HeadlineUpdate

George Allen goes (Ma) Ca Ca**Updated Again!**

If like me, you can't get enough of George Allen, a couple of good links to chew on (like a good ham sandwich or pork chop).  And last week's interview his mother gave to the Washington Post was pathetic:

When I told Georgie, I said, 'Now you don't love me anymore.' He said, 'Mom, I respect you more than ever.' "

And confirming suspicions that Richard Nixon's favorite coach might not have been the most tolerant of souls:

"He didn't want me to tell his mother," she said of the elder George Allen. "At that time, that was a no-no, to marry outside the church."

But Etty Allen does confirm part of my theory advanced below, that she doesn't go around referring to dark-skinned humans as "macaca."

Etty Allen said Wednesday that she had never used the word "macaca" before and had to go to a dictionary to look it up when she heard of the controversy. She said the word did not exist in her dictionary.
"I swear to you, I have never used that word," she said. "I must have used a lot of bad words, but not that word."

I believe her.  As noted below, I believe her son George was simply, and typically D-R-U-N-K. He was babbling like Jerry Lewis doing his idiot boy routine and "macaca" came out.  Usually Allen is in better control, but what with that and this new Jewish conspiracy he's railing against, he must be hitting the sauce even earlier in the day.

 

More from the madman of Richmond in the press today.  George Allen is finally apologizing to the young man he was caught babbling to last week. But it doesn't matter. I said it below and I'll say it again, only more clearly this time:  the man is a drunk.  He was famous as Governor for showing up drunk.  He was drunk when his brain failed to tell his mouth to speak intelligibly.  He seems to have a problem with that sort of thing.  No one seems to be willing to say this out loud, but that's what blogs are for, innit?

The kerfuffle over Virginia Senator, former Governor and future candidate for president George Allen's "racial" remarks yesterday, while extensively  covered here in the Times, the Post, and everywhere else, misses the pint, I mean point.

No matter what the dictionary says, I am sure that neither George Allen nor for that matter, anyone else on the planet,uses the word "macaca" in conversation, whether in polite company or when out drinking with Mel Gibson.  Nor was anyone refering to the young man's haircut, although I love the image conveyed in the Times' story of Allen's PR machinery working overtime to come up with a credible lie:

The senator’s communications director, John Reid, said in an interview Tuesday that Allen campaign workers had good-naturedly nicknamed Mr. Sidarth “Mohawk” because he would not disclose his name and the sobriquet seemed appropriate for Mr. Sidarth’s hairstyle.

Perhaps, Mr. Reid suggested, “Mohawk” morphed into “macaca,” with results that turned out to be regrettable.

Perhaps. But perhaps the boss was just out of his head again.  He gets like that.  Mean too, like Nixon (and George W. Bush, who stayed mean even after he quit drinking). Usually Allen does a better job acting normal--Webb must have him wattled, I mean rattled...

Check, please!

White House Office of Rebuttal and Denial

One of my 14.56 regular readers sent in this link.  Pretty scary stuff, eh kids?  As an unapolgetic--although not uncritical--propagandist, I have nothing against advancing a point of view, but the news that the White House has devoted part of it's website to saying "Oh Yeah?" to press critics is typical of the control freaks in the Bush Administration.  I trust that no actual reporters take this stuff seriously, but readers are invited to google, nexus and otherwise search these posts to see how the White House astroturf grows.

Politicians' Egos

    As a dedicated Anglophile, I of course am fascinated with what's happening to Tony Blair's leadership.  (My previously noted obsession with the Guardian puts the best coverage of this story in my browser, as does the BBC.) It began with an interview Blair gave to the Times in which he refused to be pushed in to setting a date for his departure.  Reading between the lines as usual, I thought I detected a secret plan (and the hidden had of Alistair Campbell) to use Blair's upcoming speech to the Labour Party convention on September 24 to finally address the issue. After saying he wouldn't set a date (or set a date to set a date), Blair could make a dramatic gesture and get to be the framer not the framed.
     Maybe that was the idea for awhile, but it all went pear-shaped when Gordon Brown or people pretending to speak for him started getting snippy. Also when a bunch of junior M.P.'s (mostly "parliamentary private secretaries", who, under the British system, perform menial tasks for other lawmakers that U.S. pols would find alarmingly democratic) quit Blair's government.
    Tony Blair rightfully took credit for the being the first Prime Minister to not say he'd go "on and on and on."  But now, his public dithering has riven the party.  There's pressure, albeit so far, not very serious for a contested battle,which could allow a victorious Brown to put political credit in the bank years before he faces an election. But presumably Brown would rather move into #10  not a year from now, but now. 
    If Blair really cares about his legacy,he should, like Joe Lieberman, just go.  Whose interest is served in politicians staying on after their Party rejects them?  Only the self-interested party himself.
    I said it before,and I'll say it again.  There's only one word for politicians who put their own drive for power ahead of everything else, and it's one of my favorites: Nixonian.

   

Say It Aint So, Joe (Already)!!

    Enough already.  I predict Joe Lieberman will end up not running as an Independent under intense, though for a party of donkeys, surprisingly delicate pressure.  He's waiting for the first (or second) round of polls to show that Lamont has a clear lead and then he'll cave.  But I wish he'd do the right thing now.  There's only one word for a politician who so cravenly puts his own self-interest above his party or the voters, and it's one of my favorites:  Nixonian.

More from me later, I'm back from my bucolic Northern location and grumpy about it...

Armey's Army

In my other life as a direct mail insultant, I am well familiar with stories like this about direct mail scams. group using the promise of tax-free medical savings accounts to lure members. In this case, former House Majority Leader Richard Armey heads a nice little earner called FreedomWorks (formerly Citizens for a Sound Economy--I bet that title change cost them a pretty penny in consultants' fees, focus groups and polls) that is giving my beloved profession of direct mail manipulation a bad name.

As this paragraph shows, the object here is really just to sell names to other mailers. 

FreedomWorks and its predecessor, CSE, were careful about the deal's financial aspects. In a Sept. 13, 2000, letter, CSE's Quinn said documents should overtly refer to dues, suggesting they be set at $12 a year, to be raised at CSE's discretion upon notifying Medical Savings Insurance Co. She also noted: "I would assume that these people will become CSE members for all purposes and therefore will go on the CSE mailing list. Since the CSE mailing list is rented, as a matter of course, those names would be rented as CSE members . . . without specific identification as MSIC insureds."

Bejewelled with right wing mantras like "Flat Tax," "Across-the-Board Tax Cuts,"  "Limited Government" and "School Choice" this direct mail come-on attracted enough suckers to launch a lawsuit. But when it works, direct mail gives people a chance to act on their most deeply held values and beliefs. Whether it's putting an Amnesty International sticker on your car or sending a contribution to your favorite candidate, odds are you've responded to a direct mail appeal or two.  So don't blame the messenger, unless it's Dick Armey.  Him, blame all you want. 

O Condi! O Mores! (and Maureen)

I know, I really shouldn't try to pun in Latin. But I did just buy at a yard sale a copy of Henry Beard's "Latin for All Occasions" after I opened to this:

    Things to Say to your Psychiatrist

    Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe.

• Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Euroopae vincendarum.

    I think some people in togas are plotting against me.

• Sentio aliquos togatos contra me conspirare.

Read Maureen Dowd today on Condi Rice's peculiar definition of diplomacy:

“I could have gotten on a plane and rushed over and started shuttling, and it wouldn’t have been clear what I was shuttling to do,” she said.

Keep more civilians from being killed? Or at least keep America from being even more despised in the Middle East and around the globe?

You can always count on Maureen Dowd to get it right, even if she does like her popular culture references a bit too much.  This one name-checks Uma and Oprah and then pounds comparisions with the new  "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie into a bloody pulp of metaphor. 
But Dowd is worth reading, even if the Times does make you jump through hoops now to do so.  Also on my fave rave list of columnists are:

Simon Hoggart of the Guardian
Harold Meyerson and E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post
David Corn of the Nation
Murray Waas of the National Journal

Me and Kinky Friedman

I've been a fan of the Kinkster since his days as a touring partner of Bob Dylan, witty singer songwriter and with his band, the Texas Jewboys, performer of such classics as "They Don't Make Jews Like Jesus Anymore" and "I'm an Asshole from El Paso."  He  skyrocketed to success in 1984 with the first of his comic mysteries starring himself, his friends, and a thinly drawn plot. I've borrowed this formula for my novel in progress, Murder in the Propaganda Factory, in which every word is true, except for the parts that aren't. 
Now, of course, Kinky Friedman is running for Governor of Texas in a four way race that, as Dan Rather would say, is tighter than a tick on a jackrabbit..or something like that  Read all about Kinky's campaign here as he runs for the office once held by George W. Bush.  As Kinky likes to observe, if he could do it, how hard can it be?

"Weather Porn" and the Boy King with all the Bling

This article in the Washington Post about the Discovery Channel's plans to market video content specially  made for cell phones reads like parody.  An executive at National Geographic shoots himself, and his company in the corporate foot thusly, committing what Michael Kinsley once defined as the classic "gaffe"--saying what's really on your mind in public. 

National Geographic Ventures, the for-profit arm of the National Geographic Society, is creating high-action shorts of natural phenomena such as tornados and hurricanes, which Chief Operating Officer Ted Prince refers to as "weather porn."

Also beyond belief is this:

The job of feeding content to small screens falls to a six-person team inside the new-media department. Four "preditors" -- industry short-hand for producers/writers/editors -- create programming for Web sites and mobile phones, combing the companies' hundreds of thousands of hours of footage for segments that can be knit into cellphone-size bits of up to two minutes. Instead of a two-hour documentary on zebras in the Serengeti, animal footage is more likely to take the form of "Top Five Takedowns," which lets viewers vote by text message on their favorite clip of predators attacking prey.

Realy scarrry, eh kids?  The Post kindly links to the "Predators Attack" video.  What a public service this newspaper is performing and it is clearly not at all looking to cash in internet readers' interest in cheap thrills.

 

Bush Being Bush? Or Bush Being a Buffoon? We Report: You Decide

Link: CNN.com - Bush caught off-guard in chat with Blair - Jul 17, 2024.

I hate to direct readers to CNN, the least important news organization in the world, but they do have a video of George Bush's private chat with Tony Blair.  As Chris Matthews observed earlier today, if you're a world leader you're supposed to know not to speak with your mouth full or talk when the microphone is hot, but Bush apparently forgot to do both. His smirk when he confides to Blair what's "ironic" (presumably in the Alanis Morissette sense of the word) is classic.  And isn't Blair egging George on by agreeing with him about Kofi Annan's obstinance?  He's still Bush's poodle.  Follow what they're saying about all this on the Guardian's website here.

The Conventional Wisdom is (Almost) Always Wrong

It's an age old theme, perhaps best expressed by the philosopher Groucho Marx:

"Whatever it is, I'm against it."

Whether you call it conventional wisdom or the "prevailing view" as Thomas Mann prefers in his  excellent piece today in the Washington Post, it's headed for a train wreck. Can someone please start printing those old "Question Authority" buttons again? (True story. I was wearing one once and someone inquiringly approached me and said, "I have a question.")
Harold Meyerson said much the same thing in his piece the other day about how Ned Lamont is upsetting the CW and is going to beat Joe Lieberman. 
Thomas Mann cites the Republicans' "traditionally  higher turnout rates" and "vaunted get-out-the-vote operation" but I think that's going to prove to be their Achilles Heel this year.  There are so many local races generating massive Democratic enthusiasm that I see a "'trickle up" effect from the middle to the top of the ticket.  Republicans may end up losing some of their base this year as they continue to argue over stem cells and fences on the border.  Democrats, meanwhile, are finding new energy in that most old-fashioned political tool:  the door to door canvass.

Here in my part of Maryland, Jamie Raskin is generating massive grassroots enthusiasm in his race for State Senate as this short documentary makes clear.  Full disclosure:  I'm working on Jamie's campaign, but see for yourself why I and so many people think Jamie Raskin's campaign is a reminder of why we started out caring about politics in the first place. (For me, it has a lot to do with this quote from Robert Kennedy.  What inspired you?  Please comment below.)  One of the groups endorsing Jamie, 21st Century Democrats, has a slate of endorsed candidates at all levels of government who are in a position to strengthen the position of other Democrats on the ticket.

So the next time someone knocks on your door, or phones you at home, or (my favorite) sends you a mailing, remember the grassroots and I don't mean that one hit wonder band.  Back when he was mostly sensible, Ralph Nader, one of the many unlikely people I've written for over the years (including, in the same season, Walter Mondale, Jesse Jackson, Bishop Tutu and Mario Cuomo) used to talk about the "democracy toolbox" and in 2006, there's finally going to be one in the hands of every voter.  Watch out!

Grover Norquist Ha Ha Ha

    It is truly the season of joy and wonderment here in Washingtron.  First Abramoff, then DeLay, (and Ney), Ralph Reed and now Grover Norquist. They're all getting their comeuppance, and it feels so good! 

I particularly enjoyed the quotes from Norquist's fellow wingers who after years of backstabbing, now  enjoy stabbing people in the front.    

"People were willing to cut him a lot of slack because he's done a lot of favors for a lot of people," said J. Michael Waller, a vice president of the right-leaning Center for Security Policy who for several years was an occasional participant at Norquist's Wednesday meetings. "But Grover's not that likable."

 

...Frank J. Gaffney Jr., the firebrand director of the Center for Security Policy, has developed an anti-Norquist presentation, complete with charts and graphs, that he has shopped around to other conservatives.

The Democrat We Don't Need **Updated**

The indespensible politicalwire.com has this update to the question I asked below, a post that generated a flurry of emails from readers--well, two.

One of the games Washington people play is to ask each other's opinions on what to the rest of the country is pretty obscure stuff--like who's going to win the Democratic Senate nomination in Connecticut.  "Get a life," you're saying on beyond the Beltway, but here we're all over today's news that Joe Lieberman is planning to run as an independent if he's rejected by the Nutmeg State's Democrats in favor of challenger Ned Lamont.

Lieberman, Al Gore's Brilliant Mistake (or one of them, at least, along with not letting Bill Clinton campaign for him in West Virginia and New Hampshire) has morphed into a Bush-kissing, mollycoddling mealy mouthed jerk.  (See talk radio?  I can dish it out too.  Call me.)  If Gore had picked Florida Senator Bob Graham-- or Flipper, for that matter,anyone who could have attracted votes in Florida-- he'd be President and Lieberman would be mostly harmless.  (Warning: Preceding link is loud).

Even so, a month ago I wouldn't have bet against him, but now all bets are off.  Lieberman's own polls must show him dead in the water, his feet in concrete,pushing up daisies, an ex-Senator.  Democrats who weren't feeling the anger driving Lamont's supporters are feeling it now, as Lieberman's behavior becomes positively Nixonian. 

The Times article cites the fate of one of the last of the really good Republicans, my own former Senator Clifford Case:

The senator's remarks about a possible independent campaign may reflect a knowledge of history as well as an abundance of caution. He was a member of the Connecticut State Senate in 1978 when Senator Clifford Case, a longtime New Jersey Republican, made a fatal mistake: underestimating an opponent.

Mr. Case paid little attention to Jeffrey Bell, a Ronald Reagan protégé who was much more conservative than the senator. Instead of running hard against Mr. Bell in the primary, the senator looked ahead to the general election against the Democrat Bill Bradley. But Mr. Bell triumphed in the primary, sending Mr. Case into retirement.

The key word here is "retirement" which Senator Case slipped into like the gentleman he always was (unlike his Garden State Senate colleague, extra bonus points--no fair Googling--for readers who recall his name, including nickname, his notable contribution to history, and the name of his press secretary). 

Then there was the case of Case's colleague from New York, Jacob Javits, who after being defeated in the GOP primary by Alphonse D'Amato, ran as a Liberal, took votes away from the Democrat and handed the election to D'Amato.  Six years later, I worked on Mark Green's campaign to beat D'Amato but unfortunately he stayed on to do damage for three whole terms until he was finally beaten by Chuck Schumer.  Now, of course, Schumer is head of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, and Chuck, as they say in Brooklyn, dis is what I wanna know.

Do you have a tacit understanding with Lieberman that you won't undermine this Independent talk?  Or are you going to say that you'll support the winner of the Democratic primary?  Isn't that your job?

 

What's Wrong with Tim Russert

I recently heard about the section on the Huffington Post devoted to tirades against Tim Russert. I don't feel like wading through it all to find this out, but wonder if they've commented on my previously mentioned Gripe #1 about "Little Russ."  (I did see this post about the New York Times Sunday Magazine's  snarky Q&A about Tim's apparent professional neglect of his mother)  (Is anyone actually reading the "'Funny" pages anyway?)

So here's my beef:  Russert is addicted to the news clip.  Whether it's a printed quote from long ago or video of a guest taking a contrary view on an earlier interview, Tim seems to feel his job is to play "gotcha" with his guests.  On Russert's Meet the Press, the most important job is researcher. 

Having said that, I wish I had seen the segment of MTP a few weeks ago with Steve Bridges, the comedian who played George W. Bush's doppelganger at the Correspondent's Dinner. (And thanks to the Internet, now I can!)  I only heard it on C-Span radio, and it wasn't the same. Bridges does other political impressions too, including a dead-on Bill Clinton, which he did in his Bush get-up.  Oooooo, scary stuff!

(Speaking of which, I've been asked by one of my 13.9 readers why I failed to comment on Stephen Colbert's performance at the annual Correpsondents embarrassing lovefest.  All a I know is that the same story comes out practically every year about how the host's performance fell flat.  I suppose it depends on where you sit, in the cheap seats, I'm told, Colbert was boffo, up in lobbyist la-la land, the audience was more hostile.)

And speaking of the Clinton family, my rant last week against Markos (Daily Kos) Moulitsas was picked up by the Columbia Journalism Review's CJRDaily, and a reader named CliffsVoice left this comment:

Next, there’s HeadlineUpdate blog which I found harder place. I looked around the site and it seems (I’m guessing now) that the author is a centrist Democrat –– that is to say a New Democrat in the Clinton-Triangulation mode. In any case, HeadlineUpdate blog is Not Left.

Hey comrade, I used to do direct mail for the Christic Institute and this week I worked on an ad from Cindy Sheehan!

The hate mail I got after teasing Elvis fans about the sanctity of Graceland was even better..

Stop Feeding the Hand that Bites You

An intelligent argument today by David Sanger in the New York Times against the way the White House runs press briefings.  The departure of the robotic Scott McClellan brings into focus the danger that daily, televised briefings can become argument clinics where, as Sanger says, "Both sides strut."
Bill Clinton's Monica-era press secretary Michael McCurry repeats here the regret he's expressed recently about letting the briefings be televised.

"It's too late," Sanger writes, "to turn the television cameras off, of course."

I'm not so sure. After the spectacle of the last few years of the Bush press operation, I think most Americans have had enough.  As blogger Jay Rosen observes, the White House strategy is to treat the media like a joke. And it's working. I'm told that McClellan's briefings inspired a new drinking game:  take a shot every time he repeats a stock sentence--well, actually I made that up, but who's to know?

I recall when the great John Chancellor retired he expressed his secret wish:  that the White House would just stop trying so hard to make news. Just shut down the press office, he said. I know it's impossible, but wouldn't it be nice?  Sanger won't say it, but that's clearly on his mind too:

As for me, after I'm done fixing that hinge on my chair, I'll return to my daydreams about what it must have been like covering Calvin Coolidge, whose tightlipped pronouncements from his porch in Vermont must have inspired this White House. But at least when those briefings were over, there was a nice stream down the hill where reporters could cast for brook trout, and forget about the empty pages in their notebooks.

Suppose they gave a briefing, and nobody came?  If a press secretary speaks in an empty room, does anyone hear him?  Can we ever tune out the media watch?

Memo to the White House news corps: pick a day and stage a boycott. For one day, don't get managed, spun and bamboozled.  Pick a date, put out the "Gone Fishing" sign and let's see what happens.

How about December 24th?  It's both a slow news day and I.F. Stone's birthday. Go on then, do it for Izzy...

Reading Obituaries

One of my favorite writers, William Saroyan, set out to write about each and every entry in the Necrology section of Variety Magazine for the year 1976.

"Why do I write?  Why am I writing this book?  To save my life, to keep from dying, of course.  That is why we get up in the morning."
"Obituaries is not about Death, it  is abouit that large mystery that has come out of light and is, of course, called Life. (And the hell with that, too)."

I was reminded of Saroyan's book by one of those only in the New York Times obituaries that read like great fiction.  Dont' miss "Emilie Muse, 98, Daredevil Who Dared Not Discuss Past, Dies" and then go back and enjoy "Sidney Frank, 86, Dies; Took a German Drink and a Vodka Brand to Stylish Heights" (NYT Select required) and Dai Ailian, Vital Figure in Building Ballet in China, Dies at 89.

A New York Timesman named Alden Whitman pioneered the paper's obituary coverage; interviewing  notable people with the promise he wouldn't write a word until after they died.  Sidney Zion wrote in the Nation, "in all the history of journalism, including the caves, nobody ever thought to draw the future dead into their own obituaries ."

As Saryoyan himself said to the A.P. a day or so before he died, "Everybody has to die, but I always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?"

O Guardian! My Guardian!

    I used to say without hesitation that it was the best newspaper in the world.  Now I hesitate.

    The Guardian, something I'd long considered one of life's great pleasures, has changed.  For the official view of management, as written by the editor, see here. And here's what graphic designers think.  (I can tell you right away what they like, having worked with their ilk for 25 years:  "more white space!")

    To their credit, the Guardian has opened up their own discussion of the change, but since they didn't ask me my opinion I'm posting it here.   What else are blogs for? Like the man said, "I've suffered for my art, now it's your turn."

     First, let me  note that my reaction to this  format change is not based on having seen the actual paper.  Oh no.  The Guardian, perhaps in the run-up to starting a U.S. edition, has long made it impossible for American customers to buy their product (a problem none of the other English newspapers seem to have). 

    First came the withholding of the Saturday Review and magazine.   Some weeks they made it out of Britain, other times they were left at the dock.    
   
     Then an “international edition” appeared, printed with the kind of ink (a ghastly shade of orange) and paper used by ancient presses in former African colonies. Fortunately, this being Washington D.C.,  I was able to make a special arrangement with a news agent who saved me a complete edition of the Saturday Guardian, little plastic bag and all. 

    But then the paper switched to the kind of technology used by hotel clerks in Ramada Inns to print replicas of newspapers on their fax machines, and my exalted Guardian became a black and white monstrosity about as much fun to read as a hotel bill.   I was forced to pay nearly $20 per month for the digital edition, which I read far less carefully than I did the one with pages I could turn.

     Sure, the columnists Simon Hoggart and John O'Farrell still write witty, incisive commentary.  The cultural coverage makes people even hipper than reading Mojo.  The coverage of U.K. politics provides the andrenalin political junkies in the U.S. find lacking from the state of things at home.  I used to savor page after well designed page of the overisized "broadsheet."  Reading the Guardian was like settling into a comfy chair with a nice cuppa.

    But you couldn't read it very comfortably on the subway, yada yada yada...New Yorkers long ago learned the "subway fold."  You make do, at least we did, before "focus groups" asked us if we wouldn't really rather have a smaller paper, with catchier stories and more color, with valuable prizes and only really stupid people are preferring the old way anyway?  Who can say no to change like that?

    Well, me.  But they didn't ask me. Instead they're betting the future on  the "Berliner" edition, bigger than a tabloid but hardly something you can luxuriate with in on a hammock or beach.

    I'll be in London in a few days and will be able to pick up the paper for the first time.  Maybe I'm wrong. (I've been so wrong before.)  Maybe I'll love it. Comments from Guardian readers are invited below.  But unless things change radically, I fear newspapers, like networks and books of serious fiction, are going the way of the dinosaur. 

    For example, do you know why people in their 20s and 30s say they don't like to read newspapers?  Come, on, guess.

    I'll even make you click on the continuation to find the answer..
   

Armstrong Williams Is Doing It, The Pope's Doing It, Now the EPA is Doing It**Updated**

I do so love the smell of propaganda in the morning...today's news of what the New York Times called the GAO's "blistering" report (while the WashPost said it was a "mixed ruling") revists the Armstrong Williams "scandal" we've been following so closely here.  True PR professionals should know the difference between honest communication and astroturf--and their clients should want them to operate under ethical guidelines.  Otherwise a valid exchange of ideas becomes media manipulation.

First posted 7/18/05 More from the astroturf front.

As if to distract us from the still percolating repercussions of the Gray Lady's own negotiable virtue, the New York Times removes further scales from the eyes of those shocked,shocked, by the notion the government pays ghostwriters. 

July 18, 2024

Public Relations Campaign for Research Office at E.P.A. Includes Ghostwriting Articles

By FELICITY BARRINGER
WASHINGTON, July 17 - The Office of Research and Development at the Environmental Protection Agency is seeking outside public relations consultants, to be paid up to $5 million over five years, to polish its Web site, organize focus groups on how to buff the office's image and ghostwrite articles "for publication in scholarly journals and magazines."

This is called Public Relations.  It is not illegal or even unethical.  However the above quote from the EPA contract contains one fatal mistake.  Can you find the word that EPA hire-ups are now kicking themselves they didn't catch? 

The strategy, laid out in a May 26 exploratory proposal notice and further defined in two recently awarded public relations contracts totaling $150,000, includes writing and placing "good stories" about the E.P.A.'s research office in consumer and trade publications.

The above graf contains a clue.  The reference to "consumer and trade publications" is the bread and butter of PR --articles placed in "mainstream" media and business publications fascinating to insiders but thick as mud to the rest of us.  But the phrase "consumer and trade" does not refer to another elite group of publications...

The contracts were awarded just months after the Bush administration came under scrutiny for its public relations policies. In some cases payments were made to columnists, including Armstrong Williams, who promoted the federal education law known as No Child Left Behind and received an undisclosed $240,000. In January, President Bush publicly abandoned this practice.

Armstrong Williams has gone from a perplexing pundit to hack to iconic figure, and handy touchstone for the Times trying to add sizzle to stories that aren't about Karl Rove.  That paragraph contains an inaccuracy too --Bush may have made a speech against this "practice," but he didn't pull the plug on PR.

The governmentwide public relations strategies, however, continue to include the preparation of TV-ready news reports on government policies.

Like I said.

An E.P.A. spokeswoman said over the weekend that the effort to raise the profile of the agency's research had a worthwhile goal: calling attention to the work of 1,900 scientists and staff members. Noting that the office's annual budget is $600 million, the spokeswoman, Eryn Witcher, said, "We would like to use less than 1 percent of that to make information accessible to the public."

GONG! Show Ms. Lost-Her-Witcher the door, please.  While the defensive, feel-good response to an unfavorable story might be to stand by the troops (1,900 scientists and staff members) a better answer would have  framed EPA's core issues. 

Three similar contracts - one of which was abandoned, the agency said - and the broader $5 million proposal were provided to The New York Times by the environmental group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Its director, Jeff Ruch, said he had received them from an agency employee who believed that research money was being inappropriately diverted to a public relations campaign.

"The idea that they would take limited science dollars and spend them on P.R. is not only ill advised, it's just plain stupid," Mr. Ruch said in an interview.

Ms. Witcher responded: "It's not spending money on communications at the expense of research but rather in support of it. This allows the results of E.P.A. research to be shared with the general public."

Are you still here, Eryn?  Mistake #2:  repeating the charge made against you in your answer. Mistake #3:  talking about dusty, dry "research" when you could be talking about protecting kids' health, ensuring clean water and all the other nice things previous EPA leaders cared about.

While the scope of the exploratory proposal is new, Ms. Witcher said, the two smaller contracts "are standard. It's standard to get more help with skills that folks don't have. It's very common throughout the entire federal government."

Everybody's doing it, is that what you're saying?  Please, Mr. Johnson, find a new flack.  Instead of marshmellow fluff like "skills that folks don't have" try, "sometimes it's better to hire professional writers when you need something professionally written."

One of the smaller contracts asks the contractor to "develop feature article research and strategy" and to "write the strategy to support a new unit that will be identifying feature story ideas, creating slant, identifying consumer magazines to target and polishing the final article."

That contract, for feature articles, was awarded to JDG Communications of Falls Church, Va., for $65,692.62, Ms. Witcher said.

The second smaller contract was also awarded to JDG Communications, for $85,829.06. It calls on the contractor to develop two "perception specific indicators" that "must show whether public relations efforts to create awareness and improve the reputation of E.P.A.'s research and development, its labs and its top-quality scientists has favorably influenced public perception."

Aha!  Now we see what this article is really all about.  I love mush like "perception specific indicators."  For as long as clients have paid public relations bills, clients have craved some way to measure the effectiveness of public relations. Apart from counting clips, which can be misleading, there really is none.

The more extensive and expensive plan seeks help from public relations agencies to, among other things, "provide research, writing and editing of Office of Research and Development articles for publications in scholarly journals and magazines."

There it is again.  That word, probably written by a junior account executive, that no one noticed.  Study the paragraph carefully.  (That was a hint) 

Yes, "scholarly" was dumb.  Placing articles in consumer or trade publications is one thing, but you can't monkey around with Science magazine, JAMA or other big guns.  Well, you can actually but only if you're a multinational pharmaceutical company, as noted below.  Read the full NY Times story for even more dumb remarks from the EPA spokespod, but for now we'll let Donald Kennedy have the last word.

Donald Kennedy, the editor of Science magazine and a former head of the Food and Drug Administration, said in a telephone interview on Saturday that he found the idea of public relations firms ghostwriting for government scientists "appalling."

"If we knew that it had been written by someone who was not a scientist and submitted as though it were the work of a scientist, we wouldn't take it," Mr. Kennedy said. "But it's conceivable that we wouldn't know, if it was carefully constructed."

He added that the practice of putting public relations polish on scientific work has already been practiced by industry. "We had seen it coming in the pharmaceutical industry and were sort of wary about it," he said. "The idea that a government agency would feel the necessity to do this is doubly troubling."

Speaking of ghostwriting, Mr. Kennedy said: "If the ghostwriting is the kind of ghostwriting that most of the good mentors I knew did with Ph.D. students on first paper, it could be a good thing. But I sincerely doubt if any for-profit P.R. firm hired in the interest of improving a scientific publication is going to be the right person to do that."

You Couldn't Make This Up (But The AP Can)

Did you feel that?  The ground upon which journalism rests has shifted once again.  Romanesko reports the AP is now offering a choice of "straight" or "alternative" leads.  I kid you not. 

The News (Business) is Even Worse Than You Think

While today's front page NYT story misses the bleeding obvious about the "prepackaged news" brouhaha, it gets a lot of other stuff right.  I'm sufficiently impressed by this reporting that instead of my usual sentence by sentence deconstruction of a news story, read this one uninterrupted and I'll see you on the other side.

While you're waiting...

OK, everyone back?  Good.  As previously noted here, and here, there are a lot of crocodile tears being shed about the news that stations run video news releases from the government, disguised as original reports on local news shows.  The Times article does a good job at placing this story in context, but fails to land the knock-out punch.

As the Times says, VNRs are a "well established tool of public relations."  That's an understatement.  When my brethren in the PR cabal gather to plot new ways to manipulate the public (oh, we don't really, I was just testing you.  Really)  we often chuckle about how easy it is to get VNRs on the air, or  for that matter, press releases printed, virtually unedited.

Let me connect three important dots in the Times story: 

The fifth graf begins with a sentence that could not be applied to most business clients:

"Federal agencies are forthright with broadcasters about the origin of the news segments they distribute."

The government should be applauded for this transparency. 

Business interests, on the other hand, set up front groups and hire independent producers to make and distribute video news releases, "b-roll" footage (film designed to be shown in the background while an on-air reporter reads the "news") and interviews.

Now, go back a sentence and read the end of graf four: 

"At the same time, records and interviews suggest widespread complicity or negligence by television stations, given industry ethics standards that discourage the broadcast of prepackaged news segments from any outside group without revealing the source."

Finally, skip down towards the end, the next to last sub-head called "Meeting a Need"

A local news director is quoted:

"I don't want to use the word 'filler,' per se, but they meet a need we have."

Local  TV stations aren't the only ones with "needs."
Big news networks have them too.
Hey CNN, I'm talking to you.  You too Fox and all those NBC's:

Do you ever run footage supplied by business interests?  Do story ideas ever begin with a contact from a public relations person?  Do you read press releases?

See how complicated this is?  The first accusation is pretty serious:  stations and networks probably shouldn't let other voices into their news gathering process. 
The second charge is a little ambiguous -- where's the line between appropriate publicity and media manipulation? 
The third is absurd.  Of course people read press releases.

What's the answer?  Should all stories contain product labeling? 
"This story contains 38% news reporting, 27% news releases, 13% wire service rewriting, 10% recycled information and 12% information gained over lunch, drinks or golf games with sources."

Or how about a new crawl for the news networks screens:

In order to better serve you, we have reduced the amount of original news we produce and increased our use of footage supplied by the subjects of our reporting.  This gives us more money for Larry King and shows where people scream at each other.

 

Flacks Take Flak

Oh boy.  The bad news for the PR industry just keeps coming.  As a second generation PR person and past practitioner of “career arson,” I’m enjoying this with relish.

washingtonpost.com 
Local PR Firm Caught in Worldwide Web of Bad Press

By Annys Shin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 7, 2005; Page E01

In early February, Scott Johnson, a partner in a small communications firm called Rock Creek Creative, issued a news release touting the company's role in the Orange Revolution -- the public protests that led to the election of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko in December.

“Hey, didn’t we have a minor role in that campaign in the Ukraine?  Anything we can milk with a press release?” 

My late father developed Ted Klein’s 10 Commandments for successful Media Relations. The 3rd Commandment is “Thou shall make the client available to the media—and then leave.”  A PR person in the room with a reporter and a subject is, to borrow an analogy from Princess Diana, like three people in a marriage.

Johnson said he hoped the release would lead to "a nice local technology story" about the Bethesda company in one of the local newspapers, perhaps focusing on how a Web site the company designed had become the "virtual freedom plaza for the democracy movement" in the former Soviet state.

Oooo. Bonus points for lying about the lie you lied. Mr. Johnson, no one sends out a press release hoping only for a “nice local story.”  Just like no one in politics doesn’t have a plan to be President.  And your web site was a “virtual freedom plaza” for the democracy movement?  Nice analogy, guys, but you should have compared yourselves to Tom Paine, Gandhi, maybe Jesus .

The release did catch the attention of news editors.

Here comes a joke –drummer,rim shot please!

Just not in Bethesda.

Badda-bing!