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THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, December 3, 2003 --------------------------------------------------------------------- sponsored by PR WATCH (www.prwatch.org) --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to further information about current public relations campaigns. It is emailed free each Wednesday to subscribers. SHARE US WITH A FRIEND (OR FIFTY FRIENDS) Who do you know who might want to receive Spin of the Week? Help us grow our subscriber list! Just forward this message to people you know, encouraging them to sign up at this link: http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- THIS WEEK'S NEWS 1. Silencing Save the Children 2. PR Watch Nominated for Utne Independent Press Award 3. Losing Hearts & Minds in Iraq 4. The War on Dissent 5. Wilkinson Is Back Flacking at the White House ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. SILENCING SAVE THE CHILDREN http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1095116,00.html The British wing of the Save the Children charity was ordered to stop critizing the U.S.-led coalition's military occupation of Iraq, after it issued a statement saying that "lack of cooperation from the coalition forces is a breach of the Geneva conventions and its protocols, but more importantly the time now being wasted is costing children their lives." Kevin Maguire reports that the incident exposed "tensions within an alliance that describes itself as 'the world's largest independent global organisation for children' but which is heavily reliant on governments and big business for cash." SOURCE: Guardian (UK), November 28, 2003 To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069995601 2. PR WATCH NOMINATED FOR UTNE INDEPENDENT PRESS AWARD http://www.utne.com/pub/2003_120/promo/10914-1.html For the past fifteen years the editors of Utne magazine have chosen Utne Independent Press Award winners in a number of publishing categories including newsletters. PR Watch has won this award in the past, and has again been nominated this year. Other nominees in the category are some of our own favorites including Counterpunch, Connection to the Americas, and The Hightower Lowdown. We're honored to be in such company. Chances are that you don't subscribe to PR Watch, so you only see archived issues. Please, to keep our award winning quarterly going, we need your support as a subscribing member. Click here and receive PR Watch by first class mail four times a year. SOURCE: Utne.com, November 28, 2003 More web links related to this story are available at: http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2003.html#1069995600 To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069995600 3. LOSING HEARTS & MINDS IN IRAQ http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/27/international/middleeast/27MOSU.html The Bush Administration has been doing its best to paint a happy face on the Iraq occupation but reality keeps getting in the way. The New York Times reports today that even in Mosul, a city 'once so promising,' the current American military 'crackdown is draining away much of the goodwill that remains.' Earlier this month a leaked CIA report warned that resistance to the US occupation is growing among ordinary Iraqis, leading to a new US plan to speed up transfer of power to Iraqis. But the plan 'to turn over power in Iraq more quickly was thrown into disarray on Wednesday when the country's most powerful cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, made public his opposition to a proposal for indirect elections.' How bad has it gotten for the Bush Administration? Even long-time CIA and Pentagon operative Ahmad Chalabi is accusing Bush of letting his re-election concerns determine policy in Iraq, saying 'The whole thing was set up so President Bush could come to the airport in October [2004] for a ceremony to congratulate the new Iraqi government. When you work backwards from that, you understand the dates the Americans were insisting on.' " President Bush's surprise Thanksgiving visit in Iraq with 600 soldiers lasted less than a few hours, including a very brief meeting with Chalabi, under severe secrecy for his own security. SOURCE: New York Times, November 27, 2003 More web links related to this story are available at: http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2003.html#1069909200 To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069909200 4. THE WAR ON DISSENT http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17267 "It's popular to say that corporate globalization is war by other means, but what went down in Miami during the FTAA skipped the part about other means," Rebecca Solnit writes for tomdispatch.com. "And though it was most directly ... an assault on the bodies of protestors, it was first an assault against the right of the people peaceably to assemble and other first amendment rights, a dramatic example of how hallowed American rights are being dismantled in the name of the war on terrorism. For months beforehand, Police Chief John Timoney ... had portrayed protestors as terrorists and the gathering in Miami as a siege of the city." Not only were the public and media frightened by Timoney's depiction of the planned protests, "[t]here's little doubt that the police themselves buy the propaganda," Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman write. Having been thoroughly indoctrinated on threat posed by protestors and emboldened with new quasi-military equipment, "the police were, to say the least, overeager to lunge at protesters," Mokhiber and Weissman write. "After last week, no one should call what Timoney runs in Miami a police force," Democracy Now! producer Jeremy Scahill writes. It's a paramilitary group. ... The forces fired indiscriminately into crowds of unarmed protesters. Scores of people were hit with skin-piercing rubber bullets; thousands were gassed with an array of chemicals. On several occasions, police fired loud concussion grenades into the crowds. Police shocked people with electric tazers. Demonstrators were shot in the back as they retreated." SOURCE: Alternet, November 26, 2003 More web links related to this story are available at: http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2003.html#1069822801 To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069822801 5. WILKINSON IS BACK FLACKING AT THE WHITE HOUSE http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031125-10.html James R. Wilkson ran the White House Coalition Information Center for "the war against terrorism" and also served as top PR strategist for General Tommy Franks during the US attack on Iraq. Most recently he has been been planning the 2004 Republican convention to be held in New York city coinciding with the third anniversary of the 9/11 terror attack. A White House press release today announces that he will soon be back in the White House with a couple of new titles: "Deputy Assistant to the President" and "Deputy National Security Advisor for Communications." SOURCE: White House news release, November 25, 2003 To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1069736401 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/weekly-spin
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