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THIS WEEK'S NEWS

1. Journalists Unhappy With Election Coverage
2. A Pre-Emptive Election Challenge
3. Florida Revisited
4. Mistakes Happen
5. To Err Is Human, Says E-Voting Group
6. Bush vs. the Laureates
7. Junk Mailers Meet Ms. Brand America
8. The Multimedia Election
9. Faith-Based Presidency
10. Sinclair's Journalism From Above
11. Beware Lobbyists on Drugs
12. Jailed for Blogging
13. Ketchum Rated Reporters on “No Child Left Behind”
14. Opening the Doors to Open Source Intelligence
15. Hurrah for Alhurrah
16. Knocking Rock the Vote
17. Pfizer Doesn't Send Him Flowers, Anymore
18. Ketchum Touts the Spirit of Davos
19. Video News Releases: They're Everywhere!
20. Bush Appointees Understand Industry
21. Reach Out and Disenfranchise Someone
22. Fake Blogs, True Buzz
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1. JOURNALISTS UNHAPPY WITH ELECTION COVERAGE
www.journalism.org/resources/research/reports/campaign2004/ccjcamp2004/default.asp
The Committee of Concerned Journalists, a consortium of reporters, editors, producers, publishers, owners and academics, has surveyed its own membership about the quality of election campaign coverage this year, and the results aren't pretty. Nearly three quarters of respondents gave the press a C, D or F grade, and only 3% gave an A. By large majorities they felt the news media has become sidetracked by trivial issues, has been too reactive and has focused too much on campaign strategy rather than substance. They gave particularly low grades to television and much higher grades to newspapers and online coverage. The online news sites in fact got more A grades than any other medium – a notable improvement in the internet's reputation relative to other information sources.
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1098363833

2. A PRE-EMPTIVE ELECTION CHALLENGE
www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Kerry-Day-After-Strategy.html
Regretting Al Gore's quick concession in 2000, “Democrats are already laying the public relations groundwork [for a protracted election challenge] by pointing to every possible voting irregularity before the Nov. 2 election and accusing Republicans of wrongdoing.” The Kerry campaign will have “six so-called 'SWAT teams' of lawyers and political operatives … situated around the country with fueled-up jets awaiting Kerry's orders to speed to a battleground state.” While lawyers are mounting legal challenges, “political operatives will try to shape public perception,” saying that “Kerry has the best claim to the presidency and that Republicans are trying to steal it.”
SOURCE: Associated Press, October 21, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1098331200
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1098331200

3. FLORIDA REVISITED
www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/markosmoulitsas/story/0,15139,1331610,00.html?gusrc=rss
Within an hour after voting began in Florida, “the system collapsed in Broward County, ground zero for the 2000 fiasco in the state,” comments Markos Moulitsas. He lists other allegations of election fraud and voter suppression in states including Nevada, Ohio, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and South Dakota, On his Dkosopedia website, Moulitsas is hosting a “Voter Registration Fraud Clearinghouse, where people are invited to report irregularities.
SOURCE: Guardian (UK), October 20, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1098244800
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1098244800

4. MISTAKES HAPPEN
www.regrettheerror.com/ A new weblog, “Regret the Error,” is devoted solely to reporting on newspaper errors.
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1098210656

5. TO ERR IS HUMAN, SAYS E-VOTING GROUP
www.infoworld.com/article/04/10/19/HNvotingproblems_1.html?source=rss&url=
http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/10/19/HNvotingproblems_1.html
To “help journalists put election equipment-related snafus in context,” the Information Technology Association of America, which includes several electronic voting machine manufacturers, is circulating a media primer. “The document outlines a number of woeful election day scenarios, from missing voter registrations to incorrect ballot information and nonfunctioning electronic voting machines. In each case, the ITAA offers possible explanations for the mishap, often with the effect of exonerating the voting machine.” ITAA senior vice president Bob Cohen said one goal of their outreach is for journalists to “not always assume that problems with voting are due to failures of electronic voting technology.”
SOURCE: InfoWorld, October 19, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1098158402
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1098158402

6. BUSH VS. THE LAUREATES
www.nytimes.com/2004/10/19/science/19poli.html
“For nearly four years, and with rising intensity, scientists in and out of government have criticized the Bush administration, saying it has selected or suppressed research findings to suit preset policies, skewed advisory panels or ignored unwelcome advice, and quashed discussion within federal research agencies,” reports Andrew Revkin. The clash has been especially intense and prolonged regarding the issue of global warming, where “scientists say that objective and relevant information is ignored or distorted in service of pre-established policy goals. Scientists were essentially locked out of important internal White House debates; candidates for advisory panels were asked about their politics as well as their scientific work; and the White House exerted broad control over how scientific findings were to be presented in public reports or news releases.”
SOURCE: New York Times, October 19, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1098158401

7. JUNK MAILERS MEET MS. BRAND AMERICA
www.dmnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=30769
Last year, former advertising executive Charlotte Beersresigned from her job as head of a U.S. State Department effort to improve America's image in the Middle East. This week she spoke to another group with image problems – direct marketers, the people who send you junk mail and other unwanted commercial solicitations. Beers gave them the same advice she gave “brand America”: they should “tell positive stories about what direct marketing is about.”
SOURCE: DM News, October 19, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1098158400
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8. THE MULTIMEDIA ELECTION
www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=73019
“Hardly a day goes by without someone sending me a link to a video, Flash animation, or MP3 file related to the U.S. political campaign,” obsserves Steve Yelvington. “It's the first time that multimedia files have been so thoroughly woven through the national political conversation. JibJab's hilarious animations, “This Land” and “Good to Be in D.C.,” have been widely covered, but there's much more. PBS has placed its excellent biodocumentary, “The Choice 2004,” on the Web for online viewing. Jon Stewart's skewering of CNN's Crossfire is posted all over the Web (although not at CNN.com). The polemic “Stolen Honor: John Kerryís Record of Betrayal,” which is at the center of the Sinclair Broadcasting controversy, is available for pay-per-view downloading. There's widespread use of video in user-generated content, too, led off by entries in a contest earlier this year sponsored by the political action group MoveOn.org.
SOURCE: Poynter online, October 18, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1098072000
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1098072000

9. FAITH-BASED PRESIDENCY
www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html?
oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
“In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush,” journalist Ron Suskind writes. “He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend – but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency. The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'”
SOURCE: New York Times Magazine, October 17, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1097985600
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1097985600

10. SINCLAIR'S JOURNALISM FROM ABOVE
www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0410160112oct16,1,151711.story
The Sinclair Broadcast Group, the single largest operator of local television stations in the United States, has gained notoriety after ordering its 62 local stations to preempt prime time programming to broadcast an anti-Kerry film a few days before the November 2, 2004 general election. The order has prompted criticism that Sinclair is “failing federal broadcast requirements to reflect local interests … a section of federal law that requires media companies to cover local issues and provide an outlet for local voices,” reports Leon Lazaroff. The order to run the anti-Kerry program is simply the latest example of how it imposes its political will on its local affiliates. “The company increasingly uses 'distance-casting' whereby local news, sports and weather is uniformly broadcast to its many stations from Sinclair's headquarters in suburban Baltimore,” Lazaroff writes. “Television viewers receive on-camera reports from 'News Central' that appear to be coming from local stations. Sinclair spokesman Mark Hyman delivers conservative commentary that must be carried on local news reports.”
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune, October 16, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1097899203
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1097899203

11. BEWARE LOBBYISTS ON DRUGS
www.saturdaygazettemail.com/section/APNews/News/ap0490n
“When federal regulators started to scrutinize the safety record of dietary supplements sold by Metabolife International Inc., the company turned to the influential Washington lobbying and law shop of Patton Boggs. … For years, Patton Boggs earned millions helping project reassurances to Congress and its customers that Metabolife products were safe.” As health concerns mounted, “Patton Boggs lobbyist Lanny Davis wrote a senator whose subcommittee was investigating Metabolife that the company had received only 78 'unproven, anecdotal allegations' of strokes, heart attacks, seizures and deaths.” The actual number of health complaints was in the thousands.
SOURCE: Associated Press, October 16, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1097899202
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1097899202

12. JAILED FOR BLOGGING
www.juancole.com/2004_10_01_juancole_archive.html#109795689940545757
Juan Cole reports that Omid Memarian, an Iranian writer, journalist, weblogger and social activist has been arrested, making him the fourth journalist to be arrested in an apparent Iranian crackdown on reformist journalists and webloggers who are seen as enemies of the regime. Cole urges people to complain to the Iranian government or their interests section in Washington, DC.
SOURCE: Informed Comment weblog, October 16, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1097899201
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1097899201

13. KETCHUM RATED REPORTERS ON “NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND”
www.nytimes.com/2004/10/16/politics/16educ.html
The U.S. Education Department paid $700,000 to the Ketchum public relations and marketing firm, to produce two video news releases and to rate newspaper coverage according to how favorably reporters described the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind law in 2003. Democratic Senators Frank R. Lautenberg and Edward M. Kennedy have criticized the Ketchum contract as “an illegal use of taxpayer funds. … A comprehensive, nationwide media study identifying journalists and news organizations writing favorable stories on President Bush and his political party's commitment to education has only a political purpose.”
SOURCE: New York Times, October 16, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1097899200
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1097899200

14. OPENING THE DOORS TO OPEN SOURCE INTELLIGENCE
ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1097814155.php
The official report of the 9/11 Commission includes a pitch for a new “open-source intelligence agency,” which would focus on developing government intelligence information from unrestricted, non-secret sources. “The intelligence world lives and breathes by secrecy, perhaps more so than is necessary,” observes Charles Cameron. “In a world that's shifting in a thousand ways from the hierarchical to the distributed, from the top-down to the bottom-up, and – gasp – from the authoritative to the democratic, a more transparent approach to intelligence may be the wave of the future, and open-source intelligence may be the key to that effort.”
SOURCE: Online Journalism Review, October 15, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1097812801
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1097812801

15. HURRAH FOR ALHURRAH
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33564-2004Oct14.html
Alhurrah, the U.S.-funded Arabic-language TV channel, offers a more pro-U.S. version of the news than other Arabic channels but is having a hard time reaching many viewers because of the perception that it is American propaganda. Mouafac Harb, Alhurra's news director bristles at this claim. But as U.S. Rep. JosÈ E. Serrano (D-N.Y.) said at a hearing in April, that's exactly why Congress is funding it. “Do not tell us it's not propaganda, because if it's not propaganda, then I think … we will have to look at what it is we are doing,” Serrano said.
SOURCE: Washington Post, October 15, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1097812800
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1097812800

16. KNOCKING ROCK THE VOTE
www.blog.rockthevote.com/2004_10_10_archive.html#109779237957217297
After the Los Angeles Times reported on the youth voter registration organization Rock the Vote's asking whether the draft could be reinstituted “if the situation doesn't improve,” Republican National Committee chair Ed Gillespie called the campaign “reckless” and “malicious.” In a letter to the group, Gillespie wrote, “It is unfortunate that you feel the need to engage in a misinformation campaign regarding an alleged draft to energize young voters.” Rock the Vote's president wrote to Gillespie, “We think young people deserve to know where the politicians stand on this issue – and that a generation that could be called to service deserves more than the phony debate they are getting.”
SOURCE: Rock the Vote, October 14, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1097726402
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17. PFIZER DOESN'T SEND HIM FLOWERS, ANYMORE
counterpunch.org/pringle10142004.html
“A lot of people cannot afford life-saving drugs. Drug re-importation provides an alternative supply at lower prices for people who cannot afford the full price,” said Dr. Peter Rost, Pfizer's vice president of marketing for endocrine care and the first drug industry executive to publicly support reimporting drugs from Canada to America. Although Rost's support of reimportation was done on his own time, Pfizer recently launched an investigation into his political activities. “The questioning was intense,” Rost remarked – and biased, he claims. “If I had spoken out against reimportation they would have sent me flowers.”
SOURCE: CounterPunch, October 14, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1097726401
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1097726401

18. KETCHUM TOUTS THE SPIRIT OF DAVOS
www.odwyerpr.com/members/1014ketchum.htm
Wanting to “highlight its efforts beyond the group's well-known annual summit of world and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland,” the World Economic Forum has hired the Ketchum PR firm's London-based corporate communications unit. The WEF wants to promote its “public-private efforts through its Global Institute for Partnership and Governance,” which addresses “'some of the world's most challenging problems,' in areas like HIV/AIDS and corporate citizenship” and builds on the “'spirit of Davos' by organizing sustained processes of informal dialogue by leaders and experts on selected issues.”
SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily (reg. req'd.), October 14, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1097726400
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1097726400

19. VIDEO NEWS RELEASES: THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!
www.campaigndesk.org/archives/001015.asp
Thomas Lang and Zachary Roth have done some further sleuthing into the Education Department's video news release (VNR) that featured fake “reporter” Karen Ryan and promoted the No Child Left Behind law. “It turns out that the No Child Left Behind VNR, presented as news, ran more widely than we had thought – it's just that it didn't always include Karen Ryan,” they write. “A number of local stations ran the VNR as is, and added a local twist by simply having their own reporter read the script. And in an indication of just how confident the Department of Education was that news outlets would fail to adequately scrutinize the content of the VNR, we've also found that it included sound bites in support of the tutoring program from two figures whose appearance in the video might have raised eyebrows had anyone thought to check. … The stations that took the time to have their own reporters record the script of the No Child Left Behind VNR had to have been fully aware of what they were doing: knowingly deceiving their viewers about the origins of the story – not to mention committing plagiarism – by passing off as their own original reporting words actually written by a PR company hired by the Bush administration.”
SOURCE: Campaign Desk, October 13, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1097640000

20. BUSH APPOINTEES UNDERSTAND INDUSTRY
www.nynewsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/
ny-usenvr1012,0,3704830.story?coll=nyc-nationhome-headlines
“Every administration has the revolving door,” said former Environmental Protection Agency attorney Bruce Buckheit. “The difference is the attitude that a lot of the Bush people brought with them. … It was always about what industry wanted.” Newsday reports, “Bush's appointees to senior environment-related jobs actually have less diverse backgrounds than the people Clinton picked. … Bush's choices were more likely to be lobbyists or executives in their previous job, while Clinton's were distributed more evenly among the worlds of business, academia and advocacy.” An EPA press secretary said, “You need to understand the industries you're regulating.”
SOURCE: Newsday, October 12, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1097553601
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1097553601

21. REACH OUT AND DISENFRANCHISE SOMEONE
www.klas-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2421595&nav=168XRvNe
“Employees of a private voter registration company allege that hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters who may think they are registered will be rudely surprised on election day,” reports George Knapp. “The company claims hundreds of registration forms were thrown in the trash. Anyone†who has recently registered or re-registered to vote outside a mall or grocery store or even government building may be affected.” Eric Russell, a former employee of a Republican-affiliated company, called “Voters Outreach of America,” says he personally witnessed company supervisors rip up and trash registration forms signed by Democrats. In a separate incident, Nevada election officials have rebuffed an attempt by a former GOP operative to purge about 17,000 Democrats from the voter rolls. (We reported on similar past examples of “voter suppression” in a chapter of our recent book, Banana Republicans.)
SOURCE: KLAS-TV (Las Vegas), October 12, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1097553600
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1097553600

22. FAKE BLOGS, TRUE BUZZ
www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0410090289oct09,1,6293458.story
To market a new video game, Sega built a PR campaign around a hoax. It created a weblog whose host called himself “Beta-7" and claimed that the game caused him to suffer blackouts and uncontrollable fits of violence. In reality, “Beta-7" was a fictional character, invented by the Portland, Oregon advertising agency Wieden and Kennedy.
SOURCE: (registration required) Chicago Tribune, October 9, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1097294400

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