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THIS WEEK'S NEWS

1. Trading Places
2. CIA's Favorite PR Firm, Rendon Group, Rocks The DNC
3. A Different Kind of Workplace Organizing
4. US Army Needs A Few Good Ideas
5. Democratic National Ritual 2004
6. Asking for Trouble
7. Conventional Coverage
8. Friends in High Places
9. Lobbying for Solitude, Oil
10. Not-So-Democratic Convention
11. Past Entanglements and Present Dangers
12. Compassionate Conventions
13. 9/11 Commission Uses Edelman For PR Work
14. When Is A Terrorist A Terrorist?
15. Bending Like a Reed in the Wind
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1. TRADING PLACES
www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/26/1090693902122.html “Two senior United States trade negotiators who sealed the trade deal with Australia have accepted plum jobs representing U.S. medical and drug companies,” reports the Sydney Morning Herald. Ralph Ives, the current U.S. trade representative for pharmaceutical policy, will become the industry group AdvaMed's vice-president for global strategy. Claude Burcky, head U.S. negotiator for intellectual property trade issues, will become Abbott Laboratories' director of global government affairs. “This may help explain why the Australian trade agreement is designed to undercut access to affordable medicines for Americans and Australians alike,” said U.S. Representative Sherrod Brown. Wexler and Walker Public Policy Associates, an independent unit of PR firm Hill & Knowlton, lobbied on behalf of U.S. businesses in support of the American-Australian Free Trade Agreement.
SOURCE: Sydney Morning Herald, July 27, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090900800
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2. CIA'S FAVORITE PR FIRM, RENDON GROUP, ROCKS THE DNC
www.odwyerpr.com/members/0726rendon.htm The CIA's favorite PR firm, “the Rendon Group is playing a major behind-the-scenes role at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, arranging first-time/real-time video broadcasts each morning to each of the 56 caucuses, serving as the event's project manager, and coordinating 20 convention-related events, Rick Rendon, co-founder of the firm, told O'Dwyer's. Rendon hired Polycom Video Systems to set up secure servers in 22 hotels so leading Democrats can address each caucus at their 8 a.m. breakfast for a 'virtual convention.' … Rendon said the Boston convention will mark the first time that each delegation will be connected in real-time. 'I remember how hard it was to speak to the different delegations when I worked for Jimmy Carter,' said Rendon. TRG has or will run 20 convention events, ranging from an educational reception for young female Democrats featuring former Texas Governor Ann Richards to the 'Rock the Vote' concert. An Associated Press July 25 photo featured TRG staffer Jim King giving John Kerry's daughters Vanessa and Alexandra a tour of the FleetCenter. King is one of TRG's 'lean and mean' convention team, said Rendon. 'It's been crazy,' he added.”
SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily, July 26, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090814405
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3. A DIFFERENT KIND OF WORKPLACE ORGANIZING
www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=41124 “The Business Industry Political Action Committee's 'Prosperity Project' program targets 20 million employees in battleground states” and “pushes their companies' views of political candidates to employees via Web sites and interoffice e-mails,” reports Advertising Age. BIPAC “is especially concerned about confirmation of pro-business judges and has focused most of its attention on congressional races.” BIPAC president Greg Casey said his group tells workers “how the issues impact them,” but doesn't tell them how to vote. Casey also said that John Kerry “is not a business candidate. He hasn't even pretend [sic] to be.”
SOURCE: Advertising Age, July 26, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090814404
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4. US ARMY NEEDS A FEW GOOD IDEAS
www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=41118# The U.S. Army's $200 million advertising account is in review. According to the trade journal Advertising Age, the five-year-old “Army of One” tagline may be “out of touch” with the reality of war. The Army will use its ad campaign as its most public face as it tries to recruit 80,000 new soldiers next year. But the Army has to be “careful,” Evan Wright, a Rolling Stone journalist and author of Generation Kill. Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America and the New Face of American War, told Advertising Age. “It really damages morale if they do a bait and switch,” Wright said. The Army sells “kids on this idea of playing with really cool guns, machines, tanks, radios and computers, that they will have so much high technology they'll be an 'Army of One.'” But the primary images of war, according to Wright, “are burning Army Humvees. In the field, the technology doesn't seem so cool.” The Army says its advertising is “based on real-life stories. … If you look at our '2400/7' series [of ads], it demonstrates what soldiers are doing in their jobs. It's reality TV. We don't use actors. Our research tells us that these kids want to know what the deal is.î
SOURCE: Advertising Age, July 26, 2004
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5. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL RITUAL 2004
www.therevealer.org/archives/main_story_000583.php In his essay, “A Cultural Approach to Communication,” Columbia University journalism professor James W. Carey identifies two views of communication — “transmission” and “ritual.” In Carey's words, the “ritual view” is communication “linked to terms such as 'sharing,' 'participation,' 'association,' 'fellowship,' and the 'possession of a common faith.' … A ritual view of communication is directed not toward the extension of messages in space but toward the maintenance of society in time.” Media critic and academic Jay Rosen describes the “transmission view” as “the most common in our culture. Here communication is equated with the delivery of 'messages' across distance.” Rosen, who is covering the Democratic Nation Convention on his weblog PressThink, suggests journalists keep Carey's essay in mind while covering the convention. Why? “Because if you try to understand a political ritual with a transmission view in your head, you will miss much of what's going on. And because at the deepest roots of their thinking, journalists see the transmission of new information as real and important, whereas ritual communication is fake, newsless and ultimately unimportant,” Rosen writes.
SOURCE: The Revealer.org, July 26, 2004
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6. ASKING FOR TROUBLE
www.boston.com/news/politics/conventions/articles/2004/07/26/pbs_anchor_chides_big_3_networks_as_shirking_convention_duty/ “Fear has increased in every newsroom in America,” said CBS's Dan Rather during a discussion of “The Press and the Election” at Harvard University. That's fear of “a torrent of e-mails and phone calls” complaining about media coverage of controversial issues. Rather said journalists might think, “when you run this story, you're asking for trouble. … Why run it?” NBC's Tom Brokaw mentioned the Media Research Center and said conservatives “feel they have to go to war against the networks every day.” ABC's Peter Jennings added, “I hear more about conservative concerns than I have in the past. … I feel the presence of anger all the time.”
SOURCE: The Boston Globe, July 26, 2004
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7. CONVENTIONAL COVERAGE
www.nytimes.com/2004/07/26/politics/campaign/26anchors.html PBS anchor Jim Lehrer blasted the major TV networks for limited coverage of the political conventions, since “we're about to elect a president of the United States at a time when we have young people dying in our name overseas, [and] we just had a report from the 9/11 commission which says we are not safe.” NBC's Tom Brokaw countered, “These conventions are so managed, so over-managed” there's not much to report. Brokaw complained about Kerry campaign media control, saying, “There is a politburo running this convention.” For a joint CBS/NBC interview, campaign “staff wanted the questions to concern Mr. Kerry's expectations for the convention, nothing more” – a request that was “swiftly denied.”
SOURCE: New York Times, July 26, 2004
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8. FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES
bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/329/7459/189?etoc U.S. Congressman Maurice Hinchey says the Food and Drug Administration's chief counsel “is aggressively intervening against the public on behalf of drug companies and medical device manufacturers” and this “pattern of collusion” has “corrupted [the FDA's] mission to protect the public health.” Daniel Troy, who lobbied for drug and tobacco companies before being appointed as USDA counsel, reportedly told drug companies to inform him of lawsuits so that the FDA could strengthen their defense. “Make it sound like a Hollywood pitch,” he advised. Troy has filed USDA briefs on behalf of former client Pfizer, SmithKline Beecham Consumer Products and GlaxoSmithKline.
SOURCE: British Medical Journal, July 24, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090641600
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9. LOBBYING FOR SOLITUDE, OIL
www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1267572,00.html The Iraqi Kurdish region's “leaders try to project a united front in Baghdad and abroad, but few Kurds in the north or Arabs in the south have forgotten that” the Kurdish Democratic Party and the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan “spent four of their Saddam-free years fighting a civil war.” Now, the KDP “has retained Barbour Griffith & Rogers as its lobbyist to ensure that Iraqi Kurdistan maintains its autonomy” and to push for “the return of oil-rich Kirkuk,” reports O'Dwyer's PR Daily. Former Bush I assistant Ed Rogers will be the KDP's chief lobbyist, along with International Republican Institute founder Keith Schuette.
SOURCE: The Guardian (UK), July 23, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090555201
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10. NOT-SO-DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION
www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/07/23/judge_deplores_but_oks_site_for_protesters/ “One cannot conceive of other elements [that could be] put in place to create a space that's more of an affront to the idea of free expression,” said U.S. District Judge Douglas Woodlock, after touring the Democratic National Convention's “free speech” protest zone in Boston. The zone is “bordered by cement barriers, a double row of chain-line fencing, heavy black netting, and tightly woven plastic mesh,” with “coils of razor wire” along elevated train tracks. A lawyer for activists challenging the zone compared it to “a maximum security prison, Guantanamo Bay, or a zoo” – comparisons Woodlock called “an understatement,” although he upheld the zone for security reasons.
SOURCE: Boston Globe, July 23, 2004
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11. PAST ENTANGLEMENTS AND PRESENT DANGERS
daily.nysun.com/Repository/getmailfiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:ArticleToMail&Type=text/html&Path=NYS/2004/07/22&ID=Ar00501 One day after the re-re-launch of the Committee on the Present Danger, PR pro Peter Hannaford resigned as its managing director. Several CPD members called for Hannaford's resignation, after it was reported that he lobbied for the political party of Austrian nationalist Joerg Haider, who once commended the “orderly employment policy” of the Third Reich and paid a “solidarity visit” to Saddam Hussein in 2002. Laura Rozen, who broke the story, writes that Hannaford also lobbied for China, Saudi Arabia and Algeria and asks, “Who is funding [the CPD]?” Justin Raimondo suggests that CPD member Hedieh Mirahmadi might also want to resign, given her support of Uzbekistan's leader, who the U.S. is urging to hold elections and end torture.
SOURCE: New York Sun, July 22, 2004
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12. COMPASSIONATE CONVENTIONS
www.nytimes.com/2004/07/22/nyregion/22volunteers.html “On Saturday, [Republican] convention officials will begin a highly organized nationwide campaign to get volunteers to donate blood, feed the hungry and operate community health fairs. Initially, it will be part of a broader effort to draw attention away from the Democratic National Convention. But the campaign – known as Compassion Across America – will continue at the Republican National Convention,” reports Jennifer Steinhauer. She wonders if “here is a television image that organizers of the Republican National Convention are fantasizing about: Protesters clog the area around Madison Square Garden, inconveniencing commuters … [while] Republican delegates [are] feeding the homeless.”
SOURCE: New York Times, July 22, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090468800
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13. 9/11 COMMISSION USES EDELMAN FOR PR WORK
www.odwyerpr.com/members/0720edelman_911commision.htm “The 9/11 Commission will use Edelman PR Worldwide to generate political support for its recommendations on how to beef up U.S. defenses against terrorism,” trade publication O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports. Rob Rehg, who runs Edelman's Washington, D.C. office, told O'Dwyer's that the firm “will then conduct an ongoing media campaign pairing the Commissioners two-by-two – one Republican and Democrat – to talk to the media and government officials about the need to put its recommendations into place.”
SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily, July 20, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090296003
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14. WHEN IS A TERRORIST A TERRORIST?
www.dmregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040718/NEWS01/407180386&SearchID=73178342703448 Of the 35 federal terrorism-related cases in Iowa since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the Des Moines Register reports that “most defendants had questionable links to violent extremism. Those defendants who could be identified by the newspaper were, in most cases, charged with fraud or theft and served just a few months in jail.” Apparently, the “terrorism-related” label has more to do with the type of illegal activity that the suspect is being prosecuted for than evidence of actual terrorist connections or motives. “'Bona fide' terrorism is a matter of semantics,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Murphy, who heads the criminal division of the U.S. attorney's office in Cedar Rapids, told the Register. “I don't think you can draw conclusions based on what a person is convicted of.” U.S. Senator Charles Grassley (R-Ia.) questioned the rationale of lumping minor crimes under the terrorism label. “When people read that they're doctoring the numbers, aren't they going to have less confidence in the Justice Department and the war on terror?” asked Grassley. “You can't say that somebody's a terrorist when he isn't a terrorist.”
SOURCE: Des Moines Register, July 18, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090123201
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15. BENDING LIKE A REED IN THE WIND Former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed's public affairs firm Century Strategies “has raked in millions of dollars by mounting grassroots lobbying drives” for corporations, Republicans and “controversial lobbyists.” Reed is also the Bush campaign's southeast regional chair; campaign manager Ken Mehlman called Reed “fabulous” for “outreach to the Jewish community, to the African-American community, and to the evangelical community.” Reed organized a “pastors' reception” following the Southern Baptist Convention, where ministers “were asked to sign pledges to endorse Bush publicly, to organize a party for the president … close to Election Day,” and other activities. Some conservatives criticize Reed's lobbying for the school-focused media company Channel One, and coordinating with (and perhaps accepting money from) casino lobbyists to block new, competing casinos.
SOURCE: The National Journal, July 17, 2004
Web links related to this story are available at: www.prwatch.org/spin/July_2004.html#1090036801
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