== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. Embedding Military Propagandists into the News Media
2. Election Math: How are Pennsylvania’s delegates allocated?
3. This Earth Day, Let’s Scrape off the Greenwash
4. Weekly Radio Spin: Merck’s Having Chest Pains
== BE A CITIZEN JOURNALIST ==
1. Featured Participatory Project: Who Are the Pentagon’s Pundits?
== SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS ==
1. Extinguishing Media Coverage of Olympic Torch Protests
2. Trust Me, I Trust the Experts
3. Businesses Lobby During “Earth Month” to Protect Plastic Bags
4. Auto Racing for Clean Air?
5. Finally, Advertisers Have More Say
6. Media’s Military Analysts Involved in “Psyops on Steroids”
7. Audit Reveals the PR Machine Behind Canadian Global Warming Skeptics
8. Obama and Clinton Get Down & Dirty with “Clean” Coal
9. Bad Times for Freedom’s Watch
10. A Defense of Even Faker News
11. More Heart Attacks for Merck
12. King Coal Gets Green Help Down Under
13. State Legislators Have a Telecom Front Group’s Number
——————————————————————–
== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. EMBEDDING MILITARY PROPAGANDISTS INTO THE NEWS MEDIA
by John Stauber
David Barstow of the New York Times has written the first
installment in what is already a stunning expos of the Bush
Administration’s most powerful propaganda weapon used to sell and
manage the war on Iraq: the embedding of military propagandists
directly into the TV networks as on-air commentators. We and others
have long criticized the widespread TV network practice of hiring
former military officials to serve as analysts, but even in our most
cynical moments we did not anticipate how bad it was. Barstow has
painstakingly documented how these analysts, most of them military
industry consultants and lobbyists, were directly chosen, managed,
coordinated and given their talking points by the Pentagon’s
ministers of propaganda.
To read the rest of this item, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7241
2. ELECTION MATH: HOW ARE PENNSYLVANIA’S DELEGATES ALLOCATED?
by Conor Kenny
By Avelino Maestas
With voters heading to the polls in Pennsylvania today, some
people might be wondering how the delegates in Pennsylvania are
alloted. Well, Congresspedia has you covered! Pennsylvania will send
187 delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August,
including 29 superdelegates that will certainly help decide the
nomination. Pennsylvania voters, on the other hand, will play a role
in choosing the other 158 delegates today: 103 will be allocated by
congressional district, while 55 are based on the statewide vote
totals.
As this CQ Politics article points out, regions in
Pennsylvania that leaned toward Democrats in the most recent
presidential and gubernatorial elections received more delegates
from the state party. In addition, the state’s 19 congressional
districts use a proportional system to determine how many delegates
a candidate receives at the convention. Hillary Clinton and Barack
Obama will easily clear the 15% threshold mandated by the DNC, but
the number of delegates they receive will depend on how well they
perform in the districts.
To read the rest of this item, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7239
3. THIS EARTH DAY, LET’S SCRAPE OFF THE GREENWASH
by Sheldon Rampton
Today marks the 38th annual celebration of Earth Day, and
once again the event comes with its fair share of PR hype and
misleading marketing campaigns. In the spirit of dedicating
ourselves to genuine concern for the planet, today is therefore a
good time to look carefully at corporate environmental claims, some
of which consist more of empty rhetoric than real substance.
Companies like Wal-Mart are announcing environmental
initiatives. General Electric has its “Ecomagnation” advertising
campaign. In Singapore, a shopping center is advertising that
customers can “shop to save planet earth” — and if they buy enough,
they might win a new car!
The ritual of green hypocrisy frequently requires that
companies and politicians redefine environmental progress in
increasingly creative ways. Last week, for example, George W. Bush
announced a plan to address the problem of global warming by
“halting the growth” of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by the year
2025. Beyond the fact that this target date is 17 years in the
future, what really means is that during those 17 years not only
will greenhouse gas emissions continue, the amount of those
emissions will continue to grow. As columnist Gail Collins observed
in the New York Times, this would be akin to having an overweight
person announce a plan to achieve “an 18 percent reduction in the
rate at which he was gaining weight, to be reached within the next
decade.”
To read the rest of this item, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7226
4. WEEKLY RADIO SPIN: MERCK’S HAVING CHEST PAINS
by Judith Siers-Poisson
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 Barbie celebrates
Earth Day, why Freedom’s Watch is under scrutiny, and how some
environmental groups could think giving “clean coal” a closer look
makes sense. In “Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin’,” we run down
Merck’s long history of using spin to counter their Vioxx scandal.
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!
To read the rest of this item, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7222
== BE A CITIZEN JOURNALIST ==
1. FEATURED PARTICIPATORY PROJECT: WHO ARE THE PENTAGON’S PUNDITS?
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7240
On Sunday, the New York Times outed the Pentagon’s “military
analyst program,” an extensive effort to cultivate retired military
officers as “message force multipliers” or “surrogates” spouting
Bush administration talking points on Iraq and other hot-button
issues. We’ve compiled a list of known participants, and started
SourceWatch profiles on each. Can you help us uncover more about the
Pentagon’s pundits? What did they say, on what news programs? Do
they also lobby on behalf of defense contractors? More information
on the program is at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pentagon_military_analyst_program.
The list of participants is also at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Investigating_the_Pentagon%27s_pundits,
with tips on how to investigate each. If this is your first time editing
on SourceWatch, you can go to www.SourceWatch.org for more information.
THANKS FOR YOUR HELP!
SOURCE: SourceWatch, April 23, 2008
== SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS ==
1. EXTINGUISHING MEDIA COVERAGE OF OLYMPIC TORCH PROTESTS
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7242
Pro-Tibet groups plan protests when the Olympic Torch procession
gets to Canberra, the Australian capital, but the Beijing Organizing
Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) has taken pre-emptive steps
to minimize unfavourable media coverage. Paul Maley reports that
“only a small clutch of media would be allowed to travel with the
torch inside the security corridor.” The Australian Capital
Territory government’s director of communications, Jeremy Lasek,
said BOCOG “stipulated” that “the host broadcaster for the TV and
radio rights gets a slot” in the media vehicle accompanying the
torch. The national president of the Council for Civil Liberties,
Terry O’Gorman, countered that there’s a “clear conflict of
interest” in giving preference to media companies with broadcast
rights to the Games. “They’ve got an interest in promoting the Games
and minimising any negative impact that the protests would have on
the Games coverage,” he said. Hill & Knowlton has the PR contract
with BOCOG.
SOURCE: The Australian, April 22, 2008
2. TRUST ME, I TRUST THE EXPERTS
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7238
A federal appeals court in Manhattan has ruled that Christine Todd
Whitman, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency,
cannot be held personally liable for false reassurances that she
gave about the air quality in New York City following the terrorist
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. As we reported previously, reassurances
from Whitman’s EPA encouraged rescue workers to dig through the
rubble, often without face masks or other respiratory protection, in
their frantic search for survivors. Hundreds of firefighters and
other rescue workers subsequently became disabled from “World Trade
Center cough” linked to asbestos and other deadly dust caused by the
collapse of New York’s Twin Towers. In defense of her handling of
the crisis, Whitman says that “Every statement I made was based on
what experts, who had a great deal of experience in these things,
conveyed to me.” (Whitman now works as a spokesperson for the
nuclear power industry, which is also safe according to their
experts.)
SOURCE: New York Times, April 23, 2008
3. BUSINESSES LOBBY DURING “EARTH MONTH” TO PROTECT PLASTIC BAGS
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7236
The Progressive Bag Alliance, the American Chemistry Council and
Wal-Mart Stores were among the parties who successfully lobbied
Democratic Pennsylvania State Representative Lisa Bennington to
weaken a bill she introduced that would have phased out the use of
non-biodegradable plastic bags at large grocery stores. The business
and industry groups convinced the legislator to water down her bill,
so that retailers are only required to offer bag recycling programs.
The change fits a lobbying strategy used repeatedly by the
Progressive Bag Alliance, a front group for plastics and polymer
manufacturers. Wal-Mart quietly lobbied against this bill while
greening up its public image. The giant retailer announced new
“Earth-friendly” products like organic disposable baby wipes, and
ran “Earth Month” TV ads featuring people standing in forests,
grassy fields and by streams, while promoting Wal-Mart products.
SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 22, 2008
4. AUTO RACING FOR CLEAN AIR?
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7234
Swiss auto racer Simona De Silvestro isn’t only “the second woman
in the 34-year history of the Cooper Tires Presents The Atlantic
Championship Powered by Mazda to win a race with her victory in the
Imperial Capital Bank Atlantic Challenge of Long Beach.” Believe it
or not, there’s another sponsor involved — the U.S. nuclear power
lobby group the Nuclear Energy Institute. “It was a very tough
weekend, especially on Friday, but we got everything together,” De
Silvestro said about her recent win. “For the race, I was pretty
confident, because the car felt really good. … I also need to
thank the Nuclear Energy Institute for supporting me. I am proud to
be a brand ambassador for the Nuclear Clean Air Energy Initiative.”
SOURCE: Champ Car Atlantic News, April 20, 2008
5. FINALLY, ADVERTISERS HAVE MORE SAY
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7233
NBC Universal and Omnicom’s Media Group Digital are partnering to
create online videos “that help advertisers sell their products.”
The first “Digital Studio” programs will include “a science-fiction
series starring Rosario Dawson called ‘Gemini Division’ and a quirky
comedy about a college-aged zombie called ‘Woke Up Dead,'” reports
AP. Initial advertisers include Intel, Cisco Systems and Microsoft.
Omnicom’s Matt Spiegel said the collaboration provides “a unique way
of giving brands a seat at the table with writers and producers in
developing episodic programming that ties directly to brand needs.”
The videos “will be broadcast on NBC Universal’s digital properties,
such as Web sites.”
SOURCE: Associated Press, April 18, 2008
6. MEDIA’S MILITARY ANALYSTS INVOLVED IN “PSYOPS ON STEROIDS”
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7229
In early 2002, as “detailed planning for a possible Iraq invasion”
began, then-Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs
Victoria Clarke launched the Pentagon military analyst program as
“the main focus of the public relations push to construct a case for
war,” reports David Barstow. The gist of the program was the
recruitment of “key influentials” to help sell a wary public on the
war. The former Hill & Knowlton executive and her senior aide, Brent
Krueger, signed up more than 75 retired military officers, who
appeared on television and radio news shows as military analysts,
and/or penned newspaper op/ed columns. The Pentagon referred to the
military analysts as “message force multipliers” or “surrogates,”
and held weekly meetings with them, which continue to this day. The
Defense Department also paid for some analysts to travel to Iraq and
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, encouraging them to counter negative press
with Pentagon talking points. Former NBC military analyst Kenneth
Allard called the effort “psyops on steroids.” Many of the analysts
were also lobbyists for defense contractors, and boasted of their
Pentagon access to potential clients. This financial conflict
discouraged the analysts from questioning or criticizing the
Pentagon’s claims. The Pentagon also tracked what the analysts said,
via a six-figure contract with Omnitec Solutions, as William Cowan
learned. He was fired from the Pentagon analysts group after saying
on Fox News that the United States was “not on a good glide path
right now” in Iraq.
SOURCE: New York Times, April 20, 2008
7. AUDIT REVEALS THE PR MACHINE BEHIND CANADIAN GLOBAL WARMING SKEPTICS
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7227
An audit review (pdf) of over $507,000 (Canadian) contributed to
two University of Toronto “research accounts” has revealed that
C$123,427 was routed to Friends of Science (FoS) — a group lobbying
the Canadian government against taking action on global warming. The
audit, which was prompted by persistent inquiries from a volunteer
SourceWatch editor, revealed that over C$100,000 was paid to APCO
Worldwide for “strategic communications services.” In addition,
Morten Paulsen Consulting, the firm of lobbyist Morten Paulsen,
invoiced FoS for over C$25,000 for developing radio advertisements
and purchasing air time in five Ontario markets during the 2006
Canadian election. Additional amounts of over C$25,000 were also
paid to Paulsen’s current employer, the PR and lobbying firm
Fleishman-Hillard, and the video production company Directors Chair.
In a press release, the University noted that it had “advised
Elections Canada and Canada Revenue Agency of its concerns regarding
the accounts Friends of Science and the ongoing auditor’s review.”
SOURCE: University of Calgary, April 14, 2008
8. OBAMA AND CLINTON GET DOWN & DIRTY WITH “CLEAN” COAL
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7225
The Associated Press reports, “Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary
Clinton are walking a delicate line as they promise to aggressively
tackle global warming while trying to assure voters that they
continue to believe in the future of coal,” the energy source
responsible for “nearly 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide, the
leading greenhouse gas, each year. … ‘They keep using the term
clean coal. They absolutely are pandering the coal industry’s
propaganda; there’s no such animal as clean coal,” said Brent
Blackwelder, president of the environmental group Friends of the
Earth. AP notes that Obama and Clinton’s love affair with Big Coal
pleases the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a coal
industry front group formed on April 17 by the merger of Americans
for Balanced Energy Choices and the Center for Energy and Economic
Development.
SOURCE: Associated Press, April 19, 2008
9. BAD TIMES FOR FREEDOM’S WATCH
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7220
The Freedom’s Watch Louisiana ad
A recent New York Times story describes the Republican-linked
pro-war group Freedom’s Watch as “beset by internal problems” and
unclear on “what kind of role, if any, it will actually play this
fall” in the U.S. presidential elections. Freedom’s Watch is
currently running ads in Louisiana which claim that the Democratic
candidate in a special Congressional election supports higher taxes.
The ads prompted a formal complaint from the Democratic
Congressional Campaign Committee, accusing Freedom’s Watch of
illegally coordinating with the National Republican Congressional
Committee (NRCC). The Democrats point out that the “metadata” of the
ad script file identifies the NRCC as the originator, and that
former NRCC employee Carl Forti — who now works for Freedom’s Watch
— was the last person to edit the script. They note that the
Freedom’s Watch ad and an NRCC ad for the same race use the same
graphics and similar scripts, and the Freedom’s Watch ad debuted the
day after the NRCC stopped airing its ad. Patrick McCarthy, who
wrote the ad for Freedom’s Watch, said “an innocent mistake caused
the document to appear as if it came from the NRCC,” reported the
Washington Post. McCarthy, a former NRCC employee, “said he pulled
up an old ad template from his NRCC days and wrote the Louisiana ad
script over it.”
SOURCE: The Raw Story, April 16, 2008
10. A DEFENSE OF EVEN FAKER NEWS
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7219
Reed Pence of MediaTracks Communications wants his fellow public
relations professionals to know there’s nothing wrong with
“guaranteed placement” — paying to have radio or television
stations air fake news. “Many PR pros face the challenge of
acquiring coverage for a product that isn’t newsworthy,” he writes
in a letter to PR Week. “Some believe that [guaranteed placement] is
just advertising,” but it’s not, he claims. “For example, when
presented as part of a nationally syndicated radio news program, an
audio news release might only have news content surrounding it.
Selecting this vehicle eliminates the ‘situated among
advertisements’ concern that listeners might tune the message out.”
Though Pence suggests using guaranteed placement for “stories with
less news value,” he also claims that stations air the guaranteed
spots “not because they are paid to do so, but because the programs
provide a service to listeners.”
SOURCE: PR Week letters, April 14, 2008
11. MORE HEART ATTACKS FOR MERCK
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7218
Two studies of internal Merck documents concluded that the
pharmaceutical company had “violated scientific-publishing ethics by
ghostwriting dozens of academic articles, and minimized the impact
of patient deaths in its analyses of some human trials.” The
internal documents surfaced during litigation against Merck, by
people who had taken the painkiller Vioxx and suffered heart attacks
or other problems. Five of the six authors of the studies, which
were published by the Journal of the American Medical Association,
“served as paid consultants to plaintiffs’ lawyers in Vioxx
lawsuits.” One study found that medical papers on Vioxx “were often
prepared by unacknowledged authors and subsequently attributed
authorship to academically affiliated investigators who often did
not disclose financial support.” The other study concluded that
Merck “neither provided to the FDA nor made public in a timely
fashion” evidence that Vioxx use was linked to increased risk of
death. A Merck researcher called the findings “false and
misleading.”
SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (sub req’d), April 16, 2008
12. KING COAL GETS GREEN HELP DOWN UNDER
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7217
“In a public relations coup for the coal industry,” the Australian
Coal Association is working with “two prominent environment groups,
WWF and the Climate Institute, and the miners’ union, to call on the
Rudd Government to set up a national task force to develop ‘Clean
Coal,'” reports Marian Wilkinson. Australia’s Green Party and other
environmental groups are calling the new alliance “a greenwash for
the coal industry over its response to global warming.” Greens
senator Christine Milne said the government shouldn’t give the coal
industry more subsidies. “If you believe the polluter should pay,
the coal industry is the classic case,” she said. “For the last 100
years it had made massive profits at the expense of the atmosphere
and the climate and now is the time for them to pay for their own
research.” WWF’s Greg Bourne said his group joined the industry
effort because “we need to know quickly” whether “clean coal”
technology can work. “If it’s not going to work we need to know even
more quickly,” he added.
SOURCE: The Sydney Morning Herald, April 15, 2008
13. STATE LEGISLATORS HAVE A TELECOM FRONT GROUP’S NUMBER
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7216
“Mywireless.org,” a group that’s “working hard to kill a cell
phone reform bill at the Minnesota legislature,” describes itself as
“a non-profit consumer advocacy organization” formed to protect cell
phone users’ “freedom, value, security and mobility.” But it’s
“staffed almost entirely by telecommunications industry executives,
drawn mainly from the ranks of the Cellular Telecommunications and
Internet Association,” reports Andy Birkey. The group claims that
the Minnesota Wireless Telephone Consumer Protection Act would
increase cell phone charges. It’s hired corporate lobbyists and run
ads against the bill, and is encouraging people “to send a canned
and misleading e-mail message condemning the bill to their
legislators.” The bill actually “would guarantee customers accurate
information about billing and service area coverage.” One state
legislator who received the Mywireless.org-generated emails
responded, “It is no more expensive to make the terms of a [cell
phone] contract transparent than to hide billing and pricing
practices. … The wireless companies lied to the public, convincing
many to oppose a bill they would support if they saw the
legislation.”
SOURCE: Minnesota Monitor, April 11, 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
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