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THE WEEKLY SPIN, March 23, 2005
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THIS WEEK'S NEWS


== BLOG POSTINGS ==
1. CMD & Free Press File 'Fake News' Complaint with FCC on Behalf of 40,000 Petition Signers
2. Stauber Debates Fake News on WBUR's "On Point"
3. PR Execs Undeterred by Fake News "Flap"

== SPIN OF THE DAY ==
1. California Unions Sue to Terminate Video News Releases
2. Rupert Murdoch's Tax Two-Step
3. Nuclear Energy Is the New Black
4. For Ethnic Press, Access Is Separate, Unequal
5. The Age of Missing Information
6. Enron: Patron Saint of Bush's Fake News
7. Sacramento to Hollywood: Back Off
8. Mad Cow: Trade War of Words
9. On Iraq, Not All News Deemed "Fit to Print"
10. Americans Still Believe Bush's War Propaganda
11. Is that Business I Hear Booming?
12. Consumers Buy the Darndest Things
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== BLOG POSTINGS ==

1. CMD & FREE PRESS FILE 'FAKE NEWS' COMPLAINT WITH FCC ON BEHALF OF 40,000 PETITION SIGNERS
by John Stauber
The Center for Media and Democracy and Free Press have filed a
complaint with the Federal Communications Commission urging an
investigation of the extensive airing of "fake news" by TV
broadcasters who take government and corporate Video News Release
(VNR) stories and run them unlabeled as real journalism. In just one
week nearly 40,000 citizens have signed our petition calling on the
FCC, Congress and local broadcasters to stop fake news.
For the rest of this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3414

2. STAUBER DEBATES FAKE NEWS ON WBUR'S "ON POINT"
by John Stauber
I was a guest tonight on WBUR's nationwide call-in public radio
program "On Point." You can hear the show online at the WBUR
website. The topic was the Bush administration's quarter-billion
dollar expenditure on PR and propaganda.
For the rest of this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3375

3. PR EXECS UNDETERRED BY FAKE NEWS "FLAP"
by John Stauber
This afternoon I listened in on a conference call among some of the
top PR execs in the business of producing video news releases
(VNRs), more honestly called fake news. I can report they are proud
and confident that the recent "flap" on the front page of Sunday's
New York Times about the Bush administration's use of fake news will
amount to nothing at all. These PR executives are elated that the
New York Times piece was about government propaganda, and not about
their much more widespread and lucrative production of corporate
VNRs, the biggest and richest part of the fake news business.
For the rest of this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3374

== SPIN OF THE DAY ==

1. CALIFORNIA UNIONS SUE TO TERMINATE VIDEO NEWS RELEASES
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/03/22/BAGIIBSQL21.DTL
A lawsuit filed in Sacramento Superior Court by three California
unions seeks a ruling banning public funds from being used for the
production of video news releases. VNRs produced by the
Schwarzenegger administration have backed moves to remove workers'
lunch break guarantees and opposed legislated nurse-to-patient
staffing ratios. A California Health and Human Services Agency
spokeswoman defended the use of VNRs. "There is no statutory
prohibition against the use of public funds to produce video news
releases. ... No court has expressly disapproved the expenditure of
public funds for VNRs," she said.
SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, March 22, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3472

2. RUPERT MURDOCH'S TAX TWO-STEP
http://afr.com/premium/articles/2005/03/22/1111254025160.html
Australian journalist Neil Chenoweth has revealed that Rupert
Murdoch "sidestepped stamp duty of $A53 million [U.S.$41.3m] and
capital gains tax of up to $A1.2 billion [U.S.$936m] by moving
control of his ultimate family company, Kayarem, to the Caribbean
and listing it on the Bermuda Stock Exchange (BSE) a week before
News Corporation was reincorporated in the United States last
November. Documents filed with the BSE show that listing Kayarem in
the tax haven allowed the Murdoch family to obtain a tax benefit
when it sold its controlling interest in the Queensland Press group
to News Corp." In 2001, Chenoweth's book Virtual Murdoch was
published in the UK and as Rupert Murdoch: The Untold Story of the
World's Greatest Media Wizard in the U.S. in November 2002.
SOURCE: Australian Financial Review, March 23, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3471

3. NUCLEAR ENERGY IS THE NEW BLACK
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/30032/story.htm
At a conference on the future of nuclear power, International Atomic
Energy Agency director Mohamed ElBaradei "pointed to nuclear energy
policy plans in China, Finland, the United States and possibly
Poland as proof that nuclear power may be returning to vogue." U.S.
Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said, "America hasn't ordered a new
nuclear power plant since the 1970s and it's time to start building
again." Recently released "internal Energy Department email
messages" suggest that some work done "in preparation for seeking a
license to open a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in
Nevada" was falsified. A department spokesperson said the discovery
was a positive sign of "quality-assurance procedures." Our next
issue of PR Watch focuses on the nuclear industry - if you're not
already subscribed, sign up today!
SOURCE: Reuters, March 22, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3415

4. FOR ETHNIC PRESS, ACCESS IS SEPARATE, UNEQUAL
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000846210
Government agencies "often don't return phone calls or provide
relevant information" to the ethnic press, according to a survey by
the Independent Press Association-New York. The association is a
network of 115 "immigrant, African-American, and community
newspapers." The most unhelpful federal agencies were the Department
of Homeland Security, the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration
Affairs, and the Department of Labor. Unhelpful New York City
agencies included the police, fire department, mayor's office and
Department of Education. The survey found that "timely delivery of
information from government agencies" to ethnic media reporters
occurs just half of the time.
SOURCE: Associated Press, March 18, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3413

5. THE AGE OF MISSING INFORMATION
http://www.slate.com/id/2114963/
Since President Bush entered office, there has been a 75% increase
in the amount of government information classified as secret each
year. "Yet an even more aggressive form of government information
control has gone unenumerated and often unrecognized in the Bush
era, as government agencies have restricted access to unclassified
information in libraries, archives, Web sites, and official
databases," writes Steven Aftergood, director of the project on
government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. "Once
freely available, a growing number of these sources are now barred
to the public as 'sensitive but unclassified' or 'for official use
only.'" Examples of unclassified but unavailable information include
the Defense Department's telephone directory, the National Archives'
historical records, satellite orbital information, aeronautical
maps, and environmental data.
SOURCE: Slate, March 17, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3412

6. ENRON: PATRON SAINT OF BUSH'S FAKE NEWS
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/20/arts/20Rich.html
Former [[sw:Enron]] CEO [[sw:Ken Lay]], "the poster boy for how big
guys can rip off suckers in the stock market," is back in the news
as his trial date nears. According to Frank Rich, "The enduring
legacy of Enron can be summed up in one word: propaganda. Here was a
corporate house of cards whose business few could explain and whose
source of profits was an utter mystery - and yet it thrived,
unquestioned, for years." How? "Enron 'was fixated on its public
relations campaigns.' It churned out slick PR videos as if it were a
Hollywood studio. It browbeat the press (until a young Fortune
reporter, Bethany McLean, asked one question too many)." Rich also
writes about Susan Molinari, who "is invariably described as 'a
former Republican Congresswoman' or a CNBC political analyst'" on
news shows. But her current jobs are "C.E.O. of the Washington
Group, Ketchum's lobbying firm, and president of Ketchum Public
Affairs" - the same Ketchum responsible for Armstrong Williams and
video news releases narrated by faux reporter Karen Ryan.
SOURCE: New York Times, March 20, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3411

7. SACRAMENTO TO HOLLYWOOD: BACK OFF
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2005/03/18/state/n160412S35.DTL
"We believe a court would find the 'style, tenor and timing' of the
(video news release) to be 'promotional' in nature, thus triggering
the requirement it be expressly authorized by statute," ruled the
California state legislature's counsel, on a Schwarzenegger
administration VNR. The undersecretary of the Labor and Workforce
Development Agency, which produced the VNR to support changes in
workers' break guarantees, earlier said that "the administration's
lawyers concluded the videos were permissible." The Schwarzenegger
administration made at least four VNRs without legislative
authorization. In national news, the Federal Communications
Commission has been asked by Senators John Kerry and Daniel Inouye
(both Democrats) to investigate the broadcasting of
government-funded VNRs.
SOURCE: Associated Press, March 18, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3409

8. MAD COW: TRADE WAR OF WORDS
http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/0317fh_canada_beef.htm
Ongoing litigation to keep the U.S. border closed to Canadian beef
and cattle, following three cases of mad cow disease there, has
prompted renewed PR efforts. The Alberta Beef Producers hired
Fleishman-Hillard, to help "reopen the U.S. market to Canadian
beef." The Montana-based group R-CALF, which filed the lawsuit,
"purchased a half-page advertisement in the Washington Post ...
thanking the U.S. Senate for passing a resolution blocking the
resumption of live cattle and full beef trade with Canada." And the
Canadian Agriculture and Agri-Food Ministry is helping "launch an
aggressive marketing campaign to reclaim and expand markets for
Canadian beef," part of the country's "Repositioning the Livestock
Industry Strategy," launched last year.
SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily (reg. req'd.), March 17, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3398

9. ON IRAQ, NOT ALL NEWS DEEMED "FIT TO PRINT"
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000846234
"Many media outlets self-censored their reporting on Iraq," often
out of fear of offending their audience, found a survey of more than
200 U.S. media personnel by American University's School of
Communications. The "editing that went into content after it was
gathered but before it was published" was significant. 15% of those
reporting from Iraq said "they did not believe the final version" of
their pieces, post-editing, "accurately represented the story." 20%
of those reporting on Iraq from the U.S. "said material was edited
for reasons other than basic style and length." One survey
respondent wrote, "The real damage of war on the civilian population
was uniformly omitted." In contrast, 92% said they had "no limits at
all" on "the type of interviews conducted."
SOURCE: Editor & Publisher, March 18, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3377

10. AMERICANS STILL BELIEVE BUSH'S WAR PROPAGANDA
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/PollVault/story?id=582744
This weekend is the second anniversary of the U.S. attack on Iraq.
The latest ABC News and Washington Post poll of public opinion shows
that most Americans still believe, incorrectly of course, that
Saddam's Iraq supported the 9/11 terrorists and had weapons of mass
destruction. Interestingly, the poll's own analysis tries to
downplay the significance of its findings, saying, "Most Americans
favored overthrowing Saddam years earlier, long before al Qaeda
became broadly known." Oh really? As we document in Weapons of Mass
Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq, the war
could never have been sold to the American people had ABC, the
Washington Post, and the rest of the mainstream media done their job
of exposing the false claims of the Bush administration. Instead,
they echoed those claims and censored and ignored critics of the
war.
SOURCE: ABC News, March 15, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3376

11. IS THAT BUSINESS I HEAR BOOMING?
http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/0316iraqex.htm
Iraqex, the U.S.-owned "investment group set up to pursue business
in Iraq," has changed its name to Lincoln Group, after its holding
company, Lincoln Alliance Corporation. Lincoln Group has a $6
million, 3-year PR contract for the U.S.-led Multi-National
Corps-Iraq, for which it "develops video, audio and print products
to support MNC-I initiatives." It also publishes Iraq Business
Journal, a "monthly publication on contract opportunities, life in
Iraq and classifieds." The publication recently interviewed Grand
Ayatolla Ali Al-Sistani, who said foreign investment is acceptable,
as long as the investor is not with the "occupation forces" or
taking "advantage of any instability." Lincoln Group is still
looking for interns.
SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily (reg. req'd.), March 16, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3373

12. CONSUMERS BUY THE DARNDEST THINGS
http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Business/031605.html
Afraid that their vote to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
to oil exploration might make Congress more likely to increase fuel
efficiency standards, the automobile industry is "trying to polish
its image." The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers is claiming, in
newspaper and radio ads, and on cleaning sponges given to
Congressional staffers, that "cars are 99% cleaner than they used to
be." (The Union of Concerned Scientists calls the Auto Alliance
campaign "highly misleading.") An Auto Alliance spokesperson said
increased fuel standards would be "very difficult to achieve,"
because of the popularity of large vehicles. "It's not what we
manufacture; it's what consumers buy," she said.
SOURCE: The Hill, March 16, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3372

----------------------------------------------------------------------

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