arts/culture

Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, we look at how Barbie celebrates Earth Day, why Freedom's Watch is under scrutiny, and how some environmental groups could think giving "clean coal" a closer look makes sense. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we run down Merck's long history of using spin to counter their Vioxx scandal. The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

When some people in the audience at the premiere of the new Dr. Suess movie "Horton Hears a Who" started yelling "A person's a person no matter how small," others thought they were just over-enthusiastic Dr. Suess fans. Instead, it turned out that a pack of anti-abortion activists had hijacked the elephant star's famous line to promote their view that abortion should be banned. After their shouting stint, they handed out fliers designed to look like movie tickets. Audrey Geisel, widow of Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) and her attorney, Karl ZoBell, who has long represented the legal interests of Dr. Seuss, were also attending the premiere. ZoBell, who has never hesitated to send cease-and-desist letters to people expropriating Dr. Suess's material for their own use, said he wished the protesters would use original material. The Geisels have long opposed any political use of Dr. Suess's intellectual property. But the anti-abortionists are persisting. A Colorado group gathering signatures for a ballot initiative that would legally define fertilized human embryos as people plans to show up at Denver theaters when the movie opens and use the event to collect signatures for their measure.

Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, we look at Putin pushers, Coach in the classroom and how comic books promote Iraqi special forces. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we look at the Lincoln Group, spreading their spin beyond Iraq. The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

Want to earn up to $2.4 million to produce and distribute across Iraq 12 issues of a comic book designed to "highlight the professionalism of the Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF) and to enhance the public perception of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) as a capable, well-trained, and professional fighting force"? Well, you'll have to compete with the Lincoln Group, the PR firm that previously placed U.S. propaganda in Iraqi newspapers. Last year, the "sole source contract for the 6th Brigade Comic Book went to the Lincoln Group," reports Sharon Weinberger. The comics seem to be a continuation of a project that the Center for Media and Democracy noted back in 2005, when U.S. PsyOps troops were working on "initial character and plot development" for the series. Everyone from the United Nations to the Business Software Alliance has used comics to target young audiences. Wired points out that the U.S. Army also distributes comics in the Philippines, to get an anti-terror, pro-miltiary message to the youth of the country's Sulu islands.

The Center for Media and Democracy has never been shy about criticizing the public relations industry. That's what we do, and we're proud of it. You'd think that this would give PR people second thoughts before sending us their drivel. Unfortunately, they can't seem to help themselves -- even when that means that they end up tipping us off to their own efforts at sneaking product placements into TV shows such as American Idol.

A few months ago my email address was apparently "discovered" by a bunch of PR flacks. On an almost daily basis now, I receive emails -- often with a large picture file that slows down my email download -- excitedly heralding the latest two-bit client contract won by some PR firm in which I have no interest, and whose information I have certainly never requested. At first I just deleted them, but since they have become more frequent -- and therefore, more annoying -- I have started responding to them with a request to be taken off their list.

The irony of PR firms sending us news releases hit a new high, or low, this week. I received an unsolicited, but also "embargoed" news release, containing more than five megabytes of photo attachments, from Jennifer Windrum of the Swanson Russell Associates PR firm. An embargoed press release is one that is sent out to media outlets before the sender actually wants it to be released to the public. The purpose is to generate media interest and solicit pre-interviews so that when the story is ready to break, reporters are lined up to cover the story. Of course, the premise relies on the recipient having an interest in honoring the embargo. Reporters will honor these sorts of requests if they want to avoid getting on the bad side of the sender so that they can keep receiving additional news releases in the future.

Actress Suzanne Pleshette's recent death from "respiratory distress" was sad. Most of the articles about it briefly mention that she had been fighting lung cancer, but fail to mention that she had been a cigarette smoker in the past. Cigarette smoking is the single biggest cause of lung cancer.

It is rarely discussed, but tobacco has taken an extraordinarily heavy toll on Hollywood. The list of beloved celebrities killed by smokers' diseases is huge, and growing: George Harrison, Johnny Carson, Dana Reeve, Yul Brynner, Lucille Ball, Walt Disney, Nat King Cole, Joe DiMaggio, Michael Landon, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin, Betty Grable, and Babe Ruth to name just a few. Despite this, the failure to mention a person's smoking history in obituary columns is the norm in celebrity deaths. In just one glaring example, a four page obituary about the 2005 death of prominent news anchor Peter Jennings published by his own network, ABC, fails to mention the contribution that smoking made to Jennings' tragic and untimely death. A CNN's column about Jennings' death didn't mention it either. Something is up when major news organizations omit any mention the single most prominent cause of the death of a renowned news anchor.

The General Chairman of Indonesia's National Commission for Child Protection, Seto Mulyadi, called tobacco companies' corporate social responsibility programs "hidden cigarette campaigns." Mulyadi said that cigarette companies "do free advertising through their CSR programs." Mulyadi is proposing a complete ban on cigarette advertising in Indonesia, after a study by the country's Public Health Department revealed that up to 81 percent of youth surveyed from 353 junior, senior and vocational schools admitted to having participated in activities sponsored by cigarette companies. As many as 51 percent of the respondents said they thought it was acceptable for a cigarette company to sponsor artistic performances and sporting events in schools; 93.3 percent could recite slogans used in cigarette commercials. Not only are youth familiar with the slogans, they use them in daily conversation, said the Secretary General of Indonesia's Child Protection Commission.

We've started an article on Sourcewatch about Coronet Instructional Films, a company that produced cheesy "social guidance" films in the period following World War II, dealing with topics such as personal hygiene, appropriate dating behavior for teenagers, and American economic and social values. The unintentionally humorous qualities of these films have made them ripe targets for ridicule on Comedy Central's Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and elsewhere. However, they had a serious purpose, according to Ken Smith, who has written a book about what he calls "mental hygiene" films. "Adults were scared," he says. "We forget that nowadays and look back on the '50s as an innocent time. No, parents were scared shitless of the same things they are now. Whether it was how to teach a kid to behave on a date or not to have sex or to drive safely, there was a world full of dangers, and that's why these films exist." In addition to amusement, therefore, studying these films can provide insights into social attitudes as well as the propaganda techniques used to indoctrinate a generation of Americans.

You can help with this research by expanding the article on Coronet Instructional Films or by adding articles about similar filmmakers, such as Sid Davis or the Centron Corporation. Perhaps you'd like to watch one of the films -- many of which can be found online at the Internet Archive -- and add a description, summarizing and analyzing its content. If this is your first time editing on SourceWatch, you can register here, and learn more about adding information to the site here, here and here. Have fun, and thanks for your help!

Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, we look at Santas flacking for the coal industry, how charitable it is to buy stuff, and a hot and heavy anti-smoking campaign. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we tell you how many steps there are between Jolly Old Saint Nick and parentless kids. The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

Tags on clothing for sale at J.C. Penney that promise a donation to WWF.

'Tis the season of gift giving, and of retailers trying to grab as much of their market share as they can. While encouraging consumerism and excessive consumption, sellers also seek to tap into nobler urges toward benevolence and charity at this time of year. But, as the New York Times editorializes, "people who feed their philanthropic urges by shopping should beware. This kind of fund-raising is largely unregulated, and the few state laws that exist are mostly unenforced. There's often no telling where the money goes. As The Times recently reported, several charities named in a holiday catalog from the upscale New York retailer Barneys -- including the World Wildlife Fund -- found out they were listed only when a reporter contacted them." This cause-related marketing, or what is also referred to as embedded giving, is not new, but continues to grow, without accompanying oversight or regulation. "A host of profit-seeking sites have sprung up online, with names like benevolink.com (slogan: I Shop. Therefore I Give.) and charitymall.com, offering to satisfy the giving spirit." But Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, recently introduced a bill "that would require better notification to charities and their consent in any marketing. Buyers would have to be told how much of the item's price actually goes to the charity." The Times editorial board concludes, "For now, the old-fashioned, direct, tried and true route to charity seems best."