Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
Just weeks after the Department of Education's Office of Inspector General's damning report on the Ketchum / Armstrong Williams contract to promote the No Child Left Be
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
The conservative legal group Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against the Defense Department, for not responding to their March 2004 Freedom of Information Act request on what "strategic influence, perception management, strategic information warfare and/or
Submitted by Laura Miller on
One of PR Watch's "usual suspects," Steven J. Milloy, managed to get himself invited to be a judge for the 2004 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Journalism Awards: Online Category.
There's an old PR trick that if bad news can't be suppressed, its release should be stalled until late on a Friday afternoon or just before a holiday break. It's a trick that served the U.S. Department of Education well when, late on Friday April 15, it released its Office of Inspector General's damning final report into the $240,000 Armstrong Williams contract to promote the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation.
The strategy behind the late Friday afternoon news dump is simple: most media outlets will be squeezed for space to cover a late-breaking story, looming deadlines will ensure harried journalists don't have time to get much further than the executive summary, and by the time Monday rolls around, it will be seen as stale news by editors with the attention span of a gnat.
Reading the 20-page report, which was prompted by Greg Toppo's exposé on the Williams contract in USA Today, it's easy to see why the Education Department wanted to bury it. The report chronicles the deception, bungling and mismanagement behind the Williams contract.
Submitted by Bob Burton on
The Senior Vice-President with Dittus Communications, Kevin Walker, believes that Taser International, which makes the Taser stun guns that have caused dozens of deaths in the United States alone, is misunderstood.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
PR Week reports on the video news release industry's response to Senator Byrd's one-year measure and the Truth in Broadcasting Act, both of which require disclaimers for pre-packaged "news" segments.
On April 6, 2006, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) released a multi-media report titled, "Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed." It provides the most extensive account to date of how corporate-funded video news releases (VNRs) -- fake TV news -- are routinely aired by newsrooms, without disclosure, as though they were independently-gathered reports.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
General Electric began "heavily advertising" its "new company-wide environmental initiative" called "ecomagination." Its goals are "to decrease pollution from its products and to double research and development spending on cleaner technologies." (According to Grist, one TV ad "features scantily clad models dusted with soot," as an announcer says, "Thanks to emissions-reducing technologies from GE, the power of coal is getting more beautiful every day.") The "ecomagination" launch followed a y
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
Concerned at rising rates of soldiers' non-combat deaths, the U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center hired two PR firms, Pario and Reingold, to "sell" safety measures.
Submitted by Bob Burton on
Two members of the animal welfare committee of Yum Brands Inc, KFC's parent company, resigned after being asked to sign a confidentiality agreement which would have required them to refer all media inquiries to KFC's corporate headquarters. Over the last three years Dr. Temple Grandin of Colorado State University and Dr. Ian Duncan of the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, have advised KFC on improving animal welfare standards. Both objected to the proposed agreement as amounting to censorship.
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