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THIS WEEK’S NEWS
== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. WANTED: 250,000 Americans to Fight Fake News & Government Propaganda
2. Desperately Seeking Disclosure: What Happens When Public Funds Go To Private PR Firms?
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. Investing in “Ethical” Uranium
2. Gloom in the Ranks of PR
3. Not So “Firewall,” After All
4. Where the Buffalo Shills Roam
5. Video News Responses
6. State of the Fourth Estate
7. Ten Minutes from Normal Relations
8. Fake News on the BBC
9. The New York Times Catches on to VNRs
10. Pro-Cedar, Anti-Syria
11. Still in the Movie Business
12. McPositioning
13. Counting Votes First, Dead Later
14. The Reverse British Invasion
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== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. WANTED: 250,000 AMERICANS TO FIGHT FAKE NEWS & GOVERNMENT PROPAGANDA
by John Stauber The Center for Media and Democracy is working with Free Press to gather a quarter million signatures on our petition mobilizing the American public to fight fake news and government propaganda. On Sunday, the New York Times reported that at least 20 federal agencies have made and distributed pre-packaged, ready-to-serve television news segments to promote President Bush’s policies and initiatives. Congress’ Government Accountability Office determined that these “video news releases” were illegal “covert propaganda” and told federal agencies to stop. But last Friday, the White House ordered all agencies to disregard Congress’ directive. The Bush administration is using hundreds of millions of your tax dollars to manipulate public opinion. Here’s how to stop them.
For the rest of this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3365
2. DESPERATELY SEEKING DISCLOSURE: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PUBLIC FUNDS GO TO PRIVATE PR FIRMS?
by Diane Farsetta In some ways, Armstrong Williams got a bad rap.
The conservative Black commentator, who was paid $240,000 by the U.S. Department of Education to advertise and advocate for the controversial “No Child Left Behind” law, lost his syndicated newspaper column and was pilloried for not disclosing the payment.
Williams seriously betrayed the public trust. But he was a small fry ‚Äì a subcontractor on the $1 million deal between the Education Department and Ketchum, one of the world’s largest public relations agencies.
At first, Ketchum refused to talk to reporters. Then they blamed Williams. “We would assume that the commentator/pundit would disclose,” senior partner Lorraine Thelian said. Nearly two weeks later, Ketchum announced “a new policy for the signing and authorization of contracts with spokespeople,” and requirements for subcontractors “to abide by the agency‚Äôs ethical standards.” Not the most confidence-inspiring response, especially given its vagueness.
For the rest of this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3348
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. INVESTING IN “ETHICAL” URANIUM
newsstore.fairfax.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac?page=1&sy=afr&kw
=Sustainable+Asset+Management&pb=afr&dt=selectRange&dr=toda
Mining giant BHP-Billiton’s proposed acquisition of WMC Resources, a major uranium mining company, poses no problem for the global ethical investment fund Sustainable Asset Management (SAM). While some ethical funds avoid both BHP-Billiton shares, following the Ok Tedi environmental disaster in Papua New Guinea, and WMC shares, due to its uranium project, SAM holds both. SAM’s research manager, Francis Grey, explained that while they don’t agree with uranium or nuclear power, company projects owned before 1994 do not affect SAM’s “ethical” rating system. “We have an expression of BS, meaning before sustainability, a time when it was a different world and they did all sorts of different things,” he said. A few years ago, SAM angered tobacco control activists by including British American Tobacco in their “ethical” fund index.
SOURCE: Australian Financial Review, March 16, 2005. (sub req’d)
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3371
2. GLOOM IN THE RANKS OF PR
www.edelman.com/speak_up/blog/
After last Sunday’s New York Times article on video news releases, Richard Edelman, the president and CEO of the PR company Edelman, wrote that the PR industry can expect more criticisms. “Why am I so sure of this? In part, because we have allowed our profession to be increasing defined as complicit in a cover-up, as willing shills who let money overwhelm our judgment and moral compass. We are accused of foisting government propaganda on the American people, in direct violation of the law,” he wrote. Among his suggestions were that the “reporter” in VNRs ask “a few difficult questions.” “How about identifying the former reporter as such, or including a note to viewers on-screen that the VNR came from the US Government?” he suggested. As for corporate VNRs, Edelman remained mute.
SOURCE: Richard Edelman’s Speak Up blog, March 14, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3370
3. NOT SO “FIREWALL,” AFTER ALL
www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/29941/story.htm
“We believe FDA is overstating industry’s compliance with the animal feed ban and understating the potential risk of (mad cow disease) for U.S. cattle in its reports to Congress and the American people,” the Government Accountability Office concluded, in a report on the Food and Drug Administration’s management of what government press releases refer to as the “firewall feed ban.” The feed ban is “the most important U.S. safeguard against mad cow disease.” The GAO report also took issue with FDA’s claim of 99% industry compliance with the ban. That figure is “based on inspections of only about 570 firms,” “does not include all serious violations,” and counts as “compliant” firms “that lacked written procedures to prevent” ban violations, states the report.
SOURCE: Reuters, March 15, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3369
4. WHERE THE BUFFALO SHILLS ROAM
rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3622087,00.html
“The University of Colorado’s governing Board of Regents has retained a $350-per-hour public relations consultant,” to deal “with the fallout from a football recruiting scandal and the ongoing saga surrounding controversial professor Ward Churchill.” The consultant is Christopher Simpson, a former Washington Times reporter and press secretary to Senator Strom Thurmond. Simpson said he will work to get attention “back focused on the tremendous attributes” of the university. The new hire is in addition to “a contract with local public relations firm GBSM,” and “the combined salaries of several people on the university’s staff who handle public relations,” including two associate vice-presidents paid $150,000 each.
SOURCE: Rocky Mountain News, March 15, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3368
5. VIDEO NEWS RESPONSES
news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&u=/ap/
20050314/ap_on_go_pr_wh/government_videos&printer=1
In response to Sunday’s New York Times expose, White House press secretary Scott McClellan called government-produced video news releases “an informational tool.” Their source, he said, is “very clear to the TV stations.” The head of Medialink, one of the largest VNR companies, said “the government’s use of VNRs dates back to the Eisenhower presidency,” adding that the Times “failed to report on the long history of such government education programs.” In a letter to the Times, the president of West Glen Communications wrote, “Newspapers don’t reveal that much of the news they print originates from press releases supplied by corporate communications departments, PR agencies, college sports information offices and staffs of mayors and legislators.” O’Dwyer’s summed up VNR producers’ reactions as saying the Times piece was “old” and “politics-ridden.”
SOURCE: Associated Press, March 14, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3367
6. STATE OF THE FOURTH ESTATE
www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000837511
The Project for Excellence in Journalism’s “State of the News Media 2005" concludes that U.S. media coverage of Iraq was balanced, that campaign coverage favored John Kerry, and that Fox was “the most one-sided of all major news outlets.” On Iraq, 25% of 2,000 stories analyzed were negative and 20% were positive. “Fox News Channel was twice as likely to be positive than negative, while CNN and MSNBC were evenhanded.” A “more limited analysis of campaign coverage found that Bush received more negative, and less positive, coverage than Kerry,” perhaps due to setbacks in Iraq and Bush’s incumbent status. Also, “with the exception of Republicans who prefer Fox News,” American’s don’t seek out news sources that reinforce their beliefs.
SOURCE: Editor and Publisher, March 13, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3366
7. TEN MINUTES FROM NORMAL RELATIONS
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25347-2005Mar10.html
Former White House counselor and Bush campaign advisor Karen Hughes “will take over the Bush administration’s troubled public diplomacy effort intended to burnish the U.S. image abroad, particularly in the Muslim world.” The Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs position at the State Department, previously held by Margaret Tutwiler and Charlotte Beers, uses “exchange programs, foreign language media and other initiatives … to promote American values” while “combating negative images.” Hughes will be assisted by Dina Powell, the current White House Chief of Personnel and “an American of Egyptian descent who speaks fluent Arabic.”
SOURCE: Washington Post, March 12, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3364
8. FAKE NEWS ON THE BBC
spinwatch.server101.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=342
“We have our very own fake journalists operating in the UK,” writes David Miller of Europe’s SpinWatch. Miller cites the British Forces Broadcasting Service, whose reports have been aired by the BBC. BFBS is run by the Services Sound and Vision Corporation, an entity “fully funded by the Ministry of Defence,” which brags about its “considerable contribution” to the armed forces’ morale. BBC Scotland insiders, Miller writes, “are livid” about the BFBS pieces, calling them “an audio press release for the Army.” Other members of the British “network of propaganda agencies” are the London Press Service, run by Intelfax for the government’s Foreign Office, and British Satellite News, run by the international communications company World Television.
SOURCE: SpinWatch, March 15, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3363
9. THE NEW YORK TIMES CATCHES ON TO VNRS
nytimes.com/2005/03/13/politics/13covert.html
New York Times reporters David Barstow and Robin Stein have written a lengthy report on the use of video news releases as covert propaganda. “Under the Bush administration,” they write, “the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies … have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government’s role.” VNRs are produced for the government by private contractors and the State Department’s Office of Broadcasting Services, the Agriculture Department’s Broadcast Media and Technology Center, and the Defense Department’s Pentagon Channel, among others. We’ve been criticizing VNRs used as propaganda for more than a decade. For example, our 1995 book Toxic Sludge Is Good For You described how VNRs were used to sell the first Bush administration’s Persian Gulf war. It’s nice to see the Times starting to notice.
SOURCE: New York Times, March 13, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3362
10. PRO-CEDAR, ANTI-SYRIA
prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=236397&site=3
The Lebanese American Council for Democracy, the “group that played a key role in the passage of the Syrian Accountability Act,” retained 5W Public Relations for “strategic counsel and media relations.” The group’s goal is “to gain support from U.S. political leaders and United Nations officials to pressure Syria to withdraw its troops.” The group is reportedly “closely aligned with Michel Aoun, the former Prime Minister who was ousted by the Syrians” in 1990. The 5W firm is “preparing daily briefing sheets for the media to respond to current events.” The Syrian Accountability Act, passed in 2003, “imposed sanctions on Syria for occupying Lebanon.”
SOURCE: PR Week (reg. req’d.), March 10, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3361
11. STILL IN THE MOVIE BUSINESS
www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-video10mar10,0,7563065.story?coll=la
In California, more video news releases produced by the Schwarzenegger administration have been identified. The VNRs tout administration proposals to reduce nursing staff levels in hospitals, to make teachers’ pay merit-based, to make tenure more stringent, to lower prescription drug prices, and to end mandatory employee rest breaks. Schwarzenegger’s spokesperson called the VNRs “just a press release in video form.” But the VNRs push controversial proposals, as opposed to those by the Gray Davis administration, which explained new driver’s licenses or celebrated Labor Day. PR Week reports that California “has launched an effort to make VNR production easier for all government departments,” by hiring a multimedia communications specialist.
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, March 10, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3360
12. MCPOSITIONING
www.suntimes.com/output/lazare/cst-fin-lew10.html
A new round of global television advertisements developed for McDonald‚Äôs by the Leo Burnett advertising agency, Chicago columnist Lewis Lazare writes, are “pushing too hard to position itself as a health-conscious company, a claim that comes off a bit disingenuous.” Across the Pacific, New Zealand Minister for Health and former dental nurse Annette King was busy dismissing the suggestion that having Ronald McDonald‚Äôs clown face painted on vans that deliver dental services to remote communities was helping McDonald‚Äôs marketing and advertising plans.
SOURCE: Chicago Sun Times, March 10, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3359
13. COUNTING VOTES FIRST, DEAD LATER
bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/330/7491/550?etoc
Visiting professor of public health epidemiology at Oxford University, Klim McPherson, notes that while the British government has criticized estimates that put the number of Iraqi casualties of the war at 100,000, a defence ministry group has been slow to produce a better estimate. “Electorates, in Iraq and elsewhere, have a right to know. To procrastinate further for no good reason is to devalue public health processes, not to mention Iraqi lives. As public health professionals we need to know the health costs,” he wrote.
SOURCE: British Medical Journal, March 12, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3358
14. THE REVERSE BRITISH INVASION
observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1431306,00.html
The global warming “denial lobby” is targeting Britain, reports the Observer, and it has U.S. connections. “The UK-based Scientific Alliance, which organised the meeting of skeptics in London last month, recently published a joint report with America’s George C. Marshall Institute, a think-tank which has received donations from Exxon. … Exxon has also contributed $50,000 to the International Policy Network, headquartered in London. Key personnel at the IPN have connections with the Institute of Economic Affairs, Britain’s leading conservative think-tank, as well as the Competitive Enterprise Institute in the U.S., whose global warming expert is Myron Ebell, President Bush’s climate adviser.”
SOURCE: Observer, March 6, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/3357
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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