THE WEEKLY SPIN, April 16, 2008 Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:49:41 -0500 (CDT) THE WEEKLY SPIN, APRIL 16, 2008 == BLOG POSTINGS == 1. A Bad Week for Corporate Spies 2. Colombia's Three Amigos Rustle Up Support for Free Trade Deal 3. The Pro-Junk Mail Lobby: Fighting to Sustain the Unsustainable? == BE A CITIZEN JOURNALIST == 1. Featured Participatory Project: Outing Front Groups == SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS == 1. Is Earth Day the New Christmas? 2. Weekly Radio Spin: Penn the Tail on the Donkey 3. Spinners Queue Up to Help China 4. Penn Sought Out to Help British Prime Minister 5. Less Cause, More Marketing for Unilever 6. Belarusians Give Bell Hell 7. Why Winter Soldier Got the Cold Shoulder 8. Burson-Marsteller Floods Chile with Pro-Dam PR 9. Penn's Paycheck 10. U.S. Liberal Bloggers Brought to Israel to Show Them "Reality" -------------------------------------------------------------------- == BLOG POSTINGS == 1. A BAD WEEK FOR CORPORATE SPIES by Diane Farsetta If Cara Schaffer contacts you, be wary. Take emails and online comments from "activist2008" and "stopcorporategreed" with a grain of salt. Londoners, be on the lookout for Toby Kendall, a.k.a. "Ken Tobias." And activists everywhere should think twice before putting documents in the recycling or trash bins. Over the past week, reporters and activists outed three different corporate spying operations. As John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton wrote in their 1995 book "Toxic Sludge Is Good for You!": "Movements for social and political reform have often become targets of surveillance. ... The public relations industry has developed a lucrative side business scrutinizing the thoughts and actions of citizen activists, using paid spies who are often recruited from government, military or private security backgrounds." Last week's revelations show that these underhanded tactics are very much in use today. And they don't just impact the groups being infiltrated. By privileging corporate interests, effectively giving them the first and last word on an issue, they distort vital public debates. To read the rest of this item, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/node/7208 2. COLOMBIA'S THREE AMIGOS RUSTLE UP SUPPORT FOR FREE TRADE DEAL by Bob Burton Clumsy maneuvering by Burson-Marsteller CEO Mark Penn -- who met with Colombian officials about the U.S. - Colombia Free Trade Agreement while serving as the chief campaign strategist for trade deal opponent Hillary Clinton -- drew unwanted publicity to the controversial pact. Colombia's $300,000 a year contract (pdf) with Burson-Marsteller stated the PR firm would "provide ongoing strategic communications counsel to the Ambassador and key Embassy officials"; develop "key messages, talking points and briefing materials"; give "advice and communications counsel to the Ambassador and Embassy staff"; and "co-ordinate media interviews and public events with relevant news media in Washington D.C. on behalf of the Embassy." Colombia ended the contract after Penn described his meeting as "an error in judgment." But the country isn't hurting for lobbying power in Washington, D.C. -- especially among Democrats. To read the rest of this item, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/node/7196 3. THE PRO-JUNK MAIL LOBBY: FIGHTING TO SUSTAIN THE UNSUSTAINABLE? by Anne Landman Junk mail kills trees, clogs mailboxes, packs landfills, wastes natural resources, and everyone would be glad to be rid of it. Right? Well, maybe not. Whether out of environmental concern or sheer annoyance, legislated efforts to reduce junk mail are on the rise, but companies that have vested interests in its continuance have started organizing to save it--in a big way. Of course, they don't call it junk mail. Their preferred euphemisms are "advertising mail," "direct mail" or even "standard mail." To read the rest of this item, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/node/7192 == BE A CITIZEN JOURNALIST == 1. FEATURED PARTICIPATORY PROJECT: OUTING FRONT GROUPS http://www.prwatch.org/node/7213 Often readers and citizen journalists will come across a name of a group that seems a little at odds with the policy message they are promoting. Some of these names were added to the SourceWatch page on front groups with the intention of returning to create an article on that at a later date. Others were emailed to us by citizens, journalists or activists wanting to know if we knew anything about them. So if you would like to help investigate some of the groups that have been flagged as warranting further investigation, here's your chance. All the names are on this page: along with some basic tips on how to investigate a group and create a SourceWatch page on them. If you like, you can also add names to the list. If this is your first time editing on SourceWatch, you can go to www.SourceWatch.org for more information. HOLD ONTO YOUR HAT, HAVE FUN, AND THANKS FOR YOUR HELP! SOURCE: Sourcewatch, April 16, 2008 == SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS == 1. IS EARTH DAY THE NEW CHRISTMAS? http://www.prwatch.org/node/7212 Back in 1970, Earth Day started out as a "green" event that encouraged people to decrease their consumption, but as more companies jump on the greenwashing bandwagon, Earth Day has become a marketing event that corporations use to paint themselves green while pushing ever more products and services on consumers. Now many Earth Day promotions actually encourage consumption: Fairmont Hotels is promoting its new "Lexus Hybrid Living Suites" that feature organic sheets and mini-bars stocked with "local biodynamic wines"; Mattel has introduced "Barbie BCause," a line of green Barbie accessories that Mattel describes as "playful and on-trend"; and consumers can participate in Macy's "Turn Over A New Leaf" campaign by making a $5 donation to the National Park Foundation to get discounts on Macy's merchandise during the weekend after Earth Day. Steven Addis, CEO of a branding firm, tells how to spot the greenwashers: "I call it the 95-5 rule. Five percent of somebody's business is green, but 95% of their PR is green." SOURCE: Advertising Age, April 15, 2008 2. WEEKLY RADIO SPIN: PENN THE TAIL ON THE DONKEY http://www.prwatch.org/node/7206 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 what Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and Chile's Patagonia region have in common, and how Unilever is adjusting its cause-related marketing. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we remember one of Burson-Marsteller's old front groups. 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, April 11, 2008 3. SPINNERS QUEUE UP TO HELP CHINA http://www.prwatch.org/node/7201 The Free Tibet Campaign in the UK has warned that "any PR agency that is trying to assist China in its twisted distortion of the truth would be potentially exposing itself to protests outside its offices." Despite this, PR Week reports that Ogilvy, Burson-Marsteller and Ketchum have "all refused to rule out working for the under-fire regime." Ketchum deputy CEO, Avril Lee stated that "we'd need to consider the brief carefully and speak to our team before making a decision." Last week, the Financial Times reported that the Chinese government was seeking to recruit a public relations firm to advise the government "on strategies to repair its image before the Beijing Olympics." SOURCE: PR Week (UK), April 10, 2008 4. PENN SOUGHT OUT TO HELP BRITISH PRIME MINISTER http://www.prwatch.org/node/7200 Despite the CEO of the PR firm Burson-Marsteller, Mark Penn, being dumped by the Colombian government and no longer working as 'chief strategist' for Hillary Clinton's campaign, he may be hired as a pollster by media staff working for British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. Writing in PR Week, David Singleton reports that Brown's communications chief, Stephen Carter, and his director of political strategy, David Muir, "are understood to have held talks with Penn last week" about helping to identify policy areas that could be potential vote-winners for Brown. "Muir is a strong admirer of Penn and became acquainted with him while working at WPP, which owns Burson-Marsteller," Singleton reports. SOURCE: PR Week, April 10, 2008 5. LESS CAUSE, MORE MARKETING FOR UNILEVER http://www.prwatch.org/node/7199 In 2004, the Unilever company Dove got lots of attention for using "ordinary-looking -- in some cases heavyset -- women in its ads for shampoos and beauty products. The ad and public-relations effort, called 'Campaign for Real Beauty,' created free publicity for the company." Now, Dove is "trying to create a new online community for women that offers entertainment, blogs, advice and advertising." The website was designed by the WPP firm Ogilvy, to "strengthen the link" between the Campaign's empowerment rhetoric "and Dove's line of products." To date, the Campaign's "marketing impact has been somewhat blunted by the fact that the social cause hasn't been linked directly to specific Dove products." Dove's new site will face competition from similar corporate-sponsored, woman-focused websites. Yahoo recently launched "Shine," designed to give "the struggling Internet company additional opportunities to sell advertising targeted to the key decision-maker in many households," reports AP. And Kraft has "uPumpItUp," a so-called "cause initiative for the Crystal Light brand." SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (sub req'd), April 10, 2008 6. BELARUSIANS GIVE BELL HELL http://www.prwatch.org/node/7197 In an open letter to British public relations executive Lord Timothy Bell, two directors of the Belarus Free Theatre accuse Bell of "making money on somebody's misfortune." Bell traveled to Belarus in March and met with President Alexander Lukashenko, who has been called "Europe's last dictator." Bell told Reuters, "I have been asked to make a proposal to improve the external reputation of Belarus." His firm, Bell Pottinger, received a contract worth "millions of dollars" over several years, to boost "the image of Belarus among western countries and encourage foreign investment," reported O'Dwyer's. In their letter, the theater directors write "we did not quite understand" Bell's promise to "fix Belarus' image." Others who might not understand include "former Candidate for the President and now a political prisoner Alexander Kozulin, who serves now a five-year term sentence in prison and has outlasted the death of his wife there," they add. Instead of focusing on Belarus' image, why not explain the "virtues of the democratic choice," the theater directors ask Bell. Maybe because "nobody pays for that." SOURCE: Charter'97 (Belarus), April 9, 2008 7. WHY WINTER SOLDIER GOT THE COLD SHOULDER http://www.prwatch.org/node/7195 Why didn't the New York Times cover the "Winter Soldier" hearings organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), during which soldiers testified about their experiences in Iraq? Of the newspaper's three Pentagon reporters, "one [was] on book leave, one was traveling with the secretary of defense, and one was in Iraq covering the war," explained public editor Clark Hoyt, responding to an action alert from Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). Hoyt added, "The Times also did not cover an announcement the following day by Vets for Freedom, a group supporting the war and claiming more than 13 times the membership" of IVAW. FAIR notes that "anyone can sign up on the Vets for Freedom website," while IVAW membership is restricted to veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Hoyt's comparison of Winter Soldier's "eyewitness testimony about atrocities in Iraq" and Vets for Freedom's "press release about media bias" is also "far-fetched," adds FAIR. But Vets for Freedom is receiving attention. Before hearing General David Petraeus's and Ambassador Ryan Crocker's update on Iraq, Senator John McCain addressed a Vets for Freedom rally, reports NPR. "Your presence here indicates that the overwhelming majority of veterans ... know that there is no substitute for victory and withdrawal is defeat," he told the Republican front group. SOURCE: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, April 8, 2008 8. BURSON-MARSTELLER FLOODS CHILE WITH PRO-DAM PR http://www.prwatch.org/node/7194 One of Chile's "last true wildernesses," a forest valley along the Pascua River in Patagonia, is "threatened by a vast hydroelectric project planned by corporations from Chile, Italy, Spain and Canada," reports Colin Barraclough. "Known as HidroAysen, the $4 billion project involves the construction of five large dams, some topping 330 feet in height, designed to produce 2,750 megawatts of electricity, equivalent to three midsize nuclear power stations and enough to boost energy-hungry Chile's power supply by 20 percent." The Chilean government says the project is necessary, especially since Argentina is decreasing natural gas exports. Environmentalists argue that it will harm 14 national parks and natural reserves, and may lead to more "hydroelectric and industrial projects throughout Patagonia." To overcome the opposition, the HidroAysen consortium hired Burson-Marsteller. At the PR firm's urging, HidroAysen "funded a celebrity-studded media blitz, printing giveaway items lavishly illustrated with images" of the area, "despite the fact that most of the locations shown would likely be flooded or visually marred by 150-foot pylons and high-tension cables if the dams were built." SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, April 7, 2008 9. PENN'S PAYCHECK http://www.prwatch.org/node/7189 For Mark Penn, who recently resigned as Hillary Clinton's chief campaign strategist, the campaign "has been about as effective an economic stimulus program for himself as anything his clients have ever proposed for the nation," reports Mike Madden. Penn's polling firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, has billed the campaign $14 million for polling, direct mail, and consulting services -- nearly 9 percent of her entire campaign expenditures. "Getting rich off free-spending campaigns is, of course, a time-honored tradition in politics, and it isn't just Mark Penn who does it," Madden adds, noting that campaign consultants to Barack Obama and John Kerry have also raked in millions of dollars. "Campaign finance experts say most people who give to candidates figure it's being spent on TV ads. What few of them know is how much of the 'TV ad' budget winds up paying for a consultant's beach house." SOURCE: Salon.com, April 8, 2008 10. U.S. LIBERAL BLOGGERS BROUGHT TO ISRAEL TO SHOW THEM "REALITY" http://www.prwatch.org/node/7188 Left-wing U.S. bloggers, including Daily Kos editor David Waldman and former Moveon.org lobbyist Tom Matzzie, who now heads the Campaign to Defend America, will spend six days in Israel as the guests of the Israeli government. The trip is sponsored and organized by the Solomon Project. The bloggers will "meet with Israeli bloggers, journalists and Knesset officials," reports Yitzhak Benhorin. "The Foreign Affairs Ministry has long since been exerting considerable efforts to bring the prominent writers for an extensive tour of the country, in recognizing the influence many of the writers wield and the fact some of them represent websites that are less-than-friendly towards the (sic) Israel." The bloggers will receive briefings on Israel's perception of the security situation and will tour the area between Gaza and the West Bank, known as Israel's "narrow waistline," to illustrate the "true meaning of a return to the borders of June 4th 1967." These borders are spelled out in United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, which calls for Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967, and were the basis of the Oslo process. The bloggers may also meet Prime Minister Ehud Olmert or Foreign Affairs Minister Tzipi Livni. SOURCE: YNetNews.com, April 4, 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