Guest guest Posted June 9, 2004 Report Share Posted June 9, 2004 9 Jun 2004 05:00:00 -0000 The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, June 9, 2004 weekly-spin-admin THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, June 9, 2004 --- sponsored by PR WATCH (www.prwatch.org) --- 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. SHARE US WITH A FRIEND (OR FIFTY FRIENDS) Who do you know who might want to receive Spin of the Week? Help us grow our r list! Just forward this message to people you know, encouraging them to sign up at this link: http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/_sotd.html --- 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 ---- 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 ---- 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 publications to: editor Contributions to the Center for Media & Democracy are tax-deductible. 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