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THE WEEKLY SPIN, September 28, 2005
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THIS WEEK’S NEWS
== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. The Wave of the Future: From Tragedy to Far-Reaching Policy, in Less Than a Month
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. McDonald’s Has No Breaks Today
2. Ill Winds, Blowing No Good
3. The Corporate Placebo Effect
4. A Spoonful of PR Helps the Medicine Get Buzz
5. Conservation Con Game
6. This’ll Make You Gasp
7. What’s Your Poison?
8. Spooks Spin at The Oz
9. RedState Blogger Boosts Wal-Mart For Bucks
10. Katrina Coverage Brown-Out
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== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE: FROM TRAGEDY TO FAR-REACHING POLICY, IN LESS THAN A MONTH
by Diane Farsetta “Maybe something good can come from this hurricane,” Senator Lindsey Graham (R – S.C.) told FOX News Sunday’s Chris Wallace on September 18th.
Graham and Wallace were discussing the “torrent of federal spending” on relief and reconstruction projects in the Gulf coast states devastated by Hurricane Katrina that is “just exploding the deficit” (both Wallace’s phrases). The Senator was advocating for budget cuts to balance the disaster spending, which is expected to total as much as $200 billion.
“There are many ways to save money,” Graham said. “You could have an across-the-board cut, non-defense across-the-board cut. You could delay the implementation of the prescription drug bill. We could start — you know, there’s so much opportunity here to go back into the budget and extract some savings to help pay for this hurricane relief that I look at it as an opportunity for the Congress to get back to its roots of being fiscally sound and conservative.”
Senator Graham wasn’t the only person to see opportunity in the United States’ worst natural disaster.
For the rest of this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4018
== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. MCDONALD’S HAS NO BREAKS TODAY
www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=46150
“Earlier this year, McDonald’s Corp. unveiled plans to enlist rap artists to produce several songs that would integrate the Golden Arches’ iconic Big Mac sandwich into lyrics,” as “part of the company’s ongoing strategy to court the youth market, especially young men, through hip-hop,” reports AdAge. Although McDonald’s promised to pay artists $1 to $5 each time promotional songs air on the radio, and hired the entertainment marketing firm Maven Strategies to oversee the effort, no Big Mac tracks have yet been recorded. “We have not identified the right opportunity,” said a McDonald’s spokesperson. “We have not yet identified the match that we’ve been looking for.” McDonald’s has also not launched its new “hip street wear” uniforms, designed with input from Russell Simmons’ Phat farm, Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Sean John, Tommy Hilfiger, Fubu and American Apparel, according to AdAge.
SOURCE: Advertising Age, September 26, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4029
2. ILL WINDS, BLOWING NO GOOD
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/28/AR2005092800259.html
“Riding a wave of concern over high energy prices triggered by Katrina” – and following a plan drawn up by the House Republican Study Committee at the Heritage Foundation – “congressional Republicans are rushing to ease environmental rules on refineries and looking for ways to open new coastal waters to oil and gas development,” as well as Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The lawmakers say “the measures were needed to address the vulnerabilities exposed by hurricanes Katrina and Rita to the nation’s energy system.” Environmentalists and city and state officials counter that the Republicans are “exploiting the tragedy that has hit the Gulf region to pursue a slew of pro-industry measures that Congress rejected earlier this year when it passed a broad energy bill.” The measures would “dismantle environmental laws that are not barriers to rebuilding the affected Gulf states,” said the head of the National League of Cities.
SOURCE: Associated Press, September 28, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4028
3. THE CORPORATE PLACEBO EFFECT
www.ssireview.com/pdf/2005FA_Feature_Doane.pdf
Corporate social responsibility “may work under certain conditions,” writes Deborah Doane, but CSR efforts “are highly vulnerable to market failures, including such things as imperfect information, externalities, and free riders. Most importantly, there is often a wide chasm between what’s good for a company and what’s good for society as a whole.” Although CSR efforts “offer good PR,” sometimes they’re just that. “Corporations use the United Nations to their public relations advantage, such as posing their CEOs for photographs with Secretary-General Kofi Annan,” while flaunting the UN’s CSR agreement, the Global Compact. After describing what she calls “the four key myths of CSR,” Doane concludes that CSR “is a placebo, leaving us with immense and mounting challenges in globalization for the foreseeable future.”
SOURCE: Stanford Social Innovation Review, Fall 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4027
4. A SPOONFUL OF PR HELPS THE MEDICINE GET BUZZ
After the industry group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) issued a voluntary code of conduct for direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug advertising, drug companies “are hoping to skirt the issue” by “getting more executives and experts quoted in major newspapers and magazines and sitting across from Katie Couric on ‘The Today Show’,” reports Advertising Age. The voluntary guidelines include waiting “an appropriate amount of time” after a drug is approved before companies advertise it, to give health professionals time to learn about the new medication. “We don’t view these types of activities as ‘skirting’ the code of conduct,” said PhRMA’s Ken Johnson. “The new PhRMA guidelines are aimed at improving the educational value of DTC advertising, but there have been numerous other ways that companies, scientists and the medical community have reached out to patients.”
SOURCE: Advertising Age, September 26, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4026
5. CONSERVATION CON GAME
www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/editorial/12722074.htm
Although their city hosted last month’s White House conference on “cooperative conservation,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch isn’t impressed. In an editorial, the newspaper wrote, “The most concrete example” of the Bush administration’s new environmental philosophy “appeared in Congress this week in a bill that would revise the landmark Endangered Species Act.” The bill, sponsored by Rep. Richard Pombo, “would make it more difficult to provide federal protection for land critical to the health of endangered species. It would also impose an unrealistically quick 90-day limit for the government to object to development plans. And it requires the government to pay ‘fair market value’ for critical habitat if it steps in and blocks development on environmental grounds.” The editorial continues, “Like Pombo’s new bill, the conference was perfect for those who believe the only thing wrong with nature is the people trying to protect it.”
SOURCE: Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, September 23, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4025
6. THIS’LL MAKE YOU GASP
observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1577892,00.html
“Philip Morris, the manufacturer of Marlboro … created a crack team to transform the insides of Britain’s upmarket bars and music events, in an attempt to boost its profits,” reports The Observer. Marketing documents from 2004 that the newspaper obtained detail how Philip Morris offers gift certificates to bar owners for displaying furniture, ashtrays or vending machines with Marlboro’s logo. In a “subliminal” approach, bar lounge areas the company calls “installations” or “Marlboro Motels” include no logos, just “comfortable red sofas in front of video screens showing scenes redolent of Wild West ‘Marlboro country’ to convey the essence of the cigarette brand while circumnavigating sponsorship bans.” Philip Morris also specifically targets young, affluent smokers at “high-profile music events where attractive female ‘Marlboro models’ would sell cigarettes.” But Philip Morris isn’t alone; now that Britain bans tobacco ads, “all that former advertising money had to go somewhere,” an industry insider told The Observer.
SOURCE: The Observer (UK), September 25, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4024
7. WHAT’S YOUR POISON?
www.brandweek.com/bw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001178552
The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) has back-tracked on a decision to prevent No Free Lunch – a group dedicated to curbing drug industry marketing to doctors – from hiring booth space at its annual scientific assembly. In his September 14 decision, AAFP Executive Vice President Douglas Henley stated that, “while the AAFP respects the mission of No Free Lunch, their desire to eliminate information-sharing by exhibitors with our members clearly negates the purpose of the Exposition Hall.” The British Medical Journal noted that the “conference exhibitors and corporate supporters of the academy’s conference include the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, Abbott Laboratories, Coca-Cola, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, and Pfizer. Following protests, AAFP reversed its position and issued a statement agreeing that No Free Lunch could hire booth space.
SOURCE: Brandweek, September 21, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4023
8. SPOOKS SPIN AT THE OZ
www.smh.com.au/news/National/Activist-denies-
violent-protest-report/2005/09/22/1126982162596.html
After being deported by the Australian government, U.S. peace activist Scott Parkin has ridiculed claims against him in The Australian. “If I am such a threat, why have the FBI not even phoned me since my return from Australia to follow up [Australian intelligence]’s silly allegations? … As I always say and sincerely believe, it is unprincipled to do anything violent at any time, including in a protest situation.” Under the front-page headline “Deported activist was to teach tactics of violence,” The Australian’s Foreign Editor, Greg Sheridan, and co-author John Kerin reported claims from anonymous intelligence sources that Parkin’s civil disobedience training was “likely to increase violence” at demonstrations. It is not the first time Sheridan has breathlessly reported spin from an intelligence source. On July 12, 2003, he wrote that “well-informed sources” told him U.S. troops had discovered what they believed to be “decisive proof of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs.”
SOURCE: Sydney Morning Herald, September 22, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4019
9. REDSTATE BLOGGER BOOSTS WAL-MART FOR BUCKS
www.odwyerpr.com/members/0921edel_redstate.htm
PR giant Edelman has hired RedState.org blogger Michael Krempasky “for his ability to connect with conservative audiences,” O’Dwyer’s PR Daily reports. “Krempasky, on his site, refers to the Edelman gig as his ‘day job’ versus his blogging hobby. His first mission is to play up Wal-Mart Stores’ contribution to Hurricane Katrina. The world’s largest retailer, which had over $282 billion in sales last year, has donated a total of $17 million for hurricane relief and is opening up “mini Wal-Marts” in effected areas to distribute food, diapers, clothing, water and other items to those in need. According to Edelman, Krempasky’s hire demonstrates the firm’s “leading role in trying to harness the power of the blogosphere for its clients.”
SOURCE: O’Dwyer’s PR Daily, (sub req’d) September 21, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4017
10. KATRINA COVERAGE BROWN-OUT
www.therevealer.org/archives/main_story_002093.php
“Mainstream media and most liberal-minded Americans are blaming the Bush administration’s failure to manage Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath on racism, that word that has been itching under our skin for decades. The focus is on ‘racism,’ though, with a very specific, definition: white versus black. This analysis is good as far as it goes — unless, of course, your skin is brown,” Marissa Kantor reports on TheRevealer.org. “Approximately 150,000 Hondurans live in Lousiana, most in New Orleans. Estimates of Mexicans living in or around New Orleans range from 40,000 to 100,000. And other groups, including Salvadorans and Brazilians, also number in the tens of thousands. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates (conservatively) that 20,000 to 35,000 of these Latinos are illegal immigrants or undocumented workers.” After an extensive look at media focusing on race in the hurricane’s aftermath, Kantor writes that the coverage hasn’t even dignified Latinos “with a place at the racism-discussion table.”
SOURCE: The Revealer, September 19, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
www.prwatch.org/node/4016
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