THE WEEKLY SPIN, July 4, 2007 Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2007 10:08:02 -0500 (CDT) THE WEEKLY SPIN, JULY 4, 2007 == BLOG POSTINGS == 1. Research, Develop, and Sell, Sell, Sell: Part Two in a Series on the Politics and PR of Cervical Cancer 2. Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton and Big Tobacco 3. More on "Strange Culture" == BE A CITIZEN JOURNALIST == 1. New Participatory Project: What Should Congresspedia Cover? == SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS == 1. The Spin Doctor Will See You Now 2. Reporting from Margaritaville 3. How to Cool Down Global Warming 4. No Slammer for Scooter 5. Supply Side Pundits 6. Don't Dissent the President 7. PR vs. PR on Climate Change 8. Neo-cons Spinning Hearts and Minds 9. You Say Iraqi, I Say Al Qaeda 10. Disclosure May Derail Doctors' Gravy Train 11. We Will Always Have Paris 12. Spin Doctor for Gates Foundation 13. Inquiry Into UK Lobbying Industry -------------------------------------------------------------------- == BLOG POSTINGS == 1. RESEARCH, DEVELOP, AND SELL, SELL, SELL: PART TWO IN A SERIES ON THE POLITICS AND PR OF CERVICAL CANCER by Judith Siers-Poisson As noted in part one of this series of four articles, SETTING THE STAGE, in 2006, Merck captured worldwide attention with the introduction of what is often touted as the first ever vaccine against cancer. Effective against two strains of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) that account for 70% of cervical cancer cases, the vaccine shows real promise for reducing HPV infection in women. These articles are not primarily about the efficacy of Merck's vaccine, Gardasil, or of GlaxoSmithKline's competing vaccine, Cervarix, which has not yet received FDA approval. Dr. Diane Harper, who has studied HPV for twenty years and worked on the drug trials for both vaccines, told me emphatically that "The vaccines are good and will indeed prevent cervical cancer." But Dr. Harper has serious concerns about Merck's marketing juggernaut, and the push for vaccine mandates for middle-school aged girls. To read the rest of this item, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/node/6208 2. MARK PENN, HILLARY CLINTON AND BIG TOBACCO by Bob Burton Mark Penn, CEO of the global PR firm Burson-Marsteller (B-M) and president of the polling firm Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates (PSB), feels misunderstood. Penn was recently in the news when several union officials expressed concern that Democratic Presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton had hired him as a "key strategic adviser," even though B-M has a specialist unit that advises clients on defeating union campaigns. Not surprisingly, Clinton's campaign shrugged off the criticism, insisting that he is a "vital member of our team." In an email to Atlantic Online, Penn wrote that that he had "never personally done such [anti-labor] work" and insisted that he has "strong personal sympathies with the labor movement." (Why someone who proclaims their pro-labor sympathies would even head up a PR firm that runs an anti-labor unit went unexplained.) Even if one accepts Penn's explanation at face value, it left me wondering who he had worked for. A little digging reveals that, for well over two decades, both Penn and his opinion polling company have advised the tobacco industry on how to counter the campaigns of the tobacco control movement. Based on internal tobacco industry documents, it is clear that Penn and his colleagues have little personal sympathy for those promoting policies that put public health ahead of the interests of the tobacco industry. To read the rest of this item, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/node/6213 3. MORE ON "STRANGE CULTURE" by Sheldon Rampton I've been asked how people can find the movie, "Strange Culture," the documentary about the trial of artist-activist Steve Kurtz that I described in my blog post earlier this week. The director of the film, Lynn Hershman Leeson, has her own website as well as a separate movie website, which includes sales and exhibition information. YouTube also has a brief video that features interviews with Kurtz and the director, as well as the movie trailer. To read the rest of this item, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/node/6206 == BE A CITIZEN JOURNALIST == 1. NEW PARTICIPATORY PROJECT: WHAT SHOULD CONGRESSPEDIA COVER? http://www.prwatch.org/node/6227 Next week the Congresspedia project on SourceWatch will launch a new section of the site on legislation and issues. Congresspedia's staff and citizen editors have worked with more than a dozen policy wonks to write a first set of 150 articles, but we need you to help us identify what we've missed. So, take a look at our complete list of legislation and issue articles and, if you see something missing, add it to our requested articles list. We'll use this in the coming weeks and months to make sure Congresspedia covers what citizens think are the important issues. If this is your first time editing on SourceWatch, you can go to SourceWatch.org for more information. == SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS == 1. THE SPIN DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU NOW http://www.prwatch.org/node/6226 "If I had to do it all over again, I don't think I would use the Ontario system," said Canadian cancer patient Lindsay McGreith. "I would get my wife to drive me to Buffalo, because I know in Buffalo you'd get looked after, whereas here you'd just sit for seven and a half hours. ... Our system is lousy." McGreith's comments are in a soundbite and B-roll video package (basically, an unassembled video news release) distributed by the PR firm MultiVu and funded by Health Care America, which is funded in part by pharmaceutical and hospital companies. It's part of an organized industry response to the Michael Moore movie "Sicko." Another MultiVu fake news video, which was funded by America's Health Insurance Plans, promotes a "public-private" health care system and decries Moore's single-payer proposal as an unpopular, "simplistic" and unrealistic "public takeover of the healthcare system." SOURCE: Health Care America via MultiVu, June 29, 2007 2. REPORTING FROM MARGARITAVILLE http://www.prwatch.org/node/6225 The Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority recently held its first "fam," or familiarization tour, of the year, "wooing about 35 meeting and event planners, people in the tourism business, travel journalists and their guests." Included in the junket were "pina coladas and a lobster dinner overlooking Gardner's Basin ... and tickets to see Jimmy Buffett. Free." One of the travel journalists attending was Valarie D'Elia, who the Center for Media and Democracy earlier documented airing a video news release. "As she waited in Boardwalk Hall for the Jimmy Buffett concert to start," D'Elia explained that "the real work occurs when reporters do work on their own." She's filming "a 'Today' show segment ... on boardwalks, highlighting Atlantic City's," and "a separate piece for NY1 News on new developments here." SOURCE: The Press of Atlantic City (New Jersey), July 2, 2007 3. HOW TO COOL DOWN GLOBAL WARMING http://www.prwatch.org/node/6223 Drawing on documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Rolling Stone details the Bush administration's "ongoing strategy to block federal action on global warming." In 2002, the administration's Climate Action Report was reported on as a "stark shift" in U.S. policy. An alarmed Philip Cooney, then at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, contacted Myron Ebell of the ExxonMobil-funded think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute. "We tried to put some qualifiers ... in the report," fretted Cooney. "I know you're in crisis mode," Ebell replied. "I want to help you cool things down, but ... I think that what we can do is limited until there is an official statement from the administration repudiating the report." Bush released a statement the next day. Karl Rove also helped spin the Climate Action Report, writing on a letter drafted by Cooney, "Great ... defends the report rather than staying focused on the policy." SOURCE: Rolling Stone, June 20, 2007 4. NO SLAMMER FOR SCOOTER http://www.prwatch.org/node/6221 Following the news that President Bush has commuted the 2 1/2-year prison sentence of I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Brad DeLong is highlighting a column written two weeks ago by Jeff Lomonaco, which predicted this outcome. Bush's action leaves Libby's perjury conviction intact along with a $250,000 fine. Instead of commuting the prison time, Bush could have issued a complete pardon, but Lomanoco points out that to do so would have eliminated the rationale that Bush and Cheney have "used successfully for four years to avoid addressing their own roles in the case." Bush and Cheney have justified their silence "with claims that they shouldn't comment on an ongoing legal proceeding. If Bush were to pardon Libby, he and Cheney would no longer have such a rationale for evading the press' questions -- nor would Libby be able to claim the right against self-incrimination to resist testifying before Congress about the role that Cheney and Bush played in directing his conduct. But if Bush simply commutes Libby's prison sentence without effectively vacating Libby's conviction, the appeals process goes forward and Bush and Cheney continue to have their rationale for not answering the press' questions." SOURCE: Brad DeLong's Semi-daily Journal, July 3, 2007 5. SUPPLY SIDE PUNDITS http://www.prwatch.org/node/6220 Karl Grossman, a professor of journalism at the State University of New York and host of the nationally aired TV program Enviro Close-Up, recounts that the "overwhelming majority" of the pitches he and his producer receive are from "conservative public relations companies promoting conservative guests." Grossman observes that "in terms of volume and intensity, there's nothing comparable from the progressive world. Speaking of the politics of media, it's a clear and daily demonstration to me of how the right, far more than the left, realizes the importance of communication." In particular, he singles out the lack of funding for media work from the more progressive foundations. The "most active PR operation that pitches us," he writes, "is Special Guests," a PR firm headed by Jerry McGlothlin. His firm pitches for conservative clients such as the Family Research Institute and Chris Simcox, the president of the anti-immigration Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. SOURCE: Extra! September/October 2006 6. DON'T DISSENT THE PRESIDENT http://www.prwatch.org/node/6215 A lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union has uncovered a manual from the Bush Administration detailing its tactics for suppressing protests at presidential appearances. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of two people from Colorado who were forcibly removed from a presidential "Town Hall Meeting" because their car had a bumper sticker that said, "No more blood for oil." They have obtained a copy of the "Presidential Advance Manual," which details tactics "to stop a demonstrator from getting into the event." A section titled "Preventing Demonstrators" advises event organizers to recruit local Republicans into "Rally Squads" whose "task is to use their signs and banners as shields between the demonstrators and the main press platform. If the demonstrators are yelling, rally squads can begin and lead supportive chants to drown out the protestors (sic) (USA! USA! USA!) As a last resort, security should remove the protestors from the event site." SOURCE: Rocky Mountain News, June 28, 2007 7. PR VS. PR ON CLIMATE CHANGE http://www.prwatch.org/node/6207 James Hoggan, a long time Canadian PR pro, represents a slew of big corporations and trade associations. But Hoggan is also the chair of the David Suzuki Foundation, a leading environmental organization, and he has been using his DeSmogBlog to heap shame and ridicule upon his colleagues in the PR business over the issue of global climate change. Hoggan says that "few PR offenses have been so obvious, so successful and so despicable as the attack on the scientific certainty of climate change. This is a triumph of disinformation. It is a living proof of the success of one of the boldest and most extensive PR campaigns in history, primarily financed by the energy industry and executed by some of the best PR talent in the world. As a public relations practitioner, it is a marvel - and a deep humiliation - and I want to see it stop." SOURCE: DeSmogBlog, June 28, 2007 8. NEO-CONS SPINNING HEARTS AND MINDS http://www.prwatch.org/node/6205 "As the George W. Bush administration struggles through its last two years in office, it appears that the agenda of neoconservative ideologues has finally lost its appeal among strategic parts of the U.S. foreign policy apparatus," writes Khody Akhavi. "But as their influence has waned at the Pentagon and State Department, neo-conservative hawks have taken charge on the battlefield of public diplomacy. ... Right-wing hawks have gained control of the weapons in the 'war of ideas' -- U.S. government-funded and supported media outlets such as Voice of America (VOA), Al-Hurra, and Radio Farda, which broadcast to the Middle East." Neo-con polemicist Jeffrey Gedmin has taken over Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and U.S.-sponsored stations are now highlighting interviews with prominent neocons like Richard Perle and Michael Rubin. "As a result," Akhavi writes, "viewers and listeners of U.S.-supported media in the Middle East are being exposed to a tougher ideological line that endorses the hallmarks of the neoconservative agenda -- regime change and interventionist policies in the region." According to Joshua Muravchik of the American Enterprise Institute, the change will help improve America's image in the Middle East because "We are, after all, a movement whose raison d'etre was combating anti-Americanism in the United States. Who better then to combat it abroad?" According to political science professor Marc Lynch, however, the opposite is likely to be true. He notes that Al-Hurra recently promoted an interview with John Bolton, who "is particularly disliked in the Arab world, and his complaints about anti-American bias at the UN will repel more Arab viewers than it could hope to impress. But the Wall Street Journal loves him... and of course that's the only audience which really matters for al-Hurra anymore." SOURCE: Institute for Policy Studies, June 24, 2007 9. YOU SAY IRAQI, I SAY AL QAEDA http://www.prwatch.org/node/6203 Glenn Greenwald and Joshua Micah Marshall are calling out the mainstream media for uncritically parroting the Bush administration's new strategy of referring to Iraqi insurgents as "Al Qaeda." Greenwald writes, "What is so amazing about this new rhetorical development -- not only from our military, but also from our 'journalists' -- is that, for years, it was too shameless and false even for the Bush administration to use. Even at the height of their propaganda offensives about the war, the furthest Bush officials were willing to go was to use the generic term 'terrorists' for everyone we are fighting in Iraq. ... Even the President acknowledged that 'Al Qaeda' was the smallest component of the "enemies" we are fighting in Iraq." In a follow-up post, he adds: "This sudden shift in describing the 'enemy' in Iraq as 'Al Qaeda' is the by-product of a very familiar information-producing system: namely, the administration formulates narratives, the President announces them, his top officials and military commanders recite them endlessly, and then establishment 'journalists' not only write them down, but rely exclusively -- and uncritically -- on those narratives to report events." SOURCE: Salon.com, June 23, 2007 10. DISCLOSURE MAY DERAIL DOCTORS' GRAVY TRAIN http://www.prwatch.org/node/6202 Medicines Australia, the drug industry's peak lobby group, has lost a legal bid to protect member companies from being required to disclose details of hospitality they provide at "educational" events for doctors. In July 2006 the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), the corporate regulator, approved the industry's self-regulatory code of conduct but added a provision that every six-months member companies must disclose the details of each event for doctors and post the information to a website. The Australian Competition Tribunal rejected Medicines Australia's appeal against the provision. Dr. Ian Haines, who gave evidence in the case in support of the ACCC, welcomed the decision as "a very good first step to dismantle this whole gravy train." But he is critical that the doctors who receive the drug industry's gifts won't be identified. "Every doctor should be named on the website, and everything they accept," he said. SOURCE: The Age (Melbourne), June 28, 2007 11. WE WILL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS http://www.prwatch.org/node/6199 The family of Paris Hilton has hired PR attack dog Michael Sitrick to repair the released jailbird's reputation. According to Gawker.com, a New York-based website that focuses on media news and gossip, Sitrick is "a PR pit bull ... a master of spin ... someone who will stop at nothing to turn public opinion in his clients' favor." His other clients have included billionaire businessman Ron Burkle, fired Wal-Mart marketer Julie Roehm, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles during its pedophile priest scandal, Halle Berry when she faced hit-and-run charges, and Rush Limbaugh during his prescription pill addiction scandal. How does Sitrick perfume the reputations of these human stink bombs? "His methods are aggressive and strategic," writes Gawker. "He uses what he calls 'truth squads' to monitor the media (including blogs) to ferret out inaccuracies about his clients and 'wheel-of-pain' tactics against his client's foes -- a campaign of negative publicity intended to spur a quick settlement." SOURCE: Gawker.com, June 25, 2007 12. SPIN DOCTOR FOR GATES FOUNDATION http://www.prwatch.org/node/6201 Earlier this year, the investments held by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in companies which had adverse health and environmental impacts were scrutinised by the Los Angeles Times. The foundation, which aims to improve health and reduce extreme poverty, said they would review their investment policy, but then subsequently retreated. The foundation has recently appointed Heidi Sinclair to the newly created position of director of communications. Sinclair, who will take up the position in September, is currently president and CEO of PR firm Burson-Marsteller in Europe and has previously worked in the technology practices of the PR firms of Hill & Knowlton, Ketchum and Regis McKenna. She has also worked for software companies Lotus and Borland. The Seattle Times reports that when Sinclair worked for Borland in 1993 she told Time magazine that "Microsoft resembles the IBM of yore: the 800-lb. gorilla that sits anywhere it wants." SOURCE: Seattle Times, June 19, 2007 13. INQUIRY INTO UK LOBBYING INDUSTRY http://www.prwatch.org/node/6200 The U.K. Parliament's Public Administration Committee is set to launch an inquiry into the lobbying industry. PR Week reports that the inquiry will investigate "the transparency of the lobbying industry, the effectiveness of recent attempts at self-regulation, and whether the rules for those in Parliament and government should be changed." The committee has drafted ten questions it wants public comment on, including whether lobbyists should "be regulated by an outside body." The Association of Professional Political Consultants recently wrote to all MP's indicating support for the inquiry. However, possibly requiring lobbyists to be a member of their organization, rather than just agreeing to abide by the code of conduct, sparked criticism. "It turns an ethical debate into a thinly disguised attempt to secure commercial advantage for member companies," wrote Chris Whitehouse, the managing director of The Whitehouse Consultancy. SOURCE: PR Week, June 21, 2007 -------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. To subscribe to the Weekly Spin, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/sub CMD also sponsors SourceWatch, a collaborative research project that invites anyone (including you) to contribute and edit articles. For more information, visit: http://www.sourcewatch.org Contributions to the Center for Media and Democracy are tax-deductible. To donate now online, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/donate Don't want to receive this email? Unsubscribe at http://www.prwatch.org/unsub /*Your email ID. --*/