GEORGIA LOOKS TO CURB LITTER BUGS.
The State of Georgia, plagued by litter bugs to the tune of $14M in annual cleanup costs, is soliciting proposals for a “full-service public relations firm” to create a communications program to deter citizens from littering.

Gov. Sonny Perdue banded together state agencies and other groups to create the Litter Abatement and Prevention Team by executive order in July to develop a long-term strategy for dealing with haphazardly discarded trash. While individual state agencies have run such programs, Perdue wants a coordinated effort.

The Peach State’s Dept. of Natural Resources, which says it removes two million bags of trash along state roads each year, is conducting the RFP process for the contract, which is expected to run from Nov. 15 through June 30, 2006. Gary Powell is contracting officer ([email protected]). Budget is up to $250K.

The work includes development of a logo, events, legislative and media relations and some advertising. Programs like “Don’t Trash California,” developed by Ogilvy PR Worldwide, and the “Tennessee Trash” campaign are referenced as models.

CRT WINS TANAKA.
Carter Ryley Thomas PR and Marketing has acquired Patrice Tanaka & Co. to create a combined entity with fees in the $10.5M range.

CRT chief and co-founder Mark Raper will serve as CEO of CRT/tanaka. Patrice Tanaka is to hold the vice chairman/chief creative officer and consumer practice head posts. Mike Mulvihill, CRT president and co-founder, becomes president of the merged firm.

Raper said the Tanaka deal is the first move in a plan to build an agency with $20-$30M fees from clients in the consumer, health and corporate categories.

Tanaka said her firm had the opportunity to be acquired at least 20 times, but found CRT to be the right home because of shared chemistry and values.

CRT’s strengths are in the sports marketing, package goods, business-to-business  sectors, while PT&Co. is viewed as expert in lifestyle, cause-related marketing and communications aimed at women.

PT&Co.’s client roster includes Target Stores, Charles Schwab & Co., Girl Scouts, Wines from Rioja and De’Longhi.

CRT counsels Sprint’s NASCAR Nextel Cup Series, Wyeth’s Advil and Capital One.

The new Richmond-based entity has offices in New York, Los Angeles, Charlotte and Norfolk. Both firms are part of the Lumin Collaborative group of PR firms.

COMMERCE PANEL TO TAKE UP VNR BILL.
The Senate Commerce Committee will consider legislation this week requiring continuous source identification for video news releases as part of a mark-up session with three other bills.

The Truth in Broadcasting Act of 2005, introduced by Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) and backed by several other prominent Democrats, is an amendment to the Communications Act of 1934 aimed at making sure the source of “prepackaged news stories” is clear to viewers of broadcast and cable channels.

The source of video material, be it government or another non-news entity sources, is required to be visible “for the entire duration of the prepackaged news story.” In the example of a government VNR, the statement “Produced by the U.S. Government” must be “conspicuous.” Radio and audio programming must “audibly inform the audience” of the sources under the new rules.

The FCC would be given the power to determine design, presentation and additional language for disclaimers.

WROBLESKI MOVES TO IP.
Ann Wrobleski has joined International Paper as VP-PA at the forest products company’s Washington, D.C., office. She had been at the American Forest and Paper Assn., responsible for international affairs.

Wrobleski took the AF&PA post in `03. She was running her own firm, Halliday Inc., after exiting the COO job at Jefferson Waterman International.

PRSA MEMBERS RAP END OF BLUE BOOK.
Rank-and-file PRSA leaders and members have voiced loud opposition to the proposed “stealth” scrapping of their annual directory of members. Directors may be reconsidering it.

With member opposition growing, PRSA president Judith Phair and director Mary Barber said Oct. 14 the board is still “finalizing” plans to kill the 800-page directory and will discuss it with the Assembly Oct. 22 and then the general membership.

PRSA’s website makes no mention of this issue.

Board plans to withhold news of the directory’s demise until the Assembly Oct. 22 were stymied by a tipster who told this website Oct. 5. PRSA at first denied it but sent an e-mail Oct. 6 to leaders saying publication of the directory had “ceased.”

The Miami Herald on Oct. 10 reported in a major story complaints by PRSA/Miami that PRSA is too

(continued on page 7)

PENTAGON DEFENDS STAGED EVENT.
The American troops who spoke with President Bush are “proud of the opportunity to discuss their service with the Commander-in-Chief,” said a statement from Pentagon spokesperson Lawrence DiRita after news broke that the soldiers were “prepped” for the Oct. 13 video conference with the President about progress made in the occupation of Iraq.

DiRita called the videoconference that hooked the President up with troops in Tikrit “technologically challenging” and it “required organization and preparation.” The soldiers, he continued, “were advised as to the issues they should expect to discuss and decided among themselves who would speak to each issue as it may arise.”

They were prepped about likely questions to make them “feel at ease during an obviously unique experience,” DiRita said. “No one intended to tell them what to think or how to express themselves.”

DiRita regrets any “perception that they were told what to say. It is not the case.”

AICPA COUNTS ON ASHCROFT.
The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants has hired John Ashcroft’s Ashcroft Group as its Washington, D.C., lobbyist.

Juleanna Glover Weiss is heading the AICPA account at the firm of former U.S. Attorney General, Missouri Senator and Governor John Ashcroft. He formed AG with his former chief of staff David Ayres.

Weiss has top Republican connections as evidenced by her press secretary work for Vice President Dick Cheney, Clark & Weinstock background repping the Iraq Governing Council and publicity director role at Rupert Murdoch’s Weekly Standard.

Weiss also handled PR duties for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s U.S. Senate Exploratory Committee that was formed to mull a race against Hillary Clinton.

AG supplements an already heavy team of AICPA communicators. That roster includes James O’Malley, senior VP/public affairs and Janice Maiman, VP-comms.

EDELMAN GIVES LEVITZ CH. 11 COUNSEL.
Edelman is guiding Chapter 11 communications for retailer Levitz Home Furnishings, which filed for bankruptcy protection last week to restructure its operations and finish cost-savings programs began in April.

The company, which operates 112 furniture stores mostly in the Northeast and on the West Coast, emerged from bankruptcy protection after three years in ’01.

John Dillard and Richard Mahony of Edelman’s financial unit are handling the account.

Levitz has arranged for an incremental credit facility of $25M as part of a $90M debtor-in-possession facility from GE Capital. The company said it has reduced costs by nearly $40M after several initiatives.

Woodbury, N.Y.-based Levitz has asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York to approve plans to honor all customer contracts and deposits, to maintain payroll and employee benefits, and implement a severance program in the event of layoffs during the restructuring.

HUSK JENNINGS GALLOWAY IS ACQUIRED.
On Ideas, a marketing communications firm, has purchased Husk Jennings Galloway & Partners in Jacksonville, Fla.

HJG&P has been in business for more than 25 years. It counts General Electric and Baptist Health as clients.

Melanie Husk and Del Galloway, the former PRSA chief, will assume positions at OI. Gary Husk has decided to concentrate on his fine arts businesses.

OI is headed by Tom Bolling and Frank Constantini. Both moved to Jacksonville earlier this year.

Bolling helped found the Wolf Group and was a partner in Real, a Toronto ad agency. He has counseled IBM, Eastman Kodak and Uniroyal
Constantini was the No. 2 creative at the ad agency formerly known as  J. Walter Thompson. He developed campaigns for Sony, Burger King, Hallmark and Ford Motor.

QORVIS PITCHES SAUDI QUAKE RELIEF.
Qorvis Communications is promoting Saudi Arabia’s assistance to victims of the Oct. 8 earthquake that took the lives of at least 30,000 people in Pakistan and India.

King Abdullah, according to the statement distributed by the Washington, D.C.-based PR firm, has ordered an airlift to ship an “uninterrupted supply” of food, medicine, tents and blankets to the region.

He has dispatched a medical team from the Kingdom’s Ministry of Health and the Saudi Red Crescent Society to Pakistan, a fellow Muslim state, to get a reading of  the situation.

The Saudi Embassy in Islamabad is coordinating the effort with the International Federation of Red Crescent and Cross Societies.

YOUNG HEADS PR AT PERDUE.
Julie Young, senior director of corporate communications and public affairs for ConAgra Foods, has left for a VP slot at Perdue Farms in Salisbury, Md.

DeYoung joined Omaha-based ConAgra in 1999. She earlier held PR posts with the National Turkey Federation, Rhea & Kaiser Marketing Comms., Fleishman-Hillard and Bader Rutter & Assocs. in a 20-year PR career.

At Perdue, she heads media and community relations, internal/external comms. and serves as the company’s primary spokeswoman. The VP post was vacant.

CALLAHAN TO F-H.
Dan Callahan, who was PR director at RBC Dain Rauscher investment house in Minneapolis, has joined Fleishman-Hillard’s headquarters in St. Louis. He will handle F-H’s long-time client, Emerson Electric.

Callahan’s final accomplishment at Dain was handling the smooth transition at the CEO spot as Brian Peters gave way to John Taft. 

The seven-year Dain veteran held PR posts at Delta Dental and National Car Rental.

Callahan began his career as a reporter in New York covering advertising and marketing for The Gallagher Report.

SUN-TIMES CRITIC BARRED FROM CONFAB.
Chicago PR counselor Margie Korshak phoned Hedy Weiss, a Chicago Sun-Times theater critic, to tell her not to attend an Oct. 10 news conference to announce the Windy City production of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.”

Korshak told O’Dwyer’s her client, producer David Stone, did not want Weiss there. “I did not disinvite her,” said Korshak, “the producer did.” 

Korshak had nothing more to say about the affair. She did say an account of the flap in the Oct. 10 Sun-Times is accurate.

The paper reported that Weiss showed up at the Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place, but was denied entry by a Margie Korshak Inc. staffer
Lewis Lazare, S-T’s marketing columnist; Chicago Tribune critic Chris Jones; ex-Trib critic Richard Christiansen and Korshak were called on the stage by Stone to spell words.

During that spelling bee, Stone called Weiss’ name, and then said she could not make it because she was in detention.

Stone told the S-T that Weiss was locked-out because she acted “erratically and unprofessionally” at a press conference earlier this year.  He denies barring her for a mixed review of another one of his productions, “Wicked.”

In a written statement, Stone said he loves the S-T, which “has been extremely supportive of my productions, but I couldn’t tolerate Ms. Weiss’ inappropriate behavior again today when I was playing host to very important members of the theatrical community.”

The statement said Stone chose to make light of Weiss being held in detention. “ We have also decided to withhold her juicebox,’’ it read.

Weiss dismissed Stone’s statement as “infantile.’’
Weiss said she was perturbed at the earlier event because she believed the Tribune was being favored over the S-T.

S-T editor-in-chief, John Barron, slammed Stone’s move to bar Weiss as a ‘bush league stunt.”
Korshak told O’Dwyer’s that she still works for Stone.

WSJ SLIMS DOWN.
The Wall Street Journal will reduce the width of its paper to 80 percent of its current size in January ’07 as part of its $100M overhaul.

The paper will shrink from 15 to 12 inches wide – the size of USA Today – to cut newsprint cost. The length will remain the same.

The smaller paper is expected to be more appealing to readers who are daunted by the WSJ’s current size, said Peter Kahn, CEO of Dow Jones & Co.

The new WSJ is to have shorter stories and fewer jumps. Some statistical info will be moved to wsj.com to provide more printed space for news analysis.

The number of pages in the smaller paper will rise from the current average of 54 pages to 56 or 58.

The changeover will cost DJ&Co. $43M with the biggest cost connected to retrofitting the WSJ’s 19 press at 17 printing sites.

N.Y. TIMES TO LAUNCH FREE MOVIE PUB.
The New York Times plans to unveil a free, national entertainment magazine to be distributed at Loews movie theaters beginning in December.

The pocket pub, called “OnMovies” is slated to be published 18 times a year, beginning on Dec. 16, and will feature content from the Times’ culture desk and website.

The Times said 1.25 million moviegoers in major markets will receive the mag when they buy tickets. Cities are limited to New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Washington, D.C., Dallas and Seattle.

The publication will be half editorial, half advertising, and contain 11 sections, from the top 10 movies to previews of upcoming films, features, Times reviews and DVD releases.

CONDE NAST SETS DATE FOR MEN’S VOGUE.
Conde Nast said it will launch Men’s Vogue in April 2006 with a special spring issue.

The bi-monthly magazine will be printed regularly beginning in the fall ’06 and CN said it expects frequency to increase to ten times a year by 2007. The company predicted the fall ’06 issue will sell about 150K copies on the newsstand and contain 164 ad pages.

Jay Fielden is editor-in-chief with Vogue editor Anna Wintour tapped as editorial director.

Cover price is $4.95 with a rate base of about 300K, Conde Nast said.

DEFENSE MAGAZINE PLANNED FOR JAN.
PostNewsweek Tech Media plans to unveil a new magazine in January catering to military and government systems pros within the defense and intelligence sectors.

Defense Systems will be sent to 40,000 D&I professionals and managers that control policy and budgets for defense systems. A web site will complement the print edition, which will appear six times a year, PNTM said.

The Dept. of Defense is predicted to spend close to $30B on IT and communications systems this year, making it the No. 1 buyer in the world.

Briefs________

Aviation Week Group said Overhaul & Maintenance magazine will expand publication to 12 times a year in 2006 with separate January and February issues.

AWG said O&M reaches over 50,000 readers worldwide who are executives and managers at airlines, third party maintenance centers, military/government aircraft operations, manufacturers and suppliers.

Scott Crystal, 49, was promoted to president of TV Guide Publishing Group, effective Oct. 17. He joined the company in 2002 from Gruner + Jahr USA.

Sixty-five percent of consumers believe advertisers pay for magazine mentions, according to a survey conducted by Starcom, which is part of Publicis Groupe.

Starcom polled nearly 700 magazine readers.

(Media news continued on next page)

REED PLANS NEW PHARMA TITLE FOR ASIA.
Reed Business has unveiled plans to launch Pharma Asia, a bi-monthly magazine slated for a January 2006 debut targeting the Eastern pharmaceuticals sector.

Initial reach is estimated at 10,000 readers across Asia, according to the publisher.

Content will include features and analysis of the pharmaceutical industry in Asia, along with content from Reed’s U.S.-based Science Group, including Drug Discovery & Development, Genomics & Proteomics and BioScience Technology.

Tanuja Koppal is editor-in-chief of Pharma Asia. She said in a statement that the Asian pharma market is experiencing robust growth creating a need for information on drug discovery and development.

Rich Vallari ([email protected]), publisher of the U.S. Science Group, oversees U.S. sales for the Asia mag.

ECONOMIST SEES GAINS IN ASIA.
The Economist said its Asia Pacific weekly circulation jumped 12.5 percent to just under 116K copies. The magazine said worldwide circulation grew by 10 percent to 1,038,522, according to ABC figures.

The magazine has promoted Matthew Aylmer, a nine-year Economist veteran, to circulation and marketing director for Asia Pacific, and Rupert Harrow to the new role of head of sales for the region.

Ogilvy PR Worldwide handles PR for the magazine in the region.

SCIENCE INTEREST OUTWEIGHS RELIGION.
WPP Group ad agency JWT has identified a new segment of consumer with a heightened interest in science and related issues which it has dubbed “Leonardos.” JWT, in a study with Seed Media Group, found this group to be young, educated, early-adopting consumers with a buying power estimated at $40 billion. JWT pegs the group at around 15 million people in the U.S.

In addition to science, Leonardos also have a keen interest in TV, music, politics and current events, the study found.

The two companies also found that three out of four Americans have a greater interest in science today than five years ago. This trend is driven by an interest in the future and health. The study found that Americans trust scientists more than religious leaders, politicians or celebrities. Only doctors ranked higher than scientists on the trust barometer.

EBM BUYS ‘COASTAL HOMES’ TITLES.
Endurance Business Media, parent to Homes & Land Magazine, has purchased Pacific Publishing and Communications of Santa Cruz, Calif., adding several business titles in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties.

EBM, based in Tallahassee, Fla., said the move accomplishes a company goal of entering the California coastal market.

Scott MacEwen continues as president of PP, which includes the Coastal Homes group and Capitola Magazine.

MINORITY STAFF, COVERAGE TO BE FETED.
The Honolulu Advertiser and Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, S.D.) are the winners of the fourth annual Robert G. McGruder Awards for Diversity Leadership. The papers will be honored at an Oct. 27 lunch by the Associated Press Managing Editors, which partners with the Freedom Forum for the honors. Awards are based on content and staff makeup.

Fifty-three percent of the Advertiser’s staff and 48 percent of its managers are minorities. The Argus was honored because, although minorities make up only 6 percent of its readership, the paper staffs nearly twice that percentage of minority journalists.
The Advertiser was noted for covering native Hawaiian issues, while the Argus’ coverage of Native Americans was singled out by the awards committee.

PLACEMENT TIP________

David Stephenson, formerly VP for issue management at Agnew, Carter, McCarthy and now a homeland security consultant, has become a popular blogger on the HS industry and drawn accolades from CIO.com. His weblog is at Stephensonstrategies.com.

Stephenson told O'Dwyer’s that he’s looking for news from companies in the field, especially technologies that also provide other benefits in addition to improving security, as well as review copies of books.

He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].

People________

Dirk Standen, deputy editor at CondeNet, has been named editor-in-chief of Style.com and Men.Style.com. He reports to CondeNet editorial director Jamie Pallor.

Style.com is the online portal for Vogue and W., while Men.Style.com serves GQ and Details.

Marcia Kline, formerly publisher of Child Magazine, has joined ConeNet as publisher of both the Style.com portals. She reports to Dee Salomon, SVP and managing director of the Syle sites.
All are units of Conde Nast.

Jason Rapp, a former VP at Robinson Lerer & Montgomery, has joined the New York Times Co. as VP/strategy and operations for NYTimes.com.

Deb Ohrn was named editor-in-chief of Meredith Corp.’s Creative Collection, a division of Better Homes and Gardens.

Andrew Countryman was promoted to editor of the “Your Money” section in the Chicago Tribune.

Joe McKenna has rejoined Tooling & Production as editor-in-chief.

Timothy McDarrah, editor of the “Hot Stuff” column in US Weekly, was suspended after he was charged with trying to seduce an FBI agent posing on the Internet as a 13-year-old girl.

Omar Thompson has been named VP/marketing and communications for ABC Radio Networks.
He joins from Clear Channel Radio.

The planned demise of the PRSA Blue Book of members (page one) does not spring from a love of technology but from financial pressures.

Production of the 800-page directory is both difficult and expensive.

The directory for many years did not come out until mid-year or later. Hit with a $1.1 million loss in 1999-2000 (to make up for years of balance sheet juggling) plus the usual late directory, PRSA skipped the 2000 edition. It got back on track with the next one which came out in February, 2001.

Senior members tell us PRSA has not done a good enough job selling ads in the directory. The 2001 directory, for instance, had nine pages of ads including a heavy stock insert by Porter Novelli.

The 2005 directory has six full page ads and seven pages of house ads, some of which should have been paid ads. The Green Book, part of the One Source directory, has 24 pages of service company ads.

PRSA, dominated by its accredited members, missed the boat on big ad money and big dues money that was there for the asking in the 1990s.

Bob Dorf, 1991Counselors Academy chair, gave PRSA 25 reasons for having an offshoot that would have firms instead of individuals as members.

He said the PR counseling business was the largest in the U.S. without a trade association.

His white paper noted the benefits enjoyed by firms in other countries including keeping files on member firms for clients; helping clients find the right firm; enforcing practice standards, identifying problem or non-paying clients, etc. The Academy had been drawing fewer and fewer execs from the big PR firms.

Peter Hehir, of Countrywide Communications, U.K., in 1995 urged the Academy to “form a real trade association.” He noted that 500 PR firms in Europe are in 15 local groups plus the ICCO umbrella group. “Right across Europe PR firms are members of national bodies such as the U.K.’s PR Consultants Assn.,” he said.

He called PRSA’s failure to have a place for firms “a dangerous situation” for the group.

It was. But what did the Academy do? It ignored Dorf, Hehir and others and in 1990 started barring non-APR members and said only members could come to its spring conference. This rule drove away both big and small firms and was rescinded in 1995.

The big PR firms, realizing PRSA and its Counselors Academy were under the thumb of the APRs, started their own group in 1998, modeling it after the American Assn. of Advertising Agencies. Its first name was “American Assn. of PR Firms,” later changed to Council of PR Firms.

Dues were initially $50,000 yearly for each of the ten or so biggest firms (now $40K), more than 100 times what an individual counselor paid to PRSA and the Academy in annual dues.

Total dues in the seven years are close to $7 million, money which a PRSA affiliate might have had.

Dissatisfied with U.S. coverage of the PR industry, 1995 president John Beardsley and COO Ray Gaulke went to Advertising Age that year to ask it to start a PR weekly or devote more time to PR.

AA refused. The team then went to England twice in 1998 to urge Haymarket, publisher of PR Week, to start PRW/U.S. Gaulke, in a letter Aug. 12, 1998, to leaders and advertisers, told of PRW’s plan to come to the U.S. and said PRSA would help PRW/U.S. “meet our advertisers” and PRSA would “encourage our members to subscribe.”

If PRSA is wondering where all the ad dollars are these days, it need look no further than its protege, PRW/U.S. Biggest advertisers are many of the firms that once had many members in PRSA and its Counselors Academy and sent them to the spring conference.

Eighteen PR firms such as Manning, Selvage & Lee, Ogilvy PR, Porter Novelli, Ketchum, Burson-Marsteller, Golin Harris, Fleishman-Hillard, Weber Shandwick, and others (almost all owned by the five ad conglomerates) purchased 84 pages of ads in PRW/U.S. (Nov. ‘04-Oct. ‘05) worth (at $7,524 a page, the 13X rate) more than $630,000. This is tough competition for PRSA’s salespeople seeking ads not only for its directory but the monthly Tactics and quarterly PR Strategist.

Steve Pisinski, 2000 president, was shocked at the help given to a particular trade publication. He was unable to stop it.

The animus that PRSA shows towards New York (PRSA/NY evicted from h.q. in 1992; no New Yorkers on the national board; the new h.q. downtown far from the New York PR and ad community; devotion to APR, etc.) has not helped the situation.

None of the big firms named above had ads in the 2005 Source Book. Service firms are called upon for support. Virtually all of the big PR firms are either headquartered in New York or have major offices in New York. These offices are in midtown as are the offices of the five conglomerates that own most of them–WPP Group, Omnicom, Interpublic, Publicis and Havas. It’s apparent that ad buying decisions are influenced by conglomerate policies.

Also in midtown are such groups as the Council of PR Firms and Arthur W. Page Society (Page leasing part of its offices at Madison and 42nd st. to CPRF), AAAA, ANA, etc. PRSA needs its fair share of ads from the conglomerate firms but has underscored its isolation from them and the rest of the New York PR, advertising, media, and association community by moving downtown. Bridges need to be rebuilt.

Assembly delegates, who have their once-a-year meeting this Saturday, are in the dark about a lot of things including names of fellow delegates. The printed 2006 Source Book (and we hope there is one) should contain their names since their election must take place before Dec. 1 of the previous year.

– Jack O'Dwyer