Well welcome new cybercats. Your assignment for this week is a one paragraph introduction to yourself sent to me by this Sunday afternoon by e-mail. For a start please just write the paragraph directly into the body of the e-mail. We will work with attachments later as they can sometimes be a problem.
Following is a copy of a great News Letter for alternate Journalism. The hotlinks don't work in the copy but you can subscribe to the news letter with the information on the page, I think. If not, and you want to subscribe to the weekly. Let me know in the next class.


The Weekly Spin, April 7, 2009

CMD Reports

Lots of Opinion, Not Much Disclosure
by Bob Burton

The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) have more in common than being major industry lobby groups. Both have hired former Greenpeace activist turned PR consultant Patrick Moore to deflect environmental and public health criticisms.

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Weekly Radio Spin

Weekly Radio Spin: NATO Is Neato!

Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, NATO raises its profile, ghostwriters, and hijacking choice. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin,'" DC Navigators. The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

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Spins Of The Week

EDF Goes Nuclear on Greenpeace
Source: The Guardian (UK), April 1, 2009

An executive with the French government-owned energy company EDF "has been charged on suspicion of spying on the environmental group Greenpeace." The executive, "who previously worked as a police commander, is being investigated for conspiring to hack into Greenpeace France's computer system." Under investigation is whether EDF, "the world's biggest nuclear-reactor operator, hired a private detective agency run by a former member of the French secret services to illegally spy on environmentalists and infiltrate their ranks." EDF confirmed that it hired the firm, Kargus Consultants, but denies "ordering the use of any illegal spying methods." A Kargus employee admitted that he hacked into the computer system used by Greenpeace France's campaigns director in 2006. Greenpeace thinks the spying "could have been related to their campaign to block EDF's construction of a vast, new generation nuclear reactor in Flamanville" in northern France. Greenpeace France is tightening office security and saying the incident "shows just how frightened the nuclear industry is of transparency and a democratic debate." EDF recently bought British Energy and "nearly half of U.S. group Constellation Energy's nuclear power business ... in order to build power plants in Britain and the United States," according to Reuters.

CoalSwarm a Nerve Center for the Green Energy Movement
Source: San Francisco Chronicle blog "The Thin Green Line," March 13, 2009

The San Francisco Chronicle's website profiled "Ted Nace, director of the CoalSwarm website and an important part of the anti-coal movement that has been in the news in recent weeks." CoalSwarm is a "nerve center," a partnership with the Center for Media and Democracy within the SourceWatch wiki. Nace explains, "Anybody can post information. We've got 1500 articles on the [CoalSwarm] site, and it's been accessed hundreds of thousands of times. We have a separate article on each proposed coal plant and each existing plant, and whenever anything happens having to do with that plant, we post the news. Everything has to have a footnote to a published source, so people don't have to take our word for it. A movement needs information to run, and we're trying to put information at people's fingertips." SolveClimate blog also lauds CoalSwarm as "the one-stop-shop wiki for all the dirt you need on coal. ... As one supporter explained: 'It's putting information once the province of lobbyists into local activists' hands.'" CMD's SourceWatch wiki also hosts a major portal on Climate Change and the upcoming COP15 climate treaty conference.

Center for American Progress Hangs with the Neocons
Source: Jeremy Scahill, April 2, 2009

Investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill sees the liberal Center for American Progress teaming up with leading neoconservatives and going to bat for Barack Obama's escalation of the war in Afghanistan. On April 3 CAP is hosting a forum titled A New Way Forward in Afghanistan to release their report Sustainable Security in Afghanistan. Scahill notes the event includes "a leading neoconservative activist, Frederick Kagan, one of the lead proponents of the 'surge' in Iraq. In addition to being a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, which was basically Dick Cheney's bunker away from the bunker in the 1990s, Kagan was also a major figure in advocating the agenda of the neocon-Project for the New American Century, which molded the Bush administration's conquistador foreign policy. Kagan's brother Robert Kagan along with William Kristol started a new version of PNAC a few weeks ago, called The Foreign Policy Initiative. Another key figure in the group is Dan Senor (who is married to CNN's Campbell Brown), formerly L. Paul Bremer's righthand in Iraq."

NATO PR Push Targets Journalists, Youth
Source: The NewsMarket (via Marketwire), April 1, 2009

As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) turns 60 and some ask why the Cold War alliance still exists, NATO is launching new media and public relations efforts. The NewsMarket, an online source of b-roll and video news release footage, is providing NATO-produced videos to journalists. Not surprisingly, given Barack Obama's controversial plans to increase troops in Afghanistan, the NATO / NewsMarket channel features videos on "mentoring the Afghan Army" and "taking the fight to the Taliban," along with an interview of U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones, a proponent of NATO expansion. "NATO Public Diplomacy Division has developed a comprehensive strategy to engage with young audiences," according to the NATO / NewsMarket press release. NATO's youth outreach includes an "Internet TV" channel and "unconventional advertisement videos" posted to YouTube. NATO spent 500,000 Euros (U.S.$666,000) on the videos, which use the slogan "Peace and security. That's our mission."

"Product Safety Standards" for Cigarettes?
Source: Huffington Post, April 2, 2009

The proposed legislation to have the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulate tobacco is "window-dressing masquerading as legislation," according to Alan Blum, M.D., director of the University of Alabama Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society. Putting the country's most lethal consumer product under control of the FDA will perpetuate the myth long favored by the industry that cigarettes can be made safer. The industry itself long ago started a PR campaign to assure people it was possible to identify and remove any component of smoke that was found to cause disease, and went on to leverage public fear of smoking to market gimmicks like filters that were "just what the doctor ordered" and conferred "double-barreled health protection." Lobbying to remove cigarette ads from TV and put weak, unobtrusive warning labels on cigarette packs has also served the industry's interests by giving them legal cover and saving thousands in advertising costs while doing little to actually restrain tobacco promotion. With the passage of the "Marlboro Preservation Act," the FDA -- which already has difficulty assuring the public that peanuts and pistachios are safe -- would now be handed regulation of cigarettes. While well intentioned, the bill is misguided. It ought to carry its own warning: "This legislation is deceptive, and it will prove devastating to public health."

The Infinite Mind Was Not Aware

PR Watch has reported previously on conflict of interest issues surrounding psychiatrist Fred Goodwin, the former host of "The Infinite Mind" public radio series. In his role as host of the show, Goodwin talked up the advantages of antidepressant drugs while failing to disclose that he had received $1.2 million in fees for giving marketing lectures on behalf of pharmaceutical companies. After the funding was revealed publicly, Goodwin attempted to claim that he had informed the show's producer, Bill Lichtenstein, of his financial ties to drugmakers (a claim initially echoed by National Public Radio's "On the Media" show). Now Lichtenstein is claiming vindication, and NPR has issued a retraction and public apology for its claim that Lichtenstein knew. Goodwin has also backed away from saying that he disclosed the payments, claiming instead that he doesn't "see these things as a conflict of interest."

Smoking in the Movies: Under-the-Radar Cigarette Advertising?
Source: Pediatrics, March 30, 2009

A meta-study published in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics concludes that viewing movie smoking scenes is a significant factor in smoking among older teens and young adults. In 1999, researchers interviewed thousands of 10- to 14-year-olds, assessing their smoking status and exposure to images of smoking, via movies. Follow-up interviews in 2006 and 2007 determined whether the former non-smokers had taken up the habit and compared their smoking status to their earlier exposure to movie smoking scenes. Those with the highest level of movie smoking exposure were twice as likely to have become established smokers as those with the least amount of exposure, even after controlling for a wide range of other factors. Researchers defined "established smoking" as having smoked more than 100 cigarettes in one's lifetime. They estimated that 34.9% of the youths' established smoking could be attributed to movie exposure. Smoking in the movies has come under renewed scrutiny. A 2005 study found that the amount of smoking depicted in movies diminished steadily from 1950 to 1990, but then increased so rapidly that by 2002, smoking in the movies was just as common as it was back in 1950. A 2006 study found that in recent years, depictions of smoking have shifted from R-rated to PG-13-rated films, and that major studio pictures account for 90% of movie smoking scenes. The 2006 study authors concluded that major film studios are "delivering the most new adolescent smokers to the tobacco industry."

Greg Gumbel Fumbles on Infomercials
Source: StinkyJournalism.org, March 30, 2009

Two years ago, CBS Sports anchor Greg Gumbel "signed a 5-year contract with Paul Doug Scott's EncoreTV to appear as host for, what turned out to be, a Florida infomercial company," reports Rhonda Roland Shearer. Gumbel's agent told her, "It wasn't supposed to be an infomercial. One is hesitant to say he was duped, but yeah, I was duped." Some of the infomercials are titled "Eye on America," a CBS News brand, apparently without authorization from the network. The infomercials use "an identical newsroom set and ... identical animation graphics" to the cable news shows they follow, and have aired on CNN Headline News, without the required disclosure that they are advertisements. Turner Broadcasting, which owns CNN, admitted that it only vets "national ads sold by Turner sales people," and the Gumbel infomercials were sold and placed by a local provider, Time Warner Cable. Even some of the companies behind the infomercials thought they were being profiled on a real national news segment -- albeit one that requires guests to pay a $20,000 to $30,000 "scheduling fee." One company boasted that its executive had been "interviewed on CNN / Headline News' 'Eye on America.'" The infomercials have flacked "a mind-numbing and illogical diversity of products," Shearer writes, including timeshare sales, barley products, Internet security software, small universities and "my personal favorite, a distributor of aluminum trusses."

Dewey Square Caught Astroturfing Again
Source: Halifax-Plympton Reporter (Marshfield, Massachusetts), March 27, 2009

The Halifax-Plympton Reporter received a letter to the editor urging "that people contact their congressman about the Medicare Advantage program," a "sort of privatized health plan paid for via the recipient's Medicare. Reportedly, there's some interest in doing away with the program." The actual, physical letter was in the name of a local resident, but it didn't mention any of the local Congressional delegation, which the newspaper's editor, Matthew Nadler, found strange. So, he called the man who had supposedly written and mailed the letter. "He had no idea what I was talking about," Nadler reports. Then, "I got a phone call Monday from a young man who said he was calling on behalf of the letter's non-writer. I told him what happened, and I think I had some pointed words about what was a pretty sleazy use of an elderly person. I asked the caller who he was and who he worked for. Which, not surprisingly, I suppose, he declined to tell me." However, Nadler could see his phone number, and traced it back to the Dewey Square Group, a high-powered, Democratic-associated lobbying firm. Nadler notes that "their Web site doesn't list their clients, but it doesn't take a genius, or a newspaper editor, to figure out they've been hired by someone with an interest in keeping Medicare Advantage in business." The firm's site "promises 'grassroots' communication," but, he concludes, "it looks more like Astroturf from here."

Television: Now with More Stealth Ads!
Source: Advertising Age, March 26, 2009

Local television stations are increasingly open to product placement. The Meredith Corporation's "syndicated hour-long lifestyle program 'Better' (named in part after the company's Better Homes & Gardens magazine)" includes space for local stations to add in sponsored segments. The "three-to-five minute videos" have pushed products related to "child-care topics such as baby-proofing the home, installing a car seat and visiting the doctor," for sponsors including State Farm Insurance, General Mills, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson and Kimberly-Clark. "National and local product integration is one way Meredith generates revenue from its 'Better' program. Up to eight minutes ... can be 'localized,' which could include the sale of local product integration, as well as sponsorship of news and entertainment features." CBS also has a "special unit ... aimed to spark discussions of product integration earlier in the program development process," while its new senior vice-president of branded integration and online is "branded-entertainment executive Greg Bennett." At the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Steve Bornfeld lists examples of what are -- or at least appear to be -- product placements in local TV news. "Channel 3's allergy prevention story, interviewing a St. Rose Hospital pediatrician who has been a station source more than once? No allegations of an arrangement," he admits. "But not knowing equals not trusting."

Airline and Online Lobbying on U.S. "Card Check" Bill
Source: PR Week, March 20, 2009

In the battle over the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which would make it easier for workers to join a union, "both the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO are focusing on grassroots outreach." Before the bill was introduced, "the Chamber launched the Workforce Freedom Airlift program, a series of events that fly in local small business owners to Washington," to lobby against the bill. The first "airlift," on March 10, "brought in small business owners from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Nebraska, and Louisiana." Since July 2008, the Chamber has worked with Adfero Group on an anti-EFCA "social media effort," expanding "a virtual march on Washington that was created the last time the bill went to Congress in 2007." It "allows users to register for the march as avatars and send an automatic letter to their elected officials through a Facebook application." Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO is highlighting "YouTube videos of workers sharing their support" of EFCA, and running "an online contest that allows users to vote on the most outrageous statements from the opposition."

Courage, Bayer CropScience Style
Source: New York Times, March 28, 2009

Bayer CropScience has invoked the specter of terrorism in a bid to limit what information the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board can release at a public hearing into a chemical plant explosion in West Virginia that killed two employees. Bayer is claiming that "because it has a dock for barge shipments on the adjacent Kanawha River, its entire 400-acre site qualifies under the 2002 federal Maritime Transportation Security Act," reports Sean D. Hamill. "It has asked the Coast Guard, which has jurisdiction under the act, to review the public release of 'sensitive security information.'" Bayer appears to want to limit discussion of the potential hazards of methyl isocyanate, the same chemical made at Bhopal, India, notes Hamill. On its website, Bayer CropScience states that one of its core values is "integrity, openness and honesty" and that it is committed to "having the courage to tell the truth" and "presenting the unvarnished truth in an appropriate and helpful manner."