KAMBER GROUP WINS $1M D.C. LOTTERY

The Kamber Group has picked up the D.C. Lottery account, according to Vic Kamber, its CEO.

He credits the firm's "one-stop-shop" philosophy as the reason it won the $1M PR/ad account. That combines TKG's PA expertise with a strong in-house creative/design department.

TKG will be responsible for creating point-of-sale, transit displays and radio/TV commercials.

Kamber said 20 firms were invited to pitch the account. Earle Palmer Brown, Adams Assocs., HR Comms., Sosa & Co. and Gallagher & Gallagher were among the seven that decided to compete.

LH&A TO DO CONNECTICUT TRAVEL PR

Lou Hammond & Assocs. is expected to win a $460,000 tourism PR contract to promote Connecticut as a year-round destination.

The state's Office of Tourism has been directed to enter into negotiations with LH&A to handle national PR services.

Barbara Cieplak, assistant director of COT, said it is expected that LH&A will be signed to the 21-month contract, which will take effect in December.

LH&A will work with the Office of Tourism to develop a strategic PR plan to gain national exposure and implement it in coordination with the state's marketing and advertising efforts.

The firm will replace Patrice Tanaka & Co., which was subcontracted to handle PR last June after Hartford-based O'Neal & Prelle went out of business.

LH&A was one of about 12 PR firms that submitted bids in response to the Office of Tourism's invitation for proposals last Aug. 4. Bidders were to provide a proposal that outlined a strategic approach to PR, rather than present a specific campaign.

Weber Shandwick plans to re-launch its Powell Tate brand on Jan. 1 under co-founders Jody Powell and Shelia Tate, who now head Shandwick PA in Washington, D.C. PT "disappeared" following Shandwick's acquisition of Cassidy Cos. a year ago.

PT had ranked No. 7 in Washington with 1998 fees of $15.6 million. The Cassidy acquisition propelled Shandwick PA into the No. 1 slot in D.C. with 1999 fees of $69.4 million. That compared to $43.2 million for Burson-Marsteller and $27.3 million for No. 3 Hill and Knowlton. PT is to return as a unit of Cassidy Cos. which is headed by Gerald Cassidy.

PUBLICIS DIALOG ACQUIRES GELTZER & CO.

Publicis Dialog has acquired Geltzer & Co., a New York firm noted for its consumer electronics work.

The move bolsters PD's presence in the nation's media and financial capital, according to Andy Hopson, PD's COO.

G&C's 25 staffers will move from the firm's Ave. of the Americas headquarters into PD's Park Ave. South office by mid-December.

PD's Art Stevens will oversee the combined 100-member staff. Howard and Sheila Simon Geltzer, chairman and president of G&C, are to become managing partners at PD.

G&C helped Sony launch its Walkman and Motorola its family of wireless messaging devices. Other clients include Toshiba, Litton Industries, Sunbeam and Danka Business Products.

Publicis says its No. 1 in health

Publicis Groupe has folded its various health units into Nelson Communications, which it acquired last week, to claim the No.1 position in the medical communications category with more than $1 billion in annual billings, according to CEO Maurice Levy. NC revenues were $135 million last year, says Kathy Cripps, who heads NC's Sciens Worldwide PR unit.

The new entity--called Nelson Communications Worldwide--consists of NC, Publicis Wellcare, Saat-chi & Saatchi Healthcare and Healthcare Resources Group, which is led by Klemtner Healthcare. Publicis claims NCW surpasses WPP Group's CommonHealth unit as the biggest health communications firm.

Tom Moore, who was CEO of NC, will head the combined group, while NC founder Wayne Nelson becomes chairman emeritus.

Former White House press secretary Mike McCurry has been named CEO of Grassroots.com. He replaces co-founder Craig Johnson. Grassroots. com markets software and technology tools to help groups use the Internet to mobilize support for their cause. It's "citizen activism" section connects visitors with groups involved with various social issues.

Ketchum is handling PR for the 45th anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which will be held on Dec. 1 in Montgomery, Ala. The year-long boycott spurred the Supeme Court to end racial segregation and helped usher in the civil rights movement.

The PR firm has developed a website, and is helping to arrange a civil rights forum at Harvard.

AUTHORS GUILD SUES DATABASES

The Authors Guild and 10 authors have filed a federal class action lawsuit against nine of the leading electronic database providers.

Letty Cottin Pogrebin, president of the Guild, said the suit claims the databases have infringed the rights of more than 15,000 freelance journalists by making their works available to subscribers for substantial fees without the authors' permission or recompense.

"We are seeking damages for past copyright infringement for all the members of the class and injunctive and declaratory relief from further infringement," said Pogrebin, who noted it is the first lawsuit the Guild has brought in its 88-year history.

She said the suit charges that The Dialog Corp., Reed Elsevier, Dow Jones Reuters Business Interactive, Bell and Howell, Thomson Corp., Northern Light Technology, EBSCO Industries, Content Commerce and MediaStream have infringed the rights of freelance journalists by storing, licensing and reselling freelance articles without proper authority.

Authors can look at the Guild's website (www. authorsguild.org) to view a list of periodicals that appear in some of the leading databases, and ascertain whether an article they have written is affected.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to decide whether publishers can include the work of freelancers in electronic databases without their permission.

GAY MEDIA COMPANIES MERGE

Planet Out and Online Partners, which specialize in the homosexual market, are merging.

Planet Out has several websites that focus on gay web users and publishes three magazines-The Advocate, a news magazine published every other week: Out, a monthly fashion and lifestyle magazine, and HIV+ magazine.

Online owns the Gay.com website and syndicates content and services to about 3,000 affiliates.

The two companies, which will operate under the name PlanetOut Partners, will create a company that reaches an estimated 3.5 million homosexuals, according to Lowell Selvin, who is CEO of Online.

PUBLICIS' LEVY TO BE HONORED BY UJA

Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Levy is to receive the Marketing Communications Group of UJA-Federation of New York's "Global Leadership Award" during a gala at New York's Pierre Hotel on Dec. 5.

Bob Bloom, Publicis U.S. chairman; Kevin Roberts, Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide CEO, and Hal Riney, head of Publicis & Hal Riney are among honorary chairs for the event.

UJA-Federation also will honor Andrea Alstrup, Johnson & Johnson's VP-corporate advertising, and Robert Wehling, Procter & Gamble's global marketing officer.

Tickets cost $750. Black tie is optional.

COKE PLANS CREATIVE OUTPOST IN N.Y.

Coca-Cola is setting up a "think tank" in New York next year to spot trends that may impact its beverage business.

That could include developments in communications, marketing, entertainment, culture, packaging, and government issues.

The group will have at least 15 people, and will report to CEO Douglas Daft. Staffers may come from within and outside Coke.

The Big Apple site was chosen because Coke considers the city a capital of creativity.

Burson-Marsteller, Cohn & Wolfe, Ketchum and Ogilvy PR Worldwide are some of the top PR firms that work for Coke.

When asked why a PR firm couldn't be used for trend-spotting, Rob Baskin, a Coke spokesperson, said the new office's mandate goes beyond PR.

The office will probe specific issues in great detail, he said.

Coke has not put out a press release about the think tank. Beverage Digest, a trade newsletter, broke the story.

The Wall Street Journal on Nov. 6 carried a front page piece about how Pepsi has been outflanking Coke of late.
While Coke has been preoccupied with a management restructuring and a series of lawsuits, Pepsi has been on the move building its business.

FIRST-CLASS LETTER WILL COST 34 CENTS

The cost of mailing a first-class press release will increase by a penny, to 34 cents, and the U.S. Postal Service's charges for priority mail will jump substantially under a plan approved Nov. 13.

The increases, which likely will take effect Jan. 7, were approved by the Postal Rate Commission, an independent government board that evaluates U.S. Postal Service requests for price increases.

The PRC rejected a USPS proposal for big rate reductions for heavy ad mail. The USPS, which filed its rate proposal in January, had asked the PRC to significantly increase the discount for heavy advertising mail.

Proposals that were accepted by the PRC include a one-cent increase for a first-class stamp and an increase of less than 10 percent for periodicals.

The five-member commission denied the Postal Service's request to raise the price for additional ounces of the first-class mail from 22 to 23 cents. Instead, the rate commission decreased the price of a second ounce to 21 cents, which means the cost of a two-ounce letter remains the same-55 cents-and the price of a three-ounce letter decreases by a penny.

About 15 percent of first-class mail weighs more than one ounce.

The price of the Post Office's priority mail, currently priced at $3.20 for the first two pounds, will be $3.50 for the first pound and $3.95 for two pounds. Postcards will still cost 20 cents to send.

JOURNALISTS OBJECT TO PR `CALL BACKS.'

Publicists were urged by four journalists at a Publicity Club of N.Y. meeting Nov. 14 to stop badgering them with follow-up calls after they have pitched them stories.

Eva DiLallo, senior producer at CNN, and one of the four panelists, pleaded with publicists to curtail their "call backs" at a "Meet the Media" luncheon, which was attended by 90 people.

Three print editors on the panel sided with DiLallo. They were: Lisa Lee Freeman, senior editor, Working Woman; David Morrow, artcles editor of SmartMoney, and Duff McDonald, executive editor, Red Herring.

Peter Himler, who is EVP/media relations at Burson-Marsteller, moderated the panel.

Biggest PR Dislike

DiLallo, who joined CNN in 1995 and has worked as a writer, guest booker, line producer and field producer before being promoted to senior producer of "Your Money" in 1998, said call backs are her biggest PR dislike.

"I need story ideas and your help a lot," said DiLallo, who politely instructed the publicists to "state your name, give a brief description of your story idea, and wait for me to call you back."

DiLallo recalled her worse call back experience with a publicist. She came to work with a swollen lip, which made it painful for her to talk. She said the publicist kept calling her about a story she had pitched.

Finally, she had to tell her to stop calling. "I was in tears it hurt me so much to get the words out," said DiLallo.

Prefers E-mail

Freeman, who oversees the features well at Working Woman--including the magazine's annual career management and personal finance packages as well as the annual rankings of the top 25 companies for executive woman and the "Working Woman 500" list of the largest women-owned businesses in the U.S.--said she prefers to get all pitches and press releases by e-mail.

She usually throws out pitches that are delivered via the Post Office but she reads and files most of her e-mail missives.

Freeman is especially interested in getting "solution-oriented" story ideas, which appeal to women.

She also likes publicists to pitch her experts and to mail her the expert's business card.

Freeman said her biggest turn off is when a publicist pitches her a story without an angle to it.

Morrow, who rejoined SmartMoney in March as articles editor, likes gossip about people and to get pitches from publicists who sound excited and knowledgeable about the product or story idea they are pitching.

He also tends to pursue "unusual" stories. He likes to get pitches in the morning and the first of the month. Morrow, who works three months in advance, is currently working on the February issue.

McDonald, who oversees all investment coverage for Red Herring magazine on the company's website (redherring.com), loves e-mail. "Feel free to fire away every five minutes if you want," said McDonald, who is based in New York.

McDonald, who pointed out he only covers technology and Internet companies, said he objects to getting "grenade e-mails" from publicists.

He explained that is when he gets a phone call from a publicist at the same time he gets an e-mail from them. "Don't do that; I will call back if interested," said McDonald, who does not mind getting phone calls unlike some of the magazine's "older hands who get rude" with publicists whenever they get a phone call.

PLACEMENT TIPS ___________________________

Hal Lancaster, a longtime columnist for The Wall Street Journal, now writes a twice-monthly career guidance column exclusively for CareerJournal.com, which is owned by Dow Jones.

Geri Richter Campbell was hired by Mademoiselle as special projects editor and to book celebrities for cover stories.

Mandi Norwood, who is editor-in-chief of Mademoiselle, said a recently conducted research study had confirmed famous people covers help boost newsstand sales.

Jauretsi Saizarbitora, who was previously special projects editor at Details, has succeeded Campbell as entertainment editor of Jane magazine.

Tina Johnson was promoted from articles editor to articles director at Teen People, where she will now oversee the department's regular editorial features including "Investigation," "Real Inspiration," and "Success Story."

Dana White has joined TP as senior articles editor working under Johnson. White had been executive editor of Skiing magazine, and founder of Snowboard Life in 1996.

TP, a pop culture magazine, was started in January 1998 with a guaranteed circulation of 500,000, TP increases the guarantee to 1.6 million with its February 2001 issue.

"AskAnyDoctor," a new service from HealthNewsDigest.com, lets people ask a doctor a question via e-mail, and get an answer by e-mail free of charge. This new service is in addition to "HealthBookReviews" and "HealthHumanResources."

HealthNewsDigest, which is based in New York, is currently syndicated to 1,500 websites, with daily feeds to Latin America and the United Kingdom.

FINANCIAL NEWS COVERAGE IS PRAISED

Diana B. Henriques, a financial writer at The New York Times, writes in the Nov./Dec. issue of Columbia Journalism Review, that the "twenty-year boom in business news has produced a financial press corps of unparalleled depth and breadth."

She said there are more than 12,000 business journalists working in the top 50 newspaper markets and at national business publications, up from 4,200 in 1988.

Henriques said technology is "empowering us to do more, better, faster."

She predicts the next big business story will be the "grass roots movements rise to challenge corporate power." She also believes Congress will grow testy over medicine prices, media violence, and unsafe tires.

MEDIA BRIEFS ___________________________

Gruner & Jahr and Rosie O'Donnell, the TV talk show host, will publish Rosie's McCall's magazine, starting in the spring.

O'Donnell will be editorial director of the magazine, and her production company, Kidro Production, will share the cost of producing the publication.

The New York Times Co. has agreed to close by the end of the month a joint newsroom with TheStreet.com, an online financial news service.

The Times owns a 5.7% stake in TheStreet.com, which also laid off about 20% of its work force.

Richard Meislin, editor-in-chief of N.Y. Times Digital, said the joint newsroom was no longer justified. He said the Times believes it can continue to provide breaking business news on the Times' website by working with the staff of the Times business section.

Jack Lynch, who was editor of the joint newsroom, will be in charge of the collaboration with the paper's business reporters.

ABC News has dropped Matt Drudge's Sunday radio show, which is number 1 in New York in its 10:00 p.m. time slot.

ABC's owned-and-operated stations want to continue the show without the network's sponsorship. The controversial Internet columnist, who runs the "The Drudge Report," has been hosting the two-hour radio show since July 1999. His show has been picked up in 135 markets, including nine of the top 10.

An ABC spokesperson said Drudge's show was axed due to poor performance, not because of its host's negative comments about ABC or its parent company, The Walt Disney Co.

Bloomberg News and WGN-TV have debuted "On the Money" live from the Chicago Stock Exchange. The 90-second report featuring BN reporter Anupy Singla airs twice each morning, prior to and after the financial markets open on the "WGN Morning News" in addition to the "WGN News at Noon."

(Media news continued on next page)

PEOPLE ________________________________

Mary Alice Kellogg, 52, a freelance travel and food writer and New York editor for the Delta Shuttle Sheet, an inflight magazine, and David Currier, 64, executive editor of Parade magazine, were married Nov. 11. The couple met 21 years ago at Parade.

Lynn Leahey, previously editor-in-chief of Soap Opera Digest, was named editor-in-chief of Soap Opera Weekly, replacing Mimi Torchin, who left.

Erik Ipsen, 49, was promoted to deputy managing editor of Crain's New York Business, a new position. Ipsen, who was assistant managing editor, will continue to oversee the special reports and weekly columns on small business.

Bernard Shaw, 60, chief anchorman for most major stories during CNN's 20-year history, plans to retire next February.

Walter Isaacson, who is Time's top editor, was promoted to editorial director of Time Inc.

Jim Kelly, the deputy editor of Time magazine, will succeed Isaacson as managing editor of the newsweekly.

Joy Philbin will host Home & Garden TV's "At Home With...," recurrent series of celebrity home tours. She will also host several primetime specials for the network.

WSJ DROPS REGIONAL SECTIONS

The Wall Street Journal has closed down six regional weekly news sections which covered Texas, Florida, California, the Southeast, New England and the Pacific Northwest.

Paul Steiger, managing editor of the WSJ, has notified the 34 reporters and editors, who worked for the regional sections, that their jobs will end on Dec. 31.

SPAYD NAMED TOP EDITOR

Liz Spayd, 42, was promoted to assistant managing editor for national news at The Washington Post. She succeeds Jackson Diehl, who was named deputy editor of the editorial page.

Spayd joined the Post in 1988 as national business editor from The Detroit News, where she was business editor.

VETERAN BUSINESS JOURNALIST JOINS H&K

Jeff Mangum, who has 20 years of experience covering business as a reporter and editor, has joined Hill and Knowlton's New York office as a managing director and media trainer in the firm's media group, which is headed by Pat Wechsler.

Mangum was previously a senior writer at The Journal News in Westchester, N.Y., and held positions with The Tampa Times, Clearwater Sun and Tampa Tribune, and wrote for USA Today and Gannett News Service.

PR PAYS LOW $$ VS. OTHER FIELDS

New York magazine's annual salary survey found that PR pros are ill-paid compared to many other occupations. Starting salaries in the crowded field seldom get over $30,000 and few PR pros ever make six figures, the magazine said.

It quotes New York PR entrepreneur Lizzie Grubman as saying that she gets 100 resumes a week from newcomers to PR and that "PR is just not a tremendous moneymaker...you have to own the business to make money."

Grubman, 29, was featured in a cover story in the January 1998 New York as part of a new female clique that supposedly is wielding power in the city's PR circles.

Her entertainment-oriented firm, Lizzie Grubman PR, employs 30 and handles entertainment, beauty, restaurant and corporate PR.

Rainmakers Get More $$

New York says those who bring in business can earn $45-$55K and after five years might get up to the $75K level. The best money is in financial PR where pay can be $150-$300K and can reach $l million if complicated proxy fights are involved.

Wall Street careerists with an MBA can make $250K in the second year and lawyers start out at $125K in a big firm. Starting MBAs can expect to earn $71K. The current Newspaper Guild salary for a New York reporter with three years' experience is $70,720. New York Post staffers are not in the Guild.

Maureen Dowd, New York Times columnist, gets $350K according to the magazine, while executive editor Joseph Lelyveld gets $500K. "20/20" anchor Barbara Walters gets $10M and Sue Simmons, WNBC co-anchor, $1.7M. New York Post writer Keith Kelly was said to make $85K but he said that was an inaccurate report.

WALL ST. BAFFLES PRESS, SAYS SPORKIN

Stanley Sporkin, the much-feared head of enforcement at the Securities & Exchange Commission from 1961-81, said complicated financial instruments such as derivatives are befuddling today's crop of financial reporters.

He feels there is improper manipulation of such instruments but that reporters are having a hard time getting through a wall of secrecy and complexity put up by lawyers and Ph.D.'s in accounting.

Sporkin, who addressed 150 financial journalists Nov. 14 at a seminar of the Columbia Grad School of Journalism, also referred to "swaps single stock futures" and similar "esoteric" investment products.

[In this type of future, the holder of a block of stock that can't be sold for a year or two can set up an entity that trades it for other stock or cash while giving up any chance for price appreciation; brokers said there are many types of derivatives and that new ones are being created each day.]

Sporkin's speech was titled, "Where Have You Gone Jerry Landauer?" in honor of the investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal who died in 1981 at the age of 49.

The SEC prosecuted 65 cases of overseas bribery by U.S. companies and Landauer wrote about many of them, said Sporkin. Reporters often supplied the SEC with tips although the SEC couldn't reciprocate, he said. The reporters, working without subpoena power, were as effective in unearthing wrongdoing as the SEC's lawyers, said Sporkin.

He called for more pay and more training of financial reporters, saying too many of them have been lured to Wall Street or TV. Also praised was Seymour Hirsch of the New York Times. Today's reporters should know about such "legends," said Sporkin.

The talk, at the Columbia Club (which moved in with the Princeton Club in 1998), was sponsored by the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship program at the Columbia J-School. Each year up to ten recipients get full tuition and a $35K stipend to study finance.

Sporkin is now with the Washington, D.C., law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges.

BLOOMBERG RAPS JOURNALISTS

Michael Bloomberg, founder of the Bloomberg financial and other news services, said journalists should be "ashamed" of themselves for concentrating too much on the entertainment aspect of news while failing to dig deep enough on many topics. "The in-depth analysis is just not there," he told 150 members of the Deadline Club Nov. 15 at its Hall of Fame luncheon in Sardi's.

Bloomberg also said journalists should not withhold results of exit polls just because voting might be affected in other voting time zones. Withholding information for any reason puts journalism "on a slippery slope" with no end in sight, he said.

Bloomberg and four other journalists were inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Club-Ed Bradley of "60 Minutes"; Irene Cornell, CBS Radio; Osborn Elliott, formerly of Newsweek, and columnist Liz Smith, who said journalism is "addictive."

MID-U.S. TO BUSH, CITIES TO GORE

White, Christian, pro-life, pro-gun, small-town mid-America went for George Bush in the recent election while the more "sophisticated" big-city, anti-gun, pro-health reform and pro-choicers went to Al Gore, GOP political strategist and pollster Bill McInturff told 150 at the annual dinner of the Institute for PR in New York Nov. 15.

McInturff, who helped create the "Harry and Louise" commercials that battled Federal healthcare proposals and who worked for Senator John McCain's presidential campaign, said people will forget the current battle over who won the election if it's resolved before too long. A protracted battle, he said, could have a "terrible" effect on the nation.

He favors keeping the Electoral College because it "provides stability." The dinner was at the Grand Hyatt and was presided over by Ward White, chair of the Institute.

PR OPINION/ITEMS

Financial journalists were whipped last week by three sources-famed SEC enforcer Stanley Sporkin, Bloomberg's founder Michael Bloomberg, and New York Times columnist Floyd Norris.

Sporkin said today's financial writers don't match yesterday's in investigative ability and zeal.

Bloomberg said journalists ought to be "ashamed" of themselves for producing too much entertainment and not enough probing stories.

Norris, who often blasts vested interests in his column, said journalists need more education in financial subjects. He spoke on the same Columbia J-School program as Sporkin.

Sporkin admitted that anyone with the smarts to understand and write about current complicated financial instruments such as derivatives and "swaps single stock futures" (private deals in which "locked up" stock is traded for instant cash or other stock) probably could make far more money on Wall Street than in journalism. He castigated the lawyers and accounting Ph.D.'s who plant and nurture impenetrable thickets of rules and regulations.

Sporkin, a CPA, notes it takes him 40 hours to do his income tax and wonders what the cost to the country is in time and money spent by individuals and businesses on such chores.

Lest anyone think derivatives are of little concern to the average person, they were the downfall in 1998 of Long-Term Capital ($100 billion in assets). That fiasco threatened the U.S. and world economies and the Fed and big banks had to come to the rescue.

The scandal of investor relations is that the obfuscators, with all their power and money, are winning. The new Fair Disclosure (FD) rules of the SEC are a move to restore some balance. IR pros, who have been dealing almost exclusively with the friendly Wall Street analysts, almost never talk to the press, which gets an inferior grade of information from the PR side (when there is one). NIRI, the spokesperson of IR, unsuccessfully urged delaying the implementation of FD until Dec. 29. Typical of what goes on in financial documents is a paragraph in the recent 10K of Omnicom. It states that OMC owns 36% of Agency.com and that as of 12/31/99, that stock was worth $944 million. But the paragraph fails to give the number of shares OMC owns or what the price was on 12/31/99. Without one of those, the current value cannot be obtained (it's 18.5 million shares; the price on 12/31/99 was $51, and the current value is about $170M).

Similarly, Interpublic describes details of 56 acquisitions in 1999 in its 10K except for the names of the companies acquired. This catch-me-if-you-can game is played endlessly in financial documents.

The New York Financial Writers' Assn., well aware of this battle, has a four-hour workshop for reporters on Saturday, Dec. 2, at the American Institute of CPAs. The title is, "Leapin' Lizards! How Do I Read This Financial Statement?"
But this is like chickens studying in the den of the wolves. The CPAs crafted the tangle of rules that makes the tracking of money earned and spent far more complicated than it needs to be. Balance sheets, etc., could be explained via accompanying texts if the CPAs and their employers wanted to do this. No one should have to go to school on a Saturday to learn how to read a balance sheet.

While on the subject of the NYFWA, the group staged its annual "Financial Follies" at the Marriott Marquis Nov. 17. Like "Saturday Night Live," the "Follies" has not been funny for 15 years. It's been dominated too long by musical director Jerry Goldstein and features too many dance and endless song routines by what appears to be a cast recruited from a high-priced cruise ship. No one over 40 should be allowed on stage in the future. The one routine that started to be funny had Yasir and Mrs. Arafat approaching Hillary Clinton. The sold-out crowd of 1,250 (at $300 a head) started to tither in expectation of something truly outrageous. But the couple drifted away without doing anything.

The appointment of Lou Hammond & Assocs. to handle PR for the State of Connecticut ends a five-year attempt at "integrated marketing" by the state. The previous agency of O'Neal & Prelle did mostly advertising and almost no PR, state sources tell us. A succession of PR people worked on the account at O&P to little effect and the ad people who ran the agency (which went out of business) did not do well with the press, we are told. That about sums up "integrated marketing," which was mostly advertising and little, if any, PR. Clients should watch out for this scam. Connecticut needs PR since it cannot afford a big ad campaign. The PR must take account of the bad publicity the state is getting over the protracted court battle to prevent non-residents from using Greenwich beach, which is the one nearest to New York (a major target of the state's tourism PR). Enlightened and generous residents of Greenwich, who appear to be a tiny minority, want to let anyone on this island park and beach as long as they get there by foot or bicycle. Another PR debacle for Connecticut is the 25-year-old attempt to solve the murder of Martha Moxley. Greenwich police, accused of poor work after this murder, were uncooperative and even nasty to author Mark Fuhrman when he gathered materials that got the case reopened.