KLORES TAKES OVER SONG FOR KETCHUM

Dan Klores Communications has taken over PR duties for Song, the low-cost airline that Delta Air Lines plans to launch in April, said Stacy Geagan, spokesperson for the start-up.

"We used Ketchum on a project basis, and for internal communications," Geagan said of the Omnicom unit that handles Delta. "We are going forward with Klores because of its entertainment PR capabilities," she added.

Sean Cassidy, senior partner at DKC, said his firm will establish marketing partnerships for Song with clients in its entertainment, hospitality and consumer product sectors. The PR firm will represent Song as least through completion of its full-launch, which is anticipated by November.

Song president John Selvaggio envisions a fleet of 36 Boeing 757 aircraft flying 144 flights a day by October. Song will serve New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Hartford, Fort Myers, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa and Orlando.

Song is Delta's $65 million response-which is the cost of the start-up-to discount carriers Jet Blue and AirTran that have lured travelers in the Northeast-Florida markets. The Wall Street Journal (Jan. 29) noted that Delta's new Song is a "risky bet" at a time when United Airlines and US Airways are in Chapter 11 and the threat of war looms.

Delta, a Ketchum client, lost $363 million in the fourth quarter.

McLEARN JOINS RF

Don McLearn, a former deputy associate commissioner for PA at the Food and Drug Administration, has joined Ruder Finn's Washington, D.C., office as senior VP in its healthcare practice.

Craig Martin, head of RF/D.C., hired McLearn because of his "valuable contacts within the FDA." He knows how the agency works, added Martin, executive VP and managing director at RF.

McLearn, who spent 17 years at the FDA, will counsel clients on prescription and medical device approvals, regulatory matters, and crisis management. He joins RF after five years at Fleishman-Hillard.

Text 100 has landed Verio, the NTT Communications unit that hosts corporate websites and manages private networks for customers in more than 170 countries. The PR firm's New York, Palo Alto and Amsterdam offices will handle the account.

H&K GETS VIETNAM TRADE PACT

Vietnam, which inked a bilateral trade pact with the U.S. in 2001, has hired Hill & Knowlton to position the country as the place for American companies to invest in Asia.

Paul Taaffe, H&K's CEO, says the WPP Group unit will deliver the message that Vietnam is "open for business." The firm also will play up Vietnam's 80 million people, of which 90 percent are literate, as an "untapped resource potential." The Economist's Intelligence unit projects that the Vietnamese economy will grow seven percent this year.

H&K's offices in New York, Washington, D.C., and Singapore will pitch Vietnam. The firm's contract is with the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

The firm also picked up a $300K pact from Australia to promote the merits of a national nuclear waste dump to be sited near Woomera in South Australia.

A Sydney anti-nuclear coalition, led by Dr. Jim Green, has pledged 1% of that amount from its war chest to start a "counter-offensive."

H&K will run the government's campaign from its Melbourne office, which is run by Rod Nockles, who refused to comment on the campaign.

W&B WANTS TO PLAY BALL IN VIRGINIA

The Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority has tapped White & Baldacci for a $200K contract to help the state put together its pitch to Major League Baseball's Relocation Committee.

The first meeting between the VBSA and the League took place last week, but a date for a formal pitch has not been set, according to Brian Hannigan, communications director for the Authority. He told this NL that VBSA looked at six other firms in the review but decided on Reston, Va.-based W&B because of vice chairman and president Steve Baldacci, who was formerly president and chief marketing officer of the Washington Redskins before joining the firm last year.

O'Dwyer's Directory of Corporate Communications, 2003 Edition, which lists the communications contacts at 5,300 companies, 2,100 associations, 189 foreign embassies and 350+ federal government agencies and departments, has added thousands of web addresses to ease information searches. The Directory, which is due out next week, includes all NYSE-listed companies. $130 from the O'Dwyer Co.

FDNY GROUP PUSHING FOR 9/11 MEMORIAL

The Emerald Society of the New York City Fire Dept. has launched a grassroots campaign to support building a Firefighters' Memorial at the World Trade Center site. The group accounted for 180 of the 343 firefighters who were killed during the collapse of the World Trade Center in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attack.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the entity that oversees planning for the reconstruction of downtown, opposes a separate memorial. The LMDC, which uses Edelman PR Worldwide to handle its $2 million account, wants a single 9/11 monument with the names of the more than 2,800 people who lost their lives on 9/11.

The Society also would support separate memorial acknowledgements for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Dept., which lost 37 members or three percent of its force, and the New York Police Dept., which lost 23 cops on 9/11.
The ES asks supporters to contact New York Gov. George Pataki and the LMDC by phone or e-mail in support of the Firefighters Memorial.

Patrick McCarvill, an Emerald Society spokesperson, said hundreds of e-mails have already been sent. John Finucane (845/548-4234) is the contact for PR firms interested in providing pro bono counsel to the Memorial campaign.

FENTON WARNS AGAINST TOXINS IN BODY

Fenton Communications is using ads and PR to link the proliferation of chemicals in the air, water and food to many diseases and illnesses in humans.

That push, for the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, comes on the heels of the Jan. 31 release of a $6.5 million Center for Disease Control study measuring toxicity levels in humans. Another report, released earlier this week and sponsored by CHE member the Environmental Working Group, found an average of 91 toxins and industrial pollutants in a medical study of nine people by Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York.

The firm ran a full-page ad in The New York Times last week, titled "Body Burden: the pollution in people." The ad features a woman with breast cancer who was "astounded" to find the number of chemicals present in her body. CHE claims chemicals in the environment and foods cause disease in more than one-third of the U.S. population at an annual healthcare cost of $325 billion.

Critics have lashed out at the mounting campaign, saying the accusations and scare tactics are based on "junk science." Cato Institute scholar Steven Milloy called the campaign part of the greens' "mindless anti-chemical agenda" on Fox News.

"They're scheming to use the CDC report as an opportunity to launch the mother of all scare campaigns," he said.

Fenton has handled health-related issues for the White House, American Medical Assn. and the Harvard School of Public Health.

EDELMAN TELLS WEF: FORGET ADS, DO PR

More than 80 percent of Americans and Europeans trust information they receive from the media, while a mere 12 percent of the group say advertising is trustworthy, Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman PR Worldwide, told the movers & shakers at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 27.

Edelman unveiled the results of his firm's latest "trust survey" of 850 opinion leaders in the U.S., France, U.K. and Germany, while making the pitch that PR is more credible than advertising.

Business and newsweeklies are perceived as the most trusted media (44 percent), while corporate and product advertising are the least trusted (five percent).

Consumer packaged goods, hardgoods and technology are the most trusted corporate sectors in the U.S., while most Americans gives thumbs down to energy, telecom and professional services firms. Europeans are more likely to trust healthcare, airline and consumer goods companies, and frown on banks and other financial services companies.

The survey found that trust in the U.S. private sector is on the rise. Trust in Corporate America rose seven points to 48 percent since Edelman's June `02 survey. The PR exec attributes legislation, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley law, with boosting confidence in business. Trust in the U.S. Government tumbled to 39 percent from its 48 percent post-9/11 mark.

American icon brands such as Coca-Cola and McDonald's are respected more here than over there. Coke gets a 66 percent approval rating in the U.S., and scores 37 percent in Europe. Fifty-five percent of Americans approve of McDonald's. The fast food feeder gets a 22 percent ranking in Europe.

What are the most trusted brands in Europe? They are NGOs Amnesty International, World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace and Oxfam International.

B-M WORKS FOR `NET SNOOP

Burson-Marsteller is now working for Stellar Internet Monitoring because SIM's CEO was impressed after reading an article placed by B-M in Advertising Age extolling the cost effectiveness of PR over advertising.

Richard Schmidt, CEO of the Bonita Springs, Fla., company, told this NL that he contacted B-M after the Ad Age piece ran, and invited the firm to make a proposal.

SIM, which has web-based tools to help companies snoop on how employees are using the `Net, had once used high-tech firm The Stephenson Group, but wanted to expand its marketing base, according to the CEO.

Schmidt said it came down to either hiring B-M or doing PR in-house. He selected B-M because of its media relations expertise and executive positioning plans.

The company contends that misuse of the Internet costs American business about $63 billion in lost productivity as workers chat, shop and trade stocks online.

PT&CO. AIMS FOR 100+ S. AFRICA STORIES

Patrice Tanaka & Co. is working on getting more than 100 stories to appear this year about places to see and stay in South Africa.

The New York-based PR firm has been given approval to conduct at least 14 press trips to the country over the next six to eight months as part of its assignment for the South African Tourism department, according to Moeketsi Mosola, COO of SAT.

Writers who have been given assignments to write or produce pieces about South Africa's travel destinations will be invited to go on the all-expenses paid trips, a spokesperson for the PR firm said.

The 14-day itinerary, which the spokesperson described as "grueling," will include stops in Capetown and Johannesburg, and will focus on destinations that will be featured in a new ad campaign targeting two different types of U.S. travelers-the rich and the adventurous.

The two-part campaign was unveiled at a press conference and cocktail party, arranged by PT&Co., that was held Jan. 23 in New York. About 100 reporters and travel industry executives attended the meeting at the Harold Pratt House, which is the home of the Council of Foreign Relations.

Solly Moeng, U.S. country manager for SAT, said the new marketing approach is the result of comprehensive research that has "enabled us to identify and pursue two key targets in the first part of our campaign-the top end luxury segment-`Next Stop South Africa'-where the bulk of our current market share sits; and the younger, action and adventure loving professional-`Upscale Wanderlusters.'"

The "Next Stop South Africa" campaign will be featured in Conde Nast Traveler, National Geographic Traveler, Travel + Leisure, Departures, Smithsonian, New Yorker and International Travel News, and online at Concierge.com and The Away Network.

The "Upscale Wanderluster" ads will run in Budget Travel, National Geographic Adventure, Travel Holiday, Blue, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post. It will also be featured online at Concierge.com, The Away Network, Frommers.msnbc.com, and Fodors.com.

Information on SAT is available on southafrica.net or from Jill Ackerman at 212/730-2929 ext. 616 or [email protected].

PEOPLE

Dean Wright, 52, was hired as editor-in-chief of MSNBC.com to replace Merrill Brown, who quit in June. Wright, who is moving to the Seattle area from New York, will start Feb. 10.

He wants to make the site "a bit more populist" with more coverage of lifestyle and entertainment.

"There's lots of room to increase coverage of popular topics and affect users' lives without giving up on the essential mission to keep people informed," said Wright.

Sandra Sobieraj, 35, has quit The Associated Press to join People magazine as chief of its Washington, D.C., bureau.

Shani Saxon, who was music editor at Vibe, was promoted to executive editor of the urban music and culture magazine.

Serena Kim was named features editor, a new position, and Eric Parker, previously senior editor at The Source, has joined as music editor.

Kim will handle coverage of non-music features, investigative stories, cultural trend pieces and business profiles.

Jason Adams, previously editor of the "Burner" section at Blender magazine, and Ari Karpel, who was editing TV Guide's "Insider" section, have joined Entertainment Weekly as senior editors.

Tom Geier, who was EW's "News & Notes" editor, was reassigned to the book review section.

Tracey Pepper was promoted to senior editor at Spin, a New York-based magazine. She will continue to edit news, music profiles, and new artist coverage in the magazine's "Noise" section.

Jeff Koyen, who is currently an associate editor of The Pill, an English-language alternative weekly in Prague, is joining The New York Press, a weekly paper, as editor. He will replace Lisa Kearns, former managing editor, who was named editor when John Strausbaugh left the paper after it was acquired by Avalon Equities, owners of The New York Blade.

Alexander Zaitchik, a co-founder of The Pill, also is joining the NYP as an associate editor.

MEDIA BRIEFS

Time Inc. is "studying as many as half a dozen new magazine ideas," according to The Wall Street Journal. The ideas range from a title about small houses to one that consists mostly of celebrity pictures.

The New York Times, if forced to close its West 43rd st. headquarters due to a terror attack or natural disaster, will move its news department to its production plant in Edison, N.J.

The American Gem Society (ags.org) has established the Richard Liddicoat Journalism Award.

Checks for $1,000 will be given to reporters in three categories: jewelry industry/trade reporting, consumer reporting in national/multiple markets and consumer reporting in a local market for writing articles that make "exceptional contributions to the understanding of gemology."

Industry Week's editor-in-chief Patricia Panchak seeks nominations for the "Executive Word" column, which puts the spotlight on top executives at companies, who "make good deeds part of business strategy."

She is at [email protected].

(Media news continued on next page)

NEW MAGS TO BOW AT N.Y. FASHION SHOW

Three new fashion publications will make their publishing debut at New York's Fashion Week, which starts Feb. 7.

7th on Sixth, which produces the event, will publish seven issues of The Daily; Women's Wear Daily will introduce Inside New York, and Time magazine will distribute free copies of Style & Design to attendees of the show at Bryant Park.

Brandon Niro is editor of The Daily, which Newsday describes as "a news-and-gossip tabloid."

Niro, a former publicist, was editor of US Weekly's paper, US Daily, which was published for the first time at last September's fashion show. US Daily will return.

Niro's paper will feature lots of fashion, gossip and scene reporting, and lots of photos.

Belinda Luscombe, editor of Style & Design, told Newsday her magazine, which will be mailed to 600,000 Time subscribers who are either very high income or also subscribe to InStyle, will cover business aspects of fashion and other design topics, such as cars and architecture, exploring how culture and identity are shaped through design.

WWD's Feb. 7th special section, called Inside New York, will focus its coverage on "it" parties and restaurants, and such matters as how designers get A-list celebrities to their shows and how much a show costs. WWD will continue its normal daily coverage.

Full Frontal Fashion, a cable TV show, will once again provide runway coverage on the Metro Channel. For the first time, coverage is being extended to London, Milan and Paris.

National Version to Air

Also for the first time, WE: Women's Entertainment will carry a national version of the show, beginning with a Feb. 23 preview (part of a month-long "Fashion Spectacular"), going weekly in April. The E! Networks' Style Network will air a runway show, "Fashion Trance," Feb. 8-15.

People, which published two newsstand-only issues called Style Watch last year, will do a repeat. The next issue goes on sale March 3.

Vogue also is expanding its fashion coverage with an occasional TV series called "Trend Watch." Though editors will appear, it is actually a business venture linking the purchase of commercials and print ads in the magazine.

Vogue, which last year broadcast the runway shows on a giant screen in Bryant Park for the public, is planning to add screens in Grand Central Terminal and in W hotel lounges.

CBS EXPANDS MUTUAL FUNDS COVERAGE

CBS MarketWatch is expanding its mutual fund coverage with the addition of two financial writers.

Jonathan Burton, who is the author of "Investment Titans" and "Electronic Day Traders' Secrets," has joined as mutual funds editor, and Charles Jaffe, a financial writer for The Boston Globe, has signed on as a contributing columnist.

Burton is replacing Craig Tolliver, who will now edit the site's Newsletters & Research channel. Burton will handle "FundWatch" and "Mutual Understanding" columns for CBS MarketWatch, and also edit its Mutual Funds Weekly newsletter.

Jaffe, who is president of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, will provide three columns a week in addition to audio and video analysis of breaking news affecting personal finance or of the fund industry.

Jaffe will continue to write his mutual columns, which are syndicated in 50+ newspapers nationwide.

PRINCIPOR GETS PRESS FOR SOUP KITCHEN

Principor Communications put together a publicity-getting program for Miriam's Kitchen, which serves breakfast and provides social services to men and women who are homeless in the Foggy Bottom area of Washington, D.C.

The campaign is built around Steve Badt, a professionally trained chef who traded a career in high-end restaurants to conceive and prepare gourmet meals for people who might otherwise never have the opportunity to enjoy them.

The "Chef Steve" angle has resulted in features on National Public Radio's D.C. affiliate and in The Washington Post and Washington Times, plus a feature on Badt in the Feb. 3 issue of People.

"This coverage has resulted in measurable increases in both financial and volunteer support," said John Jordan of Principor. "Volunteer interest has been so high that Miriam's recently started a second shift to accommodate them," he said.

Jordan said the campaign proves "PR is about communicating what makes an enterprise different.

Sometimes the differentiator is the management team."

PR PRO TELLS HOW TO PITCH MEDIA

Al Lautenslager, a marketing/PR consultant who owns a printing and mailing company in Wheaton, Ill., passed along these pitch tips that he got from the editors of four well-known publications on Entrepreneur.com:

-Give leads about people no one has really heard about before or a new effort from a company that is trying something different.

-Offer case histories.

-Give real examples of how the product or service differs from the competition.

-Make sure the story is one no one has written about at the newspaper or magazine.

-Make sure the press release communicates to editors exactly what makes the product unique.

E-mail is the best way to pitch stories, said Lautenslager, who also advises readers not to say "press release" in the subject line.

PINCUS RAPS COKE FOR 'CLAMMING UP'

Ted Pincus, the former CEO of The Financial Relations Board, has knocked Coca-Cola's decision to discontinue its practice of offering investors guidance on earnings expectations.

Pincus, an adjunct professor of finance in the MBA program at DePaul University, said Coke's new non-disclosure policy "represents a troubling regression in the annals of corporate disclosure."

The IR veteran said he and other pros "spent decades patiently coaxing CEOs into the sunshine."

"We preached the mantra that if a company sincerely sought wider investor interest, leading to a maximum sustainable price/earnings multiple, then there was a price to be paid," he wrote in an op-ed piece that ran in the Jan. 28 Chicago Sun-Times.

Pincus said IR pros asked CEOs to avoid the quarterly numbers game, and talk in ranges of performance over a year or more, talk specifics on how they hoped to attain them, and be ready and willing to update investors frequently by fine tuning their expectations.

By the late '90s, an estimated 75 percent of all public companies were providing what came to be called "street guidance"-the frequent, full and simultaneous disclosure of performance expectations, according to Pincus.

He said the transformation was credited with reinforcing the "glasnost spirit" that helped inspire the investor confidence that created the longest bull market in history.

PIPER RUDNICK PROMOTES 'FREE' KOSOVO

Piper Rudnick is working to build U.S. Congressional support for the independence of Kosovo, which is part of Yugoslavia's Serbia province. Kosovo saw much bloodshed during the `90s when then Serbian leader Slobodan Milsevic unleashed a campaign against the ethnic Albanian majority. A U.S.-led NATO force drove the Serbians out. Kosovo has been a United Nations protectorate since 1999.

Kosovo's independence is opposed by current Serbian leadership. Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic warned last month that an effort to create a free Kosovo could result in more violence.

Piper Rudnick's $30K a-month agreement calls for it to relay Kosovo's take on the political, economic, human rights, intelligence and security concerns in the Balkans. Marshall Harris heads that effort. He is the former State Dept. official who resigned in 1993 to protest the U.S. "inaction" to contain the bloodshed in Bosnia. He also was VP at Freedom House in Washington, D.C., and chairman of the Acquisition Support Institute, an organization that works with the State and Defense Departments to facilitate training of the Bosnian military.

Terry Wade, former EVP of PA at Cohn & Wolfe and managing director at Burson-Marsteller, has set up The WadeGroup in Washington, D.C. He had headed C&W's D.C. office, which closed Dec. 2001.

RUBENSTEIN TACKLES SEX DISORDERS

Rubenstein Assocs. is providing IR services to NexMed Inc., a Robbinsville, N.J.-based company that has products in the pipeline to treat erectile dysfunction and female sexual arousal disorder. NexMed, in December, completed Phase 3 clinical trials in more than 80 research centers for Alprox-TD, a topical cream that it hopes one day will compete with Viagra.

The company believes Alprox will be more attractive than Viagra to the more than 30 million men with ED because it is faster-acting with less side effects. NexMed CEO Joseph Mo also eyes commercialization of Femprox which is targeted at the 43 percent of women between 18 and 54 that the American Medical Assn. reports have some sexual dysfunction. There is no commercial pharmaceutical product that has been approved for FSAD. NexMed claims the worldwide FSAD market is bigger than the ED category.

Clint Cantwell of Rubenstein Investor Relations heads the NexMed account. Deborah Carty, a NexMed spokesperson, could not be reached.

Just What the Doctors Ordered?

Drug companies have been accused by Ray Moynihan, editor for the British Medical Journal of resorting to "behind the scenes" PR tactics to promote a new disorder called "female sexual dysfunction" in an article published Jan. 31 in The Age, a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia,

Moynihan said the history of female sexual dysfunction contains "many blurred lines. Essentially a group of researchers with ties to drug companies has been defining and refining a new category of human illness at meetings sponsored by the same companies racing to develop new drugs," he said.

He believes the discussions about sexual problems and revelations about the creation of the dysfunction are part of a wider story about close relationships between doctors and drug companies-"relationships that may be distorting medical science and skewing our notions of health and illness."

BENNETT TO CITIGATE

Bill Bennett, former senior VP at Ruder Finn and Golin/Harris Int'l, has been named to head the Sun Microsystems account at Citigate Cunningham. He takes over for VP Kevin Patsel, who has left the firm.

Bennett, who joins the firm as VP and portfolio leader in its Palo Alto office, reports to CC president Paul Bergevin. Bennett has previously counted NCR, Toshiba and Sun as clients in a 20-year career.
Most recently, he was an independent consultant handling Interwoven, Pulsent and Actuate.

Prior to a term in Ruder Finn's San Francisco office, Bennett founded marketing consultancy Information Design Assocs., was a senior VP/general manager at Hill and Knowlton's advanced technology division and held communications posts at Hewlett-Packard and Convergent Technologies.

This NL is again gathering fee and employee totals of PR firms for our annual rankings. As has been the case for the past four years, the 15 or so biggest PR firms are refusing to supply them.

The firms are in the so-called "Council of PR Firms," which is trying to establish itself as the collector of statistics for the industry. A better name for the group would be the "Coalition of Big PR Firms." This is a case of the fox appointing itself caretaker of the chicken coop.

Almost all of the $1 million in income of the CPRF comes from the biggest firms, each of which pays $50K yearly in dues.

After nearly five years, only a handful of smaller firms have joined. The CPRF lost 26 firms in 2001-2002 and added 14 for a current total of 120. Dues are .65% of fees. Minimum is $2,500.

Nevertheless, the CPRF claims to be "the leading authority on the PR industry." The CPRF's rules benefit the big, conglomerate-owned PR operations.

If a conglomerate buys 51% of a PR firm on Dec. 31, it can count 100% of the income for the entire year. Up to 10% of income can be from "issue" ads. Conglomerates can combine billings of PR units as long as "control" is asserted and the same brand name is used. This leads to boxcar figures in which dozens of firms are "combined."

Shandwick, for example, was once 35 different PR firms.

No account lists are required by the CPRF, which fits in with the big firms' penchant for secrecy.

The rules play into the hands of the conglomerates' PR firms which no longer have separate income tax returns and may not have separate W-3s. They get their numbers under supervision of parent ad giants such as Omnicom and Interpublic, whose managements are under fire for alleged financial irregularities. Loss of faith in the financial reporting of OMC and IPG has caused their stock prices to plummet.

Payroll, fee and employment totals for 2002 are known to the big firms now. But they're not going to reveal them until May (last year's publishing date). Before the CPRF started interfering, we published the figures by the first week in March.

PR firms and suppliers say business is "just about standing still" because of the threat of war. New York counselor Richard Laermer says PR firms can help their clients through this period by providing emotional support and advice and by being in constant touch with them. Keeping them informed is one way to lessen their stress, he said.

The New York Times policy of having its reporters avoid friendships with sources (1/29 NL) is evident at the N.Y. Financial Writers' Assn. In 1971, 28 NYT financial reporters were in the NYFWA including financial editor Tom Mullaney, future financial editor John Lee and columnist Bob Bedingfield.

Others included John Abele, Bob Cole, Glenn Fowler, Erich Heinemann, Al Kraus, Jim Nagle, Gene Smith, Bill Smith, Len Sloane and Phil Wiggins.

Many took part in the "Financial Follies" where about half the cast and stagehands were PR pros. During the weekly rehearsals over a period of months and at various parties, many friendships were formed.

But in recent years, as the NYT became more insular, NYT staffers dropped out. Only five Timespeople currently belong. CNN has about 20 members. The Wall Street Journal had 12 members in 1971 but only one now.

Despite its pledge to tell the "complete, unvarnished truth," the NYT last year skipped the 35th anniversary of Israel's (mistaken?) attack on the USS Liberty in 1967.

However, it may have to do something now since the Washington Post on Feb. 1 ran an extensive piece on it, saying "evidence suggests a U.S. government coverup."

The NYT has also virtually ignored the financial troubles of Omnicom, which have been covered extensively by The Wall Street Journal.

The blocking of press/ PR personal relationships, which is being done by companies as much as media, indicates companies don't trust their employees.

Communications are stymied if reporters and PR pros almost never get to see each other in person.

PRSA, which switched from "Big Four" CPA Deloitte & Touche to Sobel & Co., says its 2002 audit will be ready in early March. Results in past years were often announced in mid-summer because D&T was "busy with blue chips."

PRSA treasurer Del Galloway told the Assembly Nov. 17 that the Society was "very low" in cash and investments based on standards of the American Soc. of Assn. Execs.

PRSA's cash is about 11% of annual expenses and it should be "around 50%" according to the ASAE. Aim is to get this up to 20% in the next four years.

The new PRSA logo at least gives a capital "A" to America. The previous logo, which had a small "a" for America, was disrespectful, some members felt.

Lame duck SEC chairman Harvey Pitt, pressured by Wall Street, accountants and lawyers, is "watering down" or "delaying" some rules designed to prevent future Enron-type scandals, said Time mag Feb. 3.

CPAs can still earn consulting fees from companies they audit.

Company lawyers must report wrongdoing internally but not to the SEC as once planned.

The National IR Institute defines IR as "a strategic corporate marketing activity" that at the same time gives an "accurate portrayal of a company's performance and prospects."

This is like having the sales staff of a newspaper write the stories.

Aware of the contradiction, NIRI literature adds, "Marketing in this context does not mean 'selling.'"

IR, it says, involves "educating" audiences. Our dictionary says marketing is "the act or process of selling."

--Jack O'Dwyer