PR

While the records book like to say that public relations as a concept and profession hails from just after the turn of the last century, it wasn't until World War Two that propaganda had become a worthless garbage word, replaced by public relations by Edward Bernays.

Now that I have moved to Berlin, I get to hear VOA and NPR Worldwide and the European version of BBC Worldwide and I am pretty excited. I can finally hear US propaganda "outside the border" which is fascinating. As part of NPR Worldwide's broadcast this AM (104.1 FM), I got to hear a show this morning about the history of Public Diplomacy, which I found amazingly interesting. From 1914, I think they said, the US has had a real desire to educate and engage the world, which ended abruptly once we won the cold war. And then it all went to pot, especially since the responsibility of Public Diplomacy has been rolled into the US Department of State. Well, I am all for Public Diplomacy as a strategy that is much more effective than either PR or a propaganda war. One of the most useful past strategies, which is being gutted because of post 9-11 paranoia, was the global encouragement of students to study in the USA. One lad from Egypt spoke of his experience in Washington State at the University of Washington, saying, "I got to experience that most Americans live the American Dream on two parents working two jobs, which is something I would never have known from my experience of the USA from TV from Cairo." Amazingly interesting. Here's some more info on Public Dimplomacy via Wikipedia via Because the Medium is the Message.

Taken from Haaretz (By Cnaan Liphshiz, Haaretz Correspondent )

What began six months ago as a brazen attempt to counter a perceived anti-Israel slant in the Dutch media, has evolved into a network monitoring the media in eight countries across the world. The idea is simple: Beat press bias at its own game by advertising only bad news about one place.

Over the past months, seven activists from Israel and elsewhere have been exposing online readers to scandalous yet accurate reports from media in Britain (violent drunk teens), France (high homeless mortality), Norway (serial child molesters), Finland (sexual harassment in parliament), Sweden (soaring suicide rates), The Netherlands (menacing Muslim unrest), Mexico (rampaging flood victims) and Los Angeles (drive-by killings).

I received a lovely Twitter from Amanda Chapel with a link a Strumpette post, by Brian Connolly, about the Web 2.0 mind virus that is making everyone mad, mad, I tell you. She defined a meme for me and I like her definition, "Memes are like viruses, little brain hijackers whose hosts work hard to spread." Yep, that's a meme.

These are the Super Fund sites that, according to an EPA report in 2006, Westinghouse is at least responsible for and that CBS never mentions. Right Oprah? Did I EVER HEAR YOU Or YOUR CANDIDATE TALK ABOUT DYING AMERICANS? Join the Zorro Book Club, Oppie! US first Nuke Dump is Maxie Flats in Kentucky may be killing thousands. I know workers there! Majority of Westinghouse/GE Nuke plants are being shut down all around the US.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/Superfund/SiteResults.aspx?act=Westinghou...

I feel I would be remiss if we managed to let the writers strike pass without so much as an acknowledgement.  Why?  Because everything we ever "learned" about the entire world around us..and it's billions of lives..the good, the bad, the evil and the ugly...everything that you never "witnessed"...came to your "eye" from the head of a "pen" of a writer..and an editor who wanted to "spin it" just write for the "publisher" who was funding the "facts"..as he wanted us to know them..!