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THIS WEEK'S NEWS

1. Ad and PR Campaigns of Arabia
2. White House Regulatory Actions Overlooked
3. Big Box Buys Buddies
4. A Herculean Effort to Get Your Gold
5. Pre-Emptive “Traitor” Baiters
6. Spinning Spies for Fun and Electoral Profit
7. Red News or Blue News?
8. PBS Adds Insult to Injury
9. Hacking Young Minds
10. Another Media Mea Culpa
11. Poison Ivy On Display
12. The Presidential Race Card
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1. AD AND PR CAMPAIGNS OF ARABIA
online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109273181539093381,00.html?mod=world_news_whats_news “For too long, rumors have been accepted as truth,” says one of two new U.S. radio ads launched by Saudi Arabia, to highlight 9/11 Commission findings favorable to the country. “The ads don't address commission criticism of Saudi Arabia, which the report called 'a problematic ally in combating Islamic extremism,'” writes Associated Press. Fahrenheit 9/11 and the Kerry campaign have increased scrutiny of Saudi-Bush ties. Through PR firm Qorvis Communications, Saudi Arabia is disputing charges by Daniel Pipes that the Kingdom pays Middle East academic experts to speak on its behalf. But Qorvis is doing “ongoing education to communities around the country regarding the importance and value of strong U.S.-Saudi relations,” including offering pro-Saudi speakers to universities.
SOURCE: Associated Press, August 17, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1092715200
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2. WHITE HOUSE REGULATORY ACTIONS OVERLOOKED
www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3733-2004Aug15?language=printer “The Data Quality Act — written by an industry lobbyist and slipped into a giant appropriations bill in 2000 without congressional discussion or debate — is just two sentences directing the [White House Office of Management and Budget] to ensure that all information disseminated by the federal government is reliable. But the Bush administration's interpretation of those two sentences could tip the balance in regulatory disputes that weigh the interests of consumers and businesses,” the Washington Post reports in a 3-part series on the direction of regulatory action under George W. Bush. “Environmental and consumer groups say the Data Quality Act fits into a larger Bush administration agenda. In the past six months, more than 4,000 scientists, including dozens of Nobel laureates and 11 winners of the National Medal of Science, have signed statements accusing the administration of politicizing science,” the Post writes. The New York Times also recently looked at the regulatory issue, writing, “Allies and critics of the Bush administration agree that the Sept. 11 attacks, the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq have preoccupied the public, overshadowing an important element of the president's agenda: new regulatory initiatives.”
SOURCE: Washington Post, August 16, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1092628804
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3. BIG BOX BUYS BUDDIES
www.nytimes.com/2004/08/16/business/16walmart.html “Stung by criticism of its labor practices, expansion plans and other business tactics,” Wal-Mart “has become a sponsor on National Public Radio,” underwritten the “Tavis Smiley” talk show, and “plans to award $500,000 in scholarships to minority students at journalism programs around the country.” A Wal-Mart spokeswoman said there's “no hidden agenda,” but “we've really been in the spotlight and I think that's made us especially sensitive to the need for balanced coverage.” NPR's ombudsman wrote, “Wal-Mart symbolizes values that some listeners believe to be antithetical to the values of public radio.” Mounting opposition has rejected or stalled new Wal-Mart stores in California, Illinois and Louisiana.
SOURCE: New York Times, August 16, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1092628803
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4. A HERCULEAN EFFORT TO GET YOUR GOLD
prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=219514&site=3 “An event once notable for celebrating the spirit of amateurism has achieved an almost unimaginable level of crass commercialism,” writes PR commentator Paul Holmes. The Olympics' organizers “are clamping down on anything that might allow TV audiences a glimpse of a non-sponsor's logo. People carrying bottles of Pepsi (or any bottled water not made by Coca-Cola) will have them confiscated … people with a Nike logo on their T-shirts will be asked to turn the shirts inside out. Stewards … have been warned about wearing footwear that isn't made by official sponsor Adidas.” Holmes concludes, “I'd rather see the Olympic organizers worry about concerns that official merchandise is being made in sweatshops.”
SOURCE: PR Week (reg. req'd), August 16, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1092628802
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5. PRE-EMPTIVE “TRAITOR” BAITERS
www.boston.com/news/politics/conventions/articles/2004/08/16/fbi_tracks_potential_gop_protesters/ “Federal agents and city police are keeping tabs on people they say might try to cause trouble at the Republican National Convention, questioning activists, making unannounced visits and monitoring Web sites and meetings. … The intelligence unit of the New York Police Department … also has sought to infiltrate protest groups.” An ACLU lawyer for three Missouri men subpoenaed by the FBI told the New York Times, “What's so disturbing about this is the pre-emptive nature – stopping them from participating in a protest before anything even happened.” Her clients “got the message loud and clear that if you make plans to go to a protest, you could be subject to arrest or a visit from the FBI.”
SOURCE: Associated Press, August 16, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1092628801
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6. SPINNING SPIES FOR FUN AND ELECTORAL PROFIT
prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=219497&site=3 PR Week's Douglas Quenqua applauds “how effortlessly George Bush changed the conversation last week. Political debate … had centered on the 9/11 Commission's recommendations.” This was problematic, since “John Kerry unhesitatingly endorsed implementation of every recommendation – and quickly passed Bush's poll numbers on matters of national security.” But Bush's nomination of Rep. Porter Goss for CIA director shifted attention to “Goss and what the Democrats were going to do to stop the nomination – something Bush had counted on.” Newsweek reports that Goss' recently introduced “intelligence reform” bill “would enable the president to issue secret findings allowing the CIA to conduct covert operations inside the United States – without even any notification to Congress.”
SOURCE: PR Week (reg. req'd), August 16, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1092628800
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7. RED NEWS OR BLUE NEWS?
www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/ny-fftv3927049aug15,0,4455357.story “The ascendancy of 'news' with an attitude – a spin, a bias – is undeniable,” reports Newsweek, which cites Fox News Channel, Air America Radio, Fahrenheit 9/11 and the Drudge Report as examples. The director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press is worried: “If news choices are increasingly driven by partisanship, either because they're biased or because they're perceived to be biased, then I think the risk is that people will turn inward. They're going to be exposed to fewer things that may challenge their points of view. And it would make sense that this is not an especially good thing for a democracy.”
SOURCE: Newsday, August 15, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1092542400
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8. PBS ADDS INSULT TO INJURY
www.commondreams.org/views04/0813-10.htm “The far right's decades-long campaign to falsely brand PBS a leftist conspiracy – one that apparently included giving shows to such commies as William F. Buckley, Louis Rukeyser, Ben Wattenberg and Fortune magazine – has really hit pay dirt this year, first in creating a show around CNN's conservative talking head Tucker Carlson, and now, far more egregiously, in creating a program for the extremist editorial board of the Wall Street Journal,” the Nation's Eric Alterman writes. “In a lengthy examination in the Columbia Journalism Review, Trudy Lieberman found six dozen examples of disputed Journal editorials and op-eds. She discovered that 'on subjects ranging from lawyers, judges, and product liability suits to campus and social issues, a strong America, and of course, economics, we found a consistent pattern of incorrect facts, ignored or incomplete facts, missing facts, uncorroborated facts.' In many of these cases, the editors refused to print a correction, preferring to allow the aggrieved party to write a letter to the editor, which would be printed much later, and then let the reader decide whose version appeared more credible. Almost never does the paper correct the record or admit its errors.”
SOURCE: Common Dreams, August 13, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1092369601

9. HACKING YOUNG MINDS
www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,64543,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2 The Business Software Alliance's “copyright-crusading cartoon ferret” appears in “marketing campaigns to teach kids to be good cybercitizens,” and its “antipiracy comic book and teacher's guide” is mailed to grade-school classrooms. The Motion Picture Association of America sponsored “an essay contest in which students competed to write the most creative plan to convince their peers not to download content illegally.” Concerned by industry-funded “claims … that far exceed what copyright is all about,” the American Library Association is developing its own copyright issues classroom materials. The National Education Association applauded the ALA, saying students should not “parrot for some corporate agenda.”
SOURCE: Wired News, August 13, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1092369600
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10. ANOTHER MEDIA MEA CULPA
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58127-2004Aug11.html An internal Washington Post review found that, before the invasion of Iraq, “Administration assertions were on the front page. Things that challenged the administration were on A18 on Sunday or A24 on Monday. There was an attitude among editors: Look, we're going to war, why do we even worry about all this contrary stuff?” – in the words of the paper's Pentagon correspondent. Managing editor Bob Woodward said “groupthink” compromised coverage of weapons of mass destruction charges, but “we had no alternative sources of information.” One reporter stated, “We are inevitably the mouthpiece for whatever administration is in power.” A national news editor said, “Do I feel we owe our readers an apology? I don't think so.” Editor and Publisher criticized the piece as having “more excuses than admission of mistakes” and lacking any “promise of corrective action.”
SOURCE: Washington Post, August 12, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1092283200
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11. POISON IVY ON DISPLAY
www.odwyerpr.com/members/0811lee.htm The seminal PR work of Ivy Lee, sometimes called “the real father of modern PR,” is currently on display in the Transit Museum in Grand Central Station in New York City. In 1908, Lee became the first publicity director for Pennsylvania Railroad, developing campaigns to influence public opinion in support of the railroad's lobbying efforts. Lee gain notoriety when he was hired by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. to turn public sentiment about the 1914 Ludlow Massacre. His work supporting turn-of-the-century robber barons earned him the nickname “Poison Ivy.” NYC's Interborourgh Rapid Transit hired Lee in 1916. He created the Subway Sun newspaper as part of an effort to publicize New York's subway system. In the early 1930s, Lee was a consultant to a German company linked to Hitler, which, in part, led to the passage of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938.
SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily (sub req'd), August 11, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1092196801
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12. THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE CARD
www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/breaking_news/9369049.htm “A Washington nonprofit group with ties to the Republican Party is airing radio ads … asking if U.S. Senator John Kerry takes 'the black community for granted?'” The group, People of Color United, was founded last week by DC Parents For School Choice, which supports school vouchers. Major GOP donor J. Patrick Rooney gave $30,000 towards the ad campaign. Rooney, who is white, said, “For 21 years I have gone to an all-black church. … I'm one of them. I don't know what it has to do with health savings accounts.” Rooney's former and current firms specialize in health savings accounts, which “were created by President Bush's 2003 Medicare prescription drug legislation.”
SOURCE: Philadelphia Daily News, August 11, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/August_2004.html#1092196800
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