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The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, June 9, 2004

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The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, June 9, 2004

weekly-spin-admin

 

THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, June 9, 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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THIS WEEK'S NEWS

 

1. Hot Summer Reading: Banana Republicans

2. Have a Gram, Don't Give a Damn!

3. Getting Out the Vote, Religiously

4. PR Meltdown

5. Reagan and the Cold War: Myth vs. Reality

6. 'Good' War Versus 'Bad' War

7. Democracy Is Gr8!

8. What the World Needs Now

9. Art Imitates Life Sciences

10. Irrelevant No Longer?

11. Big Money, Bad Medicine

12. Freedom Fries, Hold the Freedom

13. Sweet Smelling Ash

14. Super Surprise Me

15. The Terminator, The Gipper and the Banana Republicans

16. A Beef with Human Rights

17. The March of Whose Freedom?

18. Rotten to the DynCorp

19. A Big, Right-Wing Bird?

20. The Difference Between Terrorists and Wedding Guests

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2. HAVE A GRAM, DON'T GIVE A DAMN!

http://thehill.com/business/060804_depression.aspx

" The leading drug-industry trade group and the U.S. Chamber of

Commerce are working ... to demonstrate the cost of depression in

the workplace and to show employers that treating affected workers

would improve the bottom line, " reports The Hill. The American

Psychiatric Association, Chamber and Pharmaceutical Research and

Manufacturers of America endorsed a " depression calculator, " which

allows employers to estimate the effect of untreated depression on

their company's profits, through absenteeism and low productivity.

The calculator also figures " how much the business would save if

employees were treated. " However, the Chamber opposes

mental-health-parity legislation that would ensure equal mental

health and substance abuse healthcare coverage; their healthcare

policy director explained, " employers do not often get a

bottom-line return regarding employee benefits ... treating

depression is an exception. "

SOURCE: The Hill, June 8, 2004

More web links related to this story are available at:

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2004.html#1086667202

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

http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1086667202

 

 

4. PR MELTDOWN

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory & c=Sto\

ryFT & cid=1086445494365

As part of its restructuring, the debt-laden nuclear power

generator British Energy hired American Roy Anderson as its chief

nuclear officer, created a new technical director position, and

switched PR firms. Anderson, who's currently president of New

Jersey-based PSEG Nuclear, was welcomed by British Energy as

someone with " significant experience of nuclear turnarounds. " In

April, British Energy ended its 14-year contract with PR giant Hill

& Knowlton and began discussions with Bell Pottinger Public

Affairs. However, upon discovering that Bell Pottinger director

Neil Stockley had signed " anti-nuclear policy papers when he was

director of policy for the Liberal Democrats in the 1990s, " British

Energy ended talks with the firm at the " eleventh hour " and started

looking for alternatives, to " promote nuclear energy's green

credentials. "

SOURCE: Financial Times (UK), June 8, 2004

More web links related to this story are available at:

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2004.html#1086667200

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

http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1086667200

 

 

9. ART IMITATES LIFE SCIENCES

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/06/03/national161\

6EDT0719.DTL & type=health

" I feel sorry for Steve Kurtz because he lost his wife ... and he

didn't even have time to grieve, " said art professor Beatriz da

Costa. Kurtz is part of the Critical Art Ensemble, an acclaimed

group " dedicated to exploring the intersections between art,

technology, radical politics and critical theory. " Following

Kurtz's wife's sudden death, police found " biological materials " at

their home and involved the Joint Terrorism Task Force. Kurtz's art

uses plants, bacterial cultures and lab equipment. Adele Henderson,

a colleague at the University of Buffalo, called the ongoing FBI

investigation " a total paranoid overreaction. " Another friend

commented, " There is no legal way to stop huge corporations from

putting genetically altered material in our food, yet owning the

equipment required to test for the presence of 'Frankenfood' will

get you accused of 'terrorism.' "

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, June 4, 2004

More web links related to this story are available at:

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2004.html#1086321602

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

http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1086321602

 

11. BIG MONEY, BAD MEDICINE

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108630647391928651,00.html?mod=health%5Fhs%5F\

research%5Fscience

" It's been pretty well established that publication bias is

associated with industry funding, " says Brown University

epidemiologist Kay Dickersin, about drug companies squashing

unfavorable research results. Yet the " overwhelming majority " of

drug researchers receive industry funding, according to Canadian

clinical pharmacist Muhammad Mamdani. The drug industry trade group

PhRMA agreed in 2002 to voluntary rules in which companies promise

they " will not suppress or veto publications. " New York Attorney

General Eliot Spitzer thinks those rules aren't working; he filed a

lawsuit against GlaxoSmithKline charging that the company sought to

" manage the dissemination of data " on the potential hazards of

prescribing the antidepressant Paxil to children. GlaxoSmithKline

contends it has " acted responsibly. "

SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, June 4, 2004

More web links related to this story are available at:

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2004.html#1086321600

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

http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1086321600

 

 

13. SWEET SMELLING ASH

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/story.jsp?story=527695

British American Tobacco is carrying out animal tests on chocolate,

wine, sherry, cocoa, corn syrup, cherry juice, maple syrup and

vanilla-flavored tobacco. Former British health secretary Frank

Dobson remarked, " We all know that hardly anyone takes up smoking

when they are grown up. That is why the tobacco industry wants to

target children [with flavored tobacco]. " Flavored cigarettes,

which were first sold by R.J. Reynolds in 1999, are facing mounting

criticism in America. Harvard School of Public Health instructor

Greg Connolly said, " By masking the natural toxic products of smoke

with these candy flavors, they're basically trying to turn a blow

torch into rice pudding. " Former Virginia Lieutenant Governor and

tobacco executive John Hager has been nominated as assistant

secretary of education for special education and rehabilitation

services.

SOURCE: Independent (UK), June 3, 2004

More web links related to this story are available at:

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2004.html#1086235200

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

http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1086235200

 

14. SUPER SURPRISE ME

http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/512/512414p1.html?fromint=1

IGN FilmForce, a movie review website, took a look at the PR battle

against Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock's documentary about the 30

days he spent eating nothing but meals from McDonald's. " Over the

course of three days this week, IGN FilmForce came across three

separate press releases, from three different organizations, all

extolling the 'truth' about how the new documentary film Super Size

Me distorts the fact, " they report. " You may have seen media

coverage taken straight from these press releases in the past few

days n on TV, in print or on the Internet. We thought it would be

interesting to take a look at the groups behind this press blitz

against a limited-release documentary film. " Surprise, surprise,

they're all industry front groups.

More web links related to this story are available at:

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2004.html#1086184585

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

http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1086184585

 

 

16. A BEEF WITH HUMAN RIGHTS

http://sg.news./040602/1/3krr9.html

In a move Australia's foreign minister decried as " outrageous and

indefensible, utterly at odds with ... an open and democratic

society, " an American human rights monitor has been ordered to

leave Indonesia. The International Crisis Group's Sidney Jones said

her " immediate expulsion order " was arranged by the Indonesian

intelligence agency, whose director called her work " subversive. "

Indonesia's intelligence director accused 19 other non-governmental

groups of " endangering national security before the July 5

presidential election. " But Indonesia does want U.S. beef. The

country " cited a determination last week " by the international

animal health organization " that the U.S. was now considered to be

[mad cow disease]-free, " and became " one of the first countries

besides Mexico and Canada to resume their imports of U.S. beef, "

according to AgWeb.

SOURCE: Agence France-Presse, June 2, 2004

More web links related to this story are available at:

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/June_2004.html#1086148803

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

http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1086148803

 

 

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The Weekly Spin is compiled by staff and volunteers at PR Watch.

To or unsubcribe, visit:

http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/_sotd.html

 

Daily updates and news from past weeks can be found at the

Spin of the Day " section of the PR Watch website:

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/index.html

 

Archives of our quarterly publication, PR Watch, are at:

http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues

 

PR Watch, Spin of the Day and the Weekly Spin 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

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