At home in japan without the kinks
Japanese abroad have no trouble finding bearings, but Kaori Shoji feels a little lost
By KAORI SHOJI
So is this what they mean by globalization?
From Tokyo, Japan to Boston, USA, there are no direct flights. It takes roughly 24 hours before you find yourself blinking in the lobby of Logan Airport, where likely as not you will be among a lot of tall, blonde people saying things like: "dude, that is AWESOME!"
The scenery should feel sufficiently foreign but it doesn't, not really, though you can't place a finger on exactly why.
The familiarity of it all is amplified once you hit downtown: there are Japanese restaurants with Japanese language menus pasted onto the double glass doors, Japanese hair salons with posters featuring Japanese models, Japanese travel agencies touting roundtrip, discount business class tickets to Tokyo -- in kanji.
Most of all, you see the F.C.P. (Fellow Countrypersons) everywhere, walking in pairs or threes: students at Berklee Music College (each year, a good third of the graduating class are Japanese), Boston University, University of Massachusetts, or any of the other numerous academic institutions which make up Boston's primary industry.
These students shop at the same Japanese grocery store, whose shelves boast all the Pocky and Pretz flavors, not to mention bowls of gyuudon and videos of the latest Japanese trendy dramas, flown into Logan at the pace of twice a week.
At this point I feel compelled to turn cranky and start reminiscing about the hard old days.
When I was growing up in New York about 2.5 decades ago, America felt downright . . . different.
This difference manifested itself in the most basic ways, reminding us constantly that we were here and not there.
My parents had to drive an hour to Freeport where they could buy fish fresh enough for sashimi, if they were lucky. Soy sauce was available but it tasted weirdly sweet. As for miso, it was difficult to find anything that wasn't additive-saturated and way past the legitimate sell-by date.
My friends in the neighborhood were Irish and Italian. I had pop-tarts for breakfast and carried peanut butter sandwiches to school. I wore Yankees T-shirts and went to summer camp. I had learned to say "up yours" before I learned the multiplication table.
As for Pocky, one knew such wonders existed but they were far, far beyond our reach. They were, in fact, in another country.
Upon my family's return to Tokyo, the feeling of difference kicked up all over again. Suddenly home life shrunk into the confines of the Japanese 3LDK, violently lit by overhead fluorescent lights.
School seemed to be a similar version of what Tommy Kealey's 21-year old brother had once described about boot camp.
No one spoke English and, if they did, it was an English I had never heard.
Life had turned into a whole new game with a different set of rules and the relearning process was accompanied by big doses of pain and frustration.
Now, of course, the hang-ups of U.S.-Japan relocation are far less burdensome or severe.
Pointing out the parallels between life in the States and life in Japan has become far easier than listing up the differences -- increasingly, here threatens to merge with there .
Even language, that great divider of cultures and borders, has gotten vague about enforcing discipline.
In Tokyo, as in Boston, it's possible for Americans/Japanese to go for weeks without uttering a whole sentence in the native tongue.
The staff who work at the Japanese grocery shop "Cherry Mart," for example, say their English has actually deteriorated over the years, what with serving Japanese customers, talking to Japanese sales reps and associating mainly with Japanese friends.
Americans are referred to as "Ame-jin" and viewed from a polite distance.
Masako Kakutani, a 28-year old student at Berklee, describes the American experience as "Japan, with the kinks out."
Born, raised and educated in Tokyo, Masako had worked at an HMV (Hunter Music Video) store in Shibuya for 4 years before deciding on the move to Boston: "I was working 14 hours a day and getting nowhere.
"Life in Tokyo was so tiring and I had just broken up with my boyfriend. It felt like the right time to do it." The Boston life she says, is "relaxing and easy, more like a vacation than anything else."
She works in a Japanese restaurant to pay for rent and the tuition fees are on loan from her parents.
Now in her third year in the New England city, Masako has not returned to Tokyo even once. In her own words she "has never felt freer." She knows that if she goes back, the problems of work and family will encroach on her private life. Her parents will pressure her about marriage and her friends will urge her to come over and look at their babies.
"Don't misunderstand me, I love Japan," she says. "It's just that I don't feel the need to go back."
True enough, since she can duplicate the Japanesey facets of life right here in Boston (J-anime books available at Borders, authentic, hand-baked An-Pan sold at the "Japonaise Bakery" to name a few examples), genuine homesickness seems beside the point.
Masako and her friends' lifestyle have a lot in common with the American expat in Tokyo, who lives in the expat luxury apartment and sends their children to ASIJ.
There's no urgent need to get local or to speak Japanese and supermarkets like Kinokuniya or National Azabu stock all the familiar foods. The one glaring difference is the cost -- the American lifestyle in Japan costs twice as much as the Japanese lifestyle in America.
But if the financial hurdle is not a problem (and it's often not for the expat executive), then what is?
Nothing, as far as I can tell. Freed from the irksome pressures of difference and exoticism, both Japanese and Americans have come to celebrate our knack for co-existence while at the same time leaving each other well alone.
Still, I can't help feeling nostalgia for the foreign-ness that (for me, anyway) once defined both America and Japan, the foreign-ness that forces the outsider to open up or shut down, to reveal inner vulnerabilities and strengths, and that ultimately taught you what the hell you're all about.
America is another country, yes, but this time around, I seem to have a hard time getting there.
The Japan Times: Dec. 23, 2003
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
Hi I think that I might have showen one of these bulletins before but it is so well done that thought another look would not hurt. This is one of the better efforts in the world to fight against false or misleading information being presented as facts. To put a spin on a story is to slant it in a preprejudiced way that is often favorable to you or your employer. Clark
THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, January 28, 2004
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THIS WEEK'S NEWS
1. USDA Hides Behind the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis
2. Bush Administration Protects Chemical Industy
3. Mad Cow is Good for Industry Front Groups
4. B-M's Biotech Front Group Exposed in the UK
5. Hiding Wal-Mart's Warts
6. Drug Researcher Continues To Challenge Industry Claims
7. Bush Promises US Propaganda To Replace Hateful Propaganda
8. US Obesity Expands PR Budgets
9. 'Corporate Social Resposibility' Masks Corporate Damage
10. Auto Industry Front Group Gets New Head
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1. USDA HIDES BEHIND THE HARVARD CENTER FOR RISK ANALYSIS
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/1075208119170910.xml
"When Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman met a House panel last week
to defend her response to mad cow disease, she cited a Harvard
University study concluding the risk to public health is minimal.
... The Harvard study, released two years ago, has become a
universal defense for Bush administration officials as they have
responded to the first cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in
Canada and then in the United States. But in their rush to embrace
'sound science,' Veneman and others at times mischaracterized the
study's purpose, recommendations or conclusions, according to a
review by The Oregonian." The USDA paid the Harvard Center for Risk
Analysis $800,000 to produce a computer modeling study designed to
deny and downplay mad cow risks in the US. Far from being an
academic institution, the Harvard Center is an industry-funded
front group specializing in producing risk assessments that favor
its Fortune 500 supporters. Director George Gray is on the board of
the industry-funded right-wing Foundation for Research and the
Environment (FREE), and he and the Center's David Reopik recently
penned a piece for FREE ridiculing concerns over mad cow disease.
SOURCE: Oregonian, January 27, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1075179600
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1075179600
2. BUSH ADMINISTRATION PROTECTS CHEMICAL INDUSTY
http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000035.php
"Last year the Bush Administration encouraged American chemical
companies to lobby against European efforts to strengthen the
regulation of thousands of chemicals contained in household,
industrial and personal products," BushGreenWash.org writes. "When
the chemical industry was slow to respond, Administration officials
took it upon themselves to launch 'an unusually aggressive
campaign' to pressure the European Union into watering down its
comprehensive reform efforts. Documents uncovered by the
Environmental Health Fund, using the Freedom of Information Act,
showed the U.S. State and Commerce departments, Environmental
Protection Agency and office of the U.S. Trade Representative,
formed an alliance with Dow Chemical Co. and others to ward off
regulations they feared would raise the cost of doing business in
Europe." Meanwhile, the environmental group Earthjustice recently
filed suit against the Bush Administration, asserting that it had
allowed a special task force from the chemical industry to lobby
secretly and illegally inside the EPA. According to internal
documents obtained through FOIA, the chemical industry is seeking
to cut U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries biologists
out of the oversight process that determines whether or not a
pesticide is safe for wildlife.
SOURCE: BushGreenWash.org, January 26, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1075093201
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1075093201
3. MAD COW IS GOOD FOR INDUSTRY FRONT GROUPS
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=102-01262004
Corporate-funded think tanks and food industry front groups are
rushing into the debate over mad cow disease. This Wednesday,
January 28th, the George C. Marshall Institute is hosting a
presentation by Harvard Center for Risk Analysis director George
Gray, hyping him as "the nation's foremost mad cow expert,"
although his expertise is in getting money from government agencies
and Fortune 500 companies to produce risk studies that favor their
positions. Along with the Harvard Center and the Marshall
Institute, other groups receiving industry funding and fronting for
them on mad cow disease include Elizabeth Whelan's American Council
on Science and Health; father and son combo Dennis and Alex Avery
of the Hudson Institute; self-named 'Junkman' Steve Milloy of the
Cato Institute; and tobacco, booze and fat-food lobbyist Richard
Berman and his latest enterprise the Center for Consumer Freedom.
Late today, in a major victory for our work here at the Center for
Media & Democracy, the Food and Drug Administration agreed with us
and banned cattle blood as feed for US cattle. UPI quotes Mad Cow
USA co-author John Stauber as saying "The steps announced today ...
still fall far short of what is needed. The United States should
follow the lead of the EU nations by banning all feeding of
slaughterhouse waste to livestock, and testing millions of U.S.
cattle for mad cow disease."
SOURCE: US Newswire Press Release, January 26, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1075093200
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1075093200
4. B-M'S BIOTECH FRONT GROUP EXPOSED IN THE UK
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1130785,00.html
"Few could question the sentiment behind the campaign: a fight
against cervical cancer. A clutch of famous women, including Liz
Hurley, Caprice and Carol Vorderman, signed up to support a crusade
to introduce a new NHS screening test that could save the lives of
thousands of women. The campaign is due to reach the House of
Commons on Wednesday, when MPs will be lobbied on the issue. But an
Observer investigation has uncovered how the celebrities have been
duped into supporting a sophisticated lobbying campaign secretly
orchestrated from Brussels by one of the world's largest public
relations firms, Burson-Marsteller. Celebrities contacted by The
Observer said they had no knowledge of the lobby group. ... The
company, whose headquarters are in New York, has conducted a
clandestine lobbying campaign on behalf of Digene, the US biotech
firm that would make hundreds of millions of pounds if the tests
were introduced in the UK and elsewhere. The idea was to set up a
'grass roots' group of celebrities and other high-profile women
that would appear to be an independent body and pressure Ministers
to introduce the new screening tests."
SOURCE: The Observer, January 25, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1075006800
5. HIDING WAL-MART'S WARTS
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43156-2004Jan23.html
"Wal-Mart's very success may be working against it," reports the
Washington Post. "[T]he public tends to mistrust institutions that
get too mighty." The world's largest retailer, with 4,300 stores
and 1.3 million employees, Wal-Mart's woes include a lawsuit for
Americans with Disabilities Act violations, federal raids netting
some 200 illegal immigrant workers, and charges that employees are
encouraged to rely on taxpayer-funded programs for health care.
Wal-Mart's response? Run feel good TV ads and increase political
donations to become the second-biggest donor in the 2004 election
cycle, overwhelmingly to Republicans. "Our critics make an awful
lot of noise, and we need to ensure that our side of the issues is
heard as well," explained Wal-Mart spokesperson Mona Williams.
SOURCE: The Washington Post, Saturday, January 24, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1074920401
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074920401
6. DRUG RESEARCHER CONTINUES TO CHALLENGE INDUSTRY CLAIMS
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/328/7433/187-c?etoc
A Canadian professor of pediatrics and medicine vows to continue
speaking out on the risk of a drug used to treat thalassemia, a
hereditary blood disorder. Dr. Nancy Olivieri lost her attempt to
get her research on the harmful side effects of deferiprone looked
at by the committee for proprietary and medicinal products (CPMP)
that regulates drugs in Europe. "This ruling guarantees that only a
drug company attempting to sell a drug will control the content of
the scientific data submitted or not submitted to the European
CPMP," she said. "It no longer matters whether drug companies tell
the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, because it's
unchallengeable now." PR Watch First Quarter 2003 reported on
Olivieri's fight for academic freedom when the drug company that
funded her research blocked her from making her findings public.
SOURCE: BMJ.com, January 24, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1074920400
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074920400
7. BUSH PROMISES US PROPAGANDA TO REPLACE HATEFUL PROPAGANDA
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1074683529256&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795
"To cut through the barriers of hateful propaganda, the Voice of
America and other broadcast services are expanding their programs
in Arabic and Persian -- and, soon a new television service will
begin providing reliable news and information across the region,"
George W. Bush said in his State of the Union address. In response,
the Toronto Star's editorial page editor emeritus Haroon Siddiqui
writes, "There's the Bush doctrine: The mess in the Middle East is
to be solved by duplicating regional propaganda with American
propaganda." The U.S.-funded Iraqi Media Network, which is run by a
defense contractor, has drawn much criticism from Iraqis and former
employees for being a mouth piece of the Coalition Provisional
Authority. The Boston Globe reports that Bush is asking for $80
million this year for the National Endowment for Democracy, up from
$39.6 million. The new money is slated to fund groups in the Middle
East that support free elections, open markets, a free press, and
labor and trade unions. NED, however, has critics on both the right
and the left. Terry Allen, from the Chicago-based In These Times,
wrote in commentary accompanying a listing of Project Censored's
under-reported stories of 2003 that "using the same conduit Reagan
used to fund the contras, the National Endowment for Democracy, the
George W. Bush administration had funneled money to Venezuelan
Opposition.î
SOURCE: Toronto Star, January 22 , 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1074799592
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074799592
8. US OBESITY EXPANDS PR BUDGETS
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/7765780.htm
"The United States spent $75.1 billion last year on medical
expenses, such as drugs, doctor visits and hospitalizations,
related to obesity, according to a study published this month in
the journal Obesity Research," the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
The study, financed by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, found that taxpayers paid half of the bill through
Medicare and Medicaid programs. Obesity-related health problems
added up to 5.7 percent of the nation's total medical expenses,
according to the report. America's expanding waistline has meant
more fast food and soft drink dollars being spent on PR. "New
York-area McDonald's have kicked off a PR campaign designed to
increase sales by telling customers how various McDonald's offering
cans fit into their favorite diets," PR Week reports. The industry
front group Center for Consumer Freedom, which got $200,000 from
Coca-Cola in 2001, wrote in an newspaper op-ed that opposition to
soda machines in schools is "fueled by junk science and media
frenzy" and that it is a "wild claim that soda consumption causes
childhood obesity."
SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer, January 22, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1074747600
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074747600
9. 'CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPOSIBILITY' MASKS CORPORATE DAMAGE
http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/news/media/pressrel/040121p.htm
As the international business elite meet behind high fences in
Davos, Switzerland, an international relief organization says
corporate claims of good deeds often hide companies' efforts to
undermine regulations and to elude responsibility for harm already
done. "The image of companies working hard to make the world a
better place is too often just that -- a carefully manufactured
image," Christian Aid says in its new report, "Behind the mask: the
real face of corporate social responsibility." The study targets
"the burgeoning industry known as corporate social responsibility
-- or CSR -- which is now seen as a vital tool in promoting and
improving the public image of some of the world's largest companies
and corporations." The report examines campaigns carried out by
Shell, British American Tobacco and Coca Cola. "Some of those
shouting the loudest about their corporate virtues are also among
those inflicting continuing damage on communities where they work
-- particularly poor communities," said Andrew Pendleton, senior
policy officer at Christian Aid and author of the report.
SOURCE: Christian Aid, January 21, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074661201
10. AUTO INDUSTRY FRONT GROUP GETS NEW HEAD
http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/0121mccahill.htm
"Barry McCahill, a longtime transportation PR and public affairs
exec, has taken over as president of the Sport Utility Vehicle
Owners of America, a lobbying group which claims to represent the
24 million SUV owners in the U.S.," O'Dwyer's PR Daily Reports.
"Jason Vines, former managing director of Strat@comm and ex-head of
PR at Ford, left the post in December to return to DaimlerChrysler,
where he began his career. McCahill is a senior consultant to
Strat@comm and the group's communications director is a principal
and founder at the firm. McCahill was a longtime spokesman for the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and was on the team
that put together its talking crash-test dummies and 'Friends Don't
Let Friends Drive Drunk' campaigns."
SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily, January 21, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1074661200
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074661200
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, January 28, 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 subscribers.
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 subscriber list! Just forward this message to
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---------------------------------------------------------------------
THIS WEEK'S NEWS
1. USDA Hides Behind the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis
2. Bush Administration Protects Chemical Industy
3. Mad Cow is Good for Industry Front Groups
4. B-M's Biotech Front Group Exposed in the UK
5. Hiding Wal-Mart's Warts
6. Drug Researcher Continues To Challenge Industry Claims
7. Bush Promises US Propaganda To Replace Hateful Propaganda
8. US Obesity Expands PR Budgets
9. 'Corporate Social Resposibility' Masks Corporate Damage
10. Auto Industry Front Group Gets New Head
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1. USDA HIDES BEHIND THE HARVARD CENTER FOR RISK ANALYSIS
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/1075208119170910.xml
"When Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman met a House panel last week
to defend her response to mad cow disease, she cited a Harvard
University study concluding the risk to public health is minimal.
... The Harvard study, released two years ago, has become a
universal defense for Bush administration officials as they have
responded to the first cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in
Canada and then in the United States. But in their rush to embrace
'sound science,' Veneman and others at times mischaracterized the
study's purpose, recommendations or conclusions, according to a
review by The Oregonian." The USDA paid the Harvard Center for Risk
Analysis $800,000 to produce a computer modeling study designed to
deny and downplay mad cow risks in the US. Far from being an
academic institution, the Harvard Center is an industry-funded
front group specializing in producing risk assessments that favor
its Fortune 500 supporters. Director George Gray is on the board of
the industry-funded right-wing Foundation for Research and the
Environment (FREE), and he and the Center's David Reopik recently
penned a piece for FREE ridiculing concerns over mad cow disease.
SOURCE: Oregonian, January 27, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1075179600
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1075179600
2. BUSH ADMINISTRATION PROTECTS CHEMICAL INDUSTY
http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000035.php
"Last year the Bush Administration encouraged American chemical
companies to lobby against European efforts to strengthen the
regulation of thousands of chemicals contained in household,
industrial and personal products," BushGreenWash.org writes. "When
the chemical industry was slow to respond, Administration officials
took it upon themselves to launch 'an unusually aggressive
campaign' to pressure the European Union into watering down its
comprehensive reform efforts. Documents uncovered by the
Environmental Health Fund, using the Freedom of Information Act,
showed the U.S. State and Commerce departments, Environmental
Protection Agency and office of the U.S. Trade Representative,
formed an alliance with Dow Chemical Co. and others to ward off
regulations they feared would raise the cost of doing business in
Europe." Meanwhile, the environmental group Earthjustice recently
filed suit against the Bush Administration, asserting that it had
allowed a special task force from the chemical industry to lobby
secretly and illegally inside the EPA. According to internal
documents obtained through FOIA, the chemical industry is seeking
to cut U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries biologists
out of the oversight process that determines whether or not a
pesticide is safe for wildlife.
SOURCE: BushGreenWash.org, January 26, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1075093201
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1075093201
3. MAD COW IS GOOD FOR INDUSTRY FRONT GROUPS
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=102-01262004
Corporate-funded think tanks and food industry front groups are
rushing into the debate over mad cow disease. This Wednesday,
January 28th, the George C. Marshall Institute is hosting a
presentation by Harvard Center for Risk Analysis director George
Gray, hyping him as "the nation's foremost mad cow expert,"
although his expertise is in getting money from government agencies
and Fortune 500 companies to produce risk studies that favor their
positions. Along with the Harvard Center and the Marshall
Institute, other groups receiving industry funding and fronting for
them on mad cow disease include Elizabeth Whelan's American Council
on Science and Health; father and son combo Dennis and Alex Avery
of the Hudson Institute; self-named 'Junkman' Steve Milloy of the
Cato Institute; and tobacco, booze and fat-food lobbyist Richard
Berman and his latest enterprise the Center for Consumer Freedom.
Late today, in a major victory for our work here at the Center for
Media & Democracy, the Food and Drug Administration agreed with us
and banned cattle blood as feed for US cattle. UPI quotes Mad Cow
USA co-author John Stauber as saying "The steps announced today ...
still fall far short of what is needed. The United States should
follow the lead of the EU nations by banning all feeding of
slaughterhouse waste to livestock, and testing millions of U.S.
cattle for mad cow disease."
SOURCE: US Newswire Press Release, January 26, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1075093200
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1075093200
4. B-M'S BIOTECH FRONT GROUP EXPOSED IN THE UK
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1130785,00.html
"Few could question the sentiment behind the campaign: a fight
against cervical cancer. A clutch of famous women, including Liz
Hurley, Caprice and Carol Vorderman, signed up to support a crusade
to introduce a new NHS screening test that could save the lives of
thousands of women. The campaign is due to reach the House of
Commons on Wednesday, when MPs will be lobbied on the issue. But an
Observer investigation has uncovered how the celebrities have been
duped into supporting a sophisticated lobbying campaign secretly
orchestrated from Brussels by one of the world's largest public
relations firms, Burson-Marsteller. Celebrities contacted by The
Observer said they had no knowledge of the lobby group. ... The
company, whose headquarters are in New York, has conducted a
clandestine lobbying campaign on behalf of Digene, the US biotech
firm that would make hundreds of millions of pounds if the tests
were introduced in the UK and elsewhere. The idea was to set up a
'grass roots' group of celebrities and other high-profile women
that would appear to be an independent body and pressure Ministers
to introduce the new screening tests."
SOURCE: The Observer, January 25, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1075006800
5. HIDING WAL-MART'S WARTS
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43156-2004Jan23.html
"Wal-Mart's very success may be working against it," reports the
Washington Post. "[T]he public tends to mistrust institutions that
get too mighty." The world's largest retailer, with 4,300 stores
and 1.3 million employees, Wal-Mart's woes include a lawsuit for
Americans with Disabilities Act violations, federal raids netting
some 200 illegal immigrant workers, and charges that employees are
encouraged to rely on taxpayer-funded programs for health care.
Wal-Mart's response? Run feel good TV ads and increase political
donations to become the second-biggest donor in the 2004 election
cycle, overwhelmingly to Republicans. "Our critics make an awful
lot of noise, and we need to ensure that our side of the issues is
heard as well," explained Wal-Mart spokesperson Mona Williams.
SOURCE: The Washington Post, Saturday, January 24, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1074920401
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http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074920401
6. DRUG RESEARCHER CONTINUES TO CHALLENGE INDUSTRY CLAIMS
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/328/7433/187-c?etoc
A Canadian professor of pediatrics and medicine vows to continue
speaking out on the risk of a drug used to treat thalassemia, a
hereditary blood disorder. Dr. Nancy Olivieri lost her attempt to
get her research on the harmful side effects of deferiprone looked
at by the committee for proprietary and medicinal products (CPMP)
that regulates drugs in Europe. "This ruling guarantees that only a
drug company attempting to sell a drug will control the content of
the scientific data submitted or not submitted to the European
CPMP," she said. "It no longer matters whether drug companies tell
the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, because it's
unchallengeable now." PR Watch First Quarter 2003 reported on
Olivieri's fight for academic freedom when the drug company that
funded her research blocked her from making her findings public.
SOURCE: BMJ.com, January 24, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1074920400
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7. BUSH PROMISES US PROPAGANDA TO REPLACE HATEFUL PROPAGANDA
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1074683529256&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795
"To cut through the barriers of hateful propaganda, the Voice of
America and other broadcast services are expanding their programs
in Arabic and Persian -- and, soon a new television service will
begin providing reliable news and information across the region,"
George W. Bush said in his State of the Union address. In response,
the Toronto Star's editorial page editor emeritus Haroon Siddiqui
writes, "There's the Bush doctrine: The mess in the Middle East is
to be solved by duplicating regional propaganda with American
propaganda." The U.S.-funded Iraqi Media Network, which is run by a
defense contractor, has drawn much criticism from Iraqis and former
employees for being a mouth piece of the Coalition Provisional
Authority. The Boston Globe reports that Bush is asking for $80
million this year for the National Endowment for Democracy, up from
$39.6 million. The new money is slated to fund groups in the Middle
East that support free elections, open markets, a free press, and
labor and trade unions. NED, however, has critics on both the right
and the left. Terry Allen, from the Chicago-based In These Times,
wrote in commentary accompanying a listing of Project Censored's
under-reported stories of 2003 that "using the same conduit Reagan
used to fund the contras, the National Endowment for Democracy, the
George W. Bush administration had funneled money to Venezuelan
Opposition.î
SOURCE: Toronto Star, January 22 , 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1074799592
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http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074799592
8. US OBESITY EXPANDS PR BUDGETS
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/7765780.htm
"The United States spent $75.1 billion last year on medical
expenses, such as drugs, doctor visits and hospitalizations,
related to obesity, according to a study published this month in
the journal Obesity Research," the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
The study, financed by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, found that taxpayers paid half of the bill through
Medicare and Medicaid programs. Obesity-related health problems
added up to 5.7 percent of the nation's total medical expenses,
according to the report. America's expanding waistline has meant
more fast food and soft drink dollars being spent on PR. "New
York-area McDonald's have kicked off a PR campaign designed to
increase sales by telling customers how various McDonald's offering
cans fit into their favorite diets," PR Week reports. The industry
front group Center for Consumer Freedom, which got $200,000 from
Coca-Cola in 2001, wrote in an newspaper op-ed that opposition to
soda machines in schools is "fueled by junk science and media
frenzy" and that it is a "wild claim that soda consumption causes
childhood obesity."
SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer, January 22, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1074747600
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9. 'CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPOSIBILITY' MASKS CORPORATE DAMAGE
http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/news/media/pressrel/040121p.htm
As the international business elite meet behind high fences in
Davos, Switzerland, an international relief organization says
corporate claims of good deeds often hide companies' efforts to
undermine regulations and to elude responsibility for harm already
done. "The image of companies working hard to make the world a
better place is too often just that -- a carefully manufactured
image," Christian Aid says in its new report, "Behind the mask: the
real face of corporate social responsibility." The study targets
"the burgeoning industry known as corporate social responsibility
-- or CSR -- which is now seen as a vital tool in promoting and
improving the public image of some of the world's largest companies
and corporations." The report examines campaigns carried out by
Shell, British American Tobacco and Coca Cola. "Some of those
shouting the loudest about their corporate virtues are also among
those inflicting continuing damage on communities where they work
-- particularly poor communities," said Andrew Pendleton, senior
policy officer at Christian Aid and author of the report.
SOURCE: Christian Aid, January 21, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074661201
10. AUTO INDUSTRY FRONT GROUP GETS NEW HEAD
http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/0121mccahill.htm
"Barry McCahill, a longtime transportation PR and public affairs
exec, has taken over as president of the Sport Utility Vehicle
Owners of America, a lobbying group which claims to represent the
24 million SUV owners in the U.S.," O'Dwyer's PR Daily Reports.
"Jason Vines, former managing director of Strat@comm and ex-head of
PR at Ford, left the post in December to return to DaimlerChrysler,
where he began his career. McCahill is a senior consultant to
Strat@comm and the group's communications director is a principal
and founder at the firm. McCahill was a longtime spokesman for the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and was on the team
that put together its talking crash-test dummies and 'Friends Don't
Let Friends Drive Drunk' campaigns."
SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily, January 21, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1074661200
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http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074661200
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