THE WEEKLY SPIN, January 9, 2008 Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 11:00:16 -0600 (CST) THE WEEKLY SPIN, JANUARY 9, 2008 == BE A CITIZEN JOURNALIST == 1. Featured Participatory Project: Find the Newest Congressional Staffers-Turned-Lobbyists == SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS == 1. San Francisco Zoo Hires PR Flack to Try and Save its Skin After Tiger Mauling 2. Journalism as Consumer Product? 3. Return of the Swift Boaters 4. Total Recall 5. Stars and Stripes Fights DoD Hype 6. Dumbing Down Dateline 7. Weekly Radio Spin: Politics, Drugs, and Rock n' Roll 8. The Taming of Al Jazeera 9. Somebody's Watching You 10. Tortured Reasoning for Destroying Evidence of Torture 11. Despite Prominence of Coverage, Pakistan Doesn't Merit News Bureaus 12. Safety Suppressed -------------------------------------------------------------------- == BE A CITIZEN JOURNALIST == 1. FEATURED PARTICIPATORY PROJECT: FIND THE NEWEST CONGRESSIONAL STAFFERS-TURNED-LOBBYISTS http://www.prwatch.org/node/6872 Sixty-four of the members of the last Congress resigned, retired, were defeated or are now sitting in jail. As last Sunday's Doonesbury cartoon points out, many of them are on their way to fulfilling the grand Washington tradition of hiring themselves out as lobbyists to lean on their former colleagues. What often flies below the radar, however, are the huge number of congressional staffers who take the opportunity of their bosses leaving to join the lobbying corps themselves. They are prized by K Street not just for their insider knowledge of how Congress works, but also for the extensive contacts they still have with their former coworkers (and subordinates). Now it's time to drag them into the sunshine. The Sunlight Foundation, CMD's partner in the Congresspedia project, has developed a cool distributed research tool to marry citizen brain power with a fancy new database to figure out who exactly is hiring these insiders, and they want you to participate. Like our other featured participatory projects, many hands can make this formerly daunting task light work. Once the results are in, the CMD staff will work with the participants to get the results entered into the SourceWatch profiles of the corporations and lobbyists, ensuring that professional reporters and citizen journalists alike will be able to use the information to perform some high-caliber muckraking on the DC influence scene. Even Craigslist's Craig Newmark is participating because, as he says, "This is the 'revolving door' thing, of concern since some staffers, working for shadowy politicians, might do more damage as lobbyists." Everything you need to know at Sunlight's website, www.SunlightFoundation.com. Have fun, and we'll report back soon with the results! SOURCE: The Sunlight Foundation == SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS == 1. SAN FRANCISCO ZOO HIRES PR FLACK TO TRY AND SAVE ITS SKIN AFTER TIGER MAULING http://www.prwatch.org/node/6870 The situation was about as bad as it could get for a zoo. On Christmas Day, Tatiana the tiger escaped from her enclosure in the San Francisco Zoo, mauled a 17 year old boy to death and severely injured two of his companions. Media coverage of the incident focused on deficiencies in construction of the cat's enclosure and the zoo's response to the accident, while the public recoiled in horror. It looked like the zoo's reputation had hit rock bottom. But when the going gets tough, the tough hire PR, and so the zoo hired Sam Singer, a $350 an hour Bay-area PR consultant who specializes in crisis control, to help spin the tiger mauling in a way that would minimize the damage to the zoo's reputation. Suddenly, new information started appearing in the media that seemingly defended the tiger: the young men who got mauled might have been drinking alcohol, might have had taunted the tiger, and might have been using marijuana. So maybe it wasn't so much the zoo's fault after all? What a difference a little PR makes. SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, January 7, 2008 2. JOURNALISM AS CONSUMER PRODUCT? http://www.prwatch.org/node/6868 Under the current rules of journalism, writes Edward Wasserman, coverage is rewarded if it "racks up the page-views, attracting audiences through search engines and enabling publishers to charge advertisers more." The problem (which Britney Spears seems determined to demonstrate) is that a story's popularity often has little to do with its importance. "Journalists don't peddle goods, they offer a professional service, a relationship," Wasserman writes. "The news audience renews that relationship to get information and insight on matters it trusts journalists to alert it to, even though the news may be disquieting or hard to grasp. ... News can indeed be recast successfully as a menu of competing distractions. The question is whether we can afford the price of such success." SOURCE: Miami Herald, January 7, 2008 3. RETURN OF THE SWIFT BOATERS http://www.prwatch.org/node/6866 AT HIS CONFIRMATION HEARING FOR AN AMBASSADORSHIP TO BELGIUM, NOMINEE SAM FOX GOT GRILLED BY KERRY FOR THE $50,000 CONTRIBUTION HE GAVE TO THE SWIFT BOATERS. "More than three years after John Kerry's bitter defeat, at the dawn of what looks like a far more promising campaign cycle for the Democrats, the party is still haunted by the specter of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," observes Christopher Hayes. The Swift Boaters, a front group for the Republican party, spread disinformation about Kerry's war record in Vietnam, contributing to his defeat in the 2004 U.S. presidential election. As the 2008 election intensifies, Hayes writes, "Federal Election Commission records of the group's top twenty donors" reveal that "they've been remarkably active in this cycle, contributing and bundling nearly $200,000 to presidential candidates," including several of the top Republican contenders. "We may wish we were done with the Swift Boaters," Hayes writes, "but they aren't done with us." SOURCE: The Nation, January 2, 2008 4. TOTAL RECALL http://www.prwatch.org/node/6865 In Acme Township, Michigan, the Meijer retail giant "secretly funded a plan to orchestrate last February's recall of Acme Township's elected officials, a potential violation of state campaign finance laws," reports Brian McGillivary. "Meijer paid a public relations firm at least $30,000 in a failed effort to remove Acme's board after years of zoning disputes over Meijer's plans to build a store along M-72 in Grand Traverse County. Meijer's public relations firm crafted recall language, devised election strategy, wrote campaign literature, and used local residents as figureheads in the recall." The PR firm, Seyferth, Spaulding, Tennyson Inc. of Grand Rapids, directed the campaign using front groups including Acme Taxpayers for Responsible Government and the Acme Recall Committee. "It gives me a chill, how much money they can spend to ruin other people," said Acme Clerk Dorothy Dunville, one of the public officials targeted by the company's recall campaign. T. Michael Jackson, a retired public relations professional, has filed a complaint with the Public Relations Society of America, charging that Seyferth, Spaulding, Tennyson violated the PRSA's code of ethics. SOURCE: Traverse City Record-Eagle, December 23, 2007 5. STARS AND STRIPES FIGHTS DOD HYPE http://www.prwatch.org/node/6864 "Top editors at the military newspaper Stars and Stripes are asking for full disclosure of the paper's relationship with a Department of Defense publicity program, called America Supports You, after disclosures that money for the program was funneled through the newspaper," reports Sara Abruzzesse. "The newspaper's two top editors have asked that the acting publisher, Max D. Lederer Jr., and the Pentagon official who oversees the program, Allison Barber, release details of a relationship that involves employees of the newspaper's business department overseeing contracts on behalf of America Supports You." The editors complain that the paper's business deals with a DoD PR program undermine its editorial independence and credibility. What might be the motivation for funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars through the paper? "Because Stars and Stripes relies partly on advertising revenue, it operates with fewer guidelines and restrictions than other Pentagon programs." SOURCE: New York Times, December 28, 2007 6. DUMBING DOWN DATELINE http://www.prwatch.org/node/6863 In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, recalls former Dateline NBC correspondent John Hockenberry, the network diverted him from reporting on al Qaeda and instead wanted him to come up with a version of "the show Cops, only with firefighters." During the invasion of Iraq, a network exec axed a segment featuring "a reporter in Baghdad who was experiencing the bombing firsthand" on grounds that it conveyed "a point of view." Hockenberry sees these stories as lessons about how television news "lost its most basic journalistic instincts" in pursuit of stories that "reassured the audience by telling it what it already knew rather than challenging it to learn. This explains why TV news voices all use similar cadences, why all anchors seem to sound alike, why reporters in the field all use the identical tone of urgency no matter whether the story is about the devastating aftermath of an earthquake or someone's lost kitty." He also criticizes conflicts of interest as "NBC News was covering wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that our GE parent company stood to benefit from as a major defense contractor." As another example of the conflict between news and General Electric's business interests, he noted that GE does business with members of Osama Bin Laden's extended family. "In early 2002," he says, "our team was in Saudi Arabia covering regional reaction to September 11." However, GE turned him down when he asked for help contacting the Bin Ladens so he could interview them about their estranged family member. SOURCE: Technology Review, January/February 2008 7. WEEKLY RADIO SPIN: POLITICS, DRUGS, AND ROCK N' ROLL http://www.prwatch.org/node/6862 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 how Wal-Mart is moving supposedly outside support in-house, the work of a government agency charged with protecting consumers, and how they aren't, and 2007 journalism that really reeks. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we tell you how drugs and rock n' roll connect Rudy Giuliani and George Bush. 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, January 4, 2008 8. THE TAMING OF AL JAZEERA http://www.prwatch.org/node/6860 The New York Times reports, "When a Saudi court sentenced a young woman to 200 lashes in November after she pressed charges against seven men who had raped her, the case provoked outrage and headlines around the world, including in the Middle East. But not at Al Jazeera, the Arab world's leading satellite television channel, seen by 40 million people. ... For the past three months Al Jazeera, which once infuriated the Saudi royal family with its freewheeling newscasts, has treated the kingdom with kid gloves, media analysts say. The newly cautious tone appears to have been dictated to Al Jazeera's management by the rulers of Qatar, where Al Jazeera has its headquarters. ... The specter of Iran's nuclear ambitions may be particularly daunting to tiny Qatar, which also is the site of a major American military base. The new policy is the latest chapter in a gradual domestication of Al Jazeera, once reviled by American officials as little more than a terrorist propaganda outlet." SOURCE: New York Times, January 4, 2008 9. SOMEBODY'S WATCHING YOU http://www.prwatch.org/node/6859 Two leading privacy rights organizations have put together a world map of surveillance societies, rating various nations for their civil liberties records. Both the U.S. and the UK are colored black for "endemic surveillance," as are Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, Russia, China and Malaysia. "The 2007 rankings indicate an overall worsening of privacy protection across the world, reflecting an increase in surveillance and a declining performance on privacy safeguards," reports Kim Zetter. Moreover, "The privacy trends have been fueled by the emergence of a profitable surveillance industry dominated by global IT companies and the creation of numerous international treaties that frequently operate outside judicial or democratic processes." SOURCE: Wired.com, December 31, 2007 10. TORTURED REASONING FOR DESTROYING EVIDENCE OF TORTURE http://www.prwatch.org/node/6857 Steve Benen writes that "As it turns out, the reasoning behind the CIA's decision to record interrogations on video, stop recording interrogations on video, and destroy the interrogation videos was all exactly the same: officials were hoping to avoid a public-relations nightmare." They were unsuccessful, of course, since the media reported widely on the destruction of the tapes and a U.S. District Court judge is exploring "whether the U.S. had violated a court order to preserve evidence when the CIA destroyed videotaped interrogations of two terrorism suspects in 2005." And on January 2, 2008, it is being reported that "The U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday it had launched a criminal investigation into the CIA's destruction of videotapes depicting the harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects." Given the Bush administration's track record of secrecy and their seeming aversion to transparency, the incident is being treated as part of an ongoing pattern. As Jesse Stanchak of Slate notes, "First the CIA began taping interrogations because it was trying to avoid a scandal, because it looked like a wounded prisoner might die in custody. Then it stopped taping interrogations because it wanted to avoid a scandal when water-boarding was introduced. Then it destroyed the tapes because it was worried they'd be leaked to the press. But the truth came out anyway, and now the agency has to cope with the public relations nightmare it's been trying to avoid all along." SOURCE: The Carpetbagger Report, December 30, 2007 11. DESPITE PROMINENCE OF COVERAGE, PAKISTAN DOESN'T MERIT NEWS BUREAUS http://www.prwatch.org/node/6856 When former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on December 27, 2007, the only American TV networks to have full-time employees in Pakistan to call on were ABC and CNN. Other networks were forced to rely on stringers, freelance reporters on retainer with news agencies, until they could get their own reporters to Pakistan. "Despite the continuing war in Afghanistan and the unrest in Pakistan, no United States television network other than CNN maintains a permanent bureau in either country. This is partly because it is so difficult and dangerous to keep employees in volatile parts of the world, but it is also a reflection of budget cutbacks, which led the networks to close many foreign bureaus in the 1990s." In order to cover the Iraq War, most news agencies have used the bulk of their international budgets for that purpose for almost five years. Andrew Tyndall publishes the Tyndall Report, "a newsletter that tracks evening newscasts. His data indicates that after Iraq, the biggest overseas stories on network news in 2007 emanated from Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. Among the broadcast networks, 'they don't have permanent bureaus in any of them,' he said." SOURCE: New York Times, December 31, 2007 12. SAFETY SUPPRESSED http://www.prwatch.org/node/6855 A former statistician for the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) has accused the agency of "suppressing scientific research" and "silencing the life-saving research happening in its buildings." Robin Ingle says the CPSC has repeatedly bowed to pressures from industry and failed to place tighter restrictions on dangerous products. As an example, she points to delays in publication of reports showing a rise in deaths from All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs), while CPSC's general counsel, a former attorney for the ATV industry, tried to force staff to change the language in the report. "I loved working at CPSC," Ingle writes. "It broke my heart to leave. When I did so at the end of 2006, it was of my own accord. If I'd thought that staying there to crunch numbers could have saved a single person's life, I would have stayed." SOURCE: Washington Post, December 23, 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