The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, May 12, 2004

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12 May 2004 05:00:01 -0000

The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, May 12, 2004

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THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, May 12, 2004

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sponsored by PR WATCH (www.prwatch.org)

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The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to

further information about current public relations campaigns.

It is emailed free each Wednesday to rs.

 

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.. COUNTER-ATTACK OF THE KILLER CLOWNS

http://prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?site=3 & ID=209884 & site=3 & /news/news_story.c\

fm & setcookie=1

As the anti-fast food documentary " Super Size Me " hits theaters,

McDonald's is fighting back. " We're responding aggressively because

the film is a gross misrepresentation, " said a company

spokesperson. Helping defend McDonald's are " global nutritionist "

Cathy Kapica and the corporate-funded American Council on Science

and Health. According to PR Week, ACSH's " aggressive independent

third-party response " includes editorials on Tech Central Station,

a website published by Republican lobbyists. Also under attack is

Coca-Cola, for alleged " complicity in gross human rights

violations " in Colombia, reports O'Dwyer's PR Daily. " We plan to

destroy the image of Coca-Cola, for which it has spent millions to

cultivate, " said the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke's director. To

" get the facts to all concerned parties, " the soft drink giant

launched www.cokefacts.org and www.killercoke.com -- the latter to

" capture " people seeking the Campaign's website,

www.killercoke.org.

SOURCE: PR Week, May 10, 2004

More web links related to this story are available at:

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1084161603

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

http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1084161603

 

.. FREE THE PRESS!

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/05/10/ap_miss_newspaper_sue_over\

_tape_erasure/

The Associated Press and the Mississippi paper Hattiesburg American

filed a lawsuit " against the U.S. Marshals Service over an incident

in April in which a federal marshal erased reporters' recordings of

a speech Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia gave to high school

students " about the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit alleges the

marshal " violated due process and the constitutional protections

from unreasonable search and seizure. " Saying " the government's

power is overwhelming, " Associated Press President Tom Curley

announced plans to form a " media advocacy center to lobby in

Washington for open government. " Curley said the Reporters

Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Society of Professional

Journalists and others would be invited to help " seek better

statutory guarantees for more accessible government information. "

SOURCE: Associated Press, May 10, 2004

More web links related to this story are available at:

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1084161602

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

http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1084161602

 

 

 

.. DISINFOPEDIA AS PART OF THE SMART MOBS VS. AMWAY

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18605

" As Howard Rheingold, who literally wrote the book, Smart Mobs,

says: 'Civilizations jump in complexity whenever a threshold for

collective action is lowered. It's not just street protestors. It's

science, democracy, markets, the way people meet and mate, the way

people use cities and the way motor vehicles use roadways that are

affected ... when mobile communication and pervasive computing

enable new forms of collective action,' " Brad deGraf writes for

AlterNet. " 'Wikis' have become the participatory writing tool of

choice, and have revolutionized online collaboration. The

Disinfopedia, from the folks at PR Watch, is an encyclopedia of

disinformation that anyone can add their two-cents to, using the

'Edit this Page' button on every page. "

SOURCE: Alternet, May 6, 2004

More web links related to this story are available at:

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1083816000

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

http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1083816000

 

 

.. DRINK UP

http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/news/050504/Local/ST001.shtml

A grand jury report on groundwater contamination in Escambia

County, Florida, has been released charging that local, state and

federal agencies responsible for protecting the environment and

public health all failed to inform the public about industrial

contamination of the county's water supply, with the Conoco oil

company among the area's leading polluters. " The combined failure

meant thousands of residents were unaware that more than half of

the county's public water wells were laced with harmful

contaminants for an untold number of years, " reports Steve Mraz,

noting that authorities were " more concerned about public relations

and financial impacts " of their decisions than " than the health,

safety and welfare consequences. " As is often the case, the impetus

for cleanup came, not from government regulatory agencies, but from

Margaret Williams, a local grandmother turned activist, Margaret

Williams, and her organization, Citizens Against Toxic Exposure.

SOURCE: Pensacola New Journal, May 5, 2004

More web links related to this story are available at:

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1083729602

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

http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1083729602

 

DON'T READ THIS OVER AN AMERICAN HAMBURGER

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/05/05/DDGFL6EUPN1.DTL

Recently the Center's John Stauber had lunch with journalist Laurel

Wellman to discuss the Center's prescient 1997 book by Stauber and

Sheldon Rampton, Mad Cow USA. The resulting column in today's San

Francisco Chronicle notes that in the month after December's

discovery of a mad cow in Washington state, 80,000 people

downloaded Mad Cow USA for free off of our website. Meanwhile, the

US government continues to cover-up the threat of mad cow in

America. For instance, on the meat-industry website

meatingplace.com, reporter Dan Yovich today breaks the outrageous,

shocking news that a United States Department of Agriculture

official ordered that a suspected Texas mad cow NOT be tested for

the disease. Instead, it was sent to a rendering plant and

destroyed, probably to become food for other animals, which is how

the disease is spread.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, May 5, 2004

More web links related to this story are available at:

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/May_2004.html#1083729601

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

http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1083729601

 

 

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