THE WEEKLY SPIN, January 30, 2008 Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 10:04:57 -0600 (CST) THE WEEKLY SPIN, JANUARY 30, 2008 == BLOG POSTINGS == 1. CMD and Consumer Reports WebWatch Launch Full Frontal Scrutiny 2. When Flacks Attack, We Bite Back 3. Why Don't We Talk About Smoking and Celebrity Deaths? == BE A CITIZEN JOURNALIST == 1. Featured Participatory Project: How Did Your Rep. Vote Last Week on Children's Health Care? == SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS == 1. They'd Like to Teach the World to Smoke 2. Presidential Election Season Brings New, More Stupid 527 Groups 3. Motor Mouths 4. Big Oil U. 5. Lobbyist-Free Romney? 6. The People vs. Big Coal and Big Green 7. Weekly Radio Spin: It Pays to Be Duby-ous 8. Rumsfeld Calls for Propaganda 2.0 9. Made in China: More Propaganda 10. Duby-ous in Connecticut 11. Whither the Weather? 12. Once Again, Drug Companies Caught Data Doping 13. Pre-emptive War, Pre-emptive Truck Maintenance -------------------------------------------------------------------- == BLOG POSTINGS == 1. CMD AND CONSUMER REPORTS WEBWATCH LAUNCH FULL FRONTAL SCRUTINY by Judith Siers-Poisson "The American public deserves to know when someone is trying to persuade them." - U.S. Federal Communications Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, Thursday, January 17, 2008 FRONT GROUPS BEWARE OF FULL FRONTAL SCRUTINY Today, the Center for Media and Democracy and our partners at Consumer Reports WebWatch launched an exciting new project: Full Frontal Scrutiny. The site seeks to shine a light on front groups -- organizations that state a particular agenda, while hiding or obscuring their identity, membership or sponsorship, or all three. Google the term "front groups" and the number one return is CMD's extensive articles on its SourceWatch site. WebWatch and CMD will create original content for Full Frontal Scrutiny, which will also publish selected content from WebWatch and from the CMD's SourceWatch and PRwatch sites, as well as aggregating news about front groups from other reliable sources. As CMD Research Director Sheldon Rampton said, "Full Frontal Scrutiny will be like no other site on the Web. Fakers, phonies and front groups beware -- you will be exposed." To read the rest of this item, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/node/6941 2. WHEN FLACKS ATTACK, WE BITE BACK by Judith Siers-Poisson The Center for Media and Democracy has never been shy about criticizing the public relations industry. That's what we do, and we're proud of it. You'd think that this would give PR people second thoughts before sending us their drivel. Unfortunately, they can't seem to help themselves -- even when that means that they end up tipping us off to their own efforts at sneaking product placements into TV shows such as American Idol. A few months ago my email address was apparently "discovered" by a bunch of PR flacks. On an almost daily basis now, I receive emails -- often with a large picture file that slows down my email download -- excitedly heralding the latest two-bit client contract won by some PR firm in which I have no interest, and whose information I have certainly never requested. At first I just deleted them, but since they have become more frequent -- and therefore, more annoying -- I have started responding to them with a request to be taken off their list. The irony of PR firms sending us news releases hit a new high, or low, this week. I received an unsolicited, but also "embargoed" news release, containing more than five megabytes of photo attachments, from Jennifer Windrum of the Swanson Russell Associates PR firm. An embargoed press release is one that is sent out to media outlets before the sender actually wants it to be released to the public. The purpose is to generate media interest and solicit pre-interviews so that when the story is ready to break, reporters are lined up to cover the story. Of course, the premise relies on the recipient having an interest in honoring the embargo. Reporters will honor these sorts of requests if they want to avoid getting on the bad side of the sender so that they can keep receiving additional news releases in the future. To read the rest of this item, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/node/6938 3. WHY DON'T WE TALK ABOUT SMOKING AND CELEBRITY DEATHS? by Anne Landman Actress Suzanne Pleshette's recent death from "respiratory distress" was sad. Most of the articles about it briefly mention that she had been fighting lung cancer, but fail to mention that she had been a cigarette smoker in the past. Cigarette smoking is the single biggest cause of lung cancer. It is rarely discussed, but tobacco has taken an extraordinarily heavy toll on Hollywood. The list of beloved celebrities killed by smokers' diseases is huge, and growing: George Harrison, Johnny Carson, Dana Reeve, Yul Brynner, Lucille Ball, Walt Disney, Nat King Cole, Joe DiMaggio, Michael Landon, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin, Betty Grable, and Babe Ruth to name just a few. Despite this, the failure to mention a person's smoking history in obituary columns is the norm in celebrity deaths. In just one glaring example, a four page obituary about the 2005 death of prominent news anchor Peter Jennings published by his own network, ABC, fails to mention the contribution that smoking made to Jennings' tragic and untimely death. A CNN's column about Jennings' death didn't mention it either. Something is up when major news organizations omit any mention the single most prominent cause of the death of a renowned news anchor. To read the rest of this item, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/node/6927 == BE A CITIZEN JOURNALIST == 1. FEATURED PARTICIPATORY PROJECT: HOW DID YOUR REP. VOTE LAST WEEK ON CHILDREN'S HEALTH CARE? http://www.prwatch.org/node/6947 Last week, House Republicans once again defeated an attempt override Bush's veto of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) expansion bill. Democratic leaders had re-submitted their old bill but actually lost ground this time as three Democrats and two Republicans failed to show up for the vote. Though many Republicans voted for the bill, their House leaders once again cited higher tobacco taxes and the bill's $35 billion price tag in leading most of their party to oppose it. They also said the bill would cover illegal immigrants and middle-income Americans, though the bill now explicitly forbids that. The program is funded through March 2009 at existing levels, but Democratic leaders have said that the lagging economy will drive up the number of uninsured children, necessitating quicker action on expansion, so expect more votes this year. HOW DID YOUR REPRESENTATIVE VOTE? FIND OUT AND RECORD THEIR POSITION FOR ALL THEIR CONSTITUENTS TO READ BY FOLLOWING THE EASY, STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS AT THE CONGRESSPEDIA VOTING RECORD RESOURCE CENTER: www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=SourceWatch:Project:Record_on_SCHIP SOURCE: Congresspedia == SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS == 1. THEY'D LIKE TO TEACH THE WORLD TO SMOKE http://www.prwatch.org/node/6942 With marketing constraints increasing and cigarette usage declining in the developed world, Philip Morris (PM) is increasingly targeting smokers in other countries. PM now makes sweet-smelling cigarettes with cloves and other flavors that have twice the tar and nicotine as conventional products, created to appeal to smokers in developing countries. One example is PM's "Marlboro Mix 9," which is already sold in Indonesia and will soon be available throughout Southeast Asia. Another new PM product is "Tobacco Block," a roll-your-own cigarette system that allows smokers to avoid paying taxes on manufactured cigarettes. PM's "Marlboro Intense" is a shorter cigarette for smokers facing smoking bans who need a cigarette suited to a quick smoke break. Altria Group, Inc., PM's parent company, is expected to spin off PM International into an independent business that it hopes will be exempt from U.S. tobacco regulations and out of reach of American litigators. SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (sub req'd), January 29, 2008 2. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION SEASON BRINGS NEW, MORE STUPID 527 GROUPS http://www.prwatch.org/node/6939 The Huffington Post and TPM Muckraker highlight the newest activities of Roger Stone, whose past includes a stint as the "youngest dirty trickster" for Richard Nixon and a recent alleged prank call to Elliot Spitzer's father. Stone has formed a new 527 campaign group with a name that forms an obscene acronym. The group's purpose, according to Stone, is simply to sell T-shirts associating Hillary Clinton with that expletive. Stone praises 527's as a campaign vehicle: "A 527 doesn't have a wife.. It doesn't have a brother-in-law who knows a lot about politics, or a union president who calls and doesn't like the color of the suit, or bimbo eruptions. It's the perfect candidate, because it has no personal characteristics." SOURCE: Huffington Post, January 24, 2008 3. MOTOR MOUTHS http://www.prwatch.org/node/6935 The Hotrodders.com website has launched a satirical spinoff, SpankMyMarketer.com, aimed at exposing "illegal stealth marketing" on behalf of companies including General Motors, Holley, Comp Cams and Dynomax, which they say has been posted on theirs and other auto-related websites. The first example, they write, was a "Spank My Monkey/Anti-Christ" campaign in which "Gas Monkey Garage, a fairly well-known hot rod shop," spammed websites with a "promotional photograph" that "featured the owner of Gas Monkey Garage, Richard Rawlings, posing in women's thong underwear with his shop manager," accompanied by a video in which Rawlings declared himself the "anti-Christ of the Hot Rod World." More recently, a viral marketing company called PowerTV has been posting on auto forums under usernames such as "powermelissa" who calls herself "a big-time car girl" as she posts promotional videos for clients' products. SOURCE: SpankMyMarketer.com 4. BIG OIL U. http://www.prwatch.org/node/6934 A new report by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) suggests that U.S. universities may be jeopardizing their academic integrity by giving oil, gas, and other polluting industries influence over the research that companies fund on campus. CSPI surveyed nine universities with industry-funded research programs studying global warming, including the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Illinois, Stanford, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the University of California at Davis. It found that many of them let corporate executives sit on boards overseeing grants, gave companies first rights to intellectual property, and let companies review and possibly delay publication of studies. "It's a cheap subterfuge for carbon-emitting companies," said Merrill Goozner, director of the Integrity in Science project at CSPI and co-author of the report. "They get the prestige of associating themselves with major respected universities, yet can control the direction of research, get first rights to intellectual property, and can delay any finding that doesn't help the bottom line." SOURCE: Gooz News, January 22, 2008 5. LOBBYIST-FREE ROMNEY? http://www.prwatch.org/node/6933 Although U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney "has cast himself as a Washington outsider and blasted his opponents' ties to lobbyists," in fact he "has more than a dozen federally registered lobbyists raising money for him and several others advising his campaign," reports Jessica Van Sack. Lobbyists involved in his campaign, according to a report compiled by Public Citizen, include former New York Rep. Rick Lazio, who ran for the Senate against Hillary Clinton in 2000; Ronald C. Kaufman of Dutko Worldwide; former New Hampshire Attorney General Thomas D. Wrath; former Missouri Senator Jim Talent; Gregory B. Butler Sr., who represents Northeast Utilities; and Jack Gerard of Virginia, who represents the chemical industry. SOURCE: Boston Herald, January 19, 2008 6. THE PEOPLE VS. BIG COAL AND BIG GREEN http://www.prwatch.org/node/6932 Author and activist Ted Nace has been very busy on SourceWatch creating a home for what he calls the Coal Swarm. He has an important article in Orion magazine examining the coal moratorium battle that pits gassroots activists against not just the coal industry, but also some of the biggest environmental groups. Writes Nace, "The contrast between No New Coal Plants and Big Coal is obvious, but the contrast between such low-profile, leaderless entities and the large national groups typically identified with the environmental movement is equally striking. The largest of these groups, sometimes known as Big Green, include the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense, and the National Wildlife Federation. Typically based in Washington DC or New York and sporting annual budgets in the tens of millions of dollars, these groups, not unlike the corporate and governmental entities they oppose, are hierarchical, highly organized, and reliant on trained and seasoned attorneys, scientific experts, and lobbyists." Nace believes the strategic and tactical differences between the Coal Swarm and the Big Green groups over new coal plants is critical to determining whether and how the US addresses global climate change. SOURCE: Orion magazine, January / February 2008 7. WEEKLY RADIO SPIN: IT PAYS TO BE DUBY-OUS http://www.prwatch.org/node/6929 Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, we look at why leaders in China -- and the U.S. -- think more propaganda is better, what happens when journalists wear a PR hat too, and who's joining Blackwater's crowded payroll. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we tell you how many steps it takes to get from spreading democracy in the Muslim world to dropping bombs in our own backyard. The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks! SOURCE: Weekly Radio Spin, January 25, 2008 8. RUMSFELD CALLS FOR PROPAGANDA 2.0 http://www.prwatch.org/node/6925 Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is concerned that the United States "is losing the war of ideas in the Muslim world, and the answer to that, in part, is through the creation of [a] new government agency," writes Sharon Weinberger. In particular, Rumsfeld is advocating for a "21st century agency for global communcations" -- or propaganda, similar to his controversial Office of Strategic Influence. The U.S. government needs to get involved, Rumsfeld said, because "private media does not get up in the morning and say what can we do to promote the values and ideas that the free Western nations believe in?" Unlike the old U.S. Information Agency, Rumsfeld said the new agency should use "multiple channels of information. ... The Internet is there, blogs are there, talk radio is there, e-mails are there. There are all kinds of opportunities. We do not with any systematic organized way attempt to engage the battle of ideas." SOURCE: Wired.com's Danger Room blog, January 23, 2008 9. MADE IN CHINA: MORE PROPAGANDA http://www.prwatch.org/node/6924 As China prepares to host the Olympic Games, President Hu Jintao is urging Communist Party officials to "perform well the task of outward propaganda, further exhibit and raise up the nation's good image." At a recent Communist Party gathering, Jintao stressed the need for "cultural soft power," or public diplomacy, and said Chinese propaganda must "advance the building of the body of socialist core value and further boost unity and harmony." To improve their propaganda, the Beijing 2008 Olympics organizers have been working with the major public relations firm Hill & Knowlton. In related news, Chinese officials "are increasingly engaging in the debate over their country's role in Africa," countering charges that "they are neo-colonialists engaged in a remorseless drive for Africa's commodities," reports Financial Times. China's ambassador to Pretoria, South Africa defended his country's engagement with repressive governments like Zimbabwe's: "If you want to pressure and you cut all dialogue you cannot reason" with them. He also defended "the influx of cheap Chinese goods," saying African villagers' ability to "wear new clothes from China" instead of second-hand clothes gives them "confidence." SOURCE: Associated Press, January 23, 2008 10. DUBY-OUS IN CONNECTICUT http://www.prwatch.org/node/6921 A sponsored public relations video airing on cable stations in five Connecticut towns is drawing scrutiny. The video is structured like a news interview and is co-hosted by "one of the best known political reporters in the state," Duby McDowell. In the video, McDowell is identified as a "WFSB Political Analyst." While McDowell sometimes provides commentary on the television station WFSB-3, she also runs her own PR firm. The video was produced for a law firm that's one of McDowell's PR clients, and the interviewees are two of the firm's partners. McDowell admits that viewers might be confused about her role in the video, but added: "We have mentioned at the end that this is paid for by Shipman & Goodwin," the law firm. In the video, the lawyers discuss "a whopping $12.4 million jury verdict" in an eminent domain case that they won against the town of Branford. Branford is appealing the decision. During the PR video, one of the lawyers stresses that the appeal will result in additional costs for town residents. "We are certain to see property taxes rise," responds McDowell. SOURCE: New Haven Advocate (Connecticut), January 24, 2008 11. WHITHER THE WEATHER? http://www.prwatch.org/node/6920 The U.S. Department of Homeland Security "is paying a Pennsylvania ad firm to pitch 'pre-written' winter-weather-preparedness articles" to national and local media. The Neiman Group firm wrote to the Vermont newspaper Seven Days: "In light of the forecasted weekend snowstorm in Burlington, now is a great time to remind your readers about the importance of preparing for winter weather." In response to questions from the paper, a Neiman spokesperson explained: "We've just noticed that staffing has been a little down at newspapers. ... A lot of newspapers have been asking us for what we're calling 'pre-written' articles." The information offered from Homeland Security's Ready.gov campaign intersperses mentions of "winter storms and extreme cold," "man-made disasters as well as natural ones" and "attacks." Ready.gov "is administered by the Ad Council, a private marketing firm" that "first gained notoriety for its 'Loose Lips Sink Ships' campaign" during World War II. SOURCE: Seven Days (Vermont), January 16, 2008 12. ONCE AGAIN, DRUG COMPANIES CAUGHT DATA DOPING http://www.prwatch.org/node/6919 The pharmaceutical companies Merck and Schering-Plough, which co-market the cholesterol drug Vytorin, "have gone into damage-control mode, taking out newspaper ads." The PR campaign follows the companies' reluctant publication of a study showing that neither of the drugs present in Vytorin "reduced the buildup of fatty plaque in arteries." The study "was completed in 2006, but Merck and Schering said they didn't release it for nearly 21 months due to the complexity of the data and their own scientific concerns." The drug companies' ads, which ran in the New York Times and USA Today, refer to the damning study as "a single study that has generated a lot of confusion." The ads stress that the drugs "have been proven to lower LDL (bad) cholesterol," but what the study showed was that Vytorin is not "any better than generic Zocor in reducing the buildup of fatty plaque." Members of Congress have called for an investigation into why the "massive advertisement campaign for Vytorin was allowed to continue," after the study was belatedly made public. (The drug makers pulled their Vytorin TV -- but not print -- ads on January 22, reports Associated Press.) Class-action lawsuits are also being filed, alleging that the drug companies "misrepresented and withheld significant information" from the Food and Drug Administration and the public. SOURCE: Advertising Age, January 22, 2008 13. PRE-EMPTIVE WAR, PRE-EMPTIVE TRUCK MAINTENANCE http://www.prwatch.org/node/6918 Following a damaging Associated Press report that Blackwater Worldwide "repaired and repainted its trucks immediately after a deadly September shooting in Baghdad, making it difficult to determine whether enemy gunfire provoked the attack," the private military company has hired more lobbyists. The firm Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice will serve as Blackwater's "D.C. representative for contracting and acquisition issues," reports O'Dwyer's. Lobbyists working for Blackwater include Jimmy Broughton, who was former Senator Jesse Helms's chief of staff; Mark Harkins, who worked for Representative Brad Miller; and Kevin Jones, who worked for former Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen. Lobbyists.info also lists C&M Capitolink and Gregory F. Hahn among Blackwater's lobbying firms. Regarding the truck repairs, a Blackwater spokesperson said they "would have been done at the government's direction," perhaps referring to an obligation under the firm's contract with the State Department that it maintain its own vehicles. Blackwater has received more than $1 billion in federal contracts since 2001. SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily (sub req'd), January 21, 2008 -------------------------------------------------------------------- The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to further information about media, political spin and propaganda. It is emailed free each Wednesday to subscribers. PR Watch, Spin of the Day, the Weekly Spin and SourceWatch are projects of the Center for Media & Democracy, a nonprofit organization that offers investigative reporting on the public relations industry. We help the public recognize manipulative and misleading PR practices by exposing the activities of secretive, little-known propaganda-for-hire firms that work to control political debates and public opinion. Please send any questions or suggestions about our publications to editor@prwatch.org. 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