FOUR VIE FOR MEDICARE PACT.
Ogilvy PR Worldwide, Ketchum, American Education Development and GCI Group are competing for a two-year multi-million dollar contract from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The work covers social marketing and planning, development and delivery of consumer-based communications programs. The contract provides for four one-year options and caps out at $17.25M.

Ketchum’s work on the Medicare overhaul and Prescription Drug Act drew fire from the Government Accountability Office in 2004 and sparked an ongoing controversy over the use of video news releases.

ILLINOIS LOTTERY ACCEPTING BIDS FOR PR.
The Illinois Lottery is collecting proposals for its $300K/year PR account through the end of May. Hill & Knowlton, which will defend the work, has handled the account for the last eight years, according to Courtney Hill, manager of small business for H&K/Chicago.

The Lottery issued an RFP for “image management” and “game support/winner awareness” and is accepting proposals through May 31. The four highest ranking firms after the initial phase will continue through the interview process for the three-year contract.

Crisis management is also a key aspect of the work. The Lottery has been drawn into a state contract controversy as an audit last week could not document $5.1 million in ad spending with the Lottery’s outside agency, R.J. Dale Advertising & PR.

PAWLE SUCCEEDS KNOX AT FD.
Oliver Pawle, vice chairman of UBS Investment Bank, has been named chairman of Financial Dynamics. He succeeds Tony Knox, who departs after 17 years to pursue other interests.

Knox, in a statement, said he felt the time was “right to pass on my chairman responsibilities to a new pair of hands.” He noted that since FD completed its management buyout 18 months ago the firm has gone “from strength to strength on both sides of the Atlantic.”

Pawle has been serving as chairman of FD’s advisory board for the past year. He had been at Price Waterhouse and Baring Brothers prior to joining UBS.

Charles Watson remains CEO at FD.

Julia Jensen, VP of corporate communications, Mattel, El Segundo, Calif., has joined Kmart/Sears, Troy, Mich., as VP-CC to replace Lori McTavish, who has returned to DaimlerChrysler. Search was by Jean Cardwell of Cardwell Enterprises.

F-H HELPS CHEVRON DROP ‘TEXACO.’
ChevronTexaco Corp., the fifth largest oil company in the world, is using Fleishman-Hillard’s San Francisco office to revert to its original name, Chevron Corp.

The petroleum giant said it would drop the name of its 2001 acquisition in order to put forth a “clear, strong and unified presence.” Michael Barrett, a media advisor in Chevron’s policy, government and public affairs unit, told O’Dwyer’s F-H was brought in to assist in the re-branding efforts.

The company, founded in 1879 and acquired by Standard Oil at the turn of the 20th century, took on the Chevron name in 1977 and was the first company to strike oil in the Middle East (in Saudi Arabia before World War II). It is based in San Ramon, Calif.

The name change comes as Chevron has moved to buy Unocal Corp. for $15.1 billion.
Chevron acquired Texaco in a $45 billion deal.

ompetitor BP dropped Amoco from its name in 1998 while other oil giants like ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips retain the names of acquisitions.

GPG GETS $600K PACT FROM TURKS.
The Glover Park Group has inked a $600K contract with Turkey to devise overall communications and media strategy aimed at the general public. The firm also will advise the Turks on their relationship with the White House and Congress.

GPG’s contract plays up the importance of the website of the Turkish Embassy (www.turkishembassy.org). The site is referred to as “an integral part of the Government’s outreach in the U.S.”

The PR firm is responsible for updating the site, keeping it “relevant and effective as far as the Government’s PR efforts are concerned.” GPG will issue a report to the Embassy regarding its “web work” every three months.

GPG’s contract is separate from the $1.8 million contract that The Livingston Group has with Turkey. That one-year pact with former Speaker-designate Bob Livingston’s firm was renewed on March 1.

OMC MEETING JOURNEYS TO DALLAS.
The Omnicom annual stockholders meeting, which for many years was held in New York where most security analysts, the advertising/PR trade press and many financial publications are based, will be held at 10 a.m., Tuesday, May 24, suite 1700, Harwood Center, 1999 Bryan st., Dallas.

The meeting was held in Los Angeles in 2003 and
(continued on page 7)

PENTAGON SUED FOR INFO ON RENDON.
The Pentagon has erected a “pretty good stone wall,” Chris Farrell, director of investigations at Judicial Watch, told O’Dwyer’s, referring to JW’s quest to get info about the Rendon Group’s work for the DOD.

The conservative Washington, D.C.-based legal watchdog filed a Freedom of Information Act request in March `04, asking for the names of entities contracted by the Pentagon for “strategic influence, perception management, strategic information warfare and/or psychological operations” since 9/11.

JW is especially concerned that the Pentagon may be “propagandizing the American public” by backing Rendon’s “Empower Peace” Internet educational campaign linking American school age children with their counterparts in the Arab world.

EP may be a violation of the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which forbids the domestic dissemination of U.S. government-developed propaganda or “official news,” said Farrell.

The Pentagon confirmed receipt of JW’s FOIA last April. The next month it informed JW that its request was “complex,” but the materials would be available by July 15.

JW filed suit on February 25, 2005 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking the Rendon records.

Rick Rendon called the charge that EP is a Pentagon tool to spread propaganda “absolutely not true.” He said EP is part of the firm’s 15-year-old youth marketing practice. EP has “zero” funding from the Pentagon, added Rendon.

EDELMAN HELPS GE GO ‘GREEN.’
Edelman handled General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt’s May 9 presentation in Washington, D.C., where he detailed the conglomerate’s “ecomagination” campaign dedicated to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and producing green-friendly products.

A key element of ecomagination will be to double revenues from eco-friendly products (solar panels, coal-gasification plants and energy-efficient appliances) to $20 billion by 2010. The company also will lobby the Bush Administration on the need for utilities to step up use of renewable energy sources.

KEMPNER WEARS ANOTHER CEO HAT.
MWW Group chief Michael Kempner is pulling double-duty as CEO of The Financial Relations Board in a restructuring move of Interpublic’s IR/financial PR unit. He is replacing Donni Case, who has exited the president post.

Kempner told O’Dwyer’s there are no plans to name a successor to Case. FRB, he said, will continue to operate as a separate division aligned with the New Jersey-based-based MWW. It had reported to Weber Shandwick.

Case, who had more than 30 years of experience at FRB, succeeded the legendary Ted Pincus in `01. FRB has 60 staffers. It had $26.6 million in fees in `97 and 244 staffers. FRB was acquired by BSMG in `99, and merged into WS in `00.

PR WARNS SENATE ON VNR BILL.
PR industry representatives testified before a Congressional subcommittee May 12 in support of a temporary amendment requiring disclosure of government video new releases, but warned the Senate about permanent legislation.

Judith Phair, president/CEO of PR Society of America, said she was opposed to measures like frame-by-frame identification of VNRs which are sought by Sens. John Kerry and Frank Lautenberg.

Phair said that PR “exists as a profession today because it has established a level of trust with the media and public” and that “imposing rigid requirements and specifications on the information we provide to the public will not best serve the building of this trust.”

Phair, Doug Simon, CEO of D S Simon Productions, and Barbara Cochran, president of the Radio-Television News Directors Association, told the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation they back Sen. Robert Byrd’s amendment requiring “clear notification” in text or audio during prepackaged news stories. The Senate passed that addition to an emergency war supplemental bill on a 98-0 vote last week, but the amendment expires at the end of September.

Simon, Phair and Cochran do not support the “Truth in Broadcasting” bill introduced by Sens. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Lautenberg (D-N.J.) which was the subject of the committee hearings. One particular concern is the bill’s requirement that the FCC design the look and language of the notification that would appear on government VNR footage. Simon, however, differed with his colleagues in welcoming a government role in pushing for broader disclosure.

“Disclosure to the public is ultimately the responsibility of broadcasters,” Phair told the committee. Both Phair and Cochran pointed to their groups’ ethics codes and guidelines as adequate for government disclosure. Cochran urged Congress not to respond to the “mistakes of the few.”

FITZGERALD MOVES TO MYLAN LABS.
Patrick Fitzgerald, director of PR for General Nutrition Centers, has taken a VP/PR post at Pittsburgh-based pharmaceutical maker Mylan Laboratories.

He takes the PR reins from Heather Bresch, who has been promoted to a new post of VP of strategic corporate development in the office of CEO Robert Coury. Bresch has also recently been elected to serve as chairman of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association.

Fitzgerald held senior roles at Ketchum and Edelman and was director of corporate communications and investor relations for Midway Games for six years. At Midway, he handled communications for the company’s IPO and acquisition of Atari.

Mylan is a takeover target for Carl Icahn, the billionaire financier who opposed a planned Mylan merger with King Pharmaceuticals that fell apart earlier this year.

Fitzgerald told O’Dwyer’s that Mylan is not “officially” using any outside PR regarding the Icahn matter, but he said the company is consulting with advisors.

N.Y. TIMES TOLD TO RETHINK ITS COVERAGE.
An internal committee at The New York Times has given its conclusions on how the paper could rebuild its credibility as a news organization.

The committee, which was composed of 19 members, including editors, reporters, a copy editor and a photographer, recommended the paper increase coverage of middle America, rural areas and religion.

“In part because the Times’s editorial page is clearly liberal, the news pages do need to make more effort not to seem monolithic,” the report said. “We should seek talented journalists who happen to have military experience, who know rural America first hand, who are at home in different faiths.”

The panel also urged editors to write a regular column dealing with matters concerning the paper.

It also said the paper should not keep quiet when it is criticized and reporters and editors should be more easily available through e-mail. It recommended the paper consider creating a web forum to promote reader interaction.

It also urged reporters to use the Internet to provide complete documents used in stories as well as transcripts of interviews.

The report, which noted the paper published some 3,200 corrections last year, said reporters should confirm the accuracy of articles with sources before publication and solicit feedback afterward.

It also urged stricter demarcation between opinion and news stories.

Editor Agrees

Bill Keller, executive editor of the Times, told his staff in an e-mail message that he lamented “the clamor of partisan critics on the right and left” as well as “the shouting heads who have made denuciation of the serious press part of their commercial shtick.”

Then in an interview with Mark Jurkowitz, who covers media for The Boston Globe, Keller said he had a “basically positive” reaction to the idea that the Times become more aggressive about defending itself.

But Keller said in his interview with Jurkowitz that he does not want the paper to “get into the spin room, and I don’t want us to get into a newsroom PR operation. But I think a lot of times we ignore critics or react slowly, so that (the criticisms) ricochet out to the world without being addressed.”

BINN HIRES EXEC. ED. FOR CAPITOL FILE.
Anne Schroeder, who compiles the “Names & Faces” column for The Washington Post, is joining Capitol File as executive editor.

The new celebrity-oriented magazine, published by Jason Binn’s Niche Media, is starting this September in Washington, D.C.

The new quarterly, which will distribute 70,000 copies to homes in affluent zip code areas, will cover fashion, food, culture, society, philanthrophy, real estate, and home design, in addition to personality-driven stories about movers and shakers in D.C.

Jamie Biden, a nephew of Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), is an associate editor of Capitol File.

PEOPLE_______
Elisa Lipsky-Karasz, a weekend gossip reporter for The New York Post, has joined Women’s Wear Daily to cover news for the “Eye” page and to work on Scoop, an upcoming WWD magazine.

Sue Binford, SVP/corporate communications at Disney-ABC TV Group, has resigned. She had been in her current position since Sept. and with the company for two years.

MEDIA NUMBERS________
2,179—The number of commercial radio stations in the U.S. that have a news/talk format, according to Arbitron. About 80% of the U.S.’s 13,838 “terrestrial” radio stations are commercial stations.

29—The percentage of Internet users that visited newspaper web sites in March 2005, representing a total audience of nearly 44 million people, according to a new report by Nielsen/Net Ratings for the Newspaper Assn. of America, which pointed out it was a “high water mark” in online newspaper readership.

33—The percentage of web users in a new Burst! Media survey of 2,600 web users, who said they spend less time today, compared to a year ago, with: TV (35.5%), or magazines (34.1%).
One-quarter of the respondents said they spent less time listening to radio (27%), or reading newspapers (30%), compared to ‘04.

MEDIA BRIEFS________
LifeTips.com, one of the largest online publishers of free tips and advice, has added a Press Release Tips site, sponsored by eReleases, a press release and distribution service company founded in 1998 by Mickie Kennedy.

Readers can find answers to questions about writing, formatting and sending press releases and advice on press release submission, media relations, writing press releases, and other related topics.

Chief Executive magazine, based in Montvale, N.J., has hired Russ Mitchell as West Coast editor.
Bill Holstein, who is editor-in-chief of CE, said Mitchell, who has over 20 years of experience covering business and technology, will be responsible for increased coverage of business interests unique to that region.

CE has a controlled circulation that reaches 42,000 CEOs and their peers, and is published 10 times a year.

More information is available at chiefexecutive.net.

Allergic Living, Toronto, which published its first issue on May 10, will cover the spectrum of allergies, where more than 1.3 million Canadians are affected by food allergies.

Gwen Smith, former editor of Elm Street magazine, is editor of AL, and can be pitched at 416/760-8381; e-mail: [email protected]

(Media news continued on next page)

FRAIL JOINS SMITHSONIAN AS SR. EDITOR.
Carey Winfrey, editor of Smithsonian magazine, has named Tom Frail as senior editor.

Frail, formerly enterprise editor for The Washington Post, will handle modern history and news features, as well as essays and anniversary stories for the 35-year-old monthly magazine, which focuses on history, science, travel and the arts.

HANSEN NAMED EDITOR OF WIRED NEWS.
Evan Hansen, who was senior editor at CNET News.com, has joined Wired News in Waltham, Mass., as editor-in-chief of the website, which covers the impact of technology, science and the Internet on business, politics, culture and people’s daily lives.

Mark McClusky, formerly an associate editor of Mobile Magazine, has joined as games editor, and Kevin Poulsen, previously news editor at SecurityFocus.com, joins the site’s staff as a senior reporter.

BERGENHEIM IS MONITOR’S NEW EDITOR.
Richard Bergenheim was picked to replace Paul Van Slambrouck as editor of The Christian Science Monitor on May 15.

Bergenheim was editor-in-chief of The Christian Science Publishing Society, where he set strategy and oversaw editorial quality of the paper and of Monitor Radio.

Van Slambrouck, who was the Monitor’s editor since July 2001, is going to San Francisco to work as one of the paper’s senior editors and to write regularly on international affairs and the impact of technology on society.

The trustees of the CSPS also revealed a goal of eliminating the society’s need for a subsidy from the church’s general fund by 2008.

Bergenheim said concerns that the paper will not survive are unfounded.

PEOPLE_______
Ann Powers, a music journalist and best-selling author, is joining Blender magazine in June as a senior critic.

Powers, who has been working for the Experience Music Project in Seattle, is a former pop critic for The New York Times and a senior editor at the Village Voice.

Katie Boyle, previously a senior producer for “48 Hours,” was named senior broadcast producer for CBS News’ “The Early Show.”

Jeremy McCarter, currently the chief theater critic for The New York Sun and a contributing editor for the New Republic, will start reviewing plays and musicals for New York magazine on June 1.
He replaces John Simon as chief theater critic for the magazine.

Michael Newman, formerly a staff editor of The New York Times’ op-ed page, was named deputy editorial page editor of The Los Angeles Times.

He will be a member of the editorial board, which determines the editorial page positions of the paper.

ORESKES TO EDIT IHT FOR NYT CO.
Michael Oreskes was named executive editor of The International Herald Tribune.

No date was set as to when Oreskes, who is deputy managing editor of the New York Times, will join the Paris-based paper, which is owned by The New York Times Co.

Oreskes will succeed Walter Wells, who is retiring.

Alison Smale will stay on as managing editor of IHT, which is also printed in Hong Kong.

GROUP GIVES TIPS ON OPENINGS.
One of the benefits of belonging to Ed2010 is to find out about impending editorial job openings.

Members of the group use an online form to tip off other members about impending openings. The so-called “whisper jobs” are printed in Ed2010’s newsletter and archived on its website, www.ed2010.com.

Chandra Czape, who is deputy editor of CosmoGirl! in New York, is founder/president of Ed2010, which has grown in the past seven years from about 15 wannabe editors to more than 4,600 college students and magazine staffers at all levels.

PLACEMENT TIPS________
Cosmopolitan magazine will publish a special 40th anniversary issue in September.

Dow Jones Newswires is starting a commentary and analysis service focused on the interest-rate swaps and foreign-exchange options markets in G7 and Asia-Pacific countries.

The “Commentary Plus” service is produced by a team of reporters and analysts in New York and Singapore, led by William Mallard, who is news editor for the Money desk in Singapore.

DJN says it delivers up to 10,000 news items a day to 390,000 financial professionals in 66 countries.

Radar magazine’s new online version will have a weekly column by Adam Hanft, an ad/marketing, and social trends specialist who, the magazine says, created the “Flick Your Bic” campaign.

The column, called “The Sell,” makes its debut on May 18, will look at the ways in which consumers are “sold” everything from media and entertainment properties, to political arguments and sports.

Hanft can use ideas, pitches and suggestions for the column. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].

The National Assn. of Real Estate Editors will offer PR pros and freelance writers the chance to pitch story ideas to journalists at their annual conference, which starts June 2 at the Hilton Washington Embassy hotel in D.C.

Journalists from 25 news outlets, including the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and New York Post, are expected to participate in the “Meet the Press” event, according to Mary Doyle-Kimball, executive director of NAREE.

Doyle-Kimball can be reached in Boca Raton, Fla., at 561/391-3599.

Drug industry PR was said to be at an all-time low by speakers at the PRSA Health Academy in Washington, D.C., May 4-6 (page one).

Michael Roth, Academy chair and head of communications at Novartis, said the public has the wrong picture and it is time for communicators to “rebuild confidence in the healthcare industry in America.”

But when this NL called Roth and the PR heads of other major drug companies, no one would respond to the charges made at the conference.

PR was on the griddle at a Senate hearing May 12. Douglas Simon of D S Simon Productions, Judy Phair of PRSA, and Barbara Cochran of the Radio-TV News Directors Assn. are against frame-by-frame identification sought by Senators Frank Lautenburg (D-NJ) and John Kerry (D-MA).

Simon proposed that VNRs be sent to stations with graphic identification at the start, another version without a graphic, and another with continuous identification. Broadcasters could pick one. The fear is the broadcasters will reduce VNR usage.

If so, the stations would be forced to do a lot of camera work on their own since news shows don’t like to have too many “talking heads.”

We were astounded when Phair said “PR exists as a profession today because it has established a level of trust with the media and public.”

The $150K study funded by PRSA and the Rockefeller Foundation, published in 1999, found “PR specialist” to rank 43 out of 45 information sources in “believability.” That study was done by professors at Duke and Columbia universities. Contrary to what Phair said, media/PR relations seem to be at an all time low.

The Feb. 13 article by Timothy O’Brien in the New York Times (“Spin Frenzy: PR’s Bad Press”) is only the latest indication of this. We hope Phair will provide some examples of the “level of trust” she claims.

Kerry attacked the view that VNRs should be treated no differently than printed press releases.

With the latter, he said, there is no chance for “an actor pretending to be a reporter” to speak directly to the public.

Our Exhibit A of the mistrust between business and the media is the biggest owner of PR, Omnicom, which says its PR firms do $1 billion of business a year.

CEO John Wren, who reminds us of the “runaway bride,” is now running to Dallas for an annual stockholders meeting May 24 that should be in New York, where the ad/PR trade press and most security analysts are located. It was in New York for many years.

He said he is moving the meeting around the U.S. to talk to stockholders. But no questions at all were asked at the 2003 meeting in Los Angeles (which AdWeek said lasted “barely five minutes”) and only three spoke at last year’s meeting in Atlanta (one of them a reporter for this NL).

Wren has given one interview since the June 12, 2002 Wall Street Journal story knocked about 40 points off OMC. The stock, as he noted with satisfaction, rose to its previous level of about $80 without him or anyone at OMC talking to the press.

Wren’s message is clear: the best thing to do is duck the press. What does this say for the PR industry? Is this ducking what America stands for–open public discussion?

We think he’s avoiding the press because he would have to explain why OMC, after dozens of quarters in a row of higher sales and earnings, is still about $25 below its high of $107 in 1999.

It hasn’t settled the stockholder suits arising from its sudden stock decline in 2002 and says it is “unable to determine the outcome of these cases and the effect on our financial position...”

Wren, who got his bonus raised to $4M in 2004 (when the stock declined about $3 to $84.28) from $1M in 2003, sold about $10M of OMC stock in 2004. His company income also includes $193,159 for “personal use of aircraft hours.”

Insider sales, totaling about $40M in 2004, have hurt the stock’s credibility on Wall Street.

Two of OMC’s PR firms, Ketchum and Fleishman-Hillard, have made lots of news lately. He should discuss those situations.

National Investor Relations Institute revenues dipped a half a percent to $4,947,412 but gain in assets was $265,830 vs. a decline of $156,395 in 2003.

Spending on PR/marketing was cut from $123K to $11K; membership development from $50K to $16K; website from $78K to $38K, and chapter development from $101K to $76K. NIRI, which is about half the size of PRSA, which has $10M in revenues, spends about $70K yearly on travel and meals while PRSA spends about $500K yearly on this. NIRI, like PRSA, books dues fully when billed, considering them a “gift” that cannot be returned.

PR Reporter, started in 1958 by PR pro Charles Prout “using a typewriter on his kitchen table,” was given to Ragan Comms. in ‘02 with the hope that the weekly would continue. Ragan turned it into a monthly but publication has ceased. Bob Barbour wrote it until ‘75 when Pat Jackson and Otto Lerbinger took over.

PRSA reported that the trip of Judy Phair, Del Galloway, John Paluszek and Catherine Bolton to China March 2-14 cost the Society about $5,500 since the four paid many of their own expenses. Phair sent two dispatches to the PRSA website but no articles on the trip have appeared in PR Tactics of PRSA... China has just jailed a journalist for ten years for improper reporting.

Interpublic lost its General Motors U.S. media buying account to Publicis. It still can’t set a date for its annual meeting because of accounting problems.

– Jack O'Dwyer