== SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS ==
1. The Formula for Deceiving Mothers Online
2. Washington, Will You Be Mine?
3. Lobbyists Do the Darndest Things
4. Indonesia, Will You Be Mine?
5. The ExxonMobil Protection Agency
6. Indigenous Matters
7. Ecomagine That: GE Campaign Not So Green
8. More Nuclear Spin, in the U.S. and UK
9. Busting an Energy Lobby Front Group
10. Conservative Media Bias
11. Democracy Now! Looks at Pro-War PR, From Freedom’s Watch to Petraeus
12. Perk Poppers
——————————————————————–
== SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS ==
1. THE FORMULA FOR DECEIVING MOTHERS ONLINE
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6466
Peggy O’Mara, the editor of Mothering Magazine, reports that “in
addition to the inaccurate information on breastfeeding” by the
media, the “marketing practices of the formula companies continue to
undermine breastfeeding.” She notes the existence of several
“stealth” websites “that appear to be grassroots advocacy sites, but
are actually mouthpieces for the formula industry.” One of the
websites, MomsFeedingFreedom.com, is campaigning against proposed
restrictions on the free bags of infant formula being given to new
parents by hospitals. The website, which was registered by the
web-based marketing company ENilsson LLC, is funded by the
International Formula Council and run by Kate Kahn. “A sister site,
Babyfeedingchoice.org, is licensed to Kellen Communications, a
public relations firm whose clients include the International
Formula Council,” O’Mara writes. BantheBags, which supports a ban on
free samples, argues that the “sites use classic formula company
strategies, paying lip service to benefits of breastfeeding even as
they promote formula.”
SOURCE: Mothering Magazine, September/October 2007
2. WASHINGTON, WILL YOU BE MINE?
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6464
“The mining industry is confronted with a very challenging
environment,” said Kraig Naasz, the new head of the U.S. industry
lobby group National Mining Association (NMA). In response to
high-profile mining disasters, increased rates of black lung
disease, and concerns about climate change, among other issues, the
NMA will likely “dramatically increase its lobbying and advertising
budget.” Its overall budget will increase from $15.6 million for
2007 to $19.7 million for 2008. NMA’s two political action
committees, CoalPAC and MinePAC, “are moving towards a more even
split” between the two major parties, after years of giving nearly
90 percent of its PAC money to Republicans. NAM is also “looking to
add a Democratic consultant to its list of outside lobbyists,” which
includes the Alpine Group and the Nickles Group. NAM is also hiring
four more in-house lobbyists and “two additional regulatory
experts.” Among other bills, NAM opposes the Miller-Rahall bill,
which would strengthen safety regulations and “apply royalty fees to
hard rock-mining operations” on federal lands.
SOURCE: The Hill (Washington DC), September 18, 2007
3. LOBBYISTS DO THE DARNDEST THINGS
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6462
“Lobbyists for a business group close to the crooked government of
Azerbaijan have scheduled what looks to be” a National Press Club
event for a front group, according to Harper’s Ken Silverstein. The
event features members of the “Association for Civil Society
Development in Azerbaijan” (ACSDA), and was organized by the
lobbying firm Bob Lawrence & Associates. The firm, according to
Silverstein, “promotes the interests of President Ilham Aliyev but
is paid by a cut-out: Renaissance Associates, a pro-government
business group based in Baku, the Azeri capital.” ACSDA has
conducted polls purporting to show more support for President
Aliyev, more political freedom, and less concern with corruption
than independent polls have found. ACSDA vice-president Vali
Alibayov, who’s heading the delegation to the U.S., is also a member
of the International Association for Public Relations. A 2006
lobbying report lists defense, foreign relations, oil & gas
pipelines, tourism and trade as the issues that Bob Lawrence &
Associates lobbied on for Azerbaijan, on behalf of Renaissance
Associates.
SOURCE: Harper’s magazine, September 17, 2007
4. INDONESIA, WILL YOU BE MINE?
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6461
David Case reports on Rick Ness, an employee of the Colorado-based
Newmont Mining Corporation who the Indonesian government has accused
of dumping dangerous waste into a shallow bay in Sulawesi. “Since
2004,” Case writes, Ness “has waged a full-time PR and legal
campaign to clear his name, with Newmont backing him up at a burn
rate of up to $1 million a month.” When an infant’s death was blamed
on the pollution, Ness and Newmont employed “textbook crisis
communication. Ness did media interviews and spoke before
sympathetic audiences such as the American Chamber of Commerce. He
mocked the [Indonesian] government’s evidence as ‘junk science.’ He
extolled studies that he said supported the company’s argument —
one conducted by the Australian lab CSIRO (and funded by Newmont).
… Meanwhile, Newmont threw its full legal weight at the critics,”
including independent and government scientists. Ness was acquitted
by a provincial court, but the case is now before Indonesia’s
Supreme Court.
SOURCE: Mother Jones, September 10, 2007
5. THE EXXONMOBIL PROTECTION AGENCY
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6459
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allowed an ExxonMobil
employee “to peer review the science behind the agency’s proposal to
deregulate incineration of some industrial by-products,” reports
Integrity in Science, a project of the Center for Science in the
Public Interest. The peer review was overseen by an EPA contractor,
Syracuse Research Corporation (SRC). The ExxonMobil employee, Thomas
Parkerton, told SRC that his “current employer (and the chemical
industry in general) would benefit from” the proposed rule, yet he
was allowed to review it, in an apparent breach of EPA guidelines.
The rule would allow more than 107,000 tons of hazardous waste
burned annually in specially-designed incinerators to instead be
disposed of in industrial boilers or municipal incinerators.
Consumer and environmental groups decried the “undue agency
tolerance of conflicts of interest in its rulemaking process,” and
urged the EPA to “re-review the science and, if necessary, rewrite
the proposed rule.”
SOURCE: Integrity in Science, September 10, 2007
6. INDIGENOUS MATTERS
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6457
Barbour, Griffith and Rogers, a Republican law firm with close
ties to the White House, has registered as a lobbyist on the issue
of registering the Juaneno Band of Mission Indians in California as
a federally recognized tribe, but Jerry Reynolds writes in Indian
Country Today that it’s not clear “whether BGR is lobbying for or
against Juaneno recognition,” and it’s also not clear who is paying
them. “A third question is the extent to which prospective gaming
revenues drive BGR’s commitment,” Reynolds writes, “because
ancestral Juaneno territory in current Orange County, Calif.,
extends ‘a little into Los Angeles County,’ in the words of vice
chairman Fran Yorba. The Juaneno, if federally recognized as a
tax-exempt tribal government, are widely held to have potential for
drawing from the nation’s most populous untapped gaming market.”
SOURCE: Indian Country Today, August 24, 2007
7. ECOMAGINE THAT: GE CAMPAIGN NOT SO GREEN
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6456
Two years into its “Ecomagination” environmental campaign, General
Electric “continues to sell coal-fired steam turbines and is delving
deeper into oil-and-gas production. Meanwhile, its finance unit
seeks out coal-related investments including power plants. … Yet
these limitations haven’t stopped GE from making a big marketing
to-do of its commitment to the environment,” notes Kathryn Kranhold.
“The primary focus of the conglomerate’s marketing efforts these
days is a $1 million-a-year campaign to publicize its search for
‘innovative solutions to environmental challenges.'” As part of
Ecomagination, GE says it will sell $14 billion of “self-described
environmentally friendly products” in 2007. It also claims to have
reduced “its own greenhouse-gas emission by 4% between 2004 and
2006,” though GE does not count emissions from many power plants
part-owned by the company. Kranhold describes the discounted
emissions as “an unknown but unquestionably significant amount.”
SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (sub req’d), September 14, 2007
8. MORE NUCLEAR SPIN, IN THE U.S. AND UK
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6455
“If we are going to seriously address our energy needs as well as
our concerns about global climate change, one source stands out —
nuclear,” writes Christine Todd Whitman in the San Francisco
Chronicle. It’s one of two recent op/eds by the former EPA
administrator (the other was in BusinessWeek) that fail to disclose
that Whitman is a paid consultant for the Nuclear Energy Institute
(NEI). Patrick Moore, Whitman’s co-chair of the NEI-funded “Clean
and Safe Energy Coalition,” has also been busy, promoting nuclear
power in Michigan. “Nuclear energy is the key,” Moore told a Grand
Rapids audience. Meanwhile, in Britain, environmental groups have
dismissed a public consultation on nuclear power as a “public
relations stitch-up” by the pro-nuclear government. This is the
second consultation on the issue; Greenpeace won a legal challenge
against the first. Liberal Democrat Sir Menzies Campbell accused the
UK government of “making up its mind on nuclear power long before
this latest consultation had even begun,” reports the BBC.
SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, September 12, 2007
9. BUSTING AN ENERGY LOBBY FRONT GROUP
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6454
“Americans for American Energy,” a front group for oil and gas
companies, sent around an email incorrectly claiming that Wyoming
Governor Dave Freudenthal supports its agenda. Freudenthal, who
previously supported some “public education efforts” of AAE, told
the Casper Star-Tribune that the group’s recent email was “highly
inappropriate” and “contains a description of initiatives which I
wholeheartedly disagree with on a number of levels.” AAE opposes
environmental regulation of extractive industries, and the AAE
website attempts to link environmental concerns to terrorism. A
petition on its website states, “America is at War! And The U.S.
Naval Oil Shale Reserve is Under Attack! While Americans fight
overseas defending America’s access to vital energy supplies, we are
under attack here at home. Liberal lawyers and environmental
extremists are attacking the U.S. Naval Oil Shale Reserve, trying to
prevent America from producing American energy there.”
SOURCE: Casper Star-Tribune (Wyoming), September 13, 2007
10. CONSERVATIVE MEDIA BIAS
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6453
Media Matters for America, the liberal media watchdog
organization, has conducted a systematic study of the commentary
sections in U.S. newspapers. “The results show that in paper after
paper, state after state, and region after region, conservative
syndicated columnists get more space than their progressive
counterparts,” they conclude. “Sixty percent of the nation’s daily
newspapers print more conservative syndicated columnists every week
than progressive syndicated columnists.”
SOURCE: Media Matters for America, September 12, 2007
11. DEMOCRACY NOW! LOOKS AT PRO-WAR PR, FROM FREEDOM’S WATCH TO PETRAEUS
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6451
Democracy Now! reports: “President Bush’s prime time address
before the nation tonight culminates a carefully orchestrated public
relations campaign to win support for the continuation of the war in
Iraq. The campaign began in August when a group called Freedom’s
Watch headed by President Bush’s former spokesperson Ari Fleischer
began airing pro-war television commercials. Then, President Bush
flew to Iraq for an unannounced visit where he met with Iraqi
leaders at a U.S. military base in Anbar province. On the eve of
Sept. 11th, General David Petraeus and Ambassador David Crocker
testified before Congress. Then they appeared exclusively on Fox
News in what the network described as a ‘briefing for America.’ To
talk more about the Bush administration’s public relations campaign,
John Stauber, founder of the Center for Media and Democracy and PR
Watch, joins us in Madison, Wisconsin.” To listen, click here. To
view the inteview on YouTube, click here.
SOURCE: Democracy Now, September 13, 2007
12. PERK POPPERS
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6450
Ben Goldacre, a London-based doctor and writer, was a little
“surprised” by a recent offer posted in an email on a science
writers’ mailing list. “It was from the Aspirin Foundation, a group
funded by the drug industry, and it was offering — on behalf of
Bayer HealthCare — to pay expenses for journalists to attend the
European Society of Cardiology’s conference in Vienna.” Goldacre
contacted some of his peers and discovered that it is “extremely
common for journalists to take money from drug companies.” Some
reporters dismissed the suggestion that such perks could affect how
they reported an event. Drug companies, Goldacre noted, “wouldn’t
pay for journalists to attend their events if they didn’t think it
would affect media coverage of their product. After all, a
journalist’s article is far more credible than a paid advertisement,
for anybody’s money, and more likely to be read by potential
consumers.”
SOURCE: British Medical Journal (sub req’d), September 8, 2007
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