Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
PR crisis manager Nick Nichols, who advises companies to use attack-dog strategies against pesky activists, delivered another fiery speech this weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference, branding environmentalists as terrorists and comparing them to Hitler. "A lot of [my] clients look like food to the more extreme environmental groups," he said.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
"The Federal Communications Commission, led by Michael ('my religion is the market') Powell, is fixing to remove the last remaining barriers against concentration of media," writes Molly Ivins. "This means one company can own all the radio stations, television stations, newspapers and cable systems in any given area. Presently, 10 companies own over 90 percent of the media outlets.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Responding to reports of rising vegetarianism among teenagers, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association "responded to the looming vegetarian crisis by launching a website, Cool 2B Real, in an attempt to link meat consumption with some degree of hipness. The site, which looks like a cross between a Barbie fan page and a Taco Bell ad (beef-filled tacos and gigantic hamburgers dot the screen), extols teenage girls to 'Keep it Real' - 'real' as in a person who eats beef, preferably three or four times a day.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Integrity and good behavior based on "principles" are more important than rules of corporate governance, according to Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, the chief executive of Swiss-based foods giant Nestle (which recently demonstrated its commitment to "principles" by attempting to sue the famine-stricken nation of Ethiopia).
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
ReclaimDemocracy.org has created a web resource tracking the Kasky vs. Nike case, in which a California activist is suing the sportswear company for making misleading statements about its overseas labor practices.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 has given corporations increased power to censor speech that they don't like. It severely curtails the "fair use" doctrine which allows artists, writers and scholars to use fragments of copyrighted works without permission for the purposes of education, criticism and parody.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
A new poster depicts President Bush speaking on the floor of Congress. Or is it the stock exchange trading floor? Or is it really both? Produced by Public Campaign, which works for campaign finance reform, the poster includes thirteen charts detailing how big corporate campaign contributions from leading industries are buying America, what they are getting for their political investments and what the rest of us pay in higher taxes, dirty air and water, billions lost from our retirement funds, and the like.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
The Columbia Journalism Review's Neil Hickey ponders the impact that cable TV is having on news coverage. "The big story in cable news is the effect that supercharged competition is having on the quality of the prime time cable news schedule. All three networks are battling with the same weapons: talk, opinion, punditry, debate - not to mention the psychedelic, color-saturated graphics, a rataplan of computer-generated sound and screens so crowded with info-bits, including a traveling zipper of text across the bottom, that they look like pinball machines in a penny arcade. ...
Submitted by John Stauber on
Every February the powerful Public Affairs Council (PAC) holds its annual National Grassroots Conference for Corporations and Associations in some lovely southern location. PR Watch wanted to attend and report on this year's confab in Key West. We covered the 1997 conference and uncovered a goldmine of hidden information on how corporations wage powerful campaigns at the grassroots to promote their special interest agendas.
Submitted by Laura Miller on
The US Supreme Court will rule in Nike vs. Kasky whether Nike's statements on the working conditions in its Asian factories are commercial speech and subject to truth-in-advertising laws. Nike appealed a May 2002 California Supreme Court decision that says when a corporation makes "factual representations about its own products or its own operations, it must speak truthfully." Nike says that the First Amendment protects its statements.
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