== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. Pentagon Pundit Scandal Broke the Law
2. Weekly Radio Spin: The Pentagon Pundits’ Progenitor
3. Pentagon, TV Networks Fear Debating Iraq Propaganda Scandal – Stauber vs. Zelnick on NewsHour
== SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS ==
1. The Power of Toxic Energy
2. Cheeky Monkeys Urge Responsible PR
3. Painting Bottled Water Green
4. Pentagon Pundits “Under Review”
5. New Kids’ Book on Plastic Surgery Skirts Breasts
6. The Fudge on Sludge
7. Daughter Busts Dad: Burger King VP Caught Running Dirty Tricks Campaign
8. Toyota: Mean and Not So Green?
9. Pentagon Pundit Scandal on YouTube
10. Unhealthy Practices at Public Hospitals
11. Ultraviolet Without the Sunlight
12. Scientists Speak out Against Government Interference
13. So Much for Feeding the World
14. Special Offer: Free Grass to Subject Your Children to Sludge
15. British Anti-Terrorism Law Used to Spy on Minors’ Smoking, Drinking
16. A Not-So-Candid CAMERA
17. Pushing Back Against the Pentagon’s Pundits
——————————————————————–
== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. PENTAGON PUNDIT SCANDAL BROKE THE LAW
by Diane Farsetta and Sheldon Rampton
The Pentagon military analyst program unveiled in last week’s
expose by David Barstow in the New York Times was not just
unethical but illegal. It violates, for starters, specific
restrictions that Congress has been placing in its annual
appropriation bills every year since 1951. According to those
restrictions, “No part of any appropriation contained in this or any
other Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within
the United States not heretofore authorized by the Congress.”
As explained in a March 21, 2005 report by the Congressional
Research Service, “publicity or propaganda” is defined by the U.S.
Government Accountability Office (GAO) to mean either (1)
self-aggrandizement by public officials, (2) purely partisan
activity, or (3) “covert propaganda.” By covert propaganda, GAO
means information which originates from the government but is
unattributed and made to appear as though it came from a third
party.
To read the rest of this item, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7261
2. WEEKLY RADIO SPIN: THE PENTAGON PUNDITS’ PROGENITOR
by Diane Farsetta
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 the Pentagon’s
pundits, a stealth campaign on Wikipedia, and how Monsanto’s not
feeding the world. In “Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin’,” does Torie
Clarke really believe it’s a post-spin world? 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/7258
3. PENTAGON, TV NETWORKS FEAR DEBATING IRAQ PROPAGANDA SCANDAL – STAUBER VS. ZELNICK ON NEWSHOUR
by John Stauber
This Sunday’s stunning, front-page New York Times revelations
of the Pentagon military analyst program have been met with a wall
of silence and cover-up on network television news. America’s TV
networks — ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN and FOX — are where most
Americans get most of their news, and they are the main culprits in
allowing Donald Rumsfeld and Torie Clarke to turn them into the
primary propaganda tool for selling the Iraq war to the public.
PBS NewsHour covered this issue in a televised debate April
24 pitting me against Robert Zelnick, former ABC Pentagon
correspondent and now chair of the Boston University journalism
department. (Zelnick is also affiliated with the Hoover Institute, a
conservative think tank.) No one from the Pentagon would agree to
appear on the PBS show, nor would anyone appear from any of the
guilty TV networks.
My debate with Zelnick is now on YouTube, where you can watch
it yourself. The NewsHour report on the Pentagon pundits that
preceded our debate is also online, and if you have a slow internet
connection (or if you find my face and voice too irritating to
tolerate), you can also read the online transcript.
To read the rest of this item, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7256
== SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS ==
1. THE POWER OF TOXIC ENERGY
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7271
A recent Wall Street Journal editorial claimed that a landmark
environmental liability case against Chevron was being judged by
“Ecuador’s kangaroo courts.” Ecuador’s Ambassador to the U.S., Luis
Gallegos, responded that Chevron had filed 10 affidavits before U.S.
federal judges “praising the fairness of Ecuador’s court system,” in
order to get the case out of U.S. courts. “Happily, its PR efforts
have been frustrated by the fact that Ecuador no longer has ‘banana
republic’ institutions that can be controlled through extrajudicial
pressure,” he wrote. When the two Ecuadorians leading the legal case
against Chevron were awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize, the
company turned to crisis management adviser Sam Singer for advice.
Chevron’s counter-attack included a San Francisco Chronicle opinion
column. Chevron’s ham-handed PR inspired cartoonist Mark Fiore to
satirize the company’s “Human Energy” campaign.
SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, April 26, 2008
2. CHEEKY MONKEYS URGE RESPONSIBLE PR
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7267
“Being socially and environmentally responsible should be an issue
for leading PR companies,” said Greenpeace activist Mariana Paoli.
The group’s new report, “Burning up Borneo,” links deforestation and
loss of orangutan habitat in Indonesia with Unilever suppliers
producing palm oil for Dove brand soap. After demonstrating outside
of Unilever’s UK headquarters, Greenpeace activists moved on to
three of the Dove brand’s PR firms: Lexis PR, JCPR and Ogilvy. The
activists, including some dressed as orangutans, delivered copies of
the report and asked the PR firms “to put pressure on Unilever to
change its practices.” Paoli remarked, “I was a little surprised at
how defensive the agencies were, although they probably are not used
to having orang-utans arriving in their offices.” A Unilever
spokesperson said the company’s “two key messages” in response to
the protest are its commitment “to finding a solution for the palm
oil problem,” and its “sympathy to Greenpeace’s cause.”
SOURCE: PR Week (UK), April 24, 2008
3. PAINTING BOTTLED WATER GREEN
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7266
“Suppose, for example, that you own a company that sells bottled
water,” which is “shipped, in its little plastic bottles, ten
thousand miles from the bottling plant to the consumer,” writes
Steve Burns. “Could you possibly ‘brand’ such a product as
eco-friendly?” If the company is FIJI Water, you’ll try. FIJI’s new
ad campaign, “every drop is green,” calls the bottled water
“carbon-negative,” because of the carbon credits the company buys.
To dismiss concerns about the sustainability of shipping bottled
water around the world as the “food miles ‘myth’,” FIJI uses a study
co-written by a New Zealand agribusiness representative. But, as
Burns points out, “what choice do they have? If your entire brand
identity is built around ‘water from Fiji,’ then the water has to
come from Fiji, no matter the cost to the planet.”
SOURCE: Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice blog, April 23, 2008
4. PENTAGON PUNDITS “UNDER REVIEW”
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7265
Five days after its military analyst program was exposed by the
New York Times, the Pentagon announced that “briefings and all other
interactions with the military analysts had been suspended
indefinitely pending an internal review.” Pentagon spokesperson
Robert Hastings “could not say … how long this review might take.
‘We’ll take the time to do it right,'” he told Stars and Stripes.
Hastings, who just became the principal deputy assistant secretary
of Defense for public affairs last month, also said “he is unaware
of the Defense Department’s past activities with retired military
analysts.” The Pentagon’s promise to investigate, without clarifying
its standards or timeline, is great crisis management. Pentagon
spokesman Bryan Whitman later told Reuters the suspension is
“temporary” and “he does not think the program violated any laws.”
SOURCE: New York Times, April 26, 2008
5. NEW KIDS’ BOOK ON PLASTIC SURGERY SKIRTS BREASTS
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7264
How does a mother explain to her children why she’s having a
breast augmentation, a tummy tuck or a nose job? Help is on the way
— a new book for kids about plastic surgery, My Beautiful Mommy.
The story features a handsome, musclebound, superhero-type male
doctor and a Mommy who says that as she got older, she couldn’t fit
into her clothes any more. Mom explains to her child that the doctor
is going to help her fix all that. Mom comes home after surgery
looking slightly bruised and bandaged, but with fuller, higher
breasts. The text of the book doesn’t mention breasts, though; only
Mom’s “tummy.” Michael Salzhauer, the plastic surgeon who wrote the
book, said, “The tummy lends itself to an easy explanation to the
children: extra skin and can’t fit into your clothes. The breasts
might be a stretch for a six-year-old.”
SOURCE: Newsweek, April 15, 2008
6. THE FUDGE ON SLUDGE
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7263
David Lewis, a University of Georgia professor and former
Environmental Protection Agency scientist, is suing officials at his
university for publishing allegedly fraudulent research funded by
the federal government. In court documents, Lewis claims that
university researchers, who were paid more than $1.5 million in
federal grants, intentionally distorted toxic substance amounts in
the sludge from wastewater treatment plants in Augusta, Georgia, by
collecting samples only during droughts, when levels would be
“misleadingly low.” Last month U.S. District Court judge Anthony
Alaimo ruled that sludge treated in Augusta’s facilities had metals
concentrations thousands of times over allowed toxicity levels,
noting that the University of Georgia’s report on those facilities
was “faulty and incomplete.” Lewis has investigated the harmful side
effects linked with the sludge since 1998 and argued in 2005 that
his research led to his firing from the EPA. (We examined the sludge
issue in our 1995 book, Toxic Sludge Is Good For You.)
SOURCE: Integrity in Science Watch, April 28, 2008
7. DAUGHTER BUSTS DAD: BURGER KING VP CAUGHT RUNNING DIRTY TRICKS CAMPAIGN
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7262
Amy Bennett Williams, following up on her previous article
reports, “As the Coalition of Immokalee Workers prepares to deliver
more than 60,000 petitions to Burger King headquarters in Miami
today, the daughter of Burger King’s vice-president Stephen Grover
confirmed her father is responsible for online postings vilifying
the coalition. The Immokalee-based group is asking Burger King to
improve tomato harvesters’ working conditions and pay a penny more a
pound for tomatoes, which could add about $20 to a daily wage of
$50, workers say. … [O]ften during the past year, when articles
or videos about the coalition were posted on YouTube and various
Internet news sites, someone using the online names activist2008 or
surfxaholic36 would attach comments coalition member Greg Asbed has
called ‘libelous.’ … [E]arlier this year the alliance had been
infiltrated by Cara Schaffer, who said she was a student at Broward
Community College interested in organizing campus events in support
of farmworkers. In reality, Schaffer owns Diplomatic Tactical
Services, a Hollywood, Fla.-based security and investigative firm
that advertises its ability to place operatives in the ranks of
target groups.”
SOURCE: News Press, April 28, 2008
8. TOYOTA: MEAN AND NOT SO GREEN?
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7260
As a manufacturer of gas/electric hybrid cars, Toyota has enjoyed
a public image as an environmentally responsible company. Toyota
runs television ads playing up the “green” appeal of its Prius
hybrid. So it was particularly disappointing to find that Toyota has
been nominated to Corporate Accountability International’s 2008
Corporate Hall of Shame for being substantially less green than the
automaker has led the public to believe. Toyota has been quietly
lobbying against a proposal to increase vehicle fuel efficiency
standards to 35 miles per gallon by 2020. The company also belongs
to the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Association of
International Automobile Manufacturers, two trade groups suing to
stop a new California law to reduce greenhouse gases. Toyota has
also opposed bills in several states that would require cars emit
less pollution, and that would require a percentage of cars sold to
be low or zero-emission vehicles. And thanks to models like the
Tundra, a gas-guzzling pickup truck that gets an average of 14 miles
per gallon, Toyota’s fleet-wide fuel efficiency standards are
actually lower now than they have been in two decades.
SOURCE: Corporate Accountability International, April 25, 2008
9. PENTAGON PUNDIT SCANDAL ON YOUTUBE
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7255
As part of their campaign to demand a Congressional investigation
of the Pentagon pundit scandal, FreePress has produced several
YouTube videos providing analysis and coverage of the scandal that
the TV networks themselves have largely ignored — not surprisingly,
since the scandal documents the networks’ unethical journalistic
practices. For years now, people have been talking about the
potential of citizen journalism to challenge the power of the
broadcast media behemoths. This scandal is the perfect opportunity
to see how far we’ve come in achieving that goal. Let’s make sure
the TV networks don’t get away with burying this story. Email the
video link to your friends, and make sure they sign the petition!
SOURCE: Free Press
10. UNHEALTHY PRACTICES AT PUBLIC HOSPITALS
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7254
At an inquiry into the problems facing cash-strapped public
hospitals in New South Wales, Australia, neurologist Dr Suzanne
Hodgkinson explained that doctors sought financial support of drug
companies. “I had insufficient clerical support and so as to try and
remedy that I approached a company to help me with that on a
temporary, part-time basis. … Quite a few senior doctors do try to
raise money to help with the provision of services,” she said.
Hodgkinson raised A$20,000 for the position, but would not name the
drug company funder. The president of the New South Wales branch of
the Australian Medical Association, Dr Andrew Keegan, said the
practice was common, especially for administrative roles. “I would
assume it is happening in every major hospital, especially the
teaching hospitals,” he said. Opposition health spokeswoman Jillian
Skinner said that “if it’s happening in our hospitals, there are
ethical questions that need to be answered.”
SOURCE: Sydney Morning Herald, April 18, 2008
11. ULTRAVIOLET WITHOUT THE SUNLIGHT
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7252
A review article published in the New England Journal of Medicine
(NEJM) suggested that tanning at the beach or an indoor tanning
booth can help avoid the dangers of vitamin D deficiency. However,
the NEJM didn’t disclose that the article’s author, Michael Holick,
has received more than $150,000 in research funding from the
artificial tanning industry. Martin Weinstock, a dermatologist at
Brown University and an expert on the link between tanning beds and
skin cancer, says he informed NEJM Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Drazen
about Holick’s industry connections prior to the article’s
publication, adding that “the quality of evidence” behind Holick’s
recommendations was “poor.” The Indoor Tanning Association (ITA) has
also hired Berman & Co., a notorious Washington, D.C. PR firm, to
develop what ITA called “an aggressive media relations and public
relations campaign.” Berman, who has created numerous web-based
front groups for the food, alcohol and tobacco industries, created a
new site called SunlightScam.com. He’s also running advertisements
that attack medical groups, calling the Skin Cancer Foundation and
the American Academy of Dermatology part of the “sunscam industry”
and dismissing as “hype” their warnings of the link between tanning
and melanoma.
SOURCE: The Cancer Letter, April 18, 2007
12. SCIENTISTS SPEAK OUT AGAINST GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7251
The Union of Concerned Scientists’ new report, “Interference at
the EPA: Science and Politics at the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency,” calls the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “an agency
under siege from political pressures. On numerous issues — ranging
from mercury pollution to groundwater contamination to climate
change — political appointees have edited scientific documents,
manipulated scientific assessments, and generally sought to
undermine the science behind dozens of EPA regulations.” The study
found the White House Office of Management and Budget to be the
worst culprit. A stunning “889 scientists (60 percent of
respondents) personally experienced at least one incident of
political interference during the past five years,” while “among EPA
veterans (scientists with more than 10 years of experience at the
agency), 409 (43 percent) said interference occurred more often in
the past five years than in the previous five-year period.” One EPA
scientist warned: “Do not trust the Environmental Protection Agency
to protect your environment. Ask questions. Be aware of political
and economic motives. Become politically active. Elect officials
with motives to protect the environment and hold them accountable.”
SOURCE: Union of Concerned Scientists, April 23, 2008
13. SO MUCH FOR FEEDING THE WORLD
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7249
The biotechnology industry has invoked the need for genetically
modified (GM) crops to meet the growing global food crisis. For
example, Archer Daniels Midland called itself the “supermarket to
the world” in its ads. But a recent study carried out on soybeans in
Kansas found that GM crops produced significantly less food than
their conventional counterparts. A GM soybean from Monsanto produced
70 bushels per acre, compared to 77 per acre for a virtually
identical unaltered soybeans. Even after adding extra nutrients that
Monsanto’s weedkiller, Roundup, seems to block, production was only
brought up to the same level as the non-engineered plants. An
earlier study in Nebraska found similar results. Monsanto said “it
was surprised by the extent of the decline found by the Kansas
study, but not by the fact that the yields had dropped. It said that
the soya had not been engineered to increase yields, and that it was
now developing one that would.” Others are skeptical. Lester Brown,
president of the Earth Policy Institute, said that “the physiology
of plants was now reaching the limits of the productivity that could
be achieved.” The International Assessment of Agricultural Science
and Technology for Development has also “concluded that GM was not
the answer to world hunger.” And, “when asked if GM could solve
world hunger,” the chief scientist at the British Department for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Professor Bob Watson, said,
“The simple answer is no.”
SOURCE: The Independent (UK), April 20, 2008
14. SPECIAL OFFER: FREE GRASS TO SUBJECT YOUR CHILDREN TO SLUDGE
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7247
Sludge keeps rearing its ugly head. Scientists used federal grant
money to “spread fertilizer made from human and industrial wastes on
yards in poor, black neighborhoods to test whether it might protect
children from lead poisoning in the soil.” The residents were not
alerted to any harmful ingredients in the sludge, and were assured
that it posed no health risks for their families. In exchange for
participating in the 2005 study, nine families were given food
coupons and a free lawn by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development. Freedom of Information Act requests by the Associated
Press produced grant documents, but none showed any medical
follow-up with the homeowners. The Environmental Protection Agency
and the U.S. Department of Agriculture conducted similar research in
East St. Louis, Illinois, another impoverished and predominantly
African American community. “Thomas Burke, a professor at the Johns
Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says epidemiological
studies have never been done to show whether spreading sludge on
land is safe. ‘There are potential pathogens and chemicals that are
not in the realm of safe. What’s needed are more studies on what’s
going on with the pathogens in sludge – are we actually removing
them? The commitment to connecting the dots hasn’t been there.'”
SOURCE: Baltimore Examiner, April 13, 2008
15. BRITISH ANTI-TERRORISM LAW USED TO SPY ON MINORS’ SMOKING, DRINKING
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7246
A British county has been using an anti-terrorism law enacted in
2000 to spy on minors for petty crimes like using cigarettes and
alcohol. The Staffordshire County Council in Britain’s Midlands
region has been using Britain’s Regulation of Investigatory Powers
Act (RIPA) for a host of non-terrorism-related applications, like
monitoring underage liquor and tobacco sales, recording the
movements of farm animals and tracking counterfeit DVD sales.
Brandon Cooke, Staffordshire County Council’s Fraud and Community
Safety Manager, defended the Council’s use of surveillance under
RIPA by saying the operations were crucial for “combatting
antisocial behavior.”
SOURCE: The Sunday Mercury (Birmingham, United Kingdom), April 21, 2008
16. A NOT-SO-CANDID CAMERA
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7245
CAMERA, a lobby group that campaigns against criticism of the
Israeli government in U.S. media, had a campaign to impact
Wikipedia’s coverage of Israel and Palestine issues. In emails,
CAMERA’s Gilead Ini stressed that the effort should be secret, and
counseled members to avoid “picking a user name that marks you as
pro-Israel, or that lets people know your real name.” He also
instructed members to “always log in” under their user names, so
that Wikipedia would not “record your computer’s IP address.”
While directing CAMERA members to certain articles on Israel and
Palestine, Ini cautioned that new Wikipedia users should “avoid
editing Israel-related articles for a short period of time,” so as
not to develop reputations as “one-topic editors.” A long-time
Wikipedia editor, “Zeq,” advised CAMERA on its plan. Zeq suggested
that some CAMERA members “stay away from any Israel realted [sic]
articles,” until building up enough support to become nominated as
administrators, who help resolve controversies. “We will go to war
after we have build [sic] our army,” Zeq wrote. After the emails
were published, Zeq was banned from editing Wikipedia for one year,
for — in the words of one Wikipedian — “recruit[ing] meatpuppets
from off-wiki to push POV,” a point of view. CAMERA responded by
“temporarily or permanently” ending its Wikipedia email group, “in
hopes that members’ personal contact information will not be made
public.”
SOURCE: Electronic Intifada, April 21, 2008
17. PUSHING BACK AGAINST THE PENTAGON’S PUNDITS
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7243
In addition to helping research the “Pentagon’s pundits” on
SourceWatch — those retired military officers who took part in the
Pentagon program to promote Bush Administration talking points on
the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Guantanamo detention center and
wiretap surveillance programs — there are other ways you can push
back against what one participant called “psyops on steroids.”
Noting that the program wouldn’t have worked without “the
enthusiastic participation of the corporate media,” FAIR is
encouraging people to contact broadcast and cable news executives,
urging them “to ensure that the news will no longer serve as a
conduit for Pentagon talking points passed off as independent
analysis.” Free Press launched a campaign to press Congress to
investigate the Pentagon program and “determine whether these acts
violate federal law prohibiting ‘covert propaganda.'”
SOURCE: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), April 22, 2008
——————————————————————–
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