[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: The Weekly Spin: the 2004 Falsies Awards

Fri Dec 31 14:42:50 PST 2004

>Delivered-To: weekly-spin at two.pairlist.net
>Delivered-To: dpedia-prwatch:org-weekly-spin at prwatch.org
>Date: 29 Dec 2004 20:34:21 -0000
>To: weekly-spin at prwatch.org
>From: weekly-spin at prwatch.org
>Subject: The Weekly Spin: the 2004 Falsies Awards
>X-BeenThere: weekly-spin at prwatch.org
>Reply-To: weekly-spin at prwatch.org
>List-Id: "The Weekly Spin, from PR Watch" <weekly-spin.prwatch.org>
>List-Unsubscribe: <http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/weekly-spin>,
>	<mailto:weekly-spin-request at prwatch.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>List-Post: <mailto:weekly-spin at prwatch.org>
>List-Help: <mailto:weekly-spin-request at prwatch.org?subject=help>
>List-Subscribe: <http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/weekly-spin>,
>	<mailto:weekly-spin-request at prwatch.org?subject=subscribe>
>Sender: weekly-spin-bounces at prwatch.org
>X-ELNK-AV: 0
>
>
>THANKS FOR THE (FALSE) MEMORIES: THE 2004 FALSIES AWARDS
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>sponsored by the nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy
>http://www.prwatch.org
>To support our work now online visit:
>https://www.egrants.org/donate/index.cfm?ID=2344-0|1118-0
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>This year marks the beginning of a new tradition for the Center for
>Media and Democracy. To remember the people and players responsible
>for polluting our information environment, we are issuing a new
>year-end prize that we call the "Falsies Awards." The top ten
>finalists will each receive a million bucks worth of free coupons, a
>lifetime supply of non-fattening ice cream, an expenses-paid vacation
>in Fallujah, and our promise to respect them in the morning. The
>winners of the Falsies Awards for 2004 are:
>
>  1. I'M KAREN RYAN, REPORTING
>
>Let's hear it for video news releases finally getting a smattering of
>the public scrutiny they deserve. A video news release or VNR is a
>simulated TV news story. Video clips paid for by corporations,
>government agencies, and non-governmental organizations are commonly
>passed off as legitimate news segments on local newscasts throughout
>the United States. VNRs are designed to be indistinguishable from
>traditional TV news and are often aired without the original
>producers and sponsors being identified and sometimes without any
>local editing.
>
>When a VNR touting the controversial Medicare reform law ended with
>"In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan, reporting," Senate Democrats called
>foul. The VNR, which aired on 40 stations between January 22 and
>February 12, 2004, was paid for by the U.S. Department of Health and
>Human Services. Ryan, the "reporter," was in fact employed by a
>production company contracted by the Ketchum PR firm to create the
>VNR for HHS. An investigation by the U.S. General Accounting Office
>concluded that the VNR had violated a ban on government funded
>"publicity and propaganda." According to The Hill, a newspaper based
>in Washington, D.C., "VNRs are standard practice in the
>public-relations industry and local news reports often rely on them.
>... However, the GAO said in its decision, 'our analysis of the
>proper use of appropriated funds is not based upon the norms in the
>public relations and media industry.'"
>
>Karen Ryan was back in the news in October, when the liberal-leaning
>People for the American Way identified another Ryan VNR. This time
>Ryan "reported" on the Bush Administration's No Child Left Behind
>law. A Freedom of Information Act investigation revealed that the
>U.S. Education Department paid $700,000 to the PR firm to produce two
>VNRs as well as to rate newspaper coverage according to how favorably
>reporters described No Child Left Behind. "A number of local stations
>ran the VNR as is, and added a local twist by simply having their own
>reporter read the script," reported CampaignDesk.org, a journalist
>watchdog website. "The stations that took the time to have their own
>reporters record the script of the No Child Left Behind VNR had to
>have been fully aware of what they were doing: knowingly deceiving
>their viewers about the origins of the story -- not to mention
>committing plagiarism -- by passing off as their own original
>reporting words actually written by a PR company hired by the Bush
>administration."
>
>  2. WAR IS SELL
>
>The formerly exiled Iraqi Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National
>Congress were exposed as hucksters who befriended powerful men in
>Washington and played an instrumental role in selling the Iraq War.
>The U.S. major media finally examined the extent to which the INC and
>Chalabi used funding provided by the U.S. Congress to position
>themselves as a central source for much of the now-discredited
>"intelligence information" that the Bush administration used to
>justify the March 2003 invasion.
>
>"The former Iraqi exile group that gave the Bush administration
>exaggerated and fabricated intelligence on Iraq also fed much of the
>same information to newspapers, news agencies and magazines in the
>United States, Britain and Australia," Knight Ridder reported in
>March 2004. "A June 26, 2002, letter from the Iraqi National Congress
>to the Senate Appropriations Committee listed 108 articles based on
>information provided by the Iraqi National Congress's Information
>Collection Program, a U.S.-funded effort to collect intelligence in
>Iraq. The Information Collection Program was financed out of the at
>least $18 million that the U.S. Congress approved for the Iraqi
>National Congress, led by Ahmed Chalabi from 1999 to 2003."
>
>"Chalabi appears to have recognized that the neocons, while ruthless,
>realistic and effective in bureaucratic politics, were remarkably
>ignorant about the situation in Iraq, and willing to buy a fantasy of
>how the country's politics worked. So he sold it to them," John Dizard
>wrote for Salon.com in May 2004. In a detailed profile of Chalabi and
>the INC, the New Yorker's Jane Mayer included some fairly candid
>admissions by Francis Brooke, the INC's PR guru. Without Chalabi, he
>said, "This war would not have been fought." Beginning in the late
>1990s, Chalabi and Brooke had designed a campaign to influence "only
>a couple of hundred people" in Washington with the ability to shape
>Iraq policy -- people like Trent Lott, Newt Gingrich, Richard Perle
>and Dick Cheney. Following 9/11, their marketing strategy switched to
>terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Brooke claimed, "I sent out
>an all-points bulletin to our network, saying, 'Look, guys, get me a
>terrorist, or someone who works with terrorists. And, if you can get
>stuff on WMD, send it!'"
>
>Following the toppling of Saddam Hussein, the U.S. gave Chalabi one
>of the 25 seats on its hand-picked new Iraqi Governing Council. The
>Pentagon's $335,000 monthly payments to the INC's intelligence
>program continued until May 2004, when U.S. intelligence agencies
>began reporting that Chalabi may have actually been a double agent
>working for Iran. American troops raided Chalabi's headquarters and
>home in Baghdad, arrested two of his aides, and seized documents.
>"Only five months ago," observed Andrew Cockburn, "Chalabi was a
>guest of honor sitting right behind Laura Bush at the State of the
>Union. What brought about this astonishing fall from grace of the man
>who helped provide the faked intelligence that justified last year's
>war?" According to Newsweek, "Bush administration officials say the
>latest intelligence indicates [Chalabi] may have been supplying the
>Iranians with information on U.S. security operations in Iraq that
>could 'get people killed.'"
>
>Chalabi responded by demanding that the U.S. leave Iraq. "Let my
>people go," he said, adding, "It is time for the Iraqi people to run
>their affairs." More recently he has aligned himself with Muqtada
>al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric whose militia battled U.S. troops
>in August in the Iraqi city of Najaf.
>
>3. THE HIDDEN (IN PLAIN SIGHT) PERSUADERS
>
>Stories of so-called "guerrilla marketing" abounded in 2004. From
>martinis to cell phones to TV programs, this stealthy form of
>advertising usually features paid agents subtly promoting a product
>to an unsuspecting audience. According to Shawn Prez of the marketing
>agency Power Moves, stealth techniques are especially effective with
>teens. "By the time the message gets out, they don't even know
>they've been hit; they don't know that theyve been marketed to. All
>they know is that their interest has been piqued," Prez said. Our
>favorite examples of guerilla marketing include the following:
>
>* In New York, attractive men and women flashed their underwear at
>strangers outside Grand Central Terminal to promote a local health
>club. The underwear featured the logo of the club along with the
>words "Booty Call" to promote an exercise class that works the butt
>muscles. (We swear we're not making this up.)
>
>* A fictional blogger, invented by an ad agency, posted blog entries
>claiming that a new Sega video game caused him to suffer blackouts
>and uncontrollable fits of violence.
>
>* At Fourth of July cookouts throughout the United States, guests
>brought Al Fresco chicken sausages to throw on the grill, without
>telling the other guests that they were actually working to earn
>premiums from a PR firm that was hired to promote sales of the
>product.
>
>"This idea -- the commercialization of chitchat -- resembles a
>scenario from a paranoid science-fiction novel about a future in
>which corporations have become so powerful that they can bribe whole
>armies of flunkies to infiltrate the family barbecue," observed Rob
>Walker in the New York Times.
>
>4. FOOD INDUSTRY FOXES GUARD THE FDA HEN HOUSE
>
>Food industry lobbyists met repeatedly and privately with Bush
>administration officials while the administration was drafting rules
>to protect the nation's food supply from bioterrorism. "The resulting
>regulations don't fully protect the public interest," stated the
>Center for Science in the Public Interest. The Grocery Manufacturers
>of America, Altria Group (formerly Philip Morris) and others lobbied
>to weaken proposed regulations requiring importers to notify the Food
>and Drug Administration before food shipments arrive from overseas.
>One GMA lobbyist explained, "We all want regulations to protect
>against bioterrorism, but in a way to achieve the goals and allow the
>business to operate in an efficient manner." The Bush administration's
>Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson had nothing to
>say about the problem until after the 2004 presidential election,
>when he announced his resignation plans. In his departure speech in
>December, Thompson warned of possible health-related terrorist
>attacks. "For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists
>have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do," he
>said.
>
>5. SHELL GAME WITH HUMAN RIGHTS
>
>Corporate lobby groups such as the International Chamber of Commerce
>(ICC) launched a fierce counter-campaign against the proposed Norms
>on Business and Human Rights, which were developed by a subcommission
>of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. The Norms require
>businesses internationally to refrain from activities that violate
>human rights, coonstraints that have been vigorously opposed by the
>ICC and a the Royal Dutch/Shell oil company, a self-proclaimed leader
>in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement. "Is this not
>the kind of campaign one could expect only from companies lagging
>behind and from free-riders refusing to adapt to social and
>environmental concerns?" asked the Corporate Europe Observatory
>(CEO). The motive behind Shell's opposition, CEO suggested, is that
>"the company generally gets away easily with its inflated claims
>concerning its social responsibility record." A 2004 report by
>Christian Aid documented that Shell's operations in the Niger Delta
>(Nigeria) are still causing serious problems for local communities.
>The report also found that most of the community development projects
>presented in various glossy Shell reports on CSR are in fact failing.
>"Hospitals, schools and water supply systems are built but never
>start working, and roads are mainly used to boost oil production,"
>reported CEO. "But beyond the debate about the extent to which
>Shell's CSR claims are actually greenwash and poor-wash, it is clear
>that the company is determined to prevent the emergence of
>international mechanisms through which communities could hold it
>accountable to its pledges."
>
>  6. GHOSTWRITERS FOR BUSH
>
>In August, the Daily Kos weblog uncovered an astroturf (fake
>grassroots) initiative by the George W. Bush reelection campaign,
>which generated ghostwritten letters to the editor that found their
>way into at least 60 newspapers. This wasn't the first time that the
>Bush administration tried this trick, as we've reported in the past.
>According to Editor and Publisher, however, the National Conference
>of Editorial Writers (NCEW) is now taking the issue seriously. "On
>its NCEW e-mail listserv, some 600 subscribers who are mostly
>editorial page writers and editors, can alert one another of
>suspicious letters," writes Charles Geraci. "In fact, this is the
>most consistent topic on the listserv."
>
>7. FRANK TALK
>
>  A leaked memo by Republican advisor Frank Luntz advised GOP
>politicians to avoid the words "preemption" and "war in Iraq" when
>talking about the Bush administration's pre-emptive war in Iraq. "To
>do so is to undermine your message from the start," he advised. "Your
>efforts are about 'the principles of prevention and protection' in the
>greater 'War on Terror.'" According to the June 2004 Washington Post
>story, Luntz also recommended that "No speech about homeland security
>or Iraq should begin without a reference to 9/11."
>
>8. NOT-SO-DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION
>
>"One cannot conceive of other elements [that could be] put in place
>to create a space that's more of an affront to the idea of free
>expression," said U.S. District Judge Douglas Woodlock, after touring
>the Democratic National Convention's "free speech" protest zone in
>Boston. The zone is "bordered by cement barriers, a double row of
>chain-line fencing, heavy black netting, and tightly woven plastic
>mesh," with "coils of razor wire" along elevated train tracks, the
>Boston Globe reported. A lawyer for activists challenging the zone
>compared it to "a maximum security prison, Guantanamo Bay, or a zoo"
>-- comparisons Woodlock called "an understatement," although he
>upheld the zone for security reasons. That's not to say the
>Republican National Convention in New York City was a celebration of
>civil liberties. The New York Police Department engaged in
>pre-emptive arrest tactics to stop activities planned by
>demonstrators.
>
>9. IRAQ WAR SUPPORTERS PROFIT FROM RECONSTRUCTION
>
>Several key advocates for the invasion of Iraq are now profiting from
>Iraq's reconstruction. "As lobbyists, public relations counselors and
>confidential advisors to senior federal officials, they warned
>against Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, praised exiled leader
>Ahmad Chalabi, and argued that toppling Saddam Hussein was a matter
>of national security and moral duty," reported Walter F. Roche Jr.
>and Ken Silverstein in the Los Angeles Times. "Now, as fighting
>continues in Iraq, they are collecting tens of thousands of dollars
>in fees for helping business clients pursue federal contracts and
>other financial opportunities in Iraq." Among the profiteers are:
>
>* former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, Jr., a founding member of the
>Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI) who used his Pentagon
>connections to help arrange for a debriefing of a Iraqi defector
>provided by the Iraqi National Congress who gave false information
>about Iraqi biological warfare laboratories (see award-winner #2
>above);
>
>* Randy Scheunemann, founding president of the CLI; and
>
>* Washington lobbyist K. Riva Levinson, who while at
>Burson-Marsteller's BKSH & Associates did PR work for the INC on the
>U.S. State Department's tab.
>
>10. WAL-MART GETS PR HELP FROM HILL & KNOWLTON
>
>"Wal-Mart is working with Hill & Knowlton on a PR campaign designed
>to rehabilitate the much-maligned company's reputation in California
>and pave the way for 40 new Wal-Mart Supercenters in the state in the
>next few years," PR Week reported in October. The world's largest
>retailer published an "open letter to California residents" in 15
>California newspapers on September 23. "As the company has grown,
>we've become a target for negative comments from certain elected
>officials, competitors and powerful special interest groups,"
>Wal-Mart wrote. PR Week reported that several of H&K's California
>offices had been working with Wal-Mart for several months on the PR
>effort, "primarily handling media relations tasks." Wal-Mart has
>announced plans to increase retail space by 8 percent. The company,
>which is also facing a class action suit for sex discrimination, had
>a record setting in net sales for the six months ended July 31, 2004.
>
>DISHONORABLE MENTIONS
>
>PR and advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather tied Fleishman-Hillard,
>another global PR firm, for sheer audacity at draining the public
>well.
>
>* The U.S. indicted executives from Ogilvy and Mather for
>participating in an "extensive scheme to defraud the U.S. Government
>by falsely and fraudulently inflating the labor costs that Ogilvy
>incurred" for its work on a media campaign for the Office of National
>Drug Control Policy. According to O'Dwyer's PR Daily, O&M's anti-drug
>media campaign work was part of a five-year $684 million dollar
>project. The government said it was overcharged by O&M from May 1999
>to April 2000.
>
>* Several former employees of Fleishman-Hillard say F-H routinely
>overbilled the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power some $30,000
>a month. According to the Los Angeles Times, one described F-H's
>attitude as, "Get as much as you can because these accounts may dry
>up tomorrow." Questionable charges include $50 for leaving a phone
>message and $850 for a two-hour business lunch (not including the
>cost of the meal).
>
>HONORABLE MENTIONS
>
>The Center for Media and Democracy would also like to recognize the
>following efforts to expose and counter spin in 2004:
>
>* The post-debate media feeding frenzy where campaign officials talk
>up their candidates has come to be called Spin Alley. Comedian Jon
>Stewart of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" appeared on CNN's
>Crossfire in October, calling it as he saw it. "You go to Spin Alley,
>the place called Spin Alley," he said. "Now, don't you think that, for
>people watching at home, that's kind of a drag, that you're literally
>walking to a place called deception lane?" On Jay Rosen's PressThink
>weblog, Lisa Stone offered an illuminating history of Spin Alley.
>Stewart, she wrote, "was hitting on a practice that had grown more
>and more disreputable. As a designated spot for the practice of spin,
>the Alley only fell from legitimacy when an alternative practice rose
>up and called out to conscience of the press. It was one lesson of
>Campaign 2004: Forget about spinning the outcome, just fact check the
>debates."
>
>* Tami Silicio and the Seattle Times brought the first images of U.S.
>military casualties to the American mass media in April 2004. Silicio,
>a Kuwait-based cargo worker whose photograph of flag-draped coffins of
>fallen U.S. soldiers was published in the Times, was fired along with
>her husband. Her employer, a private contractor, said it decided to
>fire her after receiving a complaint from the military about her
>violation of the Pentagon's ban on images of soldiers' caskets.
>
>For additional details, including links to further information about
>the recipients of the 2004 Falsies Awards, visit this story online
>at:
>
>http://www.prwatch.org/node/3144
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>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.
>
>SHARE US WITH A FRIEND (OR FIFTY FRIENDS)
>Who do you know who might want to receive the Weekly Spin? Help us
>grow our subscriber list!  Just forward this message to people you
>know, encouraging them to sign up at this link:
>
>http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>The Weekly Spin is compiled by staff and volunteers at the Center for
>Media and Democracy (CMD), a nonprofit public interest organization.
>Daily updates and news from past weeks can be found at the "Spin of
>the Day" section of the Center website:
>http://www.prwatch.org/spin/index.html
>
>Archives of our quarterly publication, PR Watch, are at:
>http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues
>
>CMD also sponsors the Disinfopedia, a collaborative research project
>that invites anyone (including you) to contribute and edit articles:
>http://www.disinfopedia.org
>
>PR Watch, Spin of the Day, the Weekly Spin and Disinfopedia 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 at prwatch.org
>
>Contributions to the Center for Media and Democracy are
>tax-deductible. Send checks to:
>    CMD
>    520 University Ave. #227
>    Madison, WI 53703
>
>To donate now online, visit:
>https://www.egrants.org/donate/index.cfm?ID=2344-0|1118-0
>_______________________________________________
>Weekly-Spin mailing list
>Weekly-Spin at prwatch.org
>http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/weekly-spin


-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand