[Media-watch] FW: The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, June 4, 2003

Wed Jun 4 09:48:09 BST 2003

lots of stuff on Iraq deceptions here

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From: spin at prwatch.org
Date: 4 Jun 2003 05:00:00 -0000
To: weekly-spin at prwatch.org
Subject: The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, June 4, 2003

THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, June 4, 2003
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THIS WEEK'S NEWS

1. Weapons of Mass Deception
2. Sell Job on Iraq -- Worst Scandal Ever in US Politics?
3. America's Matrix
4. PR Firm Gets 'Public Interest' Groups Fronting for Industry
5. Efforts to Contain Mad Cow Disease Fall Short
6. FCC Ruling Fuels Movement for Media Democracy
7. Show Me The Weapons
8. Hyping the Heck out of Nanotech, the Next Biotech
9. Spun Doctors
10. Feeding the Rage
11. War on Iraq Reads Like One Big 'Wag the Dog' Tale
12. Save Our Spooks
13. FCC Favors Industry Over Consumers
14. The Unseen War
15. Status Report on Iraq War Myths
16. Former Hill & Knowlton Chair Calls PR 'A Game'
17. HRT Maker's PR Activities Raise Concern
18. Spinning Global Capitalism
19. Trust In Media Keeps Slipping
20. Middle East TV To Take Cues From American Cable News
21. "Wal-Martizing" the Media
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1. WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION
http://www.prwatch.org/books/wmd.html
  PR Watch editors Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber have written a
  new book, titled Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda
  in Bush's War on Iraq. Available in bookstores on July 28, Weapons
  of Mass Deception will be the first book to expose the aggressive
  public relations campaign used to sell the American public on the
  war with Iraq. Journalists and book reviewers should email our
  office to request a review copy.
More web links related to this story are available at:
   http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2003.html#1054699200
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
   http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1054699200

2. SELL JOB ON IRAQ -- WORST SCANDAL EVER IN US POLITICS?
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/03/opinion/03KRUG.html?ex=1055646417&ei=1&en=
c940ce95469728ba
  Columnist Paul Krugman writes that "the public was told that Saddam
  posed an imminent threat. If that claim was fraudulent, the selling
  of the war is arguably the worst scandal in American political
  history - worse than Watergate, worse than Iran-contra. Indeed, the
  idea that we were deceived into war makes many commentators so
  uncomfortable that they refuse to admit the possibility. But here's
  the thought that should make those commentators really
  uncomfortable. Suppose that this administration did con us into
  war. And suppose that it is not held accountable for its
  deceptions, so Mr. Bush can fight what Mr. Hastings calls a 'khaki
  election' next year. In that case, our political system has become
  utterly, and perhaps irrevocably, corrupted." 
SOURCE: New York Times, June 3, 2003
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
   http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1054612800

3. AMERICA'S MATRIX
http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/060103a.html
  In a wide-ranging critique of the Matrix-like "false reality" that
  Americans experience through their TV screens, journalist Bob Parry
  examines the CIA's recent report on mobile laboratories that it
  claims were designed to produce biological weapons. "The report
  reads like one more example of selective intelligence, which spurns
  plausible alternatives if they don't fit Bush's political needs,"
  Parry states. "Captured scientists said the labs were used to
  produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons. In the CIA-DIA
  report, U.S. analysts agreed that hydrogen production was a
  plausible explanation for the labs." Moreover, "U.S. intelligence
  analysts found no evidence that these labs had been used to make
  biological weapons or that the two labs alone could produce
  weaponized BW agents. But that was obviously the wrong answer. ...
  So the CIA-DIA analysis veered off into an argumentative direction.
  The report asserted that the labs would be 'inefficient' for
  producing hydrogen" and "concluded that hydrogen production must be
  a 'cover story.'"
SOURCE: Consortium News, June 2, 2003
More web links related to this story are available at:
   http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2003.html#1054526405
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
   http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1054526405

4. PR FIRM GETS 'PUBLIC INTEREST' GROUPS FRONTING FOR INDUSTRY
http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/06_02_03_pressrelease.html
  "[T]he Gray Panthers, a public interest group that defends the
  rights of senior citizens, took out full page ads in newspapers
  around the country calling on federal officials to stop awarding
  federal contracts to MCI WorldCom -- which committed one of the
  largest corporate frauds in history. ... At the bottom of the ads,
  in small type, is this: 'This ad was paid for by Gray Panthers.' In
  fact, the $200,000 spent by the Gray Panthers to place the
  newspaper ads was raised by Issue Dynamics Inc., a Washington,
  D.C.-based [PR] consulting firm that represents the Baby Bells in
  their fight against WorldCom and that specializes in 'bridging gaps
  between industry and consumer groups on public policy issues.' ...
  Over the past couple of years, Issue Dynamics played a pivotal role
  in turning the National Consumers League from a consumer group into
  a corporate front group. And last year, Sam Simon, Issue Dynamics'
  founder and president, was named chairman of the board of the
  National Consumers League ."
SOURCE: Corporate Crime Reporter, June 2, 2003
More web links related to this story are available at:
   http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2003.html#1054526404
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
   http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1054526404

5. EFFORTS TO CONTAIN MAD COW DISEASE FALL SHORT
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2003-06-02-edit_x.htm
  In 1997 Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber wrote Mad Cow USA, warning
  that that mad cow type diseases were possible in the U.S. Even now,
  in the face of North America's first case of mad cow disease in
  Canada, the powerful livestock industry and their friends in
  government are refusing to adopt the strict British standards
  regarding animal feeding and testing. USA Today editorializes that
  "Lax federal regulation and enforcement have left the U.S. beef
  supply and consumers' health unnecessarily vulnerable to an
  outbreak of mad cow... . ... The 1997 partial ban does not include
  cattle blood, which is fed to calves as a replacement for milk. ...
  A total ban on animal additives in animal feed would greatly reduce
  remaining risks. ... But the cattle industry and the FDA argue that
  a ban on animal products in feed is unnecessary because adequate
  safeguards against mad cow already are in place. ... That argument
  hides the industry's economic incentive to keep low-cost sources of
  animal protein in the diets of cattle."
SOURCE: USA Today, June 2, 2003
More web links related to this story are available at:
   http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2003.html#1054526403
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
   http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1054526403

6. FCC RULING FUELS MOVEMENT FOR MEDIA DEMOCRACY
http://www.mediareform.net/conference.php
  John Nichols writes in the Nation on-line that today's "3-2 vote by
  the Federal Communications Commission to remove barriers to
  corporate consolidation of control over the media capped a process
  that ... bent the rules to serve the special interests. ... In
  addition to provoking passionate opposition ... this spring's
  debate over the six sweeping changes in media ownership regulations
  drew more scrutiny of the FCC than had ever before been seen. And
  that attention has revealed an agency where corporations that are
  supposed to be regulated enjoy extraordinary access to the
  regulators and the favorable treatment that extends from that
  access." Nichols is one of many journalists, critics, public
  interest activists and public officials participating in the first
  National Conference on Media Reform this November 7-9 in Madison,
  Wisconsin, geared to building a political movement to democratize
  American media.
SOURCE: The Nation online, June 2, 2003
More web links related to this story are available at:
   http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2003.html#1054526402
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
   http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1054526402

7. SHOW ME THE WEAPONS
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=RJ53EER4TABMYCRBAELCFEY?type
=politicsNews&storyID=2865622
  Lawmakers in both the House and Senate are asking the White House
  for more information behind its charges that Iraq had weapons of
  mass destruction. Reuters reports, "Senate Armed Services Committee
  Chairman John Warner, a Virginia Republican, said his panel would
  hold hearings on the issue, possibly along with the Senate
  Intelligence Committee, because 'the situation is becoming one
  where the credibility of the administration and Congress is being
  challenged.' Rep. Henry Waxman of California, top Democrat on the
  House of Representatives Government Reform Committee, called on
  President Bush to explain why the administration repeatedly cited
  dubious and later discredited documents to back a claim that Iraq
  may have been pursuing nuclear weapons."
SOURCE: Reuters, June 2, 2003
More web links related to this story are available at:
   http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2003.html#1054526401
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
   http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1054526401

8. HYPING THE HECK OUT OF NANOTECH, THE NEXT BIOTECH
  "Nanotech joins biotech among those promising technologies that
  hold the potential to change our world radically," Citigate
  Cunningham vice president Bill Bennett told PR trade publication
  The Holmes Report. Many in the PR industry are looking to
  nanotechology as the next big thing. "Such potential will never be
  without controversy, and already there are pockets of 'gray goo'
  paranoia springing up. The key here is to show the marketplace that
  the risks are no different than those attending the advent of the
  ATM," Bennett said. While the PR marketers paid to over-hype
  biotech are preparing to do the same for nanotechnology, public
  interest activists led by ETC Group are raising serious
  precautionary concerns about the downside of the rapidly developing
  new technology.
SOURCE: The Holmes Report, June 2, 2003
Web links related to this story are available at:
   http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2003.html#1054526400
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
   http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1054526400

9. SPUN DOCTORS
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7400/1205
  "Few doctors have heard of the world's leading medical public
  relations companies - Edelman, Ruder Finn, Noonan/Russo Presence,
  the Shire Health Group, and Medical Action Communications, among
  others," write Bob Burton and Andy Rowell in the British Medical
  Journal. "Yet barely a day passes without most doctors or their
  patients being exposed to messages that have been carefully crafted
  by these public relations companies, aimed at boosting sales of
  their clients' drugs." Several other articles in the same issue of
  the BMJ examine the ethical conflicts of interest involved in drug
  company PR and the crisis of confidence they have helped create for
  the health care industry.
SOURCE: British Medical Journal, May 31, 2003
More web links related to this story are available at:
   http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2003.html#1054353600
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
   http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1054353600

10. FEEDING THE RAGE
http://www.Journalismjobs.com/matt_labash.cfm
  In a candid interview about being a conservative reporter, Weekly
  Standard senior writer Matt Labash explained to JournalismJobs.com
  why conservative media has become so popular. "Because they feed
  the rage," Labash said. "We bring the pain to the liberal media. I
  say that mockingly, but it's true somewhat. We come with a strong
  point of view and people like point of view journalism. While all
  these hand-wringing Freedom Forum types talk about objectivity, the
  conservative media likes to rap the liberal media on the knuckles
  for not being objective. We've created this cottage industry in
  which it pays to be un-objective. ... Criticize other people for
  not being objective. Be as subjective as you want. It's a great
  little racket." Former executive editor of George Magazine Richard
  Blow commented on the interview, "I suspect that liberals would
  rather calm angry passions than incite them, that they seek harmony
  rather than promote division, and as earnest as that may sound, I
  still think it's better."
SOURCE: Journalismjobs.com, May 2003
More web links related to this story are available at:
   http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2003.html#1054337268
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
   http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1054337268

11. WAR ON IRAQ READS LIKE ONE BIG 'WAG THE DOG' TALE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/30/opinion/30KRUG.html?ex=1055601598&ei=1&en=
cda94af2aafc8235
  Columnist Paul Krugman compares the war on Iraq to the 1997 movie
  Wag the Dog, saying that "if you don't think it bears a resemblance
  to recent events, you're in denial" because "much of the supposed
  justification for the war turns out to have been fictional. The war
  was justified to the public by links between Saddam and Al Qaeda,
  and Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction. No evidence
  of the Qaeda link has ever surfaced, and no W.M.D.'s that could
  have posed any threat to the U.S. or its allies have been found.
  ... Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, recently told
  Vanity Fair that the decision to emphasize W.M.D.'s had been taken
  for 'bureaucratic reasons . . . because it was the one reason
  everyone could agree on.' ... For the time being, the public
  doesn't seem to care - or even want to know. A new poll by the
  Program on International Policy Attitudes finds that 41 percent of
  Americans either believe that W.M.D.'s have been found, or aren't
  sure."
SOURCE: May 30, 2003, New York Times
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
   http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1054267201

12. SAVE OUR SPOOKS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/30/opinion/30KRIS.html?pagewanted=print
  "The American people were manipulated" about alleged Iraqi weapons
  of mass destruction, says a member of the Defense Intelligence
  Agency. Several U.S. intelligence officers who are angry about the
  politicized distortion of their work and have formed a group called
  Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. "While there have
  been occasions in the past when intelligence has been deliberately
  warped for political purposes," they stated in an open letter to
  President Bush, "never before has such warping been used in such a
  systematic way to mislead our elected representatives into voting
  to authorize launching a war."
SOURCE: New York Times, May 30, 2003
More web links related to this story are available at:
   http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2003.html#1054267200
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
   http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1054267200

13. FCC FAVORS INDUSTRY OVER CONSUMERS
http://www.public-i.org
  "The nation's top broadcasters have met behind closed doors with
  Federal Communications Commission officials more than 70 times to
  discuss a sweeping set of proposals to relax media ownership
  rules," the Center for Public Integrity writes. "The private
  sessions included dozens of meetings between broadcasters and the
  agency's five commissioners and their top advisors. A June 2 vote
  is scheduled on the controversial proposals, which critics fear
  will touch off a major new round of media consolidation. In
  contrast, FCC officials held five private sessions with Consumers
  Union and the Media Access Project, the two major consumer groups
  working on the issue, since the proposals first surfaced eight
  months ago."
SOURCE: Center for Public Integrity, May 29, 2003
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
   http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1054180801

14. THE UNSEEN WAR
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16293
  "Before arriving in Doha, I had spent hours watching CNN back home,
  and I was sadly reminded of the network's steady decline in recent
  years," writes Michael Massing. "Paula Zahn looked and talked like
  a cheerleader for the US forces; Aaron Brown kept reaching for the
  profound remark without ever finding it; Wolf Blitzer politely
  interviewed Washington's high and mighty, seldom asking a pointed
  question. None of them, however, appeared on the broadcasts I saw
  in Doha. CNN International bore more resemblance to the BBC than to
  its domestic edition - a difference that showed just how
  market-driven were the tone and content of the broadcasts. For the
  most part, US news organizations gave Americans the war they
  thought Americans wanted to see."
SOURCE: New York Review of Books, May 29, 2003
More web links related to this story are available at:
   http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2003.html#1054180800
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
   http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1054180800

15. STATUS REPORT ON IRAQ WAR MYTHS
http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20030528.html
  In the wake of the war in Iraq, a number of questions have arisen
  about events during the war and Iraq's alleged possession of
  weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda. Brendan Nyhan and
  Bryan Keefer sift through the evidence to date and attempt to
  separate spin from reality regarding events including the looting
  of Iraq's National Museum and the capture and rescue of Private
  Jessica Lynch.
SOURCE: Spinsanity, May 28, 2003
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
   http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1054094402

16. FORMER HILL & KNOWLTON CHAIR CALLS PR 'A GAME'
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/28/nyregion/28PSYC.html?pagewanted=print&posi
tion=
  "Public relations was a game," former Hill & Knowlton chair Dick
  Cheney (no relation to the vice president) told the New York Times'
  Geraldine Fabrikant. "It was a fun game, but it was really just a
  game," said Cheney, who left PR to become a psychoanalyst. Cheney
  worked for H&K, one of the world's largest PR firms, on business
  takeovers between 1960 and 1993. Comments on the O'Dwyer's PR Daily
  website take issue with Cheney's career move. "Cheney helps one
  person at a time but a good PR writer helps millions," Ron Levy
  writes. "PR person with health accounts can lead patients to
  knowledge of drugs that help the mind and the body. ... Cheney
  charges people for his advice but PR brings the public advice FREE
  from the world's leading experts ... --experts who become
  increasingly expert at their specialties while Cheney spent time at
  what he now calls a game."
SOURCE: New York Times, May 28, 2003
More web links related to this story are available at:
   http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2003.html#1054094401
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
   http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1054094401

17. HRT MAKER'S PR ACTIVITIES RAISE CONCERN
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/28/1053801419770.html
  The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a booklet put out by the
  Australasian Menopause Society that "suggested [hormone replacement
  therapy] could prevent heart disease, Alzheimer's and ageing skin,
  yet ... failed to mention the established side-effect of blood
  clots, or the accumulating evidence that the drugs were causing
  heart disease" was drafted by HRT manufacturer, Wyeth, and its PR
  firm, Hill & Knowlton. HRT's revenues for Wyeth are $3 billion a
  year. With the release of a major study that reports a particular
  combination of hormones are twice as likely to lead to dementia for
  older women, the Herald writes, "there is more concern about
  Wyeth's behind-the-scenes activities. Scientists who conducted the
  dementia study are concerned that the company secretly briefed
  selected medical societies long before today's JAMA paper was out,
  in order to allow those societies plenty of time to prepare
  positions for the PR battle that is certain to erupt."
SOURCE: Sydney Morning Herald, May 28, 2003
More web links related to this story are available at:
   http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2003.html#1054094400
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
   http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1054094400

18. SPINNING GLOBAL CAPITALISM
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/May2003/x-GlobalPR.html
  "[I]n a way the term public relations is misleading, because the
  vast majority of PR is hidden from the public," David Miller writes
  in the British magazine Red Pepper. "PR is much more important than
  just media spin. It is the very lifeblood of the global capitalist
  system. PR can only flourish as a profession and an industry in a
  society run on market principles. The further a society moves away
  from neo-liberal dogma the less role there is for the PR industry
  and vice versa." 
SOURCE: Red Pepper, May 27, 2003
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
   http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1054008002

19. TRUST IN MEDIA KEEPS SLIPPING
http://www.usatoday.com/life/2003-05-27-media-trust_x.htm
  "Public confidence in the media, already low, continues to dip,"
  reports Peter Johnson. In a recent survey, only 36 percent of
  respondents, among the lowest in years, believe news organizations
  get the facts straight.
SOURCE: USA Today, May 27, 2003
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
   http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1054008001

20. MIDDLE EAST TV TO TAKE CUES FROM AMERICAN CABLE NEWS
http://www.prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=180835&site=3
  The White House is dedicating $60 million to the proposed Middle
  East TV Network. The Broadcasting Board of Governors, a federal
  agency, will oversee the network, which will be headed by former
  CNN Washington bureau chief William Headline. "The BBG is currently
  doing market research in several Muslim countries that will
  determine the network's programming," PR Week writes. "Government
  officials are insisting that the network's purpose is not to
  influence Muslims with US propaganda, but to bring independent
  journalism into a region more accustomed to government-controlled
  press. 'The network would present objective news and information in
  a format similar to an American cable news network,' read a BBG
  statement." 
SOURCE: PR Week, May 26, 2003
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
   http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1053921602

21. "WAL-MARTIZING" THE MEDIA
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40440-2003May26.html
  "Critics say the chance of hearing unique and offbeat voices in
  broadcasting could drop dramatically even as the number of outlets
  proliferates when the Federal Communications Commission votes on
  media ownership rules in about a week," reports Reshma Kapadia.
  "Like the Wal-Mart supercenters that have crowded out the
  mom-and-pop stores on Main Street and changed the U.S. retail
  landscape, the five major media owners could tighten their grip on
  programming, squeezing out local and independent views."
SOURCE: Reuters, May 26, 2003
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
   http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1053921601

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