurricane Katrina rescue missions and asked that “no photographs of the deceased be made by the media.” FEMA officials said their policy was due to limited space on rescue boats and a desire to treat hurricane victims with “the utmost respect.” Some media organizations likened FEMA’s move to “the Bush administration’s ban on images of flag-draped U.S. military coffins returning from the Iraq war.”
SOURCE: Reuters, September 7, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3972
14. YAHOO SERIOUS TROUBLE
online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112605328783433453,00.html?mod=world_news_whats_news
After notifying “foreign Web sites that his newspaper colleagues had been instructed not to commemorate the then-pending 15th anniversary of China’s 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy activists,” Chinese journalist Shi Tao received a 10-year prison sentence. According to Reporters Without Borders, the court that sentenced Mr. Shi “relied partly on evidence provided by a Hong Kong subsidiary of Internet company Yahoo Inc.” The government of President Hu Jintao has repeatedly targeted the media. “Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, Cisco and other major Internet service and equipment providers have come under scrutiny for helping China to monitor and censor content available to China’s 100 million Internet users,” notes the International Herald Tribune.
SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (sub. req’d.), September 7, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3969
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