Pulling the Charity Lever
Submitted by Bob Burton on
A six-all vote by Launceston City Council on a motion expressing opposition to a proposed pulp mill has irked Gunns, the Tasmanian logging company pushing the project.
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Public Relations
When Publicists Attack
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Gawker.com, a New York-based website that focuses on media news and gossip, has posted the contents of an email exchange between Ronn Torossian of 5W Public Relations and Richard Rubenstein, the son of PR crisis management guru Howard J. Rubenstein.
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Breaking Up (In PR) Is Hard To Do
Submitted by Bob Burton on
Mark Penn, CEO of the PR firm Burson-Marsteller and chief campaign strategist for Hillary Clinton, is back in the news.
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Future Freedom
Submitted by Bob Burton on
An Australian government agency has refused to release the results of market research on controversial labor de-regulation laws until after the next federal election.
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Let's Picko on Sicko
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
A Google advertising sales rep has apologized after using her company blog to urge healthcare companies to take out Google ads attacking Michael Moore's new movie, "Sicko." Moore "attacks health insurers, health providers, and pharmaceutical companies by connecting them to isolated and emotional stories of the system at its worst," wrote Lauren Turner.
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The Spin Doctor Will See You Now
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
"If I had to do it all over again, I don't think I would use the Ontario system," said Canadian cancer patient Lindsay McGreith. "I would get my wife to drive me to Buffalo, because I know in Buffalo you'd get looked after, whereas here you'd just sit for seven and a half hours. ...
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Reporting from Margaritaville
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
The Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority recently held its first "fam," or familiarization tour, of the year, "wooing about 35 meeting and event planners, people in the tourism business, travel journalists and their guests." Included in the junket were "pina coladas and a lobster dinner overlooking Gardner's Basin ... and tickets to see Jimmy Buffett.
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How to Cool Down Global Warming
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
Drawing on documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Rolling Stone details the Bush administration's "ongoing strategy to block federal action on global warming." In 2002, the administration's Climate Action Report was reported on as a "stark shift" in U.S. policy.
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Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton and Big Tobacco
Mark Penn, CEO of the global PR firm Burson-Marsteller (B-M) and president of the polling firm Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates (PSB), feels misunderstood.
Penn was recently in the news when several union officials expressed concern that Democratic Presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton had hired him as a "key strategic adviser," even though B-M has a specialist unit that advises clients on defeating union campaigns. Not surprisingly, Clinton's campaign shrugged off the criticism, insisting that he is a "vital member of our team." In an email to Atlantic Online, Penn wrote that that he had "never personally done such [anti-labor] work" and insisted that he has "strong personal sympathies with the labor movement." (Why someone who proclaims their pro-labor sympathies would even head up a PR firm that runs an anti-labor unit went unexplained.) Even if one accepts Penn's explanation at face value, it left me wondering who he had worked for.
A little digging reveals that, for well over two decades, both Penn and his opinion polling company have advised the tobacco industry on how to counter the campaigns of the tobacco control movement. Based on internal tobacco industry documents, it is clear that Penn and his colleagues have little personal sympathy for those promoting policies that put public health ahead of the interests of the tobacco industry.
Supply Side Pundits
Submitted by Bob Burton on
Karl Grossman, a professor of journalism at the State University of New York and host of the nationally aired TV program Enviro Close-Up, recounts that the "overwhelming majority" of the pitches he and his producer receive are from "conservative public relations companies promoting conservative guests." Grossman observes that "in terms of volume and intensity, there's nothing comparable from the progressive world.
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