PRSA Eases O'Dwyer Boycott for 2014 Conference

Marriott Wardman Park

Jack O’Dwyer will be allowed to cover the PRSA Assembly in D.C. Oct. 11 for the first time since 2010. O’Dwyer senior editor Kevin McCauley gets “credentials” for the entire conference.

We continue to press the Society to remove all bars to coverage by O’Dwyer staffers. The Washington Marriott Wardman Park hotel, where the conference takes place, will allow display of the six O’Dwyer news and informational products in the lobby. The Society had refused to allow an O'Dwyer display in the exhibit hall.

The hotel was hit by a series of seven fires in its three buildings on Saturday, Aug. 30 that sent occupants of its 1,300 rooms into the ballrooms, onto the grounds and into the corridors from 1 a.m. to 7:30 a.m.

A story by Michael Ruane in the Aug. 30 Washington Post noted the fire occurred during the annual meeting of the American Political Science Assn., which attracted 6,000 to three hotels including the Wardman Park.

PR people will be interested in how the hotel handled this crisis. Rick Hasen, writing in the Election Law blog, said there was “very poor communication over what was happening, with conflicting information, over the course of the 1 a.m. to 8 a.m. period of evacuation.”

He said there was “poor evacuation planning, with no lighting part of the area of evacuation route—people had to use cell phone flashlights to see the way out.”

Marriott hotels, in our experience, do not have on-site PR people. Reporters have to deal with management and marketing executives. We have never talked to anyone from Marriott corporate PR including PR head Kathleen Matthews, wife of Hardball’s Chris Matthews.

Hasen found that Wardman Park manager William Walsh was “defensive, bordering on the belligerent” whereas most of those in hospitality “usually are so pleasant to the point of obsequiousness in dealing with hotel guests” (which Hasen was on that night).

Philly Marriott & PRSA Allowed O’Dwyer Display

Walsh

The Philadelphia Downtown Marriott last year allowed a display of O’Dwyer products in the lobby. Walsh said the Philadelphia hotel told him the O’Dwyer display was possible because the Society allowed it.

He explained that organizations holding conferences in hotels insert a “non-compete clause” in the contract that allows them to bar promotions by competing organizations.

Walsh, who received a B.S. from St. John’s University, New York, in 1979 and an MBA from St. John’s in 1982, has been with various Marriotts since 1992. He was general manager of the Philadelphia Marriott from 2003 to April, 2013.

Non-Profits Should Not Compete with Anyone

We told Walsh that while such a non-compete clause may be in the contract, we don’t see how PRSA could invoke it since it is a 501/c/6 non-profit trade association that pays no taxes (except on unrelated business income) and is not supposed to be in competition with any other entity.

Quite the contrary, it is supposed to be a catalyst for its entire industry, oiling the wheels of commerce. It is supposed to encourage competition, not block it in any way. It is supposed to help all participants in its industry to thrive and not compete against them.

Association legal books note that stores in a shopping center must put trees or other improvements in front of all the stores even though some of them may not be members.

O’Dwyer reporters in 2013 were not allowed on the fourth floor where the exhibits were nor the fifth floor, where the general sessions took place. The Society had rented not only the rooms, but the hallways, VP-PR Stephanie Cegielski explained.

Philadelphia Marriott Was Hospitable

Philadelphia Marriott furnished a work space for O'Dwyer's in the lobby. A similar workspace will be provided in the lobby of the Marriott Wardman Park.

The attitude of the security staff of the Philadelphia Marriott to O’Dwyer staffers was the polar opposite of the attitude of the security staff to O’Dwyer staffers at the San Francisco Marriott in 2012.

San Francisco security, at the direction of the Society, told O’Dwyer staffers not to speak to anyone anywhere in the hotel including the lobby, nor hand out anything to anyone, nor display any O’Dwyer products.

Jack O’Dwyer was escorted from the hotel lobby by security and told to stand across the street and not come back after he talked to someone in the lobby.

We had sent letters to Marriott CEO Bill Marriott and other Marriott executives including Kathleen Matthews describing the harsh treatment we had received in San Francisco and asked to be treated in an “hospitable” manner in Philadelphia.

O’Dwyer “Press Facility” Allowed

Philadelphia staffers said that anyone is welcome in the hotel, including those who are not staying in the hotel, as long as they do not create a “disturbance.”

Philadelphia managers and security listened politely while this reporter showed them the 60-page 2013 October healthcare issue of O’Dwyer’s magazine and explained that the Society was engaged in blocking competition and blocking the free flow of information by not allowing O’Dwyer staffers into the exhibit hall.

O’Dwyer Healthcare Mag Should Be Displayed

The 2014 O’Dwyer’s healthcare issue is a record 68-pages including 52 profiles of healthcare PR practices and more than a dozen articles on the topic as well as the ranking of 68 healthcare PR practices topped by Edelman’s $114 million.

We explained that the January O’Dwyer’s is also a PR Buyer’s Guide listing nearly 200 service companies. Exhibitors were deprived of the opportunity to meet O’Dwyer editors and propose stories for that issue.

Numerous Society members visited us and gave us information on the Assembly and the meetings.

Hotel security, unlike 2012, did not mind O’Dwyer staffers taking pictures, talking to people or distributing literature. They said they would be as helpful to us as possible as long as we did not go to the fourth or fifth floors.