race/ethnic issues

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.

The American Association of Public Health Physicians (AAPHP) has published an updated analysis of H.R. 1108, the massive bill currently under consideration by Congress that would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco products. AAPHP concludes, "This bill is a scam. It gives the image, but not the substance of effective federal regulation of the tobacco industry. If passed in anything close to its current form ... it will assure continuing high levels of cigarette-related illness and death for years to come. The principle benefactor will be the Altria/Philip Morris Company (PM). This bill will assure their continuing dominance of the domestic cigarette market and continuing high levels of sales and profits." The bill would make it illegal to add fruit and spice flavors to cigarettes, but specifically exempts menthol, a flavoring used disproportionately by African-Americans, who also suffer higher rates of tobacco-related illness. AAPHP denounced the menthol exemption in the bill as "institutional racism." However, a coalition of health groups, including the American Heart Association and the American Lung Association, reiterated their support for the current bill.

Dick CheneyThe Bush administration has long held that overly-aggressive interrogation methods used on detainees in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay were the work of a few "bad apples." Now, an investigation being conducted by the Senate Armed Services Committee has revealed that William Haynes II, General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Defense, sought the advice of military psychologists within a Pentagon agency to design the interrogation techniques. The Committee's findings add to mounting evidence that the detainees' torture resulted from decisions made at the highest levels of government, particularly within the office of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.

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 what grades med schools get for cozying up to pharma, the continuing controversy over menthol cigarettes, and an extra ingredient in your chicken dinner. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we look at poor, pitiful Chevron. 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!

Newport Menthol cigarette ad targeting African AmericansThe Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, who negotiated with Philip Morris to draft the bill to allow the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco, defended excluding menthol from the list of flavorings banned under the bill. CTFK president Matthew L. Myers asked rhetorically if menthol was banned, "Would [menthol] smokers look to get their fix from non-mentholated cigarettes, or would they start to use another substance?" CTFK's position is that menthol should not be banned because doing so "would negatively impact the public's health." Dr. Louis Sullivan, a former secretary of health and human services who is now president emeritus of Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, said Myers' statement was "Poppycock ... That's the kind of statement I would expect to be issued by a tobacco company, not a health advocacy group working to ban flavorings from cigarettes." About 75 percent of African American smokers smoke menthol cigarettes, far greater a percentage than white smokers; blacks also suffer a disproportionately higher rate of tobacco-related cancers. The African American Tobacco Prevention Network withdrew its support from the bill this week because of the menthol loophole.