Media

Anxious Al Caruba

Alan Caruba
Alan Caruba, from the CDFE website

Alan Caruba is a public relations professional who is so anxious about issues like environmentalism, immigration and the United Nations that he runs the National Anxiety Center. Caruba, who states on his website that his clients include or have included "chemical and pharmaceutical companies, think tanks [and] trade associations," writes a weekly column, called "Warning Signs," which is run by conservative websites.

In last week's column, Caruba, an "adjunct fellow" at Ron Arnold's anti-environmentalist Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise (CDFE), expressed anxiety over our SourceWatch article on his friend Michael Fumento. The title of his column was "Smearing Conservative Writers."

Fake News without the Gatekeepers

It's "the most aggressive example yet in a growing trend of marketers utilizing broadband video downloading to bypass traditional TV outlets," writes Joe Mandese. During the ABC network's Super Bowl coverage, Anheuser-Busch debuted "Bud TV," a "direct-to-consumer network ...

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On TV News, the Ads Never End

"Local TV news operations hungry for free content have intersected with brand brokers looking for product placement opportunities," writes Advertising Age. The segments "typically come in the form of four-minute lifestyle segments that are dedicated to one brand and feature a brand's spokesperson chatting with the show's host and delivering the product's message to viewers.

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An Inclusive Approach to Fake Radio News

The PR firm NovoMedia "has launched a radio news release service that will focus on the African American market," reports PR Week. NovoMedia president David Henry "said in doing work for the Hispanic market, he recognized a need for the same types of services in the African American market." African Americans have $723 billion in buying power, and 90 percent of Black adults listen to the radio on a weekly basis, according to market research.

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Simon's Prediction: VNR Disclosure Will Increase in 2006

Doug Simon, the President and CEO of D S Simon Productions, a major producer of video news releases (VNRs), optimistically predicts that in 2006 "TV stations will more willingly disclose sources of outside video they use on air during news and other programs." L

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Reporter Says Scrushy Stacked the Media and Jury

"Throughout the six-month trial that led to Richard Scrushy's acquittal in the $2.7 billion fraud at HealthSouth Corp., a small, influential newspaper consistently printed articles sympathetic to the ... fired CEO." The author of those stories, Audry Lewis, now says "she was secretly working on behalf of Scrushy, who she says paid her $11,000 through a public relations firm," The Lewis Group.

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PR More Prevalent Than Ever

Public relations "is an increasingly vital marketing tool," writes The Economist, "especially as traditional forms of advertising struggle to catch consumers' attention." Overall spending on PR in the United States is growing, reaching "some $3.7 billion last year, according to Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a New York investment firm that specialises in media. It forecasts PR spending will grow by almost 9% a year.

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Abramoff Stink Extends To Media

Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff's media clients included the Magazine Publishers Association (MPA) and Primedia. For MPA, Abramoff "and an unidentified Congressional aide worked to stave off an increase in postal rates - a significant benefit for an industry that depends on the postal service," reported the New York Times.

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