THE WEEKLY SPIN, March 12, 2008 Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:33:44 -0500 (CDT) THE WEEKLY SPIN, MARCH 12, 2008 == BLOG POSTINGS == 1. Citizen-Driven Superdelegate Transparency Project Provides Best Superdelegate Reporting - Anywhere == BE A CITIZEN JOURNALIST == 1. Featured Participatory Project: Who Sponsored and Spoke at Heartland's Climate Conference? == SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS == 1. Zimbabwe Casts About for PR Help 2. Fighting Global Warming on the Fly 3. A 'Humanitarian Campaign' to Sell Bottled Water 4. Monsanto-Funded Front Group Fights Milk Labeling 5. Merck Suffering from Its Own Success 6. Weekly Radio Spin: Is There a Scientist in the House? 7. When "Biased" Means "Not Friendly to Industry" 8. Defending America, Attacking McCain 9. The Money Behind the Climate Change Skeptics Conference 10. Ketchum Helps Russia with "Really Smart PR" 11. The Best Environment Money Can Buy 12. Picking Losers 13. Group Blogging for the Man (and Fleishman-Hillard) 14. British PR Industry Doing Jolly Well 15. Few Scientists Warm to Skeptics Conference 16. Anti-Taxation with Tobacco Representation -------------------------------------------------------------------- == BLOG POSTINGS == 1. CITIZEN-DRIVEN SUPERDELEGATE TRANSPARENCY PROJECT PROVIDES BEST SUPERDELEGATE REPORTING - ANYWHERE by Conor Kenny The motley crew of citizen journalists, activists, bloggers and transparency advocates that make up the Superdelegate Transparency Project (STP) have produced the best, most transparent and highly detailed reporting on the Democratic superdelegates - anywhere. Through collaborative research with nearly 300 citizen journalists, the folks at DemConWatch, LiteraryOutpost, the HuffPost's OffTheBus project, OpenLeft and CMD's Congresspedia have produced a tally that rivals or bests those of the major media outlets. The STP even breaks the numbers down by state and congressional district with ever-expanding bios of hundreds of superdelegates AND we now have a wicked-cool live-updating widget. With Hillary Clinton within stalemate distance of Barack Obama, the so-called "superdelegates" to the Democratic convention could very well decide the nominee and are an increasingly controversial part of the nominating process. While the members of the STP all came to the project with different opinions on who the best nominee should be or even what voting philosophy superdelegates should follow, we united around the common cause of bringing enough of this process into the light that voters could know just who was representing them at the convention and to decide for themselves what action, if any, they wanted to take. Today we took the Pepsi Challenge with the websites of some of the biggest major news organizations and found that our citizen-journalist-produced research could stand up to any one of them (see chart below). No one with any sense thinks that citizen journalism can or will ever fully replace that of the professionals, but a massive research project like this needed massive participation and it is particularly poetic that it took regular citizens, cooperating in an open and transparent manner to make this information public. To read the rest of this item, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/node/7075 == BE A CITIZEN JOURNALIST == 1. FEATURED PARTICIPATORY PROJECT: WHO SPONSORED AND SPOKE AT HEARTLAND'S CLIMATE CONFERENCE? http://www.prwatch.org/node/7085 A week ago the Exxon-funded think tank, the Heartland Institute, hosted what it dubbed The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change. In his opening remarks, Heartland's President Joseph L. Bast posed the question "Are the scientists and economists who ask these questions just a fringe group, outside the scientific mainstream?" He insisted they weren't, but his own framing of the question reflects how marginalized and defensive the global warming skeptics have become. The detailed list of conference speakers and co-sponsors posted by Heartland on the conference website provides a pretty comprehensive guide to the global network of skeptics. (There may be a few of those speaking at the conference who aren't skeptics but the presenters list is dominated by people from the usual collection of free-market think tanks). In all likelihood, the most active global warming skeptics in the years ahead will come from within the ranks of those individuals and groups at the conference. So our challenge is to ensure that there is at least a 'stub' page in SourceWatch on each of the speakers and sponsoring think tanks as a quick reference resource for interested citizens and journalists. (A stub page need only comprise a sentence or two and some basic formatting, but the more comprehensive it is the better). Once created, the new page will be indexed by Google and other search engines and quickly rise to near the top of search results. If you would like to help, go to http://www.prwatch.org/node/7085, click on the "project page" link, and follow the steps set out in the notes. Have fun, and thanks for your help! SOURCE: SourceWatch == SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS == 1. ZIMBABWE CASTS ABOUT FOR PR HELP http://www.prwatch.org/node/7086 Appearing before a parliamentary committee inquiry into the lobbying industry, the head of Bell Pottinger, Peter Bingle, explained that the agency had been approached to represent the Zimbabwe regime headed by Robert Mugabe. "We will turn down clients. We had a call from Zimbabwe asking to advise Zimbabwe. We said thank you very much, but no. It would have been a fairly malign campaign if someone had run it," Bingle said. Bingle explained that when the agency was approached by overseas companies or countries that it would "talk to the foreign office, take a view, look at whether we would want to work for that type of country or company." Some of Bell Pottinger's clients have included DP World, McDonald's, Imperial Tobacco, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. SOURCE: PR Week (UK), March 10, 2008 2. FIGHTING GLOBAL WARMING ON THE FLY http://www.prwatch.org/node/7084 Less than a year ago, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was being lauded as the cover boy for NewsWeek's issue about how to battle global warming. But critics are calling attention to the governator's daily commute -- Sacramento to Los Angeles and back -- by airplane. "The governor's Gulfstream jet does nearly as much damage to the environment in one hour as a small car does in a year, according to figures compiled by the Helium Report, an online publication for buyers of luxury items." Schwarzenegger counters that he purchases carbon offsets to compensate, but as CMD previously reported, there is growing concern that those quick and easy fixes may be nothing more than feel-good greenwashing. Denis Hayes, president of the Bullitt Foundation, which funds environmental projects in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. said that "He has been very bold on all these [environmental] initiatives, so it is sad to see him undercut that. If you are going to be talking about an issue, you should be living the reality you are trying to embrace." SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, March 7, 2008 3. A 'HUMANITARIAN CAMPAIGN' TO SELL BOTTLED WATER http://www.prwatch.org/node/7082 As more major U.S. cities are endorsing an effort to reduce use of bottled drinking water because of energy consumption and pollution concerns, PepsiCo announced it is teaming up with Starbucks and harnessing the movie star power of Matt Damon to help distribute a brand of "charitable" bottled water called Ethos. The marketing campaign for Ethos calls attention to the plight of impoverished Africans who lack access to safe, clean drinking water. For every bottle of Ethos water purchased, five cents goes to programs that provide African children with clean water. Ethos sells for $1.80 a bottle. Critics of Ethos water say it is a profit-making enterprise disguised as humanitarian relief, that Ethos is exploiting the plight of Africans to sell more bottled water in the United States, and donating directly to a reputable charity dedicated to water projects in Africa is a better way to address the issue. SOURCE: Advertising Age, March 10, 2008 4. MONSANTO-FUNDED FRONT GROUP FIGHTS MILK LABELING http://www.prwatch.org/node/7081 A new "grassroots" farmers' group with close ties to Monsanto has been formed to outlaw labels that would notify consumers they are buying milk from cows not treated with recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH). Monsanto genetically engineers rBGH, called Posilac, which is injected into cows, forcing them to produce more milk. The front group American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology (AFACT), which receives funding from Monsanto, was organized by Osborne & Barr, an agri-marketing firm started by two former Monsanto employees in 1988. The founding client of Osborne & Barr was Monsanto. Consultant Monty G. Miller of Estes Park, Colorado, also helped organize AFACT, which was formally launched in California in February 2008. The only contact information AFACT lists on its website is a fax number listed as belonging to "Outer Office." Outer Office provides secretarial and operational support (such as scheduling, newsletters and message-taking) to small consulting businesses. A call to Outer Office seeking the address and telephone contact information for AFACT was not returned. SOURCE: New York Times, March 9, 2008 5. MERCK SUFFERING FROM ITS OWN SUCCESS http://www.prwatch.org/node/7078 As CMD reported on at length, Merck invested heavily in PR and advertising for Gardasil, its vaccine against four strains of the Human Papillomavirus. Even today, it is hard to avoid seeing the "One Less" commercials showing girls and young women empowered to be "one less woman to battle cervical cancer." But with Gardasil potentially available to U.S. boys as early as 2009 (it is already approved for boys in Australia, Mexico and the European Union), has Merck -- and their PR firm Edelman -- been too successful? Gardasil ads have focused on girls, women, and cervical cancer. While boys and men are not at risk for cervical cancer, they are vulnerable to genital warts, to which HPV infection can also lead. But the question remains whether that risk is enough to goad parents and boys to get the shots. Of course, there is a chance that getting vaccinated could be a plus for young men in the dating world. "Baruch Fischhoff, a professor of decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon, thinks that older boys may see a mix of benefits in Gardasil. 'Being able to say to a girl, casually, that you had the shots, boys might think, "If I can slip that into the conversation, it makes me less of a risk and seem like more of a humanitarian,"' Dr. Fischhoff said. 'So the self-interested and altruistic motives could actually support each other.'" SOURCE: New York Times, February 24, 2008 6. WEEKLY RADIO SPIN: IS THERE A SCIENTIST IN THE HOUSE? http://www.prwatch.org/node/7077 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 tobacco's involvement in South Carolina politics, when a blog is more of an ad, and a biased definition of, well, bias. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we look at the Heartland Institute and their connections to the energy industry. 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, March 7, 2008 7. WHEN "BIASED" MEANS "NOT FRIENDLY TO INDUSTRY" http://www.prwatch.org/node/7074 The Environmental Protection Agency has dismissed a top scientist from her position as chair of a panel investigating a toxic material in electronics. Toxicologist Deborah Rice was removed from the committee after a year, and "federal records show she was removed from the panel in August after the American Chemistry Council, the lobbying group for chemical manufacturers, complained to a top-ranking EPA official that she was biased." Her "bias" is apparently that she has written and spoken out about the dangers posed by "a brominated compound known as deca," which is present in the exterior plastic case of televisions. Her removal was justified by the EPA "because of what they called 'the perception of a potential conflict of interest.' Under the agency's handbook for advisory committees, scientific peer reviewers should not 'have a conflict of interest' or 'appear to lack impartiality.'" But environmental groups have pointed out that industry-affiliated scientists often find their way onto EPA committees. The Environmental Working Group found that on seven committees in the last year alone, 17 scientists were serving, despite ties to the industries that their committee was charged with examining. "In one example, an Exxon Mobil Corp. employee served on an EPA expert panel responsible for deciding whether ethylene oxide, a chemical manufactured by Exxon Mobil, is a carcinogen." SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, February 29, 2008 8. DEFENDING AMERICA, ATTACKING MCCAIN http://www.prwatch.org/node/7073 The Democratic Party-oriented Campaign to Defend America, a non-profit group spun off from Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, is behind a TV ad attacking John McCain. Campaign to Defend America and its funders "have pledged a multimillion-dollar effort to target McCain and congressional Republicans on the consequences of the Iraq war on the U.S. economy," receiving "at least $1.4 million from The Fund for America, a nonprofit group set up last year by John Podesta, a former chief of staff for President Clinton; Anna Burger, the secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union; and Rob McKay, a California philanthropist (and chair of the Democracy Alliance). Campaign to Defend America is headed by Tom Matzzie, the former Washington director of ... MoveOn.org. Among Fund for America donors are multimillionaire financier George Soros." The Center for Investigative Reporting has created a chart illustrating the liberal money and connections behind the Campaign to Defend America. Recently the groups behind the Campaign and AAEI poured $20 million dollars into a the Iraq/Recession Campaign targeting Republicans in 2008. SOURCE: Associated Press, March 5, 2008 9. THE MONEY BEHIND THE CLIMATE CHANGE SKEPTICS CONFERENCE http://www.prwatch.org/node/7072 An article in the Independent links funding for the "2008 International Conference on Climate Change" held in New York earlier this month to tobacco and oil companies. As an earlier Spin noted, the global warming skeptics conference was organized by the Heartland Institute think tank. Heartland has opposed scientific consensus on both secondhand tobacco smoke and climate change. Heartland claims on its website that no energy industry money was used to support the conference, but did not address tobacco industry funding. Still, a substantial number of conference sponsors -- including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Independent Institute, Americans for Tax Reform, Frontiers of Freedom and Citizens' Alliance for Responsible Energy -- have received support from energy or tobacco companies, or both. The Heartland Institute itself has received funding from Exxon and Philip Morris. SOURCE: The Independent (UK), March 3, 2008 10. KETCHUM HELPS RUSSIA WITH "REALLY SMART PR" http://www.prwatch.org/node/7071 "Flush with foreign reserves from oil and natural gas sales, the Kremlin is pumping tens of millions of dollars into various forms of public diplomacy," reports Peter Finn. The Russian government "has hired the giant U.S. public relations firm Ketchum Inc. 'to help the government tell its story of economic growth and opportunity for its citizens,' said Randy DeCleene, an executive at the firm." As part of the PR push, "the official government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta is ... fund[ing] monthly supplements in newspapers in India, Britain, Bulgaria and the United States," including a paid supplement in the Washington Post. "Russiaprofile.org, a news and analysis site funded by [the government news agency] RIA Novosti" features "a range of opinions, including some quite hostile to the Kremlin." RIA Novosti also hosts an annual "Valdai Discussion Club," where "30 to 40 Russia experts and prominent journalists, mostly from the United States and Western Europe ... are wined and dined in the company of Russian policymakers and political analysts." The Hoover Institute's Michael McFaul (an adviser to Barack Obama's campaign) called the Valdai events, which featured sessions with then-President Vladimir Putin, "really smart PR." A previous Spin noted Russia's new think tank, the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation. SOURCE: Washington Post, March 6, 2008 11. THE BEST ENVIRONMENT MONEY CAN BUY http://www.prwatch.org/node/7070 Former Republican staffers of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources have formed a new group, Responsible Resources, to impact "the perennial debate over energy production and environmental protection." The group's first ad campaign criticizes "efforts to raise taxes on energy companies," reports The Hill. Responsible Resources is not a lobbying group and will "not take any corporate donations," according to its co-founder, Brian Kennedy. He described the group as "an educational resource principally for members of Congress and their aides with the ultimate goal of growing large enough to influence the debate beyond the Beltway." The House recently passed a bill that would repeal tax credits for the oil industry and use the revenue to fund renewable energy resources. Responsible Resources claims that "taxes on energy companies are a threat to affordable and reliable energy." Kennedy said, "A clean environment is a luxury that only the wealthiest countries can afford." SOURCE: The Hill, February 27, 2008 12. PICKING LOSERS http://www.prwatch.org/node/7069 The American Enterprise Institute, one of the premier U.S. think tanks, has presented former Australian Prime Minister John Howard with the Irving Kristol Award for 2008. The award, AEI states, is for "individuals who have made exceptional intellectual or practical contributions to improved government policy, social welfare, or political understanding." Howard, AEI gushed, "is one of the world's most successful democratic politicians." While Howard did win four elections, AEI doesn't mention that he made history by being only the second serving Prime Minister to lose his own parliamentary seat. Howard also led his party to a humiliating defeat in the November 2007 election. Many of Howard's hallmark policies -- his support for radical anti-union policies, his refusal to support the Kyoto Protocol to combat rising greenhouse gas emissions, his support for domestic nuclear power plants and his refusal to apologize to indigenous Australians for former governments' policies of separating children from their parents -- have subsequently been jettisoned by his own party. SOURCE: American Enterprise Institute Media Release, March 5, 2008 13. GROUP BLOGGING FOR THE MAN (AND FLEISHMAN-HILLARD) http://www.prwatch.org/node/7068 Under the banner "a marketplace of ideas," major industry groups are blogging together, to "build influence and drive policy." The BizCentral blog includes the American Petroleum Institute, Business Roundtable, Nuclear Energy Institute and Personal Care Products Council. Pat Cleary, Fleishman-Hillard's senior vice president of digital public affairs, "pushed the idea from the start," reports Politico.com. Cleary "believes businesses ignore the Internet at great risk." He identified "congressional aides, lawmakers, reporters, policymakers and opinion leaders" as BizCentral's target audience. "Cleary got the idea for BizCentral three years ago while he was still an executive at the National Association of Manufacturers. When he moved to Fleishman, the firm gave him the resources to make it happen. The blog is free to participants and helps Fleishman build its brand as 'leaders in the digital space,' Cleary said." Previously, Cleary built NAM's blog as a tool "to fight taxes, promote innovation and shake manufacturing's reputation as an industry filled with dark and dangerous jobs." BizCentral has one rule ("post once a week") and one commandment ("we don't shoot at one another"), according to Cleary. SOURCE: Politico.com, March 3, 2008 14. BRITISH PR INDUSTRY DOING JOLLY WELL http://www.prwatch.org/node/7067 "I can't recall a time when PR has been as strong," Sir Martin Sorrell, the head of the UK-based marketing and public relations conglomerate WPP, told the Guardian. "Something has changed and the reason for the change is online activity, where personal recommendation and personal communication have become more important." Users of social networking sites like MySpace, YouTube and Facebook are averse to advertising, but often happy to pass along "seemingly 'independent'" reviews and opinions planted by PR pros. In Britain, the PR industry "employs some 48,000 people, and is second only to that of the U.S. in size," according to a 2005 study. Since then, industry growth has "been estimated at more than 10% a year, with predictions of more double-digit growth this year." The head of Britain's largest PR firm, Chime Communications, said, "Reputation management is now equally or more important than brand management and, as a result, there is a gradual shift of budget into public relations." More money for PR means more spin aimed at journalists, as UK-based watchdog groups like SpinWatch and Media Standards Trust know well. Media Standards Trust "is developing a tool to allow the public to compare a news article with a corresponding press release." SOURCE: The Guardian (UK), March 3, 2008 15. FEW SCIENTISTS WARM TO SKEPTICS CONFERENCE http://www.prwatch.org/node/7066 The Heartland Institute's "2008 International Conference on Climate Change" in New York was "a sort of global warming doppelganger conference, where everything was reversed," reports Juliet Eilperin. At the event, skeptics unveiled their response to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) report, edited by corporate-funded skeptic Fred Singer, argued that "recent climate change stems from natural causes." Eilperin notes that "while the IPCC enlisted several hundred scientists from more than 100 countries to work over five years to produce its series of reports, the NIPCC document is the work of 23 authors from 15 nations, some of them not scientists." The New York Times reports that while the Heartland conference "was largely framed around science ... when an organizer made an announcement asking all of the scientists in the large hall to move to the front for a group picture, 19 men did so." The conference invitation identified its goal as "to generate international media attention to the fact that many scientists believe forecasts of rapid warming and catastrophic events are not supported by sound science." The Heartland Institute offered "$1,000 to those willing to give a talk," and "a free weekend at the Marriott Marquis in Manhattan, including travel costs, to all elected officials wanting to attend," according to the RealClimate blog. SOURCE: Washington Post, March 4, 2008 16. ANTI-TAXATION WITH TOBACCO REPRESENTATION http://www.prwatch.org/node/7065 R.J. Reynolds (RJR) may be funding a South Carolina anti-tax group to oppose a cigarette tax for health care. The Cover Carolina Collaborative, a group of health care organizations, is proposing that the state's tax be raised to $1.00 a pack, to help cover uninsured employees. South Carolina currently has the lowest cigarette tax in the nation, at seven cents a pack. The South Carolina Association of Taxpayers (SCAT) mailed out 10,000 postcards to Republican activists. The postcards call the measure a "$190 million unfunded taxpayer mandate" and urge recipients to "stop this HillaryCare styled welfare plan." South Carolina Senate staffers say a chart on the postcard is the same as one that RJR lobbyists previously showed state senators. RJR refused to say whether they are funding the SCAT anti-tax group. A member of the Cover Carolina Collaborative said, "If R.J. Reynolds wants to come out and oppose it, come out and oppose it, but don't hide behind the faces of taxpayers." SOURCE: The State (South Carolina), March 3, 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. 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