race/ethnic issues

"Bottled water sales in the past have grown mainly from consumers moving to water from soda and other sugary beverages," fueled by rising childhood and adult obesity rates. But ads for bottled water don't push the health angle, because many bottled water companies also sell soda. For example, Aquafina is made by PepsiCo and Dasani by Coca-Cola. Nestle -- which does not sell soda -- is now seeking to counter "concerns that bottled water is a bad choice for the environment" by raising concerns about the health impact of soda. Its new "antisoda" campaign is focused on "the Hispanic community because it drinks more bottled water than most other ethnic groups." Nestle's antisoda ads, which appear on U.S. Spanish-language channels like Univision and TeleFutura, promote the company's Pure Life bottled water. The ads feature talk-show host Cristina Saralegui, who says, "Drinking water instead of three sugary drinks per week for a year will spare you seven pounds of fat." The Hispanic marketing agency behind the ads, Castells & Asociados, says they have been "off-the-charts effective." Publicis' Dallas office is working on an English-language version.

For years, military recruiters have focused on adult "influencers" -- parents, teachers and coaches who could encourage or discourage a young person from joining the military. Now, the U.S. Army is seeking to make its recruiting "campaign more relevant to the desired audience of Americans ages 17 to 24." The new phase of the "Army strong" campaign puts "more emphasis on the Internet, event marketing and other methods that connect with young Americans on a closer, more personal level." It includes a revamped Army website, with "Straight from Iraq," a webcast series where visitors can "find out what it's really like to be deployed in the Middle East from the men and women stationed there." It's "the first time the Iraq war has been referred to so directly and prominently" on the Army's website. Nine Interpublic Group firms work on the "Army strong" campaign, including Casanova Pendrill, for ads targeting Hispanics; IW Group, for ads targeting Asian-Americans; Carol H. Williams Advertising, for ads targeting African-Americans; and Weber Shandwick, for public relations. The Army's also changing its "Virtual Army Experience" traveling exhibit, after criticism that its videogame contains violent imagery not suitable for the music festivals and county fairs where it's presented. "The new content will concentrate on the peaceful purposes the Army can serve ... like providing humanitarian aid."

"Black man, black woman, black baby /
White man, white woman, white baby /
White man, black woman, black baby /
Black man, white woman, black baby."
Public Enemy, Fear of a Black Planet

There is no doubt that the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States is historic. But does framing him as America's "first black president" show that we have not come nearly as far as we'd like to think?

The mainstream U.S. news -- and the majority of the American public, whether for or against him -- consider Barack Obama to be the first African American President. While he is certainly a member of the black community (and much more literally African-American due to his father being a Kenyan immigrant), he is also equally part of the white community. His mother was white. The grandmother who helped raise him (and whom he tragically lost to cancer on the eve of his election) was also white. But historically, and apparently to this day, to be black to any degree is to be exclusively black. Is our celebration of Barack Obama as the first black president proof that we haven't moved very far past the "one-drop rule"?

Armstrong WilliamsThe second debate between the major party U.S. presidential candidates didn't address immigration policy. That disappointed the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In September, FAIR held its third annual "Hold Their Feet to the Fire" event, where it brings "dozens of talk radio hosts from around the country" to Washington DC, to do broadcasts on immigration issues, while FAIR supporters lobby members of Congress. This year's radio hosts included Armstrong Williams, while CNN's Lou Dobbs broadcast from the event. "We had talk hosts broadcasting for four hours each day -- 336 hours of radio time across virtually the entire country," said FAIR's Bob Dane. The Republican PR firm Shirley & Bannister Public Affairs booked the radio guests, including members of Congress, authors and "other high-profile figures of the immigration movement." Although the presidential "candidates are not talking about" immigration and border security, complained Dane, "this event is a loud reminder that we aren't and will not be silent."

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 award-winning gutter journalism, an icy approach to immigrants and an explosive new assignment for the Lincoln Group. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," global warming skeptics. 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!

It's an "open secret of lobbying," writes Jeffrey Birnbaum. "Public relations firms regularly solicit authors of opinion-page articles, draft the pieces for them and place the articles in publications where they will have the most impact -- all for a fee." Recently, an op-ed criticizing a bill that would reduce credit card fees appeared in Southern newspapers, attributed to Charles Steele Jr., the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The column -- which neither Steele nor his office authorized -- complains that the bill "would boost the profits of Wal-Mart," an SCLC sponsor. Steele's attorney blamed "the K Street public relations shop LMG" for the mix-up. LMG admitted that it had "reached out through its contractors" to send "advocacy materials" to the SCLC and "urged the group to go public with opposition to the bill." Among LMG's clients is the Electronic Payments Coalition, a group of credit card and financial companies that opposes the legislation. The SCLC investigated and concluded that "the wrong draft of the op-ed" had been sent to papers. "The correct draft should not have referenced Wal-Mart or Home Depot," another SCLC sponsor.

Ed Morales takes the 110th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Puerto Rico as an opportunity to talk about its status. "The United States invaded the island on July 25, 1898, and claimed it as booty after the Spanish-American War. Long since obsolete as a strategic outpost in the Cold War, the Caribbean island is America's best-kept secret: an unfree state within the land of the free." The island has never seriously been considered for statehood, often for racist reasons. A portion of Puerto Rico's Vieques Island was routinely used as a bombing range by the U.S. Navy. The island of nearly four million inhabitants "is an 'unincorporated territory,' which means that the island is subject to the authority of the U.S. Congress, which can overturn any action by the island's legislature." Puerto Ricans are not able to vote in U.S. presidential elections, nor do they having voting representatives in Congress. While there is often a misperception that Puerto Ricans receive certain rights without paying taxes (which is mainly false), Morales has this take: "Puerto Rico's commonwealth status was a dry run for the free trade practices of the last 15 years, where profit -- and the potential for local investment -- is extracted from a weaker economy by rampaging multinational corporations. Today, Puerto Rico is suffering from a failing economy with high unemployment rates, a fall-off in tourism due to the gas crisis, overdependence on government entitlements like food stamps and a failing public education system."

On July 15, "an unlikely alliance" rallied in Washington DC to "stop the war on the poor" by increasing U.S. domestic oil and gas production. The rally was organized by the self-described civil rights group Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the pro-drilling front group Americans for American Energy and the conservative group High Impact Leadership Coalition. Rally speakers stressed "the need to expand domestic oil and gas production with the goal of reducing fuel costs for low-income households that feel a disproportionate pinch from rising energy prices," reports Jenny Mandel. Signs at the rally included "My family needs affordable energy" and "Environmental groups don't feed my family." CORE has received funding from ExxonMobil. CORE's Niger Innis said the group favors "government spending on oil shale, coal and drilling on the continental shelf and throughout Alaska," because "when these resources are developed ... that is going to have a direct impact on the price of fuel." While some rally attendees told Mandel about their difficulties "budgeting around today's gasoline prices," others "backed away from a reporter with a notebook. ... One woman, who declined to give her name, said she was demonstrating at her boss's behest."

The cover of the upcoming issue of the New Yorker magazine bears a satirical cartoon that incorporates practically every jab the right wing has taken at Barack Obama and his wife Michelle: the couple is pictured standing in the White House Oval Office dressed in Muslim garb. Barack is wearing a turban, Michelle has an "Angela Davis"-type afro hairdo and is shown toting a machine gun. An American flag burns in the fireplace as the couple engages in a "terrorist fist-bump." A portrait of Osama bin Laden hangs over the fireplace. The cover is titled, "The Politics of Fear." Both presidential campaigns quickly condemned the lampooning cover as "tasteless and offensive." Jeffrey Goldberg, a blogger at the Atlantic.com laments the whole situation as "the death of humor."

Reacting to a report that revealed American cigarette exports to Iran have risen tenfold during George W. Bush's time in office, Republican presidential candidate John McCain commented, "Maybe that's a way of killing 'em." He followed this by saying, "I meant that as a joke, as a person who hasn't had a cigarette in 28 years, 29 years." McCain's public joke about killing Iranians was the second of his campaign. Last year at a South Carolina campaign stop, when he was asked if there was a plan to attack Iran, McCain responded by saying "You know that old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran?" He then sang "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" before discussing what he believed to be the serious threat Iran poses to Israel's national security.