[spectre] Nov. 25: Screening Toxic Sludge Is Good For You (@HvA, Amsterdam)

[geert]

Eveline Lubbers from http://www.spinwatch.org  
presents the screening of the video: 

Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
The Public Relations Industry Unspun

Date: Thursday November 25, 2004, at 16:00
Location: HvA Interactive Media, Weesperzijde 190 (next to Amstelstation),
Amsterdam, room C 1.02.  Free entrance.

Laura Miller will introduce the video and explain how the Centre for Media &
Democracy is trying to reach an ever broader audience working with multiple
media. 

Core business of the Centre for Media & Democracy is PR Watch, a quarterly
publication dedicated to investigative reporting on the public relations
industry. It serves citizens, journalists and researchers seeking to
recognize and combat manipulative and misleading PR practices. The past few
years PR watch is developing a Wikipedia, called Disinfopedia.
http://www.prwatch.org
http://www.disinfopedia.org

Toxic Sludge Is Good For You: The Public Relations Industry Unspun
Narrated by Amy Goodman (2002)

Summary:
While advertising is the visible component of the corporate system, perhaps
even more important and pervasive is its invisible partner, the public
relations industry. This video illuminates this hidden sphere of our culture
and examines the way in which the management of ~the public mindT has become
central to how our democracy is controlled by political and economic elites.
'Toxic Sludge Is Good For You' illustrates how much of what we think of as
independent, unbiased news and information has its origins in the boardrooms
of the public relations companies.

PR critics include PR Watch founder John Stauber, cultural scholars Mark
Crispin Miller and Stuart Ewen. 'Toxic Sludge Is Good For You' tracks the
development of the PR industry from early efforts to win popular American
support for World War I to the role of crisis management in controlling the
damage to corporate image. The video analyzes the tools public relations
professionals use to shift our perceptions including a look at the
coordinated PR campaign to slip genetically engineered produce past public
scrutiny. 'Toxic Sludge Is Good For You' urges viewers to question the
experts and follow the money back to the public relations industry to
challenge its hold on democracy.

On Laura Miller:
PR Watch managing editor Laura Miller joined the Center for Media &
Democracy in August 2000. She came to the center with seven years experience
in radio journalism, having worked on WORT-FM's local evening news as a
host, reporter, and producer. She currently anchors broadcasts for the
Workers' Independent News Service, a nationally syndicated radio news
service. Laura has also worked as a union organizer and a video store clerk.
Born in 1970, she lives in a nice yellow house in Madison, WI.

More info: Sabine Niederer, Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam. 
http://www.networkcultures.org , sabine at networkcultures.org.