Public Relations

A 72-Hour Plan, 30 Years in the Making

In an article (which draws from Disinfopedia and echoes Banana Republicans) anticipating the Republican Party's "72-hour plan" before the election, Joshua Holland writes, "Public relations firms like [Richard] Viguerie's have played an important and growing role in the popular conservative movement - you might call

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A Flack Gets Back from Iraq

PR pro Gordon James recently returned from Iraq, where he was Director of Advance and Special Events in the Coalition Provisional Authority's Office of Strategic Communications. "We were highlighting Ambassador Bremer's work, trying to get a positive media spin," he told PR Week.

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Hill & Knowlton Gets Out the (Lost) Vote

The Hill & Knowlton PR firm "is working to allay any voters' concerns in Florida's fourth largest county amid reports that votes were not counted by new electronic balloting machines in an August primary." The firm's $160,000 contract with Hillsborough County includes promoting e-voting machines and encouraging "voters to turn out and cast ballots." Hill & Knowlton is also helping Republican elections s

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Arnold's Hollywood Hummer

"A smiling Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wheeled a shiny new Hummer into a hydrogen fueling station at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday in what aides called a fulfillment of a campaign promise to convert one of his tank-sized gas guzzlers to run on the alternative fuel," the Los Angeles Times reports. "However, the entire made-for-media event, staged before about 300 dignitaries, hydrogen power advocates and journalists, had more than a hint of Hollywood make-believe.

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Junk Mailers Meet Ms. Brand America

Last year, former advertising executive Charlotte Beersresigned from her job as head of a U.S. State Department effort to improve America's image in the Middle East. This week she spoke to another group with image problems - direct marketers, the people who send you junk mail and other unwanted commercial solicitations. Beers gave them the same advice she gave "brand America": they should "tell positive stories about what direct marketing is about."

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Ketchum Rated Reporters on "No Child Left Behind"

The U.S. Education Department paid $700,000 to the Ketchum public relations and marketing firm, to produce two video news releases and to rate newspaper coverage according to how favorably reporters described the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind law in 2003. Democratic Senators Frank R. Lautenberg and Edward M.

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Video News Releases: They're Everywhere!

Thomas Lang and Zachary Roth have done some further sleuthing into the Education Department's video news release (VNR) that featured fake "reporter" Karen Ryan and promoted the No Child Left Behind law. "It turns out that the No Child Left Behind VNR, presented as news, ran more widely than we had thought - it's just that it didn't always include Karen Ryan," they write. "A number of local stations ran the VNR as is, and added a local twist by simply having their own reporter read the script.

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