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The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, April 7, 2004

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THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, April 7, 2004

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sponsored by PR WATCH (www.prwatch.org)

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further information about current public relations campaigns.

It is emailed free each Wednesday to rs.

 

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THIS WEEK'S NEWS

 

1. 'Cooler Heads' Deny Global Warming

2. Ain't Nothin' but an Intricate Economic Thang

3. The Boob Tube

4. Seeing Green Through Rose-Colored Glasses

5. A Well-Oiled Revolving Door

6. A Case of Early Chicken Counting?

7. Don't Be Fooled

8. Why Karen Ryan Deserved What She Got

9. PR Firm Hired to Sell Democracy to the Iraqis

10. Still Crazy After All These Years

11. U.S. Foreign Policy As Poisoned Pill

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'COOLER HEADS' DENY GLOBAL WARMING

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/096/wash/_Global_Warming_Web_Site_OfferP.shtml

As campaigning Republicans face attacks from environmentalist on

climate change, industry friendly Consumer Alert has relaunched the

Cooler Heads Coalition and its website globalwarming.org. The group

says it advances " sound science and dispel the myths of global

warming by exposing flawed economic, scientific, and risk

analysis. " Members of the Coalition come from a wide range of

industry front groups and right-wing think tanks, including the

group's original founder the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the

Heritage Foundation, The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition,

Pacific Research Institute, and Americans for Tax Reform. According

to its website, " Cooler Heads " focuses on " the consumer impact of

global warming policies that would drastically restrict energy use

and raise costs for consumers. Members of the coalition point out

that the science of global warming is uncertain, but the negative

impacts of global warming policies on consumers are all too real. "

SOURCE: PR Newswire, April 5, 2004

More web links related to this story are available at:

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/April_2004.html#1081137602

To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:

http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1081137602

 

 

SEEING GREEN THROUGH ROSE-COLORED GLASSES

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1185292,00.html

" From the heated debate on global warming to the hot air on

forests; from the muddled talk on our nation's waters to the

convolution on air pollution, we are fighting a battle of fact

against fiction on the environment -- Republicans can't stress

enough that extremists are screaming 'Doomsday!' when the

environment is actually seeing a new and better day, " proclaimed an

email memo sent to the press secretaries of all Republican

congressmen. The email -- sent on February 4 -- bases its

assertions that " global warming is not a fact " and that other kinds

of environmental degradation aren't really happening on claims by

industry supported scientists and organizations, including the

Pacific Research Institute (a think tank which has received

$130,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998), the discredited Danish

statistician Bjorn Lomborg, and Richard Lindzen, a climate-skeptic

scientist who has consistently taken money from the fossil fuel

industry. The memo, which was obtained by the Observer, was sent by

Republican House Conference director Greg Cist. " It's up to our

members if they want to use it or not, " Cist told the Observer. " We

wanted to show how the environment has been improving. ... We

wanted to provide the other side of the story. "

SOURCE: Observer (UK), April 4, 2004

More web links related to this story are available at:

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/April_2004.html#1081054800

To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:

http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1081054800

 

A WELL-OILED REVOLVING DOOR

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/02/business/media/02nbc.html

Anna Perez, until recently the National Security Council's director

of communications and Condoleezza Rice's " counselor of

communications, " will become NBC's chief communications executive

in May. Her resume also includes having served as Barbara Bush's

press secretary during the first Bush administration (1989-1993),

the Chevron oil company's General Manager of Corporate

Communications and Programs (1988), and the Vice-President of

California Government Relations for the Walt Disney Company

(1995-1988). " I love the television business, " Ms. Perez remarked,

enthused about her new job. " I have no expertise in it so I will

have a bit of a learning curve. But I can't remember the last time

I didn't have a learning curve when I took a new job. "

SOURCE: New York Times, April 2, 2004

More web links related to this story are available at:

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/April_2004.html#1080882001

To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:

http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1080882001

 

A CASE OF EARLY CHICKEN COUNTING?

http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/0402cow.htm

At the upcoming meeting of the Public Relations Society of America,

" the Washington Beef Commission will unveil how it turned the PR

nightmare discovery of Mad Cow... into an opportunity to educate

the public about the hype surrounding the disease. " According to

meatingplace.com, the Japanese government isn't buying the U.S.

Agriculture Department's new mad cow testing program -- or U.S.

beef. Much to Secretary Ann Veneman's chagrin, Japanese officials

rejected her proposal for an international panel to review both

countries' mad cow policies. And in New Jersey, a suspicious

cluster of human deaths from mad cow-like diseases, brought to

light by one concerned citizen, is raising serious questions about

the cost of dismissing the threat posed by mad cow disease and

related transmissible spongiform encephalopathies.

SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily, April 2, 2004

More web links related to this story are available at:

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/April_2004.html#1080882000

To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:

http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1080882000

 

DON'T BE FOOLED

http://www.thegreenlife.org/report.html

The Green Life, a Boston-based environmental organization, chose

April 1 to release its " Don't Be Fooled " report on the " 10 worst

greenwashers of 2003. " Winners included: Project Learning Tree, a

front group for the American Forest Foundation; Royal Caribbean

International, for giving itself an environmental award and

shielding customers from information about raw sewage dumping and

other forms of cruise ship pollution; the Environmental Protection

Agency, for calling its plan to weaken the Clean Air Act the " Clear

Skies Initiative " ; and the American Chemistry Council, for its

covert PR plan to undermine support for the precautionary

principle; and Salmon of the Americas, a front group for the

aquaculture industry, for downplaying evidence that farmed salmon

contain higher levels of PCBs than wild salmon.

SOURCE: TheGreenlife.org, April 1, 2004

More web links related to this story are available at:

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/April_2004.html#1080795600

To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:

http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1080795600

 

WHY KAREN RYAN DESERVED WHAT SHE GOT

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/

Journalism professor Jay Rosen has written a commentary about Karen

Ryan, the public relations consultant who got caught posing as a

reporter in a video news release produced for the U.S. Department

of Health and Human Services (HHS) to praise the Bush

administration's controversial new Medicare bill. " If Karen Ryan

belonged to a real profession, responsible members of that

fraternity would denounce her fakery, and renounce the practice of

sticking simulated reporters into video clips so as to maximize the

illusion of independent journalism and serious fact-finding, " Rosen

writes. " A real profession would be criticizing the government for

abusing the practice of public relations. ... PR's 'just fake it'

mentality has advanced so far into normal practice, all over our

public culture, left, middle and right, that it usually seems

pointless to object. Yet in the case of Ryan we find someone so

saturated with the PR mentality, with fakery as a normal condition

in life, that she cannot distinguish between criticism of her

creepy practice, ('I'm Karen Ryan reporting') and the world

shouting at her: you're such a horrible person, Karen! ... Could

most Americans - Republicans, Democrats, Bush haters, Bush

supporters, white collar, blue collar - even complete the kind of

act in question, which involves lying with smooth demeanor about

who you are, falsifying what you do for a living, tapping the

remaining credibility of another profession to promote your own,

and hoping you make it on the air to complete the government's

deception? "

SOURCE: PressThink, March 31, 2004

More web links related to this story are available at:

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1080709202

To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:

http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1080709202

 

 

 

.. STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/31/politics/31NUKE.html

Seven nuclear power companies announced a joint effort to " apply

for a license to build a new commercial power plant " -- the first

in 30 years. The consortium will " test a simplified licensing

system created by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission... to help the

industry go from reactor order to electricity production in 5

years, as opposed to the 10 or 12 years " it used to take. The

consortium is integral to the Bush administration's " Nuclear Power

2010 " program, a " joint government/industry cost-shared effort "

hoping to " deploy " new plants " in the 2010 timeframe. " In other

news, a two-year study by 30 environmental, health and safety

groups faulted the Energy Department for " the seepage of

radioactive and toxic byproducts " from nuclear weapons complexes

" into vital water resources. "

SOURCE: The New York Times, March 31, 2004

More web links related to this story are available at:

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1080709200

To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:

http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1080709200

 

 

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