Hi this is your first assignment for 04. Read this essay and try and understand it. Make notes of what you don't understand and we will talk about that in class. Good Luck! WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF MEDIA OR HOW THE MEDIA SEES THE WORLD (and is that a good thing or not?)
"A Policy Poisoned by Money": An Interview With Greg Palast
by Scott Thill
One thing investigative journalist Greg Palast is not is some blow-dried cream puff crowing the party line on CNN or Fox News. While America has gotten used to calling stuffed shirts like Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel, Brian Williams et. al. journalists, those guys spend more time preening in the makeup room than sweating in the field finding out just what the hell the country is up to. Even Koppel's recent foray into Iraq during the war was a Tony Snow-job: embedded with the American military, however comfy it may be, cannot help but slant reportage, especially if the Marines are telling you where you can and can't go.
Greg Palast has no such directives compelling him towards -- or away, as is usually the case -- a real story. One look at his book -- The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Truth About Corporate Cons, Globalization, and High-Finance Fraudsters -- can tell you that this guy is neither afraid of digging up the dirty truth nor the goon squads sent his way to keep it from seeing the light of day. And we're talking big stuff: the Enron disgrace, the Exxon Valdez environmental disaster, the Florida election rigging, the Bush-bin Laden connections, international financial crime -- this is the stuff the X-Files' Mulder and Scully would have sniffed out if they weren't so bogged down with alien invasions.
But Palast might as well be an alien, since the mainstream American media has, almost without exception, declared him persona non grata. He's a hot potato, because he's uncompromising, refuses to be cowed, and isn't afraid of the money men that make shit happen in the United States and abroad. For that thankless job, he's given up the normal lives we all lead, in lieu of making justice happen. So the least we can do -- since the corporate-owned ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, NPR and onward will not -- is give him space to breathe some life into stagnant American journalism. After all, that's what the European continent has done, having granted Palast coveted posts at the BBC, as well as UK newspapers of note.
Think of that: an American dedicated to truth and justice, and only the Europeans will let him talk. Only in America!
Scott Thill : Thanks for taking the time to talk to us. I know you're a busy man.
Greg Palast : No problem, it's a great day. It's my birthday and I'm sitting on the beach, so eat your heart out. So what's on your mind, besides the president and his family coup d'etat?
ST : [Laughs.] Are you kidding? That's the only thing on my mind these days. I read your book and it floored me.
GP : It kinda floored me finding this stuff out.
ST : Yeah, but I'm just a reader. You're the guy who has to deal with the pressure. Do you ever wish for a normal life?
GP : Well, today I'm leading a normal life for my birthday, but it feels very unusual. But it gets kind of manic, getting all this information. When I was doing an investigation of the Exxon Valdez, I lived in native villages up in Prince William Sound. I was also in London, finding out who's trying to buy up Tony Blair's government. I had to pull an undercover operation -- which is something that's not in the book -- while doing an investigation of the Shoreham nuclear plant, which has since been dismantled. It was a dangerous, hot piece of shit that had to be taken apart.
Private enemy number one: Cynthia McKinney. "She knew she was taking on George Bush; what she didn't know, working in Atlanta, was that she was taking on Atlanta's black political establishment."
ST : Do you ever get worried about digging too deep?
GP : Well, yeah, but I'm not really worried about myself, because if I did that, I couldn't function. But I do worry very much about my sources. For example, I reported that George Bush's gold mining company bought property in Tanzania, which was then cleared of miners. The miners were on what they considered their own property (while the mining company considered it to be their own property), but were still removed by bulldozers that rolled over the pits. Except that there were fifty people still in the mines when they were sealed up. I don't think that it was done deliberately, but in the mayhem and chaos of a pitched battle over George Bush's goldfield, fifty miners were buried alive. I had many sources for that story, but a key investigator was a human rights lawyer named Tundu Lissu, who -- for uncovering this information and getting it to me -- has been since charged with sedition. He may end up in jail for quite some time, but that's only if he's lucky. There are people disappearing there over this story; it's dangerous stuff. This week I wrote about Cynthia McKinney, who got mangled trying to follow up on some of my stories.
ST : I read that one, "The Screwing of Cynthia McKinney."
GP : Yeah, that was the headline given by Alternet, but I was actually looking at a wider issue. That was only part of a longer piece about the endless fibs, fabrications and fractured news given to us by the New York Times , NPR -- what I like to call National Petroleum Radio -- and the rest of the mainstream press in America. I used McKinney's case as only one example of that longer story. Basically, she was trying to follow up on the Tanzania story -- she read the transcripts of my reports from BBC television when she was in Congress -- with the Human Rights Subcommittee, of which she was a ranking member. She knew she was taking on George Bush; what she didn't know, working in Atlanta, was that she was taking on Atlanta's black political establishment. She didn't know that two of the people also involved in that gold mining company were Vernon Jordan and Andrew Young. And that meant she was setting herself up for the slaughter; they waited in the bushes until they got her. She also called for an investigation into another one of my reports, about the quashing of the investigation of the bin Laden family and Saudi financing of terror before September 11th. Which had nothing to do with George Bush knowing about September 11th; it was an intelligence failure that had to be investigated. And when she called for that investigation, they mangled her words, basically said that she was accusing George Bush of joining hands with Osama bin Laden in masterminding the killings of September 11th. She said no such thing, and denied it, but they killed her with that. So I worry a lot about the people who feed me information. But fear for myself? Nah.
ST : I figure that the mainstream media is a hopeless cause, but shouldn't they at least try to cover these stories, if only to honor the people who risk their lives to get them out there?
GP : Look, if a whistleblower goes to the New York Times and says, "I want to tell you what's going on inside this corporation or inside this agency," they just get blown off. Thirty years ago, the Washington Post ran the Watergate story, so that would make this the thirtieth anniversary of the Post not running an investigative story! Name one thing they've done. For example, the Iran/Contra story was broken by Bob Perry of the Associated Press , for which he was duly fired. You're really talking about news guys who are afraid and, simply, lazy. They're lazy little press puppies who want everything packaged for them. Even places like 60 Minutes ; almost all their stories are handed to them pre-fabricated. Here's the people on camera, here's the story, here's the evidence. And it's not a question of it being light news, it's that they can't go one day without saying what our president did. And the thing is, it crowds out real news. Three million people have been killed in civil war in the Congo, but what news do we have? We get these weird blips once in a while, about peacekeeping forces going in. Millions of people! We don't know shit about the Mideast; the Mideast coverage for us is what's going on in Israel and Palestine. And for all the arguments about bias -- the U.S. is biased towards Israel, Europe is biased towards the Palestinians -- the main problem is that it's biased towards a tiny piece of a giant place. We don't know what the fuck is going on in Syria, we don't know what the fuck is going in the Sudan. I pick up the Times and I just want to fuckin' throw it against the wall.
One "journalist" confuses a Peabody with a Polk, while the others hire Jayson Blair . "You're really talking about news guys who are afraid and, simply, lazy. They're lazy little press puppies who want everything packaged for them." (Photo: Reuters/Chip East)
ST : Damn, what do you do when you turn on something like Fox? That shit must drive you insane.
GP : I don't have a television. And I produce television! But I won't watch it. In Britain, I can turn on BBC and get programming that doesn't always embarrass me. But there's no place to turn in America. They give you these pseudo-liberal oases like Charlie Rose or something, but that's just more of the officialdom talking at you. I think the worst thing that ever happened to America was the public broadcast system. PBS is more dangerous than Fox, because it is the lie that you're getting some type of alternative, that you're getting a fuller picture, when in fact you're just getting more syllables to tell you what Mobil Oil wants you to hear. In fact, NPR pulled me off the air the other day. They were going to run a show about the "Screwing of Cynthia McKinney," until someone realized that I said that NPR had fabricated her words as much as everyone else. Actually, it's the NPR report on McKinney that was the worst; they took two separate parts of a radio interview, linked them together and completely misstated her words. So, at the last minute, they pulled me off the air just before I was supposed to go on.
ST : Yeah, I was listening to NPR the other day and they had some guy from the Heritage Foundation on there. If I want to hear what the Heritage Foundation thinks, I can go to Fox.
GP : Exactly. Obviously, some assistant producer at NPR thought it would be good to have me on there to talk about the media, but only to have some general blather and definitely not to talk about NPR, of course. Basically, it tends to be more liberal -- what I like to call social liberal -- but there's no challenge to the basic economic program of the New World Order. Every one of their writers is pro-globalization. Do you realize that one of the most left-wing writers in America with any stature is Thomas Friedman, who once wrote that all of our economic problems were solved by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan? That's our most liberal columnist.
ST : It's scary how you're not accepted in America for your reportage, while the Europeans are eager to give you a chance to speak.
GP : The fact is that I report for the most prestigious television news show on the planet -- BBC television's Newsnight -- and I write for prestigious newspapers, the Guardian and Observer . I have George Orwell's old post, and yet somehow I'm treated like the Unabomber. "He's gonna take some hostages and demand his stuff get printed!" The only thing I can hope for is the miracle of the Internet. Which is why the establishment keeps saying, "Look out for the Internet; it's so scary out there! You can't rely on that information." Like you can rely on the information on the Los Angeles Times , although I should be careful, because the L.A. Times did a glowing profile of me. But, on the other hand, I went through the Times with the reporter who did that story and said, "Look at this crap!" [Laughs.] It's true! I mean, I'm happy to get a lovely profile, but the information is missing. They even had a story that said there was unanimous praise for the appointment of Paul Bremer as the viceroy of Iraq. Unanimous? Having the former business partner of Henry Kissinger take over Iraq? There wasn't anyone out there who had a problem with that idea? They looked all over the newsroom and even called the White House but couldn't find anyone who thought it wasn't a brilliant idea. [Laughs.] So what can you do? I won't watch TV here, and I certainly won't let my kids. I glance at the newspaper to see what the latest lie is, and about the only exception, because it follows the money, is the Wall Street Journal . But I do read Hustler , because I'm the latest issue! [Laughs.] The only American outlets for my writing are Harper's and Hustler . I've got the H's down.
Winston Smith, America's finest satirical artist alive. "The Winston Smith illustrations are crucial to the book. The Italians understand this; in their country, Winston Smith and I have equal billing on the book." (Photo: AP)
ST : Yes! Well, we'd love to have you at Morphizm. I'm a political guy, but I love music and film, too…
GP : That's the thing. I think the thing is that we have to be very careful for is this: progressives should not become grim. The success of the antiwar movement was not built on the grim speeches of Tom Hayden but more on the antics and fun of Abbie Hoffman. When we created our own counterculture (although the other side wasn't really culture, just official distratction), we had our own music and images, control of our own fun. Don't go to Disneyworld; throw away the TV! [Laughs.] People who have done those two things have already started the revolution. I bet that's where you'll find the great dissident America.
ST : That's what we're about here: the place where you don't get crap. For example, I noticed that you had Winston Smith's artwork in your book.
GP : Yeah! I'm glad you noticed that.
ST : Oh absolutely. I talked to Jello Biafra who was sued by his band mates for control of their Dead Kennedys catalog , and one of his chief complaints was that they made Smith's album art so small that no one could read it. And that was always the point, having that voice of protest.
GP : That's funny, because my publisher, Penguin, didn't understand why I had all those Winston Smith illustrations in the book. I think the book is worth the price just for Smith's artwork. And they didn't get it. I told them it was as important as the pictures of the FBI documents; it was key. I'm really glad you grabbed onto that, because the Winston Smith illustrations are crucial to the book. The Italians understand this; in their country, Winston Smith and I have equal billing on the book. But in America, I put it there for those who know, or those who should know.
ST : Speaking of those who should know, why is the Bush administration so intent on blocking this 9/11 probe, when they've used it to justify every war they've started since, plus some of the draconian domestic programs like Total Information Awareness?
GP : I just did a one-hour documentary on this for the BBC, "The Bush Family Fortunes," which you can't see, of course. It's going out all around the world, except America. We know that Bush's energy policy was completely Enronized. We know all about the secret meetings between Ken Lay and Dick Cheney; and even though people say we don't know what went on in those meetings, I have a lot of those letters and minutes. Lay simply said, "Here's the people I want as head of the agencies that are regulating me." He got to pick his own regulators, rewrite the energy laws of America; we know that.
But the oil patch continues on through foreign policy, although oil has always been at the heart of it, which in turn poisons our intelligence community. For example, George W's first business was funded by the U.S. financial agent of the bin Laden family, a guy named James Bath. Then we get to Harken, which is funded by a guy named Sheik Bahksh, out of Saudi Arabia. We have the government of Bahrain giving Harken a Persian Gulf drilling contract. You have to understand that some tiny oil driller out of Texas is never, ever given a Persian Gulf drilling contract; it just doesn't happen. But it turns out in this case, George W. Bush, whose daddy was president at the time, was put on the board. And throughout we've got Saudi and other Gulf money enriching George W. Bush.
Keep laughing, American infidel. You're still the chauffeur! "A lot of it is this: 'We don't bother the Saudis, they're our friends, they provide our oil.' Well, the Saudis have not been our buddies, they've been George W. Bush's buddies. They're not my buddies, especially when they're funding people that attacked the United States." (Photo: Reuters/Larry Downing)
So what was he doing in the summer of 2001? Previously, Bill Clinton had sent two delegations to Saudi Arabia saying, "Stop funding terrorists. Here's a list of people in your kingdom, in your royal family that are funding terrorists. Knock it off." Those delegations stop under Bush; plus, he disbands the unit investigating Saudi financial ties to terrorism, and removes the FBI team investigating Al Qaeda from Yemen. Now is this because Bush was planning to help Osama attack America? No. It's because he was making sure that his former business partners, and his Saudi friends, are not embarrassed about the revelations about who's backing terrorism. And none of the small incidents, like the Cole or the embassy attacks, touched the U.S.
So what's happened is that you have a foreign policy poisoned by money. Bush is saying, "Don't investigate my friends." In fact, some of these people, like Bahksh, are under investigation by European intelligence agencies for sponsoring Al Qaeda, although sometimes unknowingly. Al Qaeda runs a shakedown operation, but that's details. A lot of it is this: "We don't bother the Saudis, they're our friends, they're our buddies, they provide our oil." Well, the Saudis have not been our buddies, they've been George W. Bush's buddies. They're not my buddies, especially when they're funding people that attacked the United States. I worked in the World Trade Center; they attacked my building. Fifteen of those nineteen hijackers were Saudis, but we attacked Iraq without one shred of evidence that there was any connection between Hussein and Al Qaeda. Saddam Hussein, a horrible guy, but still.
And now they're selling us on Iran's connection to Al Qaeda. Keep this in mind: the United States was not Al Qaeda's first target. Their first target was Iran; almost no one knows or understands that in America. They hate the Iranians. Al Qaeda slaughtered the Iranian embassy delegation in Afghanistan; they came in and machine-gunned everyone. Iran is their number one target, because they are Shi'ites, and considered to be horrible apostates. The idea that the Iranian government has anything to do with Al Qaeda is insane. The Saddam Hussein thing was off the wall, but we're going to fight a government that hates Al Qaeda even more than we do. Now, Iran is a fascist Islamic government that should be deposed -- by their own people. Like I said, you pick up the paper, and you're ready to tear your hair out.
BUY COUNTING ON DEMOCRACY HERE
ST : Right. Accusations against Bush for being a part of the 9/11 attacks aside, there's simply no denying his connections to all of the parties involved. He's a part of this whether he wants to be or not.
GP : That's the thing. Now, this continues on something that Clinton started, but he sent two delegations to Saudi Arabia in the year 2000, saying cut it out. And all the Saudis had to do was wait it out for their boy George. And they did, and this one of the big goddamn problems. Plus, we're given the bullshit that the Gulf is no longer dangerous? Think about this: Okinawa's government has been requesting the removal of American troops for five decades; World War II is over! We won't leave Okinawa, but we'll leave Saudi Arabia? It's the only place I know of where we're abandoning bases, and it's the only place on the planet that Al Qaeda wants us to abandon our bases. So basically now we've got a chickenshit, draft-dodging coward of a president who's decided that he's going to give in to Al Qaeda's laundry list. I think giving in to terrorists like Al Qaeda is a very bad move, and it led directly to those explosions in Riyadh. Because we said we were removing all our troops but 500, and that was Al Qaeda's way of saying, "No, no, no, that's not what we asked for." That's the problem inherent in bargaining with terrorists, and no matter what Bush says, that's exactly what he's doing. He's bargaining with Al Qaeda, because he doesn't want another attack before the election. Right now, he's heroic. If there's another attack, people will say, "What was all this bullshit for?"
BUY THE BEST DEMOCRACY MONEY CAN BUY HERE
ST : That's another thing. Right now, I think he's vulnerable to the Democracts, Fox-sponsored polls aside.
GP : Yeah, with the exception of Lierberman, who's seems to be at a dead loss. I'm not sure he knows if he wants to be a Democrat. Think about this: Clinton was utterly unknown. No one would run against Bush Sr. in 1992, because he was the Desert Stormtrooper. He was supposed to be invincible, and all the Democrats could find was some philanderer from Arkansas, and that's how we ended up with Bill Clinton. So no one's ever heard of these guys, but they're not miracles. But compared to what the Democratic party has produced? Everyone running right now is head and shoulders above Al Gore. Gore is a confused loser, and the problem is that he doesn't know what he stands for.
ST : I talked to Dennis Kucinich a couple weeks ago, and he's my favorite out of all of them so far.
GP : It doesn't matter at this point. Democrats are very good at having firing squads within a circle. They need to make sure that the primary doesn't become a drinking of the Kool Aid, where everyone slaughters or shoots at each other. That would be the great tragedy of the Democratic party, but the Democratic party is tragic anyway. I never say who I vote for, so I won't say the Democrats get my vote. But they do get my pity.
27 June 03
Thursday, April 08, 2004
Saturday, April 03, 2004
SHELL GAME WITH HUMAN RIGHTS
http://www.corporateeurope.org/norms.html
Corporate lobby groups such as the International Chamber of
Commerce (ICC) have launched a fierce counter-campaign against the
proposed Norms on Business and Human Rights, which were developed
by a subcommission of the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights. The Norms oblige businesses internationally to refrain from
activities that violate human rights. In addition to the ICC, the
Norms have been vigorously opposed by the Shell oil company, a
self-proclaimed leader in the corporate social responsibility (CSR)
movement. "Is this not the kind of campaign one could expect only
from companies lagging behind and from free-riders refusing to
adapt to social and environmental concerns?" asks the Corporate
Europe Observatory (CEO). The motive behind Shell's opposition, CEO
suggests, is that "the company generally gets away easily with its
inflated claims concerning its social responsibility record. A
recent report by Christian Aid documents that Shell's operations in
the Niger Delta (Nigeria) are still causing serious problems for
local communities. The report also highlights that most of the
community development projects presented in various glossy Shell
reports on CSR are in fact failing. Hospitals, schools and water
supply systems are built but never start working, and roads are
mainly used to boost oil production. But beyond the debate about
the extent to which Shell`s CSR claims are actually greenwash and
poor-wash, it is clear that the company is determined to prevent
the emergence of international mechanisms through which communities
could hold it accountable to its pledges."
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1080415559
http://www.corporateeurope.org/norms.html
Corporate lobby groups such as the International Chamber of
Commerce (ICC) have launched a fierce counter-campaign against the
proposed Norms on Business and Human Rights, which were developed
by a subcommission of the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights. The Norms oblige businesses internationally to refrain from
activities that violate human rights. In addition to the ICC, the
Norms have been vigorously opposed by the Shell oil company, a
self-proclaimed leader in the corporate social responsibility (CSR)
movement. "Is this not the kind of campaign one could expect only
from companies lagging behind and from free-riders refusing to
adapt to social and environmental concerns?" asks the Corporate
Europe Observatory (CEO). The motive behind Shell's opposition, CEO
suggests, is that "the company generally gets away easily with its
inflated claims concerning its social responsibility record. A
recent report by Christian Aid documents that Shell's operations in
the Niger Delta (Nigeria) are still causing serious problems for
local communities. The report also highlights that most of the
community development projects presented in various glossy Shell
reports on CSR are in fact failing. Hospitals, schools and water
supply systems are built but never start working, and roads are
mainly used to boost oil production. But beyond the debate about
the extent to which Shell`s CSR claims are actually greenwash and
poor-wash, it is clear that the company is determined to prevent
the emergence of international mechanisms through which communities
could hold it accountable to its pledges."
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/March_2004.html#1080415559
Friday, March 26, 2004
NEW E-BOOK READER USES DIGITAL PAPER TECHNOLOGY
Sony, Philips and digital paper pioneer E-Ink are launching an
electronic book reader called Librié, which is the size of a paperback book
and can hold 500 texts in its memory. The display has a resolution of 170
pixels per inch -- about the same quality as a newspaper, says E-Ink. The
Librié weighs about 300g (about 10.5 ounces), including four AAA batteries
and a front cover. The device uses battery power only when text is
refreshed, which means it should be able to display about 10,000 pages
before it needs its batteries changed. The Librié is 13mm (about half an
inch) thick and its screen measures 15cm (about 6 inches) diagonally. It's
due to go on sale in Japan in late April for $375. (BBC News 26 Mar 2004)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3568505.stm
Sony, Philips and digital paper pioneer E-Ink are launching an
electronic book reader called Librié, which is the size of a paperback book
and can hold 500 texts in its memory. The display has a resolution of 170
pixels per inch -- about the same quality as a newspaper, says E-Ink. The
Librié weighs about 300g (about 10.5 ounces), including four AAA batteries
and a front cover. The device uses battery power only when text is
refreshed, which means it should be able to display about 10,000 pages
before it needs its batteries changed. The Librié is 13mm (about half an
inch) thick and its screen measures 15cm (about 6 inches) diagonally. It's
due to go on sale in Japan in late April for $375. (BBC News 26 Mar 2004)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3568505.stm
Thursday, March 04, 2004
Newsplex Trends Report - No. 5
March 2004
The Newsplex Trends Report is a periodic summary of
activities, developments, research results and insights
from the staff of the Ifra Newsplex at the University of
South Carolina. The Newsplex is a prototype convergent
micro-newsroom developed by Ifra for demonstration,
training and research in next-generation multiple-media
newshandling tools and techniques.
TREND
Mobile Publishing
Diana Harris voted in the U.S. Democratic presidential
primary in South Carolina at about 8 a.m. on Feb. 3 and
walked out of the Quail Valley polling place in northwest
Columbia to be greeted by two reporters with a Nokia
camera phone. She was about to help Ifra Newsplex set
new standards in journalism and news technology.
The reporters from the University of South Carolina's
school of journalism scribbled notes as Harris commented
briefly about how the election could affect
African-Americans and the economy. Then they snapped
her picture with the Nokia 3600's integrated full-color
VGA-resolution camera.
The journalists were part of the Newsplex Mobile Media
Project designed to explore and evaluate cutting-edge
tools and techniques in convergent newshandling by
combining the latest advancements in mobile phone
and wireless Internet technologies with the well-refined
skills of newspaper and television reporting.
As Harris walked away, the reporters used the phone's
keypad to input a text message summarizing the
encounter, attached the photo, and emailed it directly
from the mobile handset to a special type of Web site
called a moblog, short for mobile web log.
In all, seven teams of print and broadcast journalists
enveloped the Columbia area to report Primary Day in
all its varied nuances using first- and second-generation
mobile imaging phones and advanced GMS/GPRS networks
provided by Cingular Wireless. From before the polls
opened in the morning until after the corks and tissues
came out that night, these multiple-media journalists
continuously captured and upload hundreds of digital
pictures, video-audio shorts and text summaries to the
site called the Newsplex/Cingular Wireless Election
Connection, hosted by TextAmerica
(http://scprimary.textamerica.com). Upon receipt, each
upload was automatically formatted by TextAmerica's
underlying technology and posted as a new entry on the
web site, where it was instantly available for public
viewing, comment and download.
The entry about Harris posted at 8:15 a.m.
At the year-old $2 million Newsplex prototype convergent
newsroom, a uniquely constituted editorial team supported
the field journalists and oversaw assembly of the Wireless
Election Connection moblog.
- A newsflow editor with 10 years experience as a
television news director managed the overall process,
directing the reporting teams toward the ultimate goal
of providing a distinctively comprehensive and engaging
presentation of the Primary Day story.
- Storybuilders, one with background as an Associated
Press wire service editor, another with decades reporting
and editing for major metros, edited and categorized
the constant flow of submissions from the mobile journalists
all the while taking additional information from them over
the same phones being used for newsgathering and delivery.
- And a new type of hybrid informatics journalist called a
newsresourcer, experienced in news judgment and skilled
in information management augmented the moblog
submissions with research and online links adding even
greater depth and breadth to the presentation. For the
item about Harris, the lead newsresourcer inserted a link
to an online profile of the Quail Valley community showing
its ethnic and economic diversity.
Individually, each entry in the Wireless Election
Connection documented a single action, statement or
scene of the primary process – a voter's comment, a
supporter's placard, a candidate's claim, a detractor's
sneer, lines at polling stations, empty voting booths,
people energized, tired, involved, disengaged, satisfied
or angry. Each entry stands alone as a piece of
micro-journalism. Collectively, however, the entries
accumulated through the day to form an intricate mosaic
revealing the larger trends and tones of a massively
complicated community news event.
In this way, the process melded some of the best
attributes of in-depth, wide-ranging, detail-oriented
newspaper reporting and real-time, putting-you-at-the-scene,
visually engaging television coverage. It produced
content of potential value to both of those traditional
media, yet also resulted in a news presentation with a
weight of its own for news consumers. It took its cues
from the marketplace by tapping into the increasingly
popular web log format and using the increasingly
popular camera phones, yet notched both up to a higher
level of news and information resource by applying
professional editorial standards and workflows.
The results were overwhelming to those involved in
the project. Media attention to the new type of election
coverage was considerable. Cingular Wireless put out
a single press release about the event, and the
company later found out that this would be its third
most read release in the past year. By the time the
Wireless Election Connection shut down coverage at
11 p.m., after N.C. Sen. John Edwards was declared
the winner of the primary in his home state, TextAmerica
statistics show that 379 other Web sites around the
world were taking content from the Newsplex site.
The hit counter for the 24-hour period was over 8500.
The Wireless Election Connection is exactly the kind of
effort for which the Newsplex was conceived. The
results of this project will factor directly back into
Ifra's training and support for converging media companies.
An expanded version of this article is published in
Ifra's "newspaper techniques" magazine and is available
online athttp://www.newsplex.org/knowledgebase/index.shtml.
- Kerry J. Northrup, Director, IfraNewsplex,northrup@ifra.com
CONTEXT
-New ezine to cover European digital media
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story820.shtml
-'Watchblogs' Put the Political Press Under the Microscope
http://ojr.org/ojr/glaser/1076465317.php
-MSNBC Freshens Up
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/kramer/1076550248.php
-Phone Cam Photo Atop NYT
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=61103
-Study: E-Newsletter Readers Grow Itchy Trigger Fingers
http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/3313471
-Why Blogs Mean Business
http://www.business20.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,575603,00.html
-Tech Answers No Prayers
http://www.business20.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,573497,00.html
-Guardian rejects tabloid
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,1147813,00.html
-Web publishers could be liable for libel Europe-wide
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story815.shtml
-'Just text P-A-U-L to this five-digit number...'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3451055.stm
-A news librarian (news researcher) contributed
to this report
http://www.ils.unc.edu/ils/releases/RELEASE04_barreau.html
-Conversations with Assignment Editors in a Television
Newsroom on the Affect of Convergence on their Role as
Primary Gatekeeper
http://www.jour.sc.edu/news/convergence/issue7.html#conversations
-What's Working and What's Not: A Survey of Print and
Broadcast News Convergence Programs
http://www.jour.sc.edu/news/convergence/issue7.html#what
-Hand-held e-book readers to hit market soon
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20040203b3.htm
-Makers Scramble To Put Some Bend In 'Electric Paper'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34553-2004Feb11.html (subscription required)
-Redefining the News Online
http://ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1075928349.php
-Byebye Mac? - Nach Ringier, Tamedia und NZZ planen
auch Jean Frey, Basler Zeitung Medien und Espace Media
Groupe den Ausstieg aus der Apple-Welt
http://www.persoenlich.com/news/show_news.cfm?newsid=37881
-`Hindustan Times' among newspapers targeted by global media
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/02/05/2003097557
-New US tabloids: more Ja Rule than Jack Straw
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0205/p02s02-ussc.html
-One day we'll all be reading e-papers
http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,7558,1143719,00.html
-Irish Broadsheet to Go Tabloid
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2499832
-New York Times launches 1st blog
http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/000902.php
-India: Media: Diversification key to growth
http://www.agencyfaqs.com/news/stories/2004/01/25/8216.html
-Good Job Prospects for Online Journalists
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story802.shtml
-Newspapers thriving in electronic era
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1074813008687&call_pageid=968350072197&col=969048863851
-Yahoo! beefs up news operation
http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,7496,1122349,00.html
-Independent drops Saturday broadsheet
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,1123988,00.html
-MINDS: European news agencies create a new
generation of mobile information services
http://www.presseportal.de/story.htx?nr=515395
-Will London's Tab Experiment Affect U.S. Broadsheets?
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2066198
-Tabloid boosts Times
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,1119733,00.html
-New daily targeted at private enterprise
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/thestandard/news_detail_frame.cfm?articleid=44517&intcatid=2
-Times rolls out tabloid expansion
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,1117212,00.html
-News video gets mobile
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA359497
-
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2004/01/05/push_technology_gets_a_nudge/
-CFJE-report on Knowledge Management in the
media has hit the streets
http://www.cfje.dk/cfje/VidBase.nsf/ID/CB00488977
-Non-Browser-Based Applications Grow in Popularity
http://www.adweek.com/aw/iq_interactive/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2060818
-Freewheeling 'bloggers' are rewriting rules of journalism
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-12-30-blogging-usat_x.htm
-MIT Media Lab Offers a Simple Recipe for Publishing
Homegrown News
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/technology/1071702097.php
-Live on the ocean wave
http://news.bbc.co.uk/aboutbbcnews/hi/this_is_bbc_news/newsid_3303000/3303455.stm
-Nikkei Flexes Its Online Muscle
http://www.ojr.org/japan/qa/1070490296.php
-The big issue - Which broadsheet will be the first to
go fully tabloid?
http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,7558,1101961,00.html
-Times reaps benefit of tabloid launch
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,1100154,00.html
-Les tabloïds déteignent sur la "presse de qualité"
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3452,36-344528,0.html
-Mississippi Paper Shifts to Afternoon Publication
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2045973
-Rocky Mountain News first to distribute
Newsbook online
http://www.newsandtech.com/issues/2003/12-03/nt/12-03_newsbook.htm
-Free Papers Won't Replace Paid Ones
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2041705
-Newspaper pullout readers skewed towards 25-34 age
http://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k3/dec/dec20.htm
-Why Do People Read Newspapers?
http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=3505
-Sun to launch broadsheet edition
http://deadbrain.co.uk/news/article_2003_12_01_4914.php
UPCOMING AT IFRA NEWSPLEX
-Newsplex on Tour: The experience comes to you
24-28 May 2004: http://www.newsplex.org/program/training_tour.shtml
-Backpack Journalism: Multiskilled multimedia newsgathering
21-25 June 2004: http://www.newsplex.org/program/training_backpack.shtml
-Adplexing: Cross-media advertising training
20-23 September 2004: http://www.newsplex.org/program/training_ad.shtml
-Visual Journalism Day at IfraExpo
11 October 2004: http://www.newsplex.org/program/training_visual.shtml
-4th International Summit on Newsrooms: "Next Steps"
9-10 November 2004: http://www.newsplex.org/program/training_summit4.shtml
-Other Newsplex training and support activities
http://www.newsplex.org/program/training.shtml
NEWSPLEX CONVERGENCE MONITOR
Representatives of any media group pursuing a convergence
strategy are invited to contribute a brief profile of the
company's activities to the Ifra's worldwide registry of
cross-media news activities. The short online interview is available at
http://www.ifra.com/website/newsplexonl.nsf/html/index.html.
THE NEWSPLEX DIRECTORATE
The world's most forward-thinking media and media-technology
companies have underwritten development of the Newsplex
prototype cross-media newsroom for demonstration, training
and research in next-generation newshandling technologies
and techniques for the converging marketplace of print, broadcast,
online and mobile. These companies comprise the Newsplex
Directorate, guiding the facility's activities and receiving priority
access to its expertise and support programs. In addition to Ifra,
Directorate members are Digital Technology International (USA);
Edipresse Groupe (Switzerland); South Carolina ETV (USA),
which hosts the facility on its campus; Jyllands-Posten (Denmark);
Guardian Media Group Regional Newspapers (UK); CCI Europe
(Denmark); The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (USA);
IMPRESA (Portugal), Archronica Architects (USA), which designed
the facility; Star Publications (Malaysia); Morris Communications
(USA); and PR Newswire (USA). Additional Directorate seats are available.
SUBSCRIBER SERVICE
To start, change or cancel your subscription to the Newsplex
Trends Report, visit the Ifra Web site at
http://www.ifra.com/website/ifra.nsf/html/ITR.
If you have any problems or questions concerning your
subscription, contact us atfeedback@ifra.com. To subscribe
by email, send a message from your email account to
join-ifra-trendreport@kbx.de. To unsubscribe by email,
send a message from your account toleave-ifra-trendreport@kbx.de.
Ifra - the world's leading association for newspaper & media publishing
www.ifra.com
March 2004
The Newsplex Trends Report is a periodic summary of
activities, developments, research results and insights
from the staff of the Ifra Newsplex at the University of
South Carolina. The Newsplex is a prototype convergent
micro-newsroom developed by Ifra for demonstration,
training and research in next-generation multiple-media
newshandling tools and techniques.
TREND
Mobile Publishing
Diana Harris voted in the U.S. Democratic presidential
primary in South Carolina at about 8 a.m. on Feb. 3 and
walked out of the Quail Valley polling place in northwest
Columbia to be greeted by two reporters with a Nokia
camera phone. She was about to help Ifra Newsplex set
new standards in journalism and news technology.
The reporters from the University of South Carolina's
school of journalism scribbled notes as Harris commented
briefly about how the election could affect
African-Americans and the economy. Then they snapped
her picture with the Nokia 3600's integrated full-color
VGA-resolution camera.
The journalists were part of the Newsplex Mobile Media
Project designed to explore and evaluate cutting-edge
tools and techniques in convergent newshandling by
combining the latest advancements in mobile phone
and wireless Internet technologies with the well-refined
skills of newspaper and television reporting.
As Harris walked away, the reporters used the phone's
keypad to input a text message summarizing the
encounter, attached the photo, and emailed it directly
from the mobile handset to a special type of Web site
called a moblog, short for mobile web log.
In all, seven teams of print and broadcast journalists
enveloped the Columbia area to report Primary Day in
all its varied nuances using first- and second-generation
mobile imaging phones and advanced GMS/GPRS networks
provided by Cingular Wireless. From before the polls
opened in the morning until after the corks and tissues
came out that night, these multiple-media journalists
continuously captured and upload hundreds of digital
pictures, video-audio shorts and text summaries to the
site called the Newsplex/Cingular Wireless Election
Connection, hosted by TextAmerica
(
upload was automatically formatted by TextAmerica's
underlying technology and posted as a new entry on the
web site, where it was instantly available for public
viewing, comment and download.
The entry about Harris posted at 8:15 a.m.
At the year-old $2 million Newsplex prototype convergent
newsroom, a uniquely constituted editorial team supported
the field journalists and oversaw assembly of the Wireless
Election Connection moblog.
- A newsflow editor with 10 years experience as a
television news director managed the overall process,
directing the reporting teams toward the ultimate goal
of providing a distinctively comprehensive and engaging
presentation of the Primary Day story.
- Storybuilders, one with background as an Associated
Press wire service editor, another with decades reporting
and editing for major metros, edited and categorized
the constant flow of submissions from the mobile journalists
all the while taking additional information from them over
the same phones being used for newsgathering and delivery.
- And a new type of hybrid informatics journalist called a
newsresourcer, experienced in news judgment and skilled
in information management augmented the moblog
submissions with research and online links adding even
greater depth and breadth to the presentation. For the
item about Harris, the lead newsresourcer inserted a link
to an online profile of the Quail Valley community showing
its ethnic and economic diversity.
Individually, each entry in the Wireless Election
Connection documented a single action, statement or
scene of the primary process – a voter's comment, a
supporter's placard, a candidate's claim, a detractor's
sneer, lines at polling stations, empty voting booths,
people energized, tired, involved, disengaged, satisfied
or angry. Each entry stands alone as a piece of
micro-journalism. Collectively, however, the entries
accumulated through the day to form an intricate mosaic
revealing the larger trends and tones of a massively
complicated community news event.
In this way, the process melded some of the best
attributes of in-depth, wide-ranging, detail-oriented
newspaper reporting and real-time, putting-you-at-the-scene,
visually engaging television coverage. It produced
content of potential value to both of those traditional
media, yet also resulted in a news presentation with a
weight of its own for news consumers. It took its cues
from the marketplace by tapping into the increasingly
popular web log format and using the increasingly
popular camera phones, yet notched both up to a higher
level of news and information resource by applying
professional editorial standards and workflows.
The results were overwhelming to those involved in
the project. Media attention to the new type of election
coverage was considerable. Cingular Wireless put out
a single press release about the event, and the
company later found out that this would be its third
most read release in the past year. By the time the
Wireless Election Connection shut down coverage at
11 p.m., after N.C. Sen. John Edwards was declared
the winner of the primary in his home state, TextAmerica
statistics show that 379 other Web sites around the
world were taking content from the Newsplex site.
The hit counter for the 24-hour period was over 8500.
The Wireless Election Connection is exactly the kind of
effort for which the Newsplex was conceived. The
results of this project will factor directly back into
Ifra's training and support for converging media companies.
An expanded version of this article is published in
Ifra's "newspaper techniques" magazine and is available
online at
- Kerry J. Northrup, Director, IfraNewsplex,
CONTEXT
-
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story820.shtml
-
http://ojr.org/ojr/glaser/1076465317.php
-
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/kramer/1076550248.php
-
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=61103
-
http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/3313471
-
http://www.business20.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,575603,00.html
-
http://www.business20.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,573497,00.html
-
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,1147813,00.html
-
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story815.shtml
-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3451055.stm
-
to this report
http://www.ils.unc.edu/ils/releases/RELEASE04_barreau.html
-
Newsroom on the Affect of Convergence on their Role as
Primary Gatekeeper
http://www.jour.sc.edu/news/convergence/issue7.html#conversations
-
Broadcast News Convergence Programs
http://www.jour.sc.edu/news/convergence/issue7.html#what
-
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20040203b3.htm
-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34553-2004Feb11.html (subscription required)
-
http://ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1075928349.php
-
auch Jean Frey, Basler Zeitung Medien und Espace Media
Groupe den Ausstieg aus der Apple-Welt
http://www.persoenlich.com/news/show_news.cfm?newsid=37881
-
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/02/05/2003097557
-
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0205/p02s02-ussc.html
-
http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,7558,1143719,00.html
-
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2499832
-
http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/000902.php
-
http://www.agencyfaqs.com/news/stories/2004/01/25/8216.html
-
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story802.shtml
-
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1074813008687&call_pageid=968350072197&col=969048863851
-
http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,7496,1122349,00.html
-
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,1123988,00.html
-
generation of mobile information services
http://www.presseportal.de/story.htx?nr=515395
-
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2066198
-
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,1119733,00.html
-
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/thestandard/news_detail_frame.cfm?articleid=44517&intcatid=2
-
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,1117212,00.html
-
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA359497
-
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2004/01/05/push_technology_gets_a_nudge/
-
media has hit the streets
http://www.cfje.dk/cfje/VidBase.nsf/ID/CB00488977
-
http://www.adweek.com/aw/iq_interactive/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2060818
-
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-12-30-blogging-usat_x.htm
-
Homegrown News
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/technology/1071702097.php
-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/aboutbbcnews/hi/this_is_bbc_news/newsid_3303000/3303455.stm
-
http://www.ojr.org/japan/qa/1070490296.php
-
go fully tabloid?
http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,7558,1101961,00.html
-
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,1100154,00.html
-
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3452,36-344528,0.html
-
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2045973
-
Newsbook online
http://www.newsandtech.com/issues/2003/12-03/nt/12-03_newsbook.htm
-
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2041705
-
http://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k3/dec/dec20.htm
-
http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=3505
-
http://deadbrain.co.uk/news/article_2003_12_01_4914.php
UPCOMING AT IFRA NEWSPLEX
-
24-28 May 2004: http://www.newsplex.org/program/training_tour.shtml
-
21-25 June 2004: http://www.newsplex.org/program/training_backpack.shtml
-
20-23 September 2004: http://www.newsplex.org/program/training_ad.shtml
-
11 October 2004: http://www.newsplex.org/program/training_visual.shtml
-
9-10 November 2004: http://www.newsplex.org/program/training_summit4.shtml
-
http://www.newsplex.org/program/training.shtml
NEWSPLEX CONVERGENCE MONITOR
Representatives of any media group pursuing a convergence
strategy are invited to contribute a brief profile of the
company's activities to the Ifra's worldwide registry of
cross-media news activities. The short online interview is available at
THE NEWSPLEX DIRECTORATE
The world's most forward-thinking media and media-technology
companies have underwritten development of the Newsplex
prototype cross-media newsroom for demonstration, training
and research in next-generation newshandling technologies
and techniques for the converging marketplace of print, broadcast,
online and mobile. These companies comprise the Newsplex
Directorate, guiding the facility's activities and receiving priority
access to its expertise and support programs. In addition to Ifra,
Directorate members are Digital Technology International (USA);
Edipresse Groupe (Switzerland); South Carolina ETV (USA),
which hosts the facility on its campus; Jyllands-Posten (Denmark);
Guardian Media Group Regional Newspapers (UK); CCI Europe
(Denmark); The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (USA);
IMPRESA (Portugal), Archronica Architects (USA), which designed
the facility; Star Publications (Malaysia); Morris Communications
(USA); and PR Newswire (USA). Additional Directorate seats are available.
SUBSCRIBER SERVICE
To start, change or cancel your subscription to the Newsplex
Trends Report, visit the Ifra Web site at
If you have any problems or questions concerning your
subscription, contact us at
by email, send a message from your email account to
send a message from your account to
Ifra - the world's leading association for newspaper & media publishing
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Here's a new media electronic newsletter that you should keep your eye on. Clark
*** Media Culture Headlines ***
Top stories from AlterNet's MediaCulture site for February 24, 2004:
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/
MediaCulture Stories
Blogging While Anti-Black
John Lee, Africana.com
Insider gossip-fests like Gawker and Wonkette exemplify the growing
phenomenon of white hipsters adopting a casual racism.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17929
The Intern on Page One
Timothy Karr, MediaChannel.org
In a media landscape increasingly crowded with rumormongers and 'gotcha'
news sites, unsubstantiated rumors become headline stories overnight.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17927
White Man to the Rescue?
Katha Pollitt, The Nation
Defing both logic and fact, a New York Times writer accuses feminists of
ignoring the plight of their less fortunate sisters in the Third World.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17928
Damn Those Working Moms
Emily Bazelon, Women's eNews
The cover story of this month's Atlantic Monthly is proof that there is always
a spurious reason to beat up on mothers who work
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17898
Donald's Wannabe Slaves
Ana Marie Cox, In These Times
'The Apprentice,' a show that asks us to root for someone to lose his or her
job, has found an audience in the midst of a jobless economic recovery.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17891
Amish Show Goes Amiss
Brian Willoughby, Tolerance.org
Since Les Moonves wasn't allowed to make fun of rural whites, he's decided
to pick on the Amish instead.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17930
****
In the Media Mix:
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/log/
William Safire: Minister of Disinformation
Whether insisting on a link between al Qaeda and Saddam or accusing the
French of supplying rocket fuel components to Iraq, Safire presents "opinion
disguised as investigative reporting."
Moyers Quits 'Now'
Bill Moyers is leaving his PBS show, "Now with Bill Moyers" after the
November elections to write a book on Lyndon Johnson.
Damn Those Hollywood Jews
The truly incendiary and therefore unspoken question at the center of the
debate over Mel Gibson's "Passion" is not "Who killed Jesus?" but
"Who controls Hollywood?"
CBS Caves to GOP Pressure, Again
Having nixed the MoveOn ad as too political, CBS has decided to resume
airing a controversial ad touting the virtues of the new Medicare drug
prescription law.
Daniel Pearl's Wife Exposes WSJ
Mariane Pear says the Wall Street Journal simply turned its back on Pearl
soon after his death, telling her bluntly, "It is your case, not ours."
Comcast's All-star Team
The lobbying team pushing for the Comcast-Disney deal includes Victoria
Clarke, the former Pentagon PR chief who came up with the brilliant idea
of "embedding" journalists during the war.
An Obscene Investigation
The congressional investigation into indecency on television is the result of
a long-running, well-organized campaign by the conservative Parents
Television Council.
Read these and other Media Mix items at:
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/log/
You can find the freshest, compelling, important, and just plain fun
media-related content on AlterNet's MediaCulture content file.
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/
====================================================================
Update your profile here:
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Unsubscribe here:
http://alternetheadlines.u.tep1.com/survey/?a2jbJ0.bmSEEy.Y2Fyc3Vy.u
*** Media Culture Headlines ***
Top stories from AlterNet's MediaCulture site for February 24, 2004:
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/
MediaCulture Stories
Blogging While Anti-Black
John Lee, Africana.com
Insider gossip-fests like Gawker and Wonkette exemplify the growing
phenomenon of white hipsters adopting a casual racism.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17929
The Intern on Page One
Timothy Karr, MediaChannel.org
In a media landscape increasingly crowded with rumormongers and 'gotcha'
news sites, unsubstantiated rumors become headline stories overnight.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17927
White Man to the Rescue?
Katha Pollitt, The Nation
Defing both logic and fact, a New York Times writer accuses feminists of
ignoring the plight of their less fortunate sisters in the Third World.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17928
Damn Those Working Moms
Emily Bazelon, Women's eNews
The cover story of this month's Atlantic Monthly is proof that there is always
a spurious reason to beat up on mothers who work
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17898
Donald's Wannabe Slaves
Ana Marie Cox, In These Times
'The Apprentice,' a show that asks us to root for someone to lose his or her
job, has found an audience in the midst of a jobless economic recovery.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17891
Amish Show Goes Amiss
Brian Willoughby, Tolerance.org
Since Les Moonves wasn't allowed to make fun of rural whites, he's decided
to pick on the Amish instead.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17930
****
In the Media Mix:
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/log/
William Safire: Minister of Disinformation
Whether insisting on a link between al Qaeda and Saddam or accusing the
French of supplying rocket fuel components to Iraq, Safire presents "opinion
disguised as investigative reporting."
Moyers Quits 'Now'
Bill Moyers is leaving his PBS show, "Now with Bill Moyers" after the
November elections to write a book on Lyndon Johnson.
Damn Those Hollywood Jews
The truly incendiary and therefore unspoken question at the center of the
debate over Mel Gibson's "Passion" is not "Who killed Jesus?" but
"Who controls Hollywood?"
CBS Caves to GOP Pressure, Again
Having nixed the MoveOn ad as too political, CBS has decided to resume
airing a controversial ad touting the virtues of the new Medicare drug
prescription law.
Daniel Pearl's Wife Exposes WSJ
Mariane Pear says the Wall Street Journal simply turned its back on Pearl
soon after his death, telling her bluntly, "It is your case, not ours."
Comcast's All-star Team
The lobbying team pushing for the Comcast-Disney deal includes Victoria
Clarke, the former Pentagon PR chief who came up with the brilliant idea
of "embedding" journalists during the war.
An Obscene Investigation
The congressional investigation into indecency on television is the result of
a long-running, well-organized campaign by the conservative Parents
Television Council.
Read these and other Media Mix items at:
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/log/
You can find the freshest, compelling, important, and just plain fun
media-related content on AlterNet's MediaCulture content file.
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/
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Tuesday, February 24, 2004
MEDIA MIX
A first step to understanding the homeless
By PHILIP BRASOR
The mayor of Kawasaki, Takao Abe, is currently under attack from a group of city residents who don't want a planned homeless shelter put in their neighborhood. Last month, Abe rejected the residents' request for a meeting to hear his explanation of why a disused chemical factory in the Tsutsumine district was being turned into a temporary shelter for 250 people who sleep on the streets around Kawasaki Station.
The residents are worried about security and a decline in property value, but the mayor dismissed their concerns out of hand, saying that the group's request for 24-hour surveillance cameras and buses to transport the people who use the shelter through the neighborhood were both costly and an "abuse of human rights." The mayor's blunt, imperious attitude, which seems to stem from pressure to get the rubber-stamped facility built by March, has angered the residents even more.
Whether or not the group's fears would have been allayed by a calm presentation of facts about homelessness is difficult to know. Such shelters have met similar resistance throughout Japan. Another residents group in Kita Kyushu is trying to block a homeless shelter that is being planned along a route that they say will be used by children going to school.
These people are either ignorant about homelessness or just plain paranoid. In terms of safety, homeless people have much more to fear from non-homeless people than vice versa. On the same day that Abe refused to talk with the Tsutsumine residents, two teenage boys were arrested for forcing a street person in Tokyo to jump in a river last June. He drowned. The boys said they didn't care if he died because "homeless people were no good as humans." It wasn't an isolated incident.
It has been my experience that homeless people in Japan keep to themselves. Panhandling, a fairly common practice among the homeless in America, is almost non-existent in Japan. Government statistics state that more than 50 percent of Japan's estimated 30,000 homeless hold down regular jobs. As pointed out at a joint British-Japanese seminar held in Tokyo last week, people's reasons for living on the streets are often personal, meaning there are as many reasons for being homeless as there are homeless. However, the seminar also said that the main obstacles to re-entering society for Japanese homeless are structural: a welfare system that doesn't acknowledge them and a housing culture that shuts them out.
In any case, there's no proper explanation for the public's irrational fear of them, but the media feeds this misunderstanding with coverage that treats the homeless as freaks. News stories either play up their victimhood or display them as colorful characters for whom living on the street is a lifestyle choice.
On its evening news show, Nippon TV has been running an occasional series on a group of saihokutan (northernmost) homeless men living in a small tent community in Asahikawa, Hokkaido. Approaching these men as if they were a rare species of water fowl, the reporters focus on the unbelievable circumstances of their existence -- the below-zero temperatures, the scavenging for food that is often frozen, the general resourcefulness in terms of shelter and clothing. The reporters' unending exclamations of "sugoi (wow!)" become cumulatively patronizing: the homeless as a source of cheap entertainment.
It's therefore encouraging that the city of Kawasaki has adopted a documentary video about a homeless man as a "text" in its junior high schools. "Ashigara-san" follows a homeless man from the streets of Shinjuku to a group-home over the course of three years. The director, Motoharu Iida, is a volunteer who helps the homeless in the area around the West Exit of Shinjuku Station. Ashigara, a 67-year-old man who camped on the street, was a reluctant subject, but Iida found him compelling, first for his independence and later for his sense of humor. Whenever he saw him on the street, Iida made it a point to talk to him. Ashigara initially resisted, but presents of food and cigarettes and Iida's obvious concern eventually break through his carapace of distrust.
Iida shows Ashigara urinating into grates and eating out of garbage bags. He is infested with lice and suffers from horrible sores on his legs. Iida talks him into going to a hospital, and there the viewer discovers the unique bonds that form between society's bottom dwellers and the doctors, nurses, and social workers, whose job it is to keep them alive.
We see that the system does not care about someone like Ashigara, but that the individuals who operate it often do. Ashigara can receive welfare if he has a fixed address, but he opts to return to the street. Iida finds him months later sleeping under a train overpass. He is extremely weak and says he has been beaten up twice. A volunteer doctor says he must go back to the hospital and explains the bureaucratic difficulties of getting an ambulance to take him there. Ashigara is brought to the ward office, where he showers, and then walks to the hospital, where he's treated for pneumonia. "I'm sorry for being so selfish," he says to the people who help him.
The main value of "Ashigara-san" as an educational tool is in its low-key presentation. Iida is not a journalist. He doesn't delve into Ashigara's past or explain how he ended up on the street. He doesn't take society to task. He simply and unsentimentally shows us a man who, for whatever reason, no longer has a place in society but rediscovers the warmth of human contact. Ashigara is not a scary person, only his situation is.
"Ashigara-san" opens April 3 at Theater Pole-Pole Higashi Nakano in Tokyo, (03) 3771-0088.
The Japan Times: Feb. 22, 2004
A first step to understanding the homeless
By PHILIP BRASOR
The mayor of Kawasaki, Takao Abe, is currently under attack from a group of city residents who don't want a planned homeless shelter put in their neighborhood. Last month, Abe rejected the residents' request for a meeting to hear his explanation of why a disused chemical factory in the Tsutsumine district was being turned into a temporary shelter for 250 people who sleep on the streets around Kawasaki Station.
The residents are worried about security and a decline in property value, but the mayor dismissed their concerns out of hand, saying that the group's request for 24-hour surveillance cameras and buses to transport the people who use the shelter through the neighborhood were both costly and an "abuse of human rights." The mayor's blunt, imperious attitude, which seems to stem from pressure to get the rubber-stamped facility built by March, has angered the residents even more.
Whether or not the group's fears would have been allayed by a calm presentation of facts about homelessness is difficult to know. Such shelters have met similar resistance throughout Japan. Another residents group in Kita Kyushu is trying to block a homeless shelter that is being planned along a route that they say will be used by children going to school.
These people are either ignorant about homelessness or just plain paranoid. In terms of safety, homeless people have much more to fear from non-homeless people than vice versa. On the same day that Abe refused to talk with the Tsutsumine residents, two teenage boys were arrested for forcing a street person in Tokyo to jump in a river last June. He drowned. The boys said they didn't care if he died because "homeless people were no good as humans." It wasn't an isolated incident.
It has been my experience that homeless people in Japan keep to themselves. Panhandling, a fairly common practice among the homeless in America, is almost non-existent in Japan. Government statistics state that more than 50 percent of Japan's estimated 30,000 homeless hold down regular jobs. As pointed out at a joint British-Japanese seminar held in Tokyo last week, people's reasons for living on the streets are often personal, meaning there are as many reasons for being homeless as there are homeless. However, the seminar also said that the main obstacles to re-entering society for Japanese homeless are structural: a welfare system that doesn't acknowledge them and a housing culture that shuts them out.
In any case, there's no proper explanation for the public's irrational fear of them, but the media feeds this misunderstanding with coverage that treats the homeless as freaks. News stories either play up their victimhood or display them as colorful characters for whom living on the street is a lifestyle choice.
On its evening news show, Nippon TV has been running an occasional series on a group of saihokutan (northernmost) homeless men living in a small tent community in Asahikawa, Hokkaido. Approaching these men as if they were a rare species of water fowl, the reporters focus on the unbelievable circumstances of their existence -- the below-zero temperatures, the scavenging for food that is often frozen, the general resourcefulness in terms of shelter and clothing. The reporters' unending exclamations of "sugoi (wow!)" become cumulatively patronizing: the homeless as a source of cheap entertainment.
It's therefore encouraging that the city of Kawasaki has adopted a documentary video about a homeless man as a "text" in its junior high schools. "Ashigara-san" follows a homeless man from the streets of Shinjuku to a group-home over the course of three years. The director, Motoharu Iida, is a volunteer who helps the homeless in the area around the West Exit of Shinjuku Station. Ashigara, a 67-year-old man who camped on the street, was a reluctant subject, but Iida found him compelling, first for his independence and later for his sense of humor. Whenever he saw him on the street, Iida made it a point to talk to him. Ashigara initially resisted, but presents of food and cigarettes and Iida's obvious concern eventually break through his carapace of distrust.
Iida shows Ashigara urinating into grates and eating out of garbage bags. He is infested with lice and suffers from horrible sores on his legs. Iida talks him into going to a hospital, and there the viewer discovers the unique bonds that form between society's bottom dwellers and the doctors, nurses, and social workers, whose job it is to keep them alive.
We see that the system does not care about someone like Ashigara, but that the individuals who operate it often do. Ashigara can receive welfare if he has a fixed address, but he opts to return to the street. Iida finds him months later sleeping under a train overpass. He is extremely weak and says he has been beaten up twice. A volunteer doctor says he must go back to the hospital and explains the bureaucratic difficulties of getting an ambulance to take him there. Ashigara is brought to the ward office, where he showers, and then walks to the hospital, where he's treated for pneumonia. "I'm sorry for being so selfish," he says to the people who help him.
The main value of "Ashigara-san" as an educational tool is in its low-key presentation. Iida is not a journalist. He doesn't delve into Ashigara's past or explain how he ended up on the street. He doesn't take society to task. He simply and unsentimentally shows us a man who, for whatever reason, no longer has a place in society but rediscovers the warmth of human contact. Ashigara is not a scary person, only his situation is.
"Ashigara-san" opens April 3 at Theater Pole-Pole Higashi Nakano in Tokyo, (03) 3771-0088.
The Japan Times: Feb. 22, 2004
Japan gives in to EU's pressure on press clubs
BRUSSELS (Kyodo) Japan and the European Union said Friday they have agreed that Japan will work to improve its press club system to provide better access for foreign media to government information.
Japan will consider asking its public offices to allow foreign journalists registered with the Foreign Ministry to attend their news conferences, according to officials who attended the talks in Brussels.
Makita Shimokawa, director of the Foreign Ministry's First International Economic Affairs Division, told a news conference that the ministry and the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association are continuing negotiations on opening access also at news conferences hosted by the press clubs.
In response, Seamus Gillespie, who is in charge of Japan affairs in the European Commission's External Relations Directorate General, described the move as a constructive approach.
In October, the EU urged Japan to abolish its "kisha club" system. The Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association responded in December, saying the proposal was based on "misunderstanding, cultural biases and misconception of facts."
The EU believes the system is used to exclude foreign correspondents from access to news in Japan. The Japanese newspaper association says most press clubs are open to the foreign media.
The Japan Times: Feb. 22, 2004
(C) All rights reserved
BRUSSELS (Kyodo) Japan and the European Union said Friday they have agreed that Japan will work to improve its press club system to provide better access for foreign media to government information.
Japan will consider asking its public offices to allow foreign journalists registered with the Foreign Ministry to attend their news conferences, according to officials who attended the talks in Brussels.
Makita Shimokawa, director of the Foreign Ministry's First International Economic Affairs Division, told a news conference that the ministry and the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association are continuing negotiations on opening access also at news conferences hosted by the press clubs.
In response, Seamus Gillespie, who is in charge of Japan affairs in the European Commission's External Relations Directorate General, described the move as a constructive approach.
In October, the EU urged Japan to abolish its "kisha club" system. The Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association responded in December, saying the proposal was based on "misunderstanding, cultural biases and misconception of facts."
The EU believes the system is used to exclude foreign correspondents from access to news in Japan. The Japanese newspaper association says most press clubs are open to the foreign media.
The Japan Times: Feb. 22, 2004
(C) All rights reserved
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
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
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
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
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Weekly Spin is compiled by staff and volunteers at PR Watch.
To subscribe or unsubcribe, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_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@prwatch.org
Contributions to the Center for Media & Democracy
are tax-deductible. Send checks to:
CMD
520 University Ave. #310
Madison, WI 53703
To donate now online, visit:
https://www.egrants.org/donate/index.cfm?ID=2344-0|1118-0
_______________________________________________
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Weekly-Spin@prwatch.org
http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/weekly-spin
THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, January 28, 2004
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The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links 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
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
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Weekly Spin is compiled by staff and volunteers at PR Watch.
To subscribe or unsubcribe, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_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@prwatch.org
Contributions to the Center for Media & Democracy
are tax-deductible. Send checks to:
CMD
520 University Ave. #310
Madison, WI 53703
To donate now online, visit:
https://www.egrants.org/donate/index.cfm?ID=2344-0|1118-0
_______________________________________________
Weekly-Spin mailing list
Weekly-Spin@prwatch.org
http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/weekly-spin
Wednesday, January 07, 2004
TREND
Backpack NewsGear
The latest collection of advanced newsgathering tools
to receive Ifra's annual NewsGear™ designations might
also be called Platypus Gear, since platypus was the
original name coined for multiskilled reporters using a
variety of equipment to cover news for multiple media.
It was Dirck Halstead, longtime Time magazine White
House photographer, who in 1997 first popularized a
"strange new breed" of photojournalist arriving at news
scenes with the equipment and expertise to record both
moving images for broadcast and still images for print.
Those first-generation convergent journalists defied
conventional wisdom categorizing the practitioners of
different media. So Halstead and others compared them
to the platypus – the duck-billed, egg-laying mammal
whose discovery overturned expert certainty about how
to categorize the animal kingdom.
Today, the increasing numbers of cross-media
newsgatherers are more often referred to as backpack
journalists. The term imagines a reporter trekking to a
remote news event, unslinging a backpack of high-tech
gear including laptop, digital cameras, voice recorder
and communications devices, and then dispatching all
manner of text, photos, video, audio, graphics and Web
updates to a variety of waiting editors and news consumers.
This is the scenario around which Ifra based this year's
cycle of its Advanced Journalist Technology Project. The
project annually evaluates hundreds of hardware and
software products for their application to the news
industry's evolving multiple-media editorial environment.
The most innovative and practical earn Ifra's NewsGear
designation and are combined into a demonstration
suite as a model for news organizations and news
technology vendors worldwide.
The 2004 NewsGear suite has been dubbed the Backpack
Edition and would be of particular interest to those original
journalistic platypuses because it features one of the first
digital cameras on the market able to produce both
newspaper-quality still photos and broadcast-quality video
– the Sony DCR-PC330. Its 3.3-megapixel digital imager
has more than twice the resolution of normal video
cameras, giving it enough detail for still image
reproduction at common print sizes and normal quality
standards in newspapers. As a result of the DCR-PC330
and its certain-to-follow competitors, convergent
photographers will increasingly start to carry one camera
instead of two and cross-media newsrooms will start
rewriting their image workflows.
Another innovation in NewsGear 2004 is the Nokia 6600
Imaging Phone. This is a second-generation mobile
camera phone suitable for real-time newsgathering via
VGA JPEGs, Web-resolution video with audio, and even
low-res streaming video. Mobiles are becoming
indispensable for connecting increasingly distributed
news staffs, plus extremely viable for transmitting
acceptable-quality first-on-scene images and audio from
a live news event.
Also receiving the NewsGear designation for 2004:
- The Toshiba Portégé M200 second-generation tablet
PC able to record reporters' handwriting and convert it to
text. With a full-size keyboard and a 12.1-inch screen,
the M200 resolves compromises in some of the first tablet
PCs on the market.
- The Apple iSight firewire-based, high-resolution
video-chat system. Reports from newsrooms worldwide
indicate a significant interest in desktop video
communications for interviewing news sources and
coordinating with remote colleagues.
- Serious Magic Visual Communicator Pro, the
upgraded broadcast-quality version of unique
software that simplifies production of video news
content so that even print-oriented newspaper staffs
can do it well.
- Archos' AV320 digital media recorder and
3.3-megapixel AVCam 300 attachment, creating an
all-in-one digital media newsgathering tool for
Web-quality video, print-quality stills &
broadcast-quality audio.
- The Emergecore IT-100 Network Appliance combining
all the connectivity and network management required for
a bureau or small newsroom into a laptop-size box with
almost no support demands.
See theNewsGear matrix for full details on the 2004
Backpack Edition.
http://www.ifra.com/website/ifra.nsf/All/69DF55DB2524935EC1256A14005FF9E9/$FILE/NewsGear_2004_matrix_R2.pdf
In June 2004, Ifra's Newsplex initiative will conduct
limited-enrollment training on the tools and skills for
backpack journalists. However, as with most aspects
of converged newshandling, technology is not as critical
as skill in planning and managing a story across traditional
media boundaries. Therefore this program will also train
multiskilled journalists to integrate their work with the
newsroom's specialists in print, photo, video, audio,
graphics and Web content. Watch the Newsplex Web
site atwww.newsplex.org for details or contact Newsplex
Training Director Martha Stone atstone@ifra.com.
NewsGear™ and the NewsGear logo are registered
trademarks of Ifra and the Ifra Centre for Advanced News
Operations. All other trademarks and product names
are property of the respective companies.
- Kerry J. Northrup, Director, IfraNewsplex,northrup@ifra.com
Backpack NewsGear
The latest collection of advanced newsgathering tools
to receive Ifra's annual NewsGear™ designations might
also be called Platypus Gear, since platypus was the
original name coined for multiskilled reporters using a
variety of equipment to cover news for multiple media.
It was Dirck Halstead, longtime Time magazine White
House photographer, who in 1997 first popularized a
"strange new breed" of photojournalist arriving at news
scenes with the equipment and expertise to record both
moving images for broadcast and still images for print.
Those first-generation convergent journalists defied
conventional wisdom categorizing the practitioners of
different media. So Halstead and others compared them
to the platypus – the duck-billed, egg-laying mammal
whose discovery overturned expert certainty about how
to categorize the animal kingdom.
Today, the increasing numbers of cross-media
newsgatherers are more often referred to as backpack
journalists. The term imagines a reporter trekking to a
remote news event, unslinging a backpack of high-tech
gear including laptop, digital cameras, voice recorder
and communications devices, and then dispatching all
manner of text, photos, video, audio, graphics and Web
updates to a variety of waiting editors and news consumers.
This is the scenario around which Ifra based this year's
cycle of its Advanced Journalist Technology Project. The
project annually evaluates hundreds of hardware and
software products for their application to the news
industry's evolving multiple-media editorial environment.
The most innovative and practical earn Ifra's NewsGear
designation and are combined into a demonstration
suite as a model for news organizations and news
technology vendors worldwide.
The 2004 NewsGear suite has been dubbed the Backpack
Edition and would be of particular interest to those original
journalistic platypuses because it features one of the first
digital cameras on the market able to produce both
newspaper-quality still photos and broadcast-quality video
– the Sony DCR-PC330. Its 3.3-megapixel digital imager
has more than twice the resolution of normal video
cameras, giving it enough detail for still image
reproduction at common print sizes and normal quality
standards in newspapers. As a result of the DCR-PC330
and its certain-to-follow competitors, convergent
photographers will increasingly start to carry one camera
instead of two and cross-media newsrooms will start
rewriting their image workflows.
Another innovation in NewsGear 2004 is the Nokia 6600
Imaging Phone. This is a second-generation mobile
camera phone suitable for real-time newsgathering via
VGA JPEGs, Web-resolution video with audio, and even
low-res streaming video. Mobiles are becoming
indispensable for connecting increasingly distributed
news staffs, plus extremely viable for transmitting
acceptable-quality first-on-scene images and audio from
a live news event.
Also receiving the NewsGear designation for 2004:
- The Toshiba Portégé M200 second-generation tablet
PC able to record reporters' handwriting and convert it to
text. With a full-size keyboard and a 12.1-inch screen,
the M200 resolves compromises in some of the first tablet
PCs on the market.
- The Apple iSight firewire-based, high-resolution
video-chat system. Reports from newsrooms worldwide
indicate a significant interest in desktop video
communications for interviewing news sources and
coordinating with remote colleagues.
- Serious Magic Visual Communicator Pro, the
upgraded broadcast-quality version of unique
software that simplifies production of video news
content so that even print-oriented newspaper staffs
can do it well.
- Archos' AV320 digital media recorder and
3.3-megapixel AVCam 300 attachment, creating an
all-in-one digital media newsgathering tool for
Web-quality video, print-quality stills &
broadcast-quality audio.
- The Emergecore IT-100 Network Appliance combining
all the connectivity and network management required for
a bureau or small newsroom into a laptop-size box with
almost no support demands.
See the
Backpack Edition.
http://www.ifra.com/website/ifra.nsf/All/69DF55DB2524935EC1256A14005FF9E9/$FILE/NewsGear_2004_matrix_R2.pdf
In June 2004, Ifra's Newsplex initiative will conduct
limited-enrollment training on the tools and skills for
backpack journalists. However, as with most aspects
of converged newshandling, technology is not as critical
as skill in planning and managing a story across traditional
media boundaries. Therefore this program will also train
multiskilled journalists to integrate their work with the
newsroom's specialists in print, photo, video, audio,
graphics and Web content. Watch the Newsplex Web
site at
Training Director Martha Stone at
NewsGear™ and the NewsGear logo are registered
trademarks of Ifra and the Ifra Centre for Advanced News
Operations. All other trademarks and product names
are property of the respective companies.
- Kerry J. Northrup, Director, IfraNewsplex,
---------------------------------------------------------------------
THIS WEEK'S NEWS
1. Al Iraqiya Fails To Be 'Independent' News Source
2. Ogilvy & Mather Charged With Bilking White House
3. Martha Stewart's PR Push
4. Meat Industry PR Scramble To Respond to Mad Cow
5. Sludge Slippage
6. Rebranding Bush
7. USDA PR Chief Flacked for the Beef Industry
8. Another Award for Bill O'Reilly
9. "Inside Baseball" from the Outside In
10. 2003 Spin of the Year: WMDs
11. Krugman's Resolutions
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1. AL IRAQIYA FAILS TO BE 'INDEPENDENT' NEWS SOURCE
https://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=9508
The U.S. funded Iraqi Media Network was supposed to bring
"independent" journalism to a "liberated" Iraq. The reality,
however, is that IMN's Al Iraqiya radio and television station are
failing, according to CorpWatch's Pratap Chatterjee. The stations,
run by top CIA contractor Science Applications International
Corporation (SAIC), seem almost irrelevant given the more popular
satellite news channels Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya and the common
criticism that "Al Iraqiya has no news. Just yesterday's
information." Working under Coalition Provisional Authority
guidelines, Al Iraqiya reporters are barred from reporting anything
that might incited violence. Many who worked for SAIC on the IMN
project blame the CPA for the network's failure. Veteran network
news foreign correspondent Don North called Al Iraqiya 'Project
Frustration' when he quit in July. "IMN has become an irrelevant
mouthpiece for CPA propaganda, managed news and mediocre programs.
I have trained journalists after the fall of tyrannies in Bosnia,
Romania and Afghanistan. I don't blame the Iraqi journalists for
the failure of IMN. Through a combination of incompetence and
indifference, CPA has destroyed the fragile credibility of IMN,"
North wrote recently.
SOURCE: CorpWatch, January 6, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073365201
2. OGILVY & MATHER CHARGED WITH BILKING WHITE HOUSE
http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/0106om.htm
The U.S. has indicted executives from Ogilvy and Mather, a PR and
advertising agency, for participating in an "extensive scheme to
defraud the U.S. Government by falsely and fraudulently inflating
the labor costs that Ogilvy incurred" for its work on a media
campaign for the Office of National Drug Control Policy. According
to O'Dwyer's PR Daily, O&M's anti-drug media campaign work was part
of a five-year $684 million dollar project. The government claims
it was overcharged by O&M from May 1999 to April 2000. "The White
House, last month, decided not to renew O&M's anti-drug contract.
It will put the business up for review in a bid to improve
'transparency.' O&M can re-bid," O'Dwyer's writes. †
SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily, January 6, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073365200
3. MARTHA STEWART'S PR PUSH
http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-stewart0104,0,1560047.story
"Weeks before a federal judge is set to open Martha Stewart's trial
on charges of obstructing justice and securities fraud, the case
already is being tried in the court of public opinion," writes
James T. Madore. According to Roberg G. Heim, a former Securities
and Exchange Commission attorney, "A very extraordinary aspect of
the Martha Stewart case is the amount of public relations efforts
that she and her team are making in an attempt to clear her name."
SOURCE: Newsday
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073331382
4. MEAT INDUSTRY PR SCRAMBLE TO RESPOND TO MAD COW
http://www.prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=198740&site=3
"Meat-industry trade groups were scurrying during the recent
holiday season to coordinate key messages and media lists as they
responded to reports of mad cow disease rearing its head in the
Western US," PR Week's John Frank writes. PR staffers at the
American Meat Institute and the National Cattlemen's Beef
Association, working with PR giant Burson-Marsteller, handled a
flood of media calls over the Christmas holiday. AMI's top
spokeswoman Janet Riley invited NBC News into her kitchen on
Christmas day to tape "her preparing beef for dinner in an effort
to demonstrate her faith in the safety of the beef supply," PR Week
reports. The US Department of Agriculture held daily press
briefings, which were followed by "technical briefings" for the
press held by NBCA. "Key message points the industry was stressing
revolved around the safety of the US beef supply and the extent of
efforts underway to track down how the disease reached US shores,"
PR Week reports.
SOURCE: PR Week, January 5, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073278800
5. SLUDGE SLIPPAGE
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/03/national/03SLUD.html
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has denied a petition from
73 labor, environment and farm groups calling for an immediate
moratorium on land-based uses of sewage sludge - a practice that we
exposed in our 1994 book, Toxic Sludge Is Good For You. "The
rejection of the petition followed an announcement by the agency in
October, after five years of analysis and study, that it would not
regulate dioxins in land-applied sludge," reports the Associated
Press. "Dioxins are a class of organic chemicals that EPA studies
show pose a possible cancer risk in humans, but the agency said in
its October statement that the danger was minimal. The latest
announcements by the EPA come a year and a half after a panel of
the National Research Council, in a review the agency had asked
for, criticized what the council described as outdated science in
the agency's assessment of health risks from treated sludge used as
fertilizer." Just to show it isn't completely irresponsible,
though, the EPA promises to study the problem further and someday
may regulate 15 other toxic chemicals in sludge that currently
aren't on its watch list. Meanwhile the sludge wars continue at the
local level, with communities in Texas and Louisiana fighting
unbearable odors, groundwater contamination, and toxic pathogens
from sludge, while in Ohio, sludge critics are dismissed as "a lot
of kooks."
SOURCE: Associated Press and New York Times, January 2-3, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1073118824
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073118824
6. REBRANDING BUSH
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1115313,00.html
"The White House has retreated from its doctrine of regime change
and pre-emptive military action and is returning to traditional
diplomacy in an effort to repackage George Bush as a president for
peace," the Guardian reports. The British paper writes that recent
signs indicate a shift from military action to diplomatic
engagement as seen in recent interactions between the U.S. and
North Korea, Libya and Iran. Washington analysts see this as an
election year strategy, acknowledging the White House finds itself
in a delicate situation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, given
continuing violence and the glacial transition to democracy in Iraq
and Afghanistan. "With elections 11 months away, Mr Bush does not
want to be vulnerable to claims that he has presided over a
warmongering strategy that has left Americans little safer than
September 11 2001. His shift follows an established pattern in
Washington of politicians moving to the centre during an election
year," the Guardian writes.
SOURCE: Guardian (UK), January 3, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073106000
7. USDA PR CHIEF FLACKED FOR THE BEEF INDUSTRY
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/02/opinion/02SCHL.html
Eric Schlosser, author of the hugely popular bestseller Fast Food
Nation, notes that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's PR point
person on mad cow disease, Alisa Harrison, flacked for the beef
industry. "Before joining the department, Ms. Harrison was director
of public relations for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association,
the beef industry's largest trade group, where she battled
government food safety efforts, criticized Oprah Winfrey for
raising health questions about American hamburgers, and sent out
press releases with titles like 'Mad Cow Disease Not a Problem in
the U.S.' ... Right now you'd have a hard time finding a federal
agency more completely dominated by the industry it was created to
regulate. Dale Moore, Ms. Veneman's chief of staff, was previously
the chief lobbyist for the cattlemen's association." Meanwhile, the
federal government is failing to take the only steps that will
solve the mad cow crisis in America: a total ban on feeding
slaughterhouse waste to livestock, and testing tens of millions of
cattle. John Stauber says 'it's the cow feed, stupid!'
SOURCE: New York Times, January 2, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1073019600
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073019600
8. ANOTHER AWARD FOR BILL O'REILLY
http://www.pandagon.net/archives/00002229.htm
Bill O'Reilly, who famously falsely claimed to be the winner of two
Peabody Awards, has finally won something for real -- top spot on
Pandagon.net's list of "the 20 most annoying conservatives of
2003." According to Pandagon webmasters Ezra Klein and Jesse
Taylor, O'Reilly "had a hard time getting on this list. I mean, if
you take away the 'wetback' commentary, and the 'joke' that a black
boys choir was out in the parking lot stealing hubcaps, and the
lawsuit against Al Franken, and the embarassing performance at the
C-SPAN Book News conference, and the threatening to beat up the son
of a 9/11 victim, and the lying about where he grew up, and the
whole Peabody Awards thing, and the false 'Fair and Balanced'
promise, and the fact that he's a grade-A asshole that most
conservatives don't like, and the insistence that anyone who
doesn't appear on his show is afraid of him, and the faux-everyman
demeanor, and the continuing jihads against Jesse Jackson, rap
music, George Clooney, Al Franken, the United Way, Europe,
Hollywood, Bill Moyers, the entire American left, Canada and
PepsiCola, AND that he lies constantly about being a
conservative...well, he still belongs on the list, actually."
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1072995815
9. "INSIDE BASEBALL" FROM THE OUTSIDE IN
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2004/01/01/inside_baseball.html
Jay Rosen thinks coverage of the 2004 presidential election is
shaping up as an exercise in "Horse Race Now! Horse Race Tomorrow!
Horse Race Forever!" In this time-dishonored tradition of political
journalism, reporters use sports as a metaphor for reporting on
politics, relying for insights on political insiders who have
learned how to spin the "race" as a game of "inside baseball." The
result: "An army of sentries encircles the game, guarding every
situation from which a glimmer of fresh truth might be allowed to
escape."
SOURCE: PressThink, January 1, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1072933200
10. 2003 SPIN OF THE YEAR: WMDS
http://www.guerrillanews.com/war_on_terrorism/doc3672.html
The Guerrilla New Network has "picked†the
administration's†packaging and sale of the case for war based on
Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction as our
Spin of the Year. The case has turned out to be so flimsy that the
administration has been forced to backtrack and deflect questions
about the still missing weapons. Paul Wolfowitz told Vanity Fair
this summer that it was a 'bureaucratic' decision to focus on the
WMD, and even Rumsfeld has repeatedly contradicted specific claims
he made to reporters in the run-up to the invasion."
SOURCE: Guerrilla News Network, December 31, 2003
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1072846800
11. KRUGMAN'S RESOLUTIONS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/26/opinion/26KRUG.html
Columnist Paul Krugman is wondering if the news media will take its
job seriously when reporting on the 2004 elections and offers some
suggestions to reporters: "Don't talk about clothes." "Actually
look at the candidates' policy proposals." "Beware of personal
anecdotes." "Look at the candidates' records." "Don't fall for
political histrionics." "It's not about you." Although this is all
pretty basic advice, concludes, "I don't really expect my
journalistic colleagues to follow these rules. ... But history will
not forgive us if we allow laziness and personal pettiness to shape
this crucial election." Journalism professor Jay Rosen thinks that
Krugman "should be this year's Pulitzer Prize columnist" for "his
courage and relentlessness" but also thinks his advice is likely to
go ignored.
SOURCE: New York Times, December 26, 2003
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2003.html#1072414801
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1072414801
THIS WEEK'S NEWS
1. Al Iraqiya Fails To Be 'Independent' News Source
2. Ogilvy & Mather Charged With Bilking White House
3. Martha Stewart's PR Push
4. Meat Industry PR Scramble To Respond to Mad Cow
5. Sludge Slippage
6. Rebranding Bush
7. USDA PR Chief Flacked for the Beef Industry
8. Another Award for Bill O'Reilly
9. "Inside Baseball" from the Outside In
10. 2003 Spin of the Year: WMDs
11. Krugman's Resolutions
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1. AL IRAQIYA FAILS TO BE 'INDEPENDENT' NEWS SOURCE
https://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=9508
The U.S. funded Iraqi Media Network was supposed to bring
"independent" journalism to a "liberated" Iraq. The reality,
however, is that IMN's Al Iraqiya radio and television station are
failing, according to CorpWatch's Pratap Chatterjee. The stations,
run by top CIA contractor Science Applications International
Corporation (SAIC), seem almost irrelevant given the more popular
satellite news channels Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya and the common
criticism that "Al Iraqiya has no news. Just yesterday's
information." Working under Coalition Provisional Authority
guidelines, Al Iraqiya reporters are barred from reporting anything
that might incited violence. Many who worked for SAIC on the IMN
project blame the CPA for the network's failure. Veteran network
news foreign correspondent Don North called Al Iraqiya 'Project
Frustration' when he quit in July. "IMN has become an irrelevant
mouthpiece for CPA propaganda, managed news and mediocre programs.
I have trained journalists after the fall of tyrannies in Bosnia,
Romania and Afghanistan. I don't blame the Iraqi journalists for
the failure of IMN. Through a combination of incompetence and
indifference, CPA has destroyed the fragile credibility of IMN,"
North wrote recently.
SOURCE: CorpWatch, January 6, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073365201
2. OGILVY & MATHER CHARGED WITH BILKING WHITE HOUSE
http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/0106om.htm
The U.S. has indicted executives from Ogilvy and Mather, a PR and
advertising agency, for participating in an "extensive scheme to
defraud the U.S. Government by falsely and fraudulently inflating
the labor costs that Ogilvy incurred" for its work on a media
campaign for the Office of National Drug Control Policy. According
to O'Dwyer's PR Daily, O&M's anti-drug media campaign work was part
of a five-year $684 million dollar project. The government claims
it was overcharged by O&M from May 1999 to April 2000. "The White
House, last month, decided not to renew O&M's anti-drug contract.
It will put the business up for review in a bid to improve
'transparency.' O&M can re-bid," O'Dwyer's writes. †
SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily, January 6, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073365200
3. MARTHA STEWART'S PR PUSH
http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-stewart0104,0,1560047.story
"Weeks before a federal judge is set to open Martha Stewart's trial
on charges of obstructing justice and securities fraud, the case
already is being tried in the court of public opinion," writes
James T. Madore. According to Roberg G. Heim, a former Securities
and Exchange Commission attorney, "A very extraordinary aspect of
the Martha Stewart case is the amount of public relations efforts
that she and her team are making in an attempt to clear her name."
SOURCE: Newsday
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073331382
4. MEAT INDUSTRY PR SCRAMBLE TO RESPOND TO MAD COW
http://www.prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=198740&site=3
"Meat-industry trade groups were scurrying during the recent
holiday season to coordinate key messages and media lists as they
responded to reports of mad cow disease rearing its head in the
Western US," PR Week's John Frank writes. PR staffers at the
American Meat Institute and the National Cattlemen's Beef
Association, working with PR giant Burson-Marsteller, handled a
flood of media calls over the Christmas holiday. AMI's top
spokeswoman Janet Riley invited NBC News into her kitchen on
Christmas day to tape "her preparing beef for dinner in an effort
to demonstrate her faith in the safety of the beef supply," PR Week
reports. The US Department of Agriculture held daily press
briefings, which were followed by "technical briefings" for the
press held by NBCA. "Key message points the industry was stressing
revolved around the safety of the US beef supply and the extent of
efforts underway to track down how the disease reached US shores,"
PR Week reports.
SOURCE: PR Week, January 5, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073278800
5. SLUDGE SLIPPAGE
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/03/national/03SLUD.html
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has denied a petition from
73 labor, environment and farm groups calling for an immediate
moratorium on land-based uses of sewage sludge - a practice that we
exposed in our 1994 book, Toxic Sludge Is Good For You. "The
rejection of the petition followed an announcement by the agency in
October, after five years of analysis and study, that it would not
regulate dioxins in land-applied sludge," reports the Associated
Press. "Dioxins are a class of organic chemicals that EPA studies
show pose a possible cancer risk in humans, but the agency said in
its October statement that the danger was minimal. The latest
announcements by the EPA come a year and a half after a panel of
the National Research Council, in a review the agency had asked
for, criticized what the council described as outdated science in
the agency's assessment of health risks from treated sludge used as
fertilizer." Just to show it isn't completely irresponsible,
though, the EPA promises to study the problem further and someday
may regulate 15 other toxic chemicals in sludge that currently
aren't on its watch list. Meanwhile the sludge wars continue at the
local level, with communities in Texas and Louisiana fighting
unbearable odors, groundwater contamination, and toxic pathogens
from sludge, while in Ohio, sludge critics are dismissed as "a lot
of kooks."
SOURCE: Associated Press and New York Times, January 2-3, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1073118824
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073118824
6. REBRANDING BUSH
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1115313,00.html
"The White House has retreated from its doctrine of regime change
and pre-emptive military action and is returning to traditional
diplomacy in an effort to repackage George Bush as a president for
peace," the Guardian reports. The British paper writes that recent
signs indicate a shift from military action to diplomatic
engagement as seen in recent interactions between the U.S. and
North Korea, Libya and Iran. Washington analysts see this as an
election year strategy, acknowledging the White House finds itself
in a delicate situation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, given
continuing violence and the glacial transition to democracy in Iraq
and Afghanistan. "With elections 11 months away, Mr Bush does not
want to be vulnerable to claims that he has presided over a
warmongering strategy that has left Americans little safer than
September 11 2001. His shift follows an established pattern in
Washington of politicians moving to the centre during an election
year," the Guardian writes.
SOURCE: Guardian (UK), January 3, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073106000
7. USDA PR CHIEF FLACKED FOR THE BEEF INDUSTRY
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/02/opinion/02SCHL.html
Eric Schlosser, author of the hugely popular bestseller Fast Food
Nation, notes that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's PR point
person on mad cow disease, Alisa Harrison, flacked for the beef
industry. "Before joining the department, Ms. Harrison was director
of public relations for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association,
the beef industry's largest trade group, where she battled
government food safety efforts, criticized Oprah Winfrey for
raising health questions about American hamburgers, and sent out
press releases with titles like 'Mad Cow Disease Not a Problem in
the U.S.' ... Right now you'd have a hard time finding a federal
agency more completely dominated by the industry it was created to
regulate. Dale Moore, Ms. Veneman's chief of staff, was previously
the chief lobbyist for the cattlemen's association." Meanwhile, the
federal government is failing to take the only steps that will
solve the mad cow crisis in America: a total ban on feeding
slaughterhouse waste to livestock, and testing tens of millions of
cattle. John Stauber says 'it's the cow feed, stupid!'
SOURCE: New York Times, January 2, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1073019600
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1073019600
8. ANOTHER AWARD FOR BILL O'REILLY
http://www.pandagon.net/archives/00002229.htm
Bill O'Reilly, who famously falsely claimed to be the winner of two
Peabody Awards, has finally won something for real -- top spot on
Pandagon.net's list of "the 20 most annoying conservatives of
2003." According to Pandagon webmasters Ezra Klein and Jesse
Taylor, O'Reilly "had a hard time getting on this list. I mean, if
you take away the 'wetback' commentary, and the 'joke' that a black
boys choir was out in the parking lot stealing hubcaps, and the
lawsuit against Al Franken, and the embarassing performance at the
C-SPAN Book News conference, and the threatening to beat up the son
of a 9/11 victim, and the lying about where he grew up, and the
whole Peabody Awards thing, and the false 'Fair and Balanced'
promise, and the fact that he's a grade-A asshole that most
conservatives don't like, and the insistence that anyone who
doesn't appear on his show is afraid of him, and the faux-everyman
demeanor, and the continuing jihads against Jesse Jackson, rap
music, George Clooney, Al Franken, the United Way, Europe,
Hollywood, Bill Moyers, the entire American left, Canada and
PepsiCola, AND that he lies constantly about being a
conservative...well, he still belongs on the list, actually."
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1072995815
9. "INSIDE BASEBALL" FROM THE OUTSIDE IN
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2004/01/01/inside_baseball.html
Jay Rosen thinks coverage of the 2004 presidential election is
shaping up as an exercise in "Horse Race Now! Horse Race Tomorrow!
Horse Race Forever!" In this time-dishonored tradition of political
journalism, reporters use sports as a metaphor for reporting on
politics, relying for insights on political insiders who have
learned how to spin the "race" as a game of "inside baseball." The
result: "An army of sentries encircles the game, guarding every
situation from which a glimmer of fresh truth might be allowed to
escape."
SOURCE: PressThink, January 1, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1072933200
10. 2003 SPIN OF THE YEAR: WMDS
http://www.guerrillanews.com/war_on_terrorism/doc3672.html
The Guerrilla New Network has "picked†the
administration's†packaging and sale of the case for war based on
Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction as our
Spin of the Year. The case has turned out to be so flimsy that the
administration has been forced to backtrack and deflect questions
about the still missing weapons. Paul Wolfowitz told Vanity Fair
this summer that it was a 'bureaucratic' decision to focus on the
WMD, and even Rumsfeld has repeatedly contradicted specific claims
he made to reporters in the run-up to the invasion."
SOURCE: Guerrilla News Network, December 31, 2003
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1072846800
11. KRUGMAN'S RESOLUTIONS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/26/opinion/26KRUG.html
Columnist Paul Krugman is wondering if the news media will take its
job seriously when reporting on the 2004 elections and offers some
suggestions to reporters: "Don't talk about clothes." "Actually
look at the candidates' policy proposals." "Beware of personal
anecdotes." "Look at the candidates' records." "Don't fall for
political histrionics." "It's not about you." Although this is all
pretty basic advice, concludes, "I don't really expect my
journalistic colleagues to follow these rules. ... But history will
not forgive us if we allow laziness and personal pettiness to shape
this crucial election." Journalism professor Jay Rosen thinks that
Krugman "should be this year's Pulitzer Prize columnist" for "his
courage and relentlessness" but also thinks his advice is likely to
go ignored.
SOURCE: New York Times, December 26, 2003
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/December_2003.html#1072414801
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1072414801
Friday, January 02, 2004
Hope you had a good new year.BLOGGERS: THE NEW FACE OF JOURNALISM
The TV networks and major newspapers now face spirited competition from
blogs (i.e., Web logs) offered by independent political commentators. Here
are a few blogs you might want to become familiar with: Instapundit.com;
AndrewSullivan.com; TalkingPointsMemo.com; DrudgeReport.com; DailyKos.com;
RealClearPolitics.com; and Kausfiles.com. Washington lobbyist Ellen Miller
says that blogging "takes the media out of the hands of the corporate world
and puts it into the hands of guys with computers"; Glenn Reynolds, a law
professor and blogger (Instapundit.com) says the blogosphere has become an
"idea farm" for the established media; Andrew Sullivan (AndrewSullivan.com)
says blogging is "like having a giant communal brain"; and Tom Bevan
(RealClearPolitics.com) says that blogging means that "if you have something
to say that's interesting, you will eventually be heard." (USA Today 30 Dec
2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-12-30-blogging-usat_x.htm
The TV networks and major newspapers now face spirited competition from
blogs (i.e., Web logs) offered by independent political commentators. Here
are a few blogs you might want to become familiar with: Instapundit.com;
AndrewSullivan.com; TalkingPointsMemo.com; DrudgeReport.com; DailyKos.com;
RealClearPolitics.com; and Kausfiles.com. Washington lobbyist Ellen Miller
says that blogging "takes the media out of the hands of the corporate world
and puts it into the hands of guys with computers"; Glenn Reynolds, a law
professor and blogger (Instapundit.com) says the blogosphere has become an
"idea farm" for the established media; Andrew Sullivan (AndrewSullivan.com)
says blogging is "like having a giant communal brain"; and Tom Bevan
(RealClearPolitics.com) says that blogging means that "if you have something
to say that's interesting, you will eventually be heard." (USA Today 30 Dec
2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-12-30-blogging-usat_x.htm
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
If you want to be an Art journalist you should read through these:Taking the Tweed Out of the Arts Journalism Wardrobe
By Poynter Institute (more by author )
E-mail this item
Print this Page
Add Your Comments on this Article
At the annual convention of the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors in St. Petersburg, Fla., this year, one of the panel discussions was titled "Taking the Tweed Out of the Arts Journalism Wardrobe." Poynter Online invited the panelists to recap their remarks about ways to defy the stereotypes about coverage of art and culture. Three of them took us up on our offer:
Diane Bacha (panel moderator)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel , assistant managing editor/arts and entertainment:
W
e are here to talk about keeping arts coverage relevant ó keeping our wardrobe from getting too musty, if you will. But first, let's get one thing out of the way:
In most newsrooms, the word "art" scares people.
Let's face it, it just does not have enough Y chromosomes for the average newsroom crowd. It is seen as a nice but non-essential part of the daily news report.
The word "culture" is not far behind, but it's OK if you put the word "pop" in front of it. "Culture" is elitist. "Pop" is fizzy and fun and it means you are OK if you watch a lot of TV.
"Culture" is elitist. "Pop" is fizzy and fun and it means you are OK if you watch a lot of TV.
We can talk about why it has gotten that way, and what we've done to contribute to this perception. But let's not. Let's talk instead about how old-fashioned this point of view is, and how we can grab a lot of attention with arts and culture stories if we pay enough attention.
We are all sick by now of Richard Florida and his Bohemia Index , in which he made a connection (and I summarize here) between a vibrant arts and cultural scene and an economically healthy city. He believes that "culture has taken the initiative in promoting change." But let's take a page from him for a moment.
Let's assume that newsrooms get that, and they're as intrigued with a city's cultural life as Richard Florida is. Imagine that. If it were true, eyes would not be glazing over in the daily news meetings when our turn at the table comes up. And if it were true, we would be writing some different stories.
"Cue," the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 's arts and culture section.
Instead of only following institutions founded generations ago, we'd be watching what newcomers are doing, including newcomers who may speak languages other than English.
We'd be paying attention to art schools, and writing about trends emerging from them.
We'd be paying attention to artists who DON'T go to art schools.
Our visual arts writers would be talking to our tech writers about digital art.
We might be rethinking our beat structures, perhaps getting rid of the walls between "arts," "entertainment," and "pop culture."
WeÃd be watching how playwrights, poets, and painters are responding to the presidential campaign ó not just Jay and Dave.
I can see my first city editor rolling his eyes right about now. "This stuff is gonna go over real big with Betty who calls for the Lotto results," he'd say. Well, he's got a point. We have to write in accessible ways, and we still have the job of telling interesting stories.
Arts editors are often pushed to justify the relevance of what they do. That's not necessarily a bad thing. But it's better to push ourselves, and we would like to use this opportunity to do just that.
Steven Winn, Arts and Culture Critic, San Francisco Chronicle :
I
 spent the first 21 years of my career at the San Francisco Chronicle covering theater, as a critic and reporter. Devoting that time to a focused arts beat was a source of pleasure and gratification in too many ways to count. Depth is not something newspapers always foster; concentrating on theater freed me to pursue it.
The risk of depth is tunnel vision. Over the years, I felt a kind of creeping alienation. No one but a critic attends the theater 150 times a year. I was becoming, gradually and inexorably, self referential. I wrote about theater in terms of other theater, because that was what I was living.
No one but a critic attends the theater 150 times a year.
Real people, which is to say readers, experience the arts in an altogether different way. They go to movies, read books, visit art museums, go to work and the beach as well as the theater, argue about politics, listen to the radio, watch television, fall in love, love (or despise) ballet. I wanted to write about that, about the way that the arts and the world we live in every day are woven together in intricate, overlapping ways. I wanted to write critically and analytically about those things without being dutybound to review, rank, and finely calibrate my responses to a series of stage productions.
Last year, in a staff reorganization following the merger of San Francisco's two papers, I proposed a position as Arts and Culture Critic. More or less on faith, my editors acquiesced.
"Datebook," the San Francisco Chronicle 's arts and culture section.
Since then I've written about the nature of beauty, an epidemic of lying, why people cry in the presence of art, talk radio, theater lobbies, arts funding, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Paul Klee, protest art, the risks and rewards of performing alone, the Bob Dylan plagiarism case, interactive museums, the comparable effects of sound design in Cirque du Soleil and "Medea," the primacy of the body in various arts, artistic revision, originality, and amusement parks.
Some of these ideas have turned out well; others fell flat. I'm a little fearful of computing my batting average. What I do know, and what has been consistent throughout my 18 arts and culture months, is a kind of reader response I rarely had as a beat critic. People truly want to engage with ideas and ways of synthesizing their arts experience and their lives.
It took me two decades to figure out how deeply curious, thoughtful, and creative the readers are. After years of conditioned responses to letters, phone calls, and e-mails that either agreed with or carped at my reviews, I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I'm finally getting to know my readers.
None of this is meant to denigrate or disparage the art of reviewing. I still write straight reviews from time to time -- of theater, music, dance, film -- and realize each time how elegant and challenging a form it is.
Vital as they are, reviews need not be the start and end point of a newspaper's critical attention to the arts. Without a set review schedule, I'm never sure where my next piece might come from and where it might lead. That's the scary part of my new job. And the very best part of it, too.
Christopher Blank, performing arts writer, The Commercial Appeal :
I
n every city outside New York and Los Angeles, the performing arts writer will NOT add one of the following stories to his newspaper's entertainment budget this year:
REVIEW - Encore Dinner Theater's "Guys and Dolls" bedazzles with Keanu Reeves as a peculiar Sky Masterson.
NEW - After a lengthy search, Meredith Monk is named artistic director of Shelby Heights Community Arts Ensemble. Says she'll "focus on quality."
PREVIEW - Newly discovered Mozart Choral Cantata gets world premiere at St. Mary's Episcopal Church. Simon Rattle to conduct.
If only the prospects were so alluring! Most of us get by on interviews with B-list celebrities. The work is plentiful, but also expendable. A paper's need for a sole authority on theater, dance, or classical music is diminishing along with readership. You can hear the newsroom budget ax grinding.
During this panel discussion, we talked about ways to keep the subject matter and the writing relevant and, in theory, help a paper's circulation. Not coincidentally, arts organizations across the country are facing the same problems with regard to attendance. How do they target a younger demographic and not alienate older, reliable fans?
As a young arts writer, I feel proudly bohemian knowing that the struggling artist and I have job insecurity in common.
As a young arts writer, I feel proudly bohemian knowing that the struggling artist and I have job insecurity in common. We both depend on a small but loyal group of arts consumers. As often as I've been told that my job is independent of the arts ó the detached "voice of the paper," so to speak ó I'm beginning to see that we're all pretty much in the entertainment business.
Arts organizations can teach us a few things about entertaining readers. After all, they have to re-market their product ó often a tired old play or an unknown ballet ó year after year.
Let's start by rethinking the tone of our "voice."
I'd like to say I'm no longer pompous or stodgy. Or that teenagers across the city are addicted to my edgy hip-hop patois. Not. Still, editors and writers can make some attitude changes that could help coverage in the long run. Here are a few:
1. Try fanaticism for a change. In the sports section of the paper, they write with bullhorns. In the arts section, they write with mops and buckets. What makes the sports section so exciting to read?
Well, for one, these guys are the ultimate cheerleaders for their subject matter. Can a dance review be as action-packed and emotionally exciting as a big game? I say yes! I propose fanatical enthusiasm for the beat, which should come across on the page. It should grab you, engage you, and make you want to know more.
Sports writers want you to feel that every game is earth-shatteringly IMPORTANT. I feel this way about the arts in my community. I'm not saying we should treat the subject matter with a velvet glove or go easy on a bad play. But there's a subtle difference in a review that calls a bad show an affront to all art and a review that chalks it up as a loss for the team.
2. Expand the repertoire. Performing arts writers ó me included ó easily get bogged down in a routine of reviewing and previewing traditional art forms. However, more people are experiencing a wide variety of arts that pass under the radar, such as through church concerts or at sporting events. Look at shows like Blast! on Broadway, which turned Drum and Bugle Corps into a theatrical experience. I was surprised to discover that the cheerleaders for our professional basketball team had to take classical ballet lessons as a job requirement.
Find stories that tell people, "Hey, you may not know it, but the thing you've been watching is art."
3. Speak the gospel, hear the gospel. Being receptive to feedback and open to change is essential. Arts reporters should adapt to the tastes of the community, not the other way around.
To some extent, that means being accessible, not sitting in the critics' box like Statler or Waldorf ó you know, the vulturine theater critics from The Muppet Show. I make it a point to sit next to actors at plays, sneak backstage after a classical music concert and ask the musicians about their performance, bum a cigarette off a ballerina I've just reviewed.
I've learned a lot about how the "voice of the paper" is perceived. For instance, several who've met me in person have said that they expected someone "much older" judging by the writing. Ouch. I'm still working on that.
From the other side, arts editors should regularly attend performances (and in cases where papers don't accept comps, those papers should pay for tickets). In this way, the whole department is involved in promoting arts coverage, not just a gung-ho reporter.
For arts groups, constant shapeshifting is a crucial means for survival. Applying it to arts coverage isn't far behind.
By Poynter Institute (more by author )
E-mail this item
Print this Page
Add Your Comments on this Article
At the annual convention of the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors in St. Petersburg, Fla., this year, one of the panel discussions was titled "Taking the Tweed Out of the Arts Journalism Wardrobe." Poynter Online invited the panelists to recap their remarks about ways to defy the stereotypes about coverage of art and culture. Three of them took us up on our offer:
Diane Bacha (panel moderator)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel , assistant managing editor/arts and entertainment:
W
e are here to talk about keeping arts coverage relevant ó keeping our wardrobe from getting too musty, if you will. But first, let's get one thing out of the way:
In most newsrooms, the word "art" scares people.
Let's face it, it just does not have enough Y chromosomes for the average newsroom crowd. It is seen as a nice but non-essential part of the daily news report.
The word "culture" is not far behind, but it's OK if you put the word "pop" in front of it. "Culture" is elitist. "Pop" is fizzy and fun and it means you are OK if you watch a lot of TV.
"Culture" is elitist. "Pop" is fizzy and fun and it means you are OK if you watch a lot of TV.
We can talk about why it has gotten that way, and what we've done to contribute to this perception. But let's not. Let's talk instead about how old-fashioned this point of view is, and how we can grab a lot of attention with arts and culture stories if we pay enough attention.
We are all sick by now of Richard Florida and his Bohemia Index , in which he made a connection (and I summarize here) between a vibrant arts and cultural scene and an economically healthy city. He believes that "culture has taken the initiative in promoting change." But let's take a page from him for a moment.
Let's assume that newsrooms get that, and they're as intrigued with a city's cultural life as Richard Florida is. Imagine that. If it were true, eyes would not be glazing over in the daily news meetings when our turn at the table comes up. And if it were true, we would be writing some different stories.
"Cue," the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 's arts and culture section.
Instead of only following institutions founded generations ago, we'd be watching what newcomers are doing, including newcomers who may speak languages other than English.
We'd be paying attention to art schools, and writing about trends emerging from them.
We'd be paying attention to artists who DON'T go to art schools.
Our visual arts writers would be talking to our tech writers about digital art.
We might be rethinking our beat structures, perhaps getting rid of the walls between "arts," "entertainment," and "pop culture."
WeÃd be watching how playwrights, poets, and painters are responding to the presidential campaign ó not just Jay and Dave.
I can see my first city editor rolling his eyes right about now. "This stuff is gonna go over real big with Betty who calls for the Lotto results," he'd say. Well, he's got a point. We have to write in accessible ways, and we still have the job of telling interesting stories.
Arts editors are often pushed to justify the relevance of what they do. That's not necessarily a bad thing. But it's better to push ourselves, and we would like to use this opportunity to do just that.
Steven Winn, Arts and Culture Critic, San Francisco Chronicle :
I
 spent the first 21 years of my career at the San Francisco Chronicle covering theater, as a critic and reporter. Devoting that time to a focused arts beat was a source of pleasure and gratification in too many ways to count. Depth is not something newspapers always foster; concentrating on theater freed me to pursue it.
The risk of depth is tunnel vision. Over the years, I felt a kind of creeping alienation. No one but a critic attends the theater 150 times a year. I was becoming, gradually and inexorably, self referential. I wrote about theater in terms of other theater, because that was what I was living.
No one but a critic attends the theater 150 times a year.
Real people, which is to say readers, experience the arts in an altogether different way. They go to movies, read books, visit art museums, go to work and the beach as well as the theater, argue about politics, listen to the radio, watch television, fall in love, love (or despise) ballet. I wanted to write about that, about the way that the arts and the world we live in every day are woven together in intricate, overlapping ways. I wanted to write critically and analytically about those things without being dutybound to review, rank, and finely calibrate my responses to a series of stage productions.
Last year, in a staff reorganization following the merger of San Francisco's two papers, I proposed a position as Arts and Culture Critic. More or less on faith, my editors acquiesced.
"Datebook," the San Francisco Chronicle 's arts and culture section.
Since then I've written about the nature of beauty, an epidemic of lying, why people cry in the presence of art, talk radio, theater lobbies, arts funding, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Paul Klee, protest art, the risks and rewards of performing alone, the Bob Dylan plagiarism case, interactive museums, the comparable effects of sound design in Cirque du Soleil and "Medea," the primacy of the body in various arts, artistic revision, originality, and amusement parks.
Some of these ideas have turned out well; others fell flat. I'm a little fearful of computing my batting average. What I do know, and what has been consistent throughout my 18 arts and culture months, is a kind of reader response I rarely had as a beat critic. People truly want to engage with ideas and ways of synthesizing their arts experience and their lives.
It took me two decades to figure out how deeply curious, thoughtful, and creative the readers are. After years of conditioned responses to letters, phone calls, and e-mails that either agreed with or carped at my reviews, I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I'm finally getting to know my readers.
None of this is meant to denigrate or disparage the art of reviewing. I still write straight reviews from time to time -- of theater, music, dance, film -- and realize each time how elegant and challenging a form it is.
Vital as they are, reviews need not be the start and end point of a newspaper's critical attention to the arts. Without a set review schedule, I'm never sure where my next piece might come from and where it might lead. That's the scary part of my new job. And the very best part of it, too.
Christopher Blank, performing arts writer, The Commercial Appeal :
I
n every city outside New York and Los Angeles, the performing arts writer will NOT add one of the following stories to his newspaper's entertainment budget this year:
REVIEW - Encore Dinner Theater's "Guys and Dolls" bedazzles with Keanu Reeves as a peculiar Sky Masterson.
NEW - After a lengthy search, Meredith Monk is named artistic director of Shelby Heights Community Arts Ensemble. Says she'll "focus on quality."
PREVIEW - Newly discovered Mozart Choral Cantata gets world premiere at St. Mary's Episcopal Church. Simon Rattle to conduct.
If only the prospects were so alluring! Most of us get by on interviews with B-list celebrities. The work is plentiful, but also expendable. A paper's need for a sole authority on theater, dance, or classical music is diminishing along with readership. You can hear the newsroom budget ax grinding.
During this panel discussion, we talked about ways to keep the subject matter and the writing relevant and, in theory, help a paper's circulation. Not coincidentally, arts organizations across the country are facing the same problems with regard to attendance. How do they target a younger demographic and not alienate older, reliable fans?
As a young arts writer, I feel proudly bohemian knowing that the struggling artist and I have job insecurity in common.
As a young arts writer, I feel proudly bohemian knowing that the struggling artist and I have job insecurity in common. We both depend on a small but loyal group of arts consumers. As often as I've been told that my job is independent of the arts ó the detached "voice of the paper," so to speak ó I'm beginning to see that we're all pretty much in the entertainment business.
Arts organizations can teach us a few things about entertaining readers. After all, they have to re-market their product ó often a tired old play or an unknown ballet ó year after year.
Let's start by rethinking the tone of our "voice."
I'd like to say I'm no longer pompous or stodgy. Or that teenagers across the city are addicted to my edgy hip-hop patois. Not. Still, editors and writers can make some attitude changes that could help coverage in the long run. Here are a few:
1. Try fanaticism for a change. In the sports section of the paper, they write with bullhorns. In the arts section, they write with mops and buckets. What makes the sports section so exciting to read?
Well, for one, these guys are the ultimate cheerleaders for their subject matter. Can a dance review be as action-packed and emotionally exciting as a big game? I say yes! I propose fanatical enthusiasm for the beat, which should come across on the page. It should grab you, engage you, and make you want to know more.
Sports writers want you to feel that every game is earth-shatteringly IMPORTANT. I feel this way about the arts in my community. I'm not saying we should treat the subject matter with a velvet glove or go easy on a bad play. But there's a subtle difference in a review that calls a bad show an affront to all art and a review that chalks it up as a loss for the team.
2. Expand the repertoire. Performing arts writers ó me included ó easily get bogged down in a routine of reviewing and previewing traditional art forms. However, more people are experiencing a wide variety of arts that pass under the radar, such as through church concerts or at sporting events. Look at shows like Blast! on Broadway, which turned Drum and Bugle Corps into a theatrical experience. I was surprised to discover that the cheerleaders for our professional basketball team had to take classical ballet lessons as a job requirement.
Find stories that tell people, "Hey, you may not know it, but the thing you've been watching is art."
3. Speak the gospel, hear the gospel. Being receptive to feedback and open to change is essential. Arts reporters should adapt to the tastes of the community, not the other way around.
To some extent, that means being accessible, not sitting in the critics' box like Statler or Waldorf ó you know, the vulturine theater critics from The Muppet Show. I make it a point to sit next to actors at plays, sneak backstage after a classical music concert and ask the musicians about their performance, bum a cigarette off a ballerina I've just reviewed.
I've learned a lot about how the "voice of the paper" is perceived. For instance, several who've met me in person have said that they expected someone "much older" judging by the writing. Ouch. I'm still working on that.
From the other side, arts editors should regularly attend performances (and in cases where papers don't accept comps, those papers should pay for tickets). In this way, the whole department is involved in promoting arts coverage, not just a gung-ho reporter.
For arts groups, constant shapeshifting is a crucial means for survival. Applying it to arts coverage isn't far behind.
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