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Tuesday, December 10,
2002
- Media Spin Can Separate War From Death
- "A dozen years after the
Gulf War, public perceptions of it are now very helpful to the White
House," media critic Norman Solomon writes in his Media Beat column.
"That's part of a timeworn pattern. Illusions about previous wars make
the next one seem acceptable." Reminding readers that during Operation
Desert Storm reporters in the Pentagon's press pool had to submit all
copy and footage for approval by their military handlers before filing a
story, Solomon quotes Patrick Sloyan, who covered the Gulf War for Newsday:
"In manipulating the first and often most lasting perception of Desert
Storm, the Bush administration produced not a single picture or video of
anyone being killed. This sanitized, bloodless presentation by military
briefers left the world presuming Desert Storm was a war without death."
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- Agency Underwriting Slants News Coverage
- The Pennsylvania
Department of Environmental Protection funneled money through a
non-profit organization in order to underwrite environmental reporting
on Philadelphia's leading public-radio station, WHYY, reports the
Philadelphia Daily News. The radio stories were supposed to take "a
solution-oriented approach" according to an agreement between WHYY's
news director and GreenWorks, which received $466,000 from the state
agency via a Washington, D.C., public relations firm. GreenWorks paid
$93,830 to WHYY to hire a reporter, who was to work with the GreenWorks
staff "to identify and plan the content" of his reports. "The bulk of
the state money stayed with GreenWorks, to hire three other staff
members who were supposed to help [the reporter] with his research and
post relevant material at a GreenWorks Web site," the Daily News writes.
"The reports continued until mid-October, when Gwen Shaffer, a former
GreenWorks staffer and occasional on-air contributor to WHYY, prepared a
critical, first-person account of the situation for the Columbia
Journalism Review." Source: Philadelphia Daily News, December 10,
2002
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Sunday, December 8,
2002
- "60 Minutes" Examines US Selling of War on
Iraq
- CBS's promo for its
program says: "Politicians have had to sell the public on going to war
since Colonial times, but they never had the arsenal of advertising and
communications techniques the Bush administration is using to sell a
possible war on Iraq. Bob Simon reports on those techniques and those
employed by the elder Bush prior to the 1991 Gulf War. Simon reminds
viewers that a horrible story spread widely by the first Bush
administration prior to the Gulf War about Kuwaiti
babies pulled from incubators by invading Iraqis turned out not to
be true. The current Bush administration may be also misinforming the
public in its efforts to justify a possible second war with Saddam
Hussein. ... [Simon] also interviews a former CIA agent who investigated
the oft-mentioned report that hijacker Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi
intelligence official in Prague several months before the deadly attacks
on 9/11. Despite a lack of evidence that the meeting took place, the
item was cited by administration officials as high as Vice President
Dick Cheney and ended up being reported so widely that two-thirds of
Americans polled by the Council on Foreign Relations believe Iraq was
behind the terrorist attacks of 9/11." Source: CBS News, Sunday,
December 8, 2002
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- BP Oil's $200 Million Greenwashing Campaign
- The New York Times
examines BP/Amoco, the world's second largest oil company, and its $200
million PR and advertising campaign to greenwash its image. It is an
"enormous corporate rebranding exercise, shortening its name from
British Petroleum to BP, coining the slogan "Beyond Petroleum" and
redesigning its corporate insignia. ... in came a green, yellow and
white sunburst that seemed to suggest a warm and fuzzy feeling about the
earth. ... But ... BP remains an oil company, deriving the vast majority
of its profits from the black stuff that -- from drilling rig to oil
tanker to refinery to gas station -- scars the earth, pollutes the air
and eventually warms the planet. And once the company tried to convey
its new identity in billboard form, the contradiction only deepened." As
reported in PR Watch, BP has greenwashed itself is by partnering with green
groups including the National Wildlife Federation which allowed BP
to decorate its gas stations with NWF toys and logos. Source: New
York Times, December 8, 2002
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Saturday, December 7,
2002
- Beers' Pro-US PR Offensive Employs Writers & TV
Show
- "The Bush administration
has recruited prominent American writers ... in a campaign started after
9/11 to use culture to further American diplomatic interests. ... The
Smith-Mundt Act ... bars the domestic dissemination of official American
information aimed at foreign audiences. The essays can, however, be read on a government Web site intended for
foreigners... ." The anthology is "complementing efforts by Charlotte
Beers, a former Madison Avenue advertising executive who is now under
secretary of state for public diplomacy, to sell the United States to
often hostile Muslim populations. Her campaign includes Next Chapter, a television show broadcast by the Voice
of America in Iran, a worldwide traveling exhibition of photographs of
the ravaged World Trade Center site by Joel Meyerowitz, the distribution
of videos spotlighting tolerance for American Muslims and a pamphlet
showing Muslims as part of mainstream American life." The article on
Next Chapter calls it part of "a new spin on old-fashioned American propaganda ... a
multimillion-dollar public diplomacy campaign ... to soften
anti-American feelings." Source: New York Times, December 7,
2002
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- Washington Post Repeats Iraqi Baby-Killing PR Hoax In HBO
Preview
- Tonight's HBO movie "Live
from Baghdad" has journalists repeating the false Iraqi-baby-killing
scam perpetrated by Hill & Knowlton PR in 1990. That outrageous
stunt before a make-believe congressional committee was part of a
multi-million dollar propaganda campaign funded by Kuwait to make sure
the US went to war. The crying teenage witness "Nayirah" seen in
tonight's HBO film was actually the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to
the U.S. A year later journalists documented that her
babies-thrown-from-incubators testimony was false, but most people still
remember it as true. TV critics including Tom Shales of the Washington
Post are giving the PR scam new life and a new spin. Shales writes that
in tonight's HBO film "The horror wreaked on Kuwait is brought back
vividly during a sequence in which [CNN producer Robert] Wiener and his
team travel to Kuwait to investigate allegations that Iraqi troops had
ripped babies out of incubators as part of their plundering -- remember?
Too late, Wiener realizes that he and CNN have been duped by the Iraqis
for propaganda purposes and that they were allowed into Kuwait only so
the Iraqis could use them to help discredit the incubator allegations."
But who was and is duping whom? Hill & Knowlton PR duped Shales and
the rest of the nation back in 1990 and now tonight's HBO piece will
reinforce that Big Lie. For the REAL
story of the baby-killing PR scam read the on-line excerpt from our
book Toxic Sludge Is Good For You. Source: Washington
Post, December 7, 2002
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- Cheerleading for War on TV, Resisting It
Online
- While Fox News and other
mainstream media often seem to be cheerleading for a US attack on Iraq,
an alternative media website is providing information, analysis and
anti-war advocacy that is kept off the Boob Tube. Check out Alternet's
Iraq News Log which says that "a unilateral strike against Baghdad is
both unwarranted and potentially disastrous. This content file offers
readers breaking news, the best analysis, activism resources, and timely
information they need to resist this precipitous rush to war."
Source: www.alternet.org, December 7, 2002
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Friday, December 6,
2002
- Saudi PR/Lobby Firms Dodging Congressional
Subpoenas
- O'Dwyer's reports that top
PR and lobby firms for the Saudis are dodging subpoenas from the
Congressional Committee on Government Reform. Says the O'Dwyer website
(now only accessible by subscription, but well worth the fee), "Michael
Petruzzello, head of Qorvis Communicatins and Jack Deschauer of Patton
Boggs, were not found at their offices or homes by U.S. Marshals,
according to The New York Sun. A lawyer for Jamie Gallagher of the
Gallagher Group stalled Congressional staffers until too late in the day
for agents to serve a subpoena, reports The New York Post. The firms
have claimed their documents are privileged under the Vienna Convention
on Consular Records. Representative Burton (R-Ind.) is investigating
cases of children born of mixed U.S./Saudi parents who were allegedly
kidnapped to Saudi Arabia." Source: www.odwyerpr.com, December 6,
2002
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- Qorvis PR in Turmoil Over Saudis, Three Partners
Quit
- "Saudi Arabia's latest
public relations problem may be with its public relations firm. Three of
the founding partners in the Washington firm, Qorvis Communications,
have announced that they are leaving, and associates say their departure
reflects a deep discomfort in representing the government of Saudi
Arabia against accusations that Saudi leaders have turned a blind eye to
terrorism. The firm, hired by the Saudi government in the aftermath of
the Sept. 11 attacks, has been paid about $200,000 a month to help the
Saudis bolster their battered image with the American public. The most
prominent of the departing executives is Judy Smith, a former White
House deputy press secretary who became the spokeswoman for Monica
Lewinsky during President Clinton's impeachment ... . She and the other
departing partners - Bernie Merritt and Jim Weber, two longtime
Republican Party strategists - announced on Wednesday that they were
leaving Qorvis to join a New York-based consulting and public relations
firm, Clark & Weinstock. Spokesmen for the Saudi Embassy and Qorvis
did not return phone calls for comment." Source: New York Times,
December 6, 2002
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Thursday, December 5,
2002
- Iraqis Killing Babies? HBO Recycles 'Nayirah' PR
Hoax
- Fairness and Accuracy in
Reporting (FAIR) warns that "the fraudulent story of Iraqi soldiers
throwing Kuwaiti babies out of incubators during the occupation of
Kuwait in 1990 is depicted as if it were true in 'Live from Baghdad,'
the HBO film premiering on the cable network this Saturday that purports
to tell the story behind CNN's coverage of the Gulf War. HBO and CNN are
both owned by the AOL Time Warner media conglomerate. ... In the film,
the story is turned upside down, portrayed as a deft public relations
move by the Iraqi government, who grant CNN access to Kuwait in a
calculated attempt to discredit the rumors that their soldiers were
pulling babies from incubators. ... 'Live from Baghdad' is a
dramatization, not a documentary, but it is being presented by HBO as a
'behind-the-scenes true story' of the Gulf War and is being released at
a crucial political moment." For the REAL true story of the 'Nayirah'
baby killing PR scam, orchestrated by Hill & Knowlton, read How PR
Sold the War in the Persian Gulf from our book Toxic
Sludge Is Good For You. Source: Fairness and Accuracy in
Reporting
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Wednesday, December 4,
2002
- The Dow of Satire
- During the past two days,
PR Watch received emails alerting us of an unbelievable press release
from Dow Chemical. "DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION," read
the release headline. "Many individuals within Dow feel tremendous
sorrow about the Bhopal disaster," the release read. However, Dow has
"responsibilities to our shareholders and our industry colleagues that
make action on Bhopal impossible." The release directs people to the
website "www.dow-chemical.com" for Dow's statement on Bhopal. But what
readers were really being directed to was a clever spoof of the real Dow website. According
to the straight-faced spoof, "Cleaning up Bhopal could open up Dow to
greater liability than the moral weight of this issue can justify from a
profitability standpoint. As we look at the situation today, few people
outside of India really remember Bhopal, or that Union Carbide was at
fault for the accident. Even fewer realize that Dow bought Union
Carbide." The joke must not have gone over well at Dow, because at the
time of this posting the site had been taken down.
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- Drug Companies Profit from Deceptive Ads
- "Some companies have
repeatedly disseminated misleading advertisements for prescription
drugs, even after being cited for violations, and millions of people see
the deceptive commercials before the government tries to halt them,
Congressional investigators said today. The investigators, from the
General Accounting Office, said Pfizer, for example, had continued to
make misleading claims in advertisements for its cholesterol-lowering
drug Lipitor, despite several letters from the Food and Drug
Administration in the last four years. In a new report, the accounting
office said that drug company advertising appeared to produce a
significant increase in the use of prescription drugs, as well as higher
drug spending. The report criticized delays in the enforcement of
federal standards for the accuracy of drug advertising and attributed
much of the delay to a recent change in procedure by the Bush
administration that lengthens the review process." Source: New York
Times, December 4, 2002
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- 'Tis the Season of Urgent Fundraising
Appeals
- Since its founding nine
years ago, the Center for Media & Democracy remains the world's only
organization dedicated to investigating and exposing special interest
propaganda. In those nine years, we've published 36 issues of our
award-winning quarterly, PR Watch. CMD staff members have written
three acclaimed books and spoken to thousands of people in most states
and many countries. We've conducted hundreds of interviews, from the
smallest radio stations to the largest TV networks, and with newspapers
including the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal and
Washington Post. Unfortunately, however, success in our mission does not
guarantee our survival. On the contrary, it places greater demands upon
us. That's why we hope you'll take a moment right now to visit our online donation page and send a contribution
so that our work can continue. The Center has survived as a spunky,
underfunded organization thanks to a small but dedicated staff. We
refuse grants from businesses and government to maintain our
independence, so personal contributions from people like you are crucial
in funding our work. Source: December 4, 2002
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Tuesday, December 3,
2002
- One Nation Under Fox
- There's something
"incredibly creepy" about Fox TV mogul Roger Ailes, writes Michael
Wolff: "He looks the way you imagine the man behind the curtain looking:
That is, he doesn't care about how he looks (which is, as it happens,
gray and corpulent). He understands it's all manipulation." Wolff
examines the techniques that Ailes has used to turn his right-wing
network into a ratings phenomenon: "Fox is not really about politics
(CNN, with its antiseptic beltway p.o.v., is arguably more about
politics than Fox). It certainly isn't arguing a consistent right-wing
case. Rather, it's about having a chip on your shoulder; it's about us
versus them, insiders versus outsiders, phonies versus non-phonies, and,
in a clever piece of postmodernism, established media against insurgent
media. ... In the conventional-wisdom swamp of television, this passes
for serious counter-programming. "
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- The Fake Parade
- Outside the World Summit
on Sustainable Development held in August in Johannesburg, there were
poor street vendors and farmers holding signs and wearing t-shirts
reading: "Save the Planet from Sustainable Development", "Say No To
Eco-Imperialism", "Greens: Stop Hurting the Poor" and "Biotechnology for
Africa." The problem, according to environmental reporter and activist
Jonathan Matthews is that the anti-environmentalist demonstration was
organized by the corporations that environmentalist wanted to be held
accountable. "The counterattack takes place via a contrarian lens, one
that projects the attackers' vices onto their target. Thus the problem
becomes not Monsanto using questionable tactics to push its products
onto a wary South, but malevolent agents of the rich world obstructing
Monsanto's acceptance in a welcoming Third World," Matthews writes.
Source: The Freezerbox, December 3, 2002
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Monday, December 2,
2002
- The Pentagon Muzzles the CIA
- "Even as it prepares for
war against Iraq, the Pentagon is already engaged on a second front: its
war against the Central Intelligence Agency. The Pentagon is bringing
relentless pressure to bear on the agency to produce intelligence
reports more supportive of war with Iraq," writes Robert Dreyfuss.
"Morale inside the U.S. national-security apparatus is said to be low,
with career staffers feeling intimidated and pressured to justify the
push for war." Much of the pro-war faction's information comes from the
Iraqi National Congress (INC), a PR front group established in the early 1990s by the Rendon Group.
"But most Iraq hands with long experience in dealing with that country's
tumultuous politics consider the INC's intelligence-gathering abilities
to be nearly nil," Dreyfuss writes. "The Pentagon's critics are appalled
that intelligence provided by the INC might shape U.S. decisions about
going to war against Baghdad. At the CIA and at the State Department,
Ahmed Chalabi, the INC's leader, is viewed as the ineffectual head of a
self-inflated and corrupt organization skilled at lobbying and public
relations, but not much else." Source: The American
Prospect
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- Colombian Journalist Gets Applause, But No
Coverage
- "Colombian journalist Ignacio
Gomez told a roomful of America's most influential journalists
Tuesday how Washington-supported Colombian president Alvaro Uribe is
connected to drug traffickers and how U.S. military trainers helped organize a massacre in
his country," reports Lucy Komisar. "Among the 1,000 guests at the
Committee to Protect Journalists' annual dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria
grand ballroom were NBC's Tom Brokaw, CBS's Dan Rather, Time-Warner's
Walter Isaacson, Reuters CEO Thomas Glocer and executives and reporters
from the nation's major TV networks, newspapers and newsmagazines.
Gomez, 40, has twice gone into exile after death threats. The media
'stars' applauded him for his courage. But did they put his revelations into
print or on air? If you didn't see the stories he recounted in the
American press, don't be surprised." Source: American Reporter,
December 2, 2002
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- The
Perils of Court Reporting
- Bob Woodward's reporting
on the Watergate story made him a journalistic legend, but his reliance
on secret sources troubles Richard Blow. "Among journalists who care
about nagging details like accuracy, there will also be the inevitable
handwringing over Woodward's dubious reporting methods, the fact that he
writes from a fly-on-the-wall perspective yet never identifies his
sources," Blow writes. "Speaking anonymously allows people to say things
that they don't have to be held accountable for, and without
accountability there is no impediment to spinning, manipulating and just
plain using the reporter." This is particularly evident, Blow says, in
Woodward's recent book about President Bush, which
paints Bush as "a wise, determined executive, a master at manipulating
and motivating the world-weary Washington insiders around him, a
visionary leader who wants to use the war on terrorism to effect world
peace and the end of human suffering. ... You have to give George Bush
credit for one thing. He was smart enough to figure out how to play Bob
Woodward like a maestro, and now he has the hagiography to show for it."
Source: TomPaine.com, December 2, 2002
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