THE WEEKLY SPIN, October 10, 2007 Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 10:17:08 -0500 (CDT) THE WEEKLY SPIN, OCTOBER 10, 2007 == BLOG POSTINGS == 1. McDeaths 2. "Wiki the Vote" Project on Congresspedia Profiles Congressional Candidates in the 2008 Election == BE A CITIZEN JOURNALIST == 1. New Participatory Project: Post Photos of the 2008 Candidates == SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS == 1. Mercenaries for Mercury 2. Climate-Controlled Media 3. TV "Expert" Doesn't Disclose His Fellow Travelers 4. Burson-Marsteller To Help Blackwater out of Hot Water 5. The Weekly Radio Spin: Attacking Iran to Stop "Hitler" 6. Dressing Drug Advertising up as "Information" 7. Imagining Real News 8. "Just in Time" Censorship 9. Alexis Debat: One Well-Connected Faker 10. ... And All I Got Was This Green Rubber Wristband 11. My Own Private Idaho Poll 12. When Independent Oversight Isn't == UPCOMING EVENTS == 1. Being the Media with SourceWatch -------------------------------------------------------------------- == BLOG POSTINGS == 1. MCDEATHS by Bob Burton An extract from Bob Burton's Inside Spin: The dark underbelly of the PR industry. Brian Page, a 42-year-old railway worker, had been busy before Easter 1992 buying furniture for a house he had just moved into at Mt Pritchard, a south-western Sydney suburb. On their way home, his daughter Melissa wanted to stop at McDonald's in Fairfield for lunch. Shortly after returning home, Brian Page began vomiting and had diarrhoea. As Page's symptoms were initially indistinguishable from a bout of the flu, his doctor gave him a medical certificate and sent him home. Page took to bed for the next three days but on the fourth day went back to work, even though he wasn't feeling well. His boss noticed that Page was unable to write properly and seemed disoriented and confused by his work. He was so concerned about Page that he called a taxi and sent him home, but by then Page recognised something was seriously wrong and went straight to Liverpool Hospital. What was unknown to Page and his doctor was that he had been exposed to Legionella bacteria. If detected early, Legionnaires disease can be treated with antibiotics. Untreated, it can be a killer. Two days after being admitted to the intensive care unit of Liverpool Hospital, Page died. On what would have been his 43rd birthday, more than 100 family and friends attended his funeral.14 To read the rest of this item, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/node/6402 2. "WIKI THE VOTE" PROJECT ON CONGRESSPEDIA PROFILES CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES IN THE 2008 ELECTION by Conor Kenny On Tuesday, the Center for Media and Democracy and the Sunlight Foundation launched a new collaborative, citizen-driven project on Congresspedia to build profiles on the hundreds of challengers for congressional seats, which will compliment the existing profiles on every member of Congress. The project is non-partisan and, in true open-source fashion, is free for anyone to participate -- even the candidates themselves. Even for official party nominees, information on challengers is usually woefully inadequate and information on primary challengers is often nearly non-existent. The explosion of citizen blogging in the last few years has created a wealth of individual opinions and perspectives, but what has been lacking is a central repository of collaboratively produced, in-depth and accurate information. The Wiki the Vote project, due to its easily editable wiki format, will be just that. To read the rest of this item, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/node/6531 == BE A CITIZEN JOURNALIST == 1. NEW PARTICIPATORY PROJECT: POST PHOTOS OF THE 2008 CANDIDATES http://www.prwatch.org/node/6536 We launched a new project, "Wiki the Vote," on Congresspedia this week to build profiles of each of the 2008 congressional candidates. We're looking to build the same kind of citizen-driven profiles of challengers that we have done for sitting members of Congress and have started with a first set of 300 confirmed candidates. We encourage folks to go ahead and start adding to these pages, but the first thing we'd like to do across the board is to find and post photos of each of the candidates. The process is remarkably easy and you'll find complete instructions here. If this is your first time editing on SourceWatch, you can register here, and learn more about adding information to the site here, here and here. HAVE FUN, AND THANKS FOR YOUR HELP! SOURCE: 2008 Elections Project on Congresspedia == SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS == 1. MERCENARIES FOR MERCURY http://www.prwatch.org/node/6535 "A nonprofit group backed by the seafood industry urged pregnant women and nursing mothers to eat more fish than recommended by U.S. officials concerned that mercury contamination can hurt babies," reports Avram Goldstein. "The group, the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition, said women who avoid seafood to limit exposure to mercury deprive their babies and themselves of essential nutrients. Women should eat at least the 12 ounces a week suggested as a maximum by the government, the coalition said today at a briefing in Washington." The report was funded with $74,000 from the National Fisheries Institute, a client of the Burson-Marsteller PR firm. Another food industry front group, the Center for Consumer Freedom, chimed in with a news release calling for environmental groups to apologize for creating "panic" about mercury in foods. Longstanding health organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, responded to the report by re-emphasizing their advice to avoid excessive fish consumption. SOURCE: Bloomberg News, October 4, 2007 2. CLIMATE-CONTROLLED MEDIA http://www.prwatch.org/node/6525 The recent U.S. State Department-hosted "Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change" was "a triumph of US media management," writes BBC News environment analyst Roger Harrabin. "The opening public statements were made by President Bush, Dr Rice and Jim Connaughton, the head of White House climate strategy. The only foreigner to speak publicly was Yvo de Boer who, as a representative of the UN, remained neutrally uncritical of his hosts. The two-day meeting then went into closed session. Other delegates were furious at what they said were false leadership claims on climate by Mr Bush, but they were not given a platform to address the media. When they emerged at the end of the conference ... they found that the co-ordinator, Mr Connaughton, had slipped out to brief the media half-an-hour before the end of the meeting, and the US TV networks had gone home." One European delegate "in search of the vanished American TV crews" complained, "The White House slaughtered us." SOURCE: BBC News, October 8, 2007 3. TV "EXPERT" DOESN'T DISCLOSE HIS FELLOW TRAVELERS http://www.prwatch.org/node/6523 Florida's Broward County paid a travel writer $10,000 to mention Fort Lauderdale, "during a summer media tour that took him to 16 news stations in 37 days," reports the Miami Herald. Joel Widzer "seemed to have little trouble finding stations willing to interview him and air the footage of Fort Lauderdale's coral reefs and spas that the public relations firm, Plus Media, provided producers. A follow-up report ... said Widzer mentioned the destination in 20 television interviews from Tampa Bay to Albuquerque, reaching an estimated 430,000 viewers." One station contacted by the Miami Herald about airing Widzer's pitch, WXIX-19 in Cincinnati, admitted that "the segment violated station policy," because while "the producer knew the destinations Widzer mentioned were also sponsoring his tour, viewers weren't told of the connection." Of course, many paid spokespeople pose as impartial consumer experts. "Travel Mom" for hire Emily Kaufman told the Miami Herald, "There's a good market for it." DWJ Television has had nurse Lynne Griffin promote Colgate, Cepacol and Pfizer products, and companies can buy mentions in an upcoming media tour produced by Gourvitz Communications for between $10,000 and $12,000. SOURCE: Miami Herald, October 7, 2007 4. BURSON-MARSTELLER TO HELP BLACKWATER OUT OF HOT WATER http://www.prwatch.org/node/6522 Blackwater USA has hired the PR firm Burson-Marsteller (B-M) for crisis management, following a September 16 incident in which the company killed 17 Iraqi civilians, according to the Iraqi government's investigation. "The State Department, which pays Blackwater hundreds of millions of dollars to protect U.S. diplomats in Iraq, has stringent rules barring the private security contractor from discussing with the media the details of its work," reports AP. These constraints make it "difficult to repair a corporate image." B-M's Robert Tappan is working on the firm's Blackwater account. Tappan manages B-M's lobbying subsidiary, BKSH & Associates, and is a former State Department official. BKSH helped Blackwater founder and head Erik Prince prepare for his October 2 testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Public relations executives had conflicting advice for Blackwater. "They need to help people understand that as you attack Blackwater, you're really attacking soldiers," suggested Beau Phillips. But Richard Levick of Levick Strategic Communications warned that "figuratively wrapping your company in the American flag" doesn't work so well when an unpopular war is involved. SOURCE: Associated Press, October 6, 2007 5. THE WEEKLY RADIO SPIN: ATTACKING IRAN TO STOP "HITLER" http://www.prwatch.org/node/6521 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 cover Chevron's new public image campaign, the U.S. National Security Agency's seminars for journalists, and a new loophole created for the nuclear energy industry. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we tell you how many steps it takes to get from conservative war hawks to independent film buffs. 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: Center for Media and Democracy, October 5, 2007 6. DRESSING DRUG ADVERTISING UP AS "INFORMATION" http://www.prwatch.org/node/6519 Medical researchers Les Toop and Dee Mangin caution that the European Union (EU) should learn from the experience of New Zealand and reject proposals to allow direct-to-consumer advertising (DTC) of prescription drugs. For the last three years, the New Zealand government has been considering whether to ban or further restrict DTC advertising. Despite strong support for a ban among health professionals and independent patient groups, the drug and advertising industries have stalled any change. Toop and Mangin warn that DTC advertising in Europe "will not help consumers make better decisions about medicines but will increase the pharmaceuticalisation of health and will expose more of the population to new medicines (many of which offer little benefit over existing medicines) at a time when long term safety is unknown." They note that the proposal for allowing drug companies to communicate with patients in the EU "deliberately leaves out the word advertising," promising instead patient education. SOURCE: British Medical Journal (sub req'd), October 6, 2007 7. IMAGINING REAL NEWS http://www.prwatch.org/node/6518 Kevin Foley, the head of the PR firm KEF Media Associates and president of the National Association of Broadcast Communicators, has warned of dire consequences if broadcasters are required to disclose video news releases (VNRs) to viewers. "Imagine tuning to your local nightly newscast and not seeing footage of hurricanes, car crash tests, product recalls, the latest electronic gadget, drug and other health information, movie clips and trailers or out of town sports," he wrote. Bill Huey, president of the Atlanta-based PR firm Strategic Communications, took up Foley's invitation. "Actually, I can do without most of those things on television news. And if it makes TV news a little less visual while causing stations to work a little harder to fill those precious few minutes between commercials, that's fine with me," he wrote. "VNRs are the leaf blowers of television news. They make lazy people lazier." Huey wrote that while Atlanta is a top ten television market, "you wouldn't know it looking at the local news." SOURCE: O'Dwyers PR Daily (sub req'd), October 4, 2007 8. "JUST IN TIME" CENSORSHIP http://www.prwatch.org/node/6517 It isn't just Burmese pro-democracy activists who have been denied Internet access by heavy-handed government censors. "OpenNet Initiative, which tracks Internet censorship, has documented signs that in recent years several governments -- including those of former Soviet republics Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan -- have closed off Internet access, or at least opposition Web sites, during periods preceding elections or times of intense protests. The brief disruptions are known as 'just in time' filtering," and "are designed to quiet opponents while maintaining an appearance of technical difficulties, thus avoiding criticism from abroad." While the Burmese junta easily cut off Internet access in the country, "nations with larger economies and more ties to the outside world have more at stake. China, for one, could not consider cutting itself off as Myanmar [Burma] has done, and so control of the Internet is an industry in itself," with help from Internet companies like Yahoo and Google. SOURCE: New York Times, October 4, 2007 9. ALEXIS DEBAT: ONE WELL-CONNECTED FAKER http://www.prwatch.org/node/6515 Over the past month, former ABC News consultant / reporter and self-described "terrorism analyst" Alexis Debat has been exposed for "having published fake interviews with Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Alan Greenspan, Colin Powell and others," and having "falsely claimed credentials such as a Sorbonne PhD." Debat also had affiliations with two think tanks, the Nixon Center and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, and the lobbying firm Jefferson Waterman International. In addition, Debat sought work with the PR firm the Lincoln Group, reports Laura Rozen. "Debat was introduced to a co-founder of the Lincoln Group, Paige Craig, at a Washington dinner party, and the two became friends," she writes. According to Craig, Debat had "done two hours of consulting work for Lincoln Group staff on the Horn of Africa." Lincoln CEO Ray Petty told Rozen that Debat "was supposed to get with some of my guys in Dubai ... but he was never an employee." Lincoln co-founder Christian Bailey said that "to the best of my knowledge, Debat has not worked for the Lincoln Group." Why all the job hustling? "In a practice not uncommon at think tanks," writes Rozen, "Debat's position at the Nixon Center required him to raise his own funds." SOURCE: Mother Jones, October 2, 2007 10. ... AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS GREEN RUBBER WRISTBAND http://www.prwatch.org/node/6514 "Having suffered a barrage of negative headlines while battling to shore up its finances and shrink its work force ... by as much as 20%, the nation's largest home-mortgage lender is launching a PR blitz," with the help of Burson-Marsteller (B-M). Countrywide Financial Corp.'s new slogan is "protect our house." During a September 26 call with 250 company "opinion leaders," Countrywide managing director Drew Gissinger stressed, "Our integrity is being attacked. NOW IT'S PERSONAL!" According to the script for the call, Gissinger encouraged employees to sign a "Protect Our House Pledge" and wear a green wristband. "I want employees to look down at their wristband and remember our fundamental mission to help our customers achieve the American dream," reads the script, "and to help them withstand those malicious outward attacks." B-M's Jason Schechter announced that 25 Burson employees are developing "a very comprehensive external and internal game plan to regain control of the agenda." Writing on Salon.com, Andrew Leonard lists among Countrywide's woes shareholder lawsuits, tanking stock prices, increased foreclosures, and comparisons to Enron and Worldcom. The "average Countrywide employee" may be less than thrilled with the wristbands, Leonard writes, since the CEO "pocketed $138 million last year while 12,000 of your coworkers are about to be fired." SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (sub req'd), October 3, 2007 11. MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO POLL http://www.prwatch.org/node/6513 In Twin Falls, Idaho, an opponent of a proposed nuclear power plant is wondering who's polling local residents about nuclear energy. Last weekend, Peter Rickards was called by "a man who said he was conducting a survey about energy in Idaho. Most of the questions ... involved nuclear power and alluded to the Idaho Energy Complex, a controversial nuclear facility proposed by Virginia-based Alternate Energy Holdings" (AEH). Rickards "suspects AEH or its affiliates may have commissioned the survey to test the waters of public opinion as plans for the project move forward. ... The man who phoned Rickards said he didn't know who was paying for the questionnaire. The number on Rickards' caller ID belongs to a fax machine on a line in New York state." The Idaho Energy Complex, U.S. Nuclear Energy Institute, Idaho Public Utilities Commission, Snake River Alliance and Boise State University all say they aren't behind the poll. SOURCE: The Times-News (Twin Falls, Idaho), October 2, 2007 12. WHEN INDEPENDENT OVERSIGHT ISN'T http://www.prwatch.org/node/6512 "The State Department's initial report of last month's incident in which Blackwater guards were accused of killing Iraqi civilians was written by a Blackwater contractor," reports CNN. Blackwater's Darren Hanner drafted the two-page report, "on the letterhead of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security for the [U.S.] embassy's Tactical Operations Center," which has "outsourced positions to Blackwater and another private firm." Hanner's report agrees with Blackwater's assertion that "its employees responded properly to an insurgent attack"; it also "doesn't mention civilian casualties." A State Department spokesperson stressed that the report is "a first-blush account" that "has no standing whatsoever." The State Department is conducting an investigation into the shootings, with help from FBI agents. "A senior Iraqi National Police official participating in the Iraqi government probe of the shooting said the Blackwater gunfire was unprovoked and the guards fired randomly." Eight Iraqi civilians were reported killed and 13 wounded in the incident. SOURCE: CNN, October 2, 2007 == UPCOMING EVENTS == 1. BEING THE MEDIA WITH SOURCEWATCH Location: Paragon Media, 2865 Broadway, #2 (second floor), Oakland, CA Reception starts at 6:00 pm, presentation at 7:00 pm. Meet the people and organization behind SourceWatch, a wiki-based encyclopedia of the people, organizations and issues shaping the public agenda. John Stauber, Judith Siers-Poisson and Conor Kenny of the Center for Media and Democracy will present their project and answer questions at Paragon Media in Oakland on Thursday, October 18. To read the rest of this item, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/node/6487 -------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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