PN GETS $1M+ AMER. CANCER SOCIETY

The American Cancer Society has selected Porter Novelli to handle its more than $1 million PR account, according to Greg Donaldson, VP-corporate communications at the healthcare group.

Manning, Selvage & Lee and Ketchum were runners-up for the business.

Donaldson picked PN after an "exhaustive review of 20 agencies that took more than several months" to complete.

Donaldson, who recently joined ACS from healthcare giant Humana, said he considered incumbent GCI Group for the account, but it fell short due to the "changing mission" of the Society.

Though that firm did a "terrific" job for ACS in the past, it was rejected because it does not have a branded presence in Washington, D.C., according to Donaldson.

That's important to ACS now because it wants to be a player in the public policy debate on healthcare.

Rob Gould, executive VP at PN/Washington, will head the ACS account.

The ACS used PR consultant Jerry Swerling, Marina del Ray, Calif., to manage the review.

Donaldson credited Swerling for providing "focus" and "rationalizing" the PR firm selection process.

Janet Bartucci, the head of Hill and Knowlton's marketing communications practice, is now VP-global communications at Estee Lauder Cos., New York. She joined H&K in 1997...Applied Comms. has picked up $2 million in combined annual fees from Genuity, Luminous Networks and e2open. Much of those fees will come from Genuity, formerly known as GTE Internetworking..Ogilvy PR Worldwide has opened its first office in Africa. Koome Mwambia, head of corporate and marketing communications at Kenya Airways, is managing director of the Nairobi office, which is staffed by four. Mwambia served as spokesperson during a recent KA crash, and handled the company's privatization effort in 1996. The Stanley, a five-star hotel in Nairobi is a charter client....Porter Novelli Convergence, with more than 400 high-tech staffers, acquires 25-member Silicon Valley-based Tsantes & Assocs. for its "intellectual capital." John Tsantes, an engineer and former electronics magazine editor, will head a new "advanced technology" division at the firm. PNC adds three clients-Arbor Networks, Global Spec and Telica-worth a combined $750,000 billings this week.

BELLSOUTH PUTS PR WORK UP FOR GRABS

BellSouth, Atlanta, has retained consulting firm Wanamaker & Assocs. to handle a review of its PR agency contracts.

Denny Betz, VP-corporate communications, said about six firms are currently used for PR work.

The bulk of the company's PR has been handled by the Atlanta offices of Cohn & Wolfe and GCI Group for the past five years.

Betz said the recent departure of several former executives and staffers at C&W's Atlanta office was not the cause of the review.

VERITY HIRES EDELMAN FOR 'VISIBILITY.'

Verity Inc., which designs Internet portals for businesses, has selected Edelman PR Worldwide as its PR firm, said Derek van Bronkhorst, director of corporate marketing.

"We hired Edelman to raise our visibility," he told this NL. Its goal is to show how Verity is positioned in the "best part of the new economy space."

Van Bronkhorst, a veteran of Levi Strauss and Siemens, contacted a "pretty good mix" of firms, and it came down to three finalists.

Verity's customer base includes AT&T, Cisco, American Greetings, Home Depot, Ernst & Young, Dow Jones and Timex.

The company earned $15 million on $66 million in its fiscal first-half.

TYLENOL, MEDIA CRITICISMS, DISCUSSED

The "right" of the media to lie in order to get a story, the handling of the Tylenol murders in 1982, and counselor James Lukaszewski's published remarks including, "Fundamentally, reporters don't know about your business, don't care about your business, and can't care about your business," were discussed at a meeting of 60 PR pros March 7.

Sponsors of the meeting on "Ethical Dilemmas in PR" were the PRSA Westchester/Fairfield chapter and the Fairfield PR Assn.

An annual "Socratic Dialog" has been set up by the two groups in honor of Larry Tavcar, a member of the groups who died last year.

Lukaszewski, who was moderator of the dialog, was read some of the statements in his collection of three workbooks on handling crises by Newsletter editor Jack O'Dwyer.

(continued on page 6)

MYSTERY SURROUNDS GRISWOLD DEATH

The death of the former Denora Prager, known to the PR world for more than 50 years as Denny Griswold, founder and editor of PR News, remained enveloped in mystery at press time.

The Wilton Meadows Healthcare Center, Wilton, Conn., told this NL March 5 that Griswold, 92, died Feb. 8 but could give no further details.

Griswold had been in the care of her niece Susan Garrett since 1995 when she broke her hip.

Friends of Griswold and members of the family of J. Langdon Sullivan, husband of Griswold who died in 1997, said they have been unable to contact her since 1995. Mail was not answered and she couldn't be reached by phone, they said. Susan and husband Russell Garrett moved into Griswold's house at 127 Kettle Creek rd., Weston, Conn., sources said. They have not been reachable by this NL or the Sullivans.

Planned Gifts to Met, PR World

Friends of Griswold said she told them she might donate her townhouse at 127 E. 80th st. to the PR field and certain Colonial antiques to the Metropolitan Museum.

Harold Burson of Burson-Marsteller; Ray Gaulke, former president of PRSA, and counselor John Budd met several times with Griswold. Plans included creating a PR library and training center. Legal papers were drawn up allowing Griswold to stay in the house for the rest of her life. A silver tray in her honor was created. However, an attempt to deliver it to her at Wilton Meadows was rebuffed.

Margot Grosvenor of Newport, R.I., stepchild of Griswold, said the Sullivan family favored the donation of the townhouse to PR and the donation of many of the antiques to the Met. Ancestor John Sullivan was a general in the Revolutionary Army and James Sullivan was governor of Massachusetts.

The townhouse was sold for about $3 million several years ago. The Sullivan family does not know what happened to the furniture, art, and other contents.

PR News was sold in 1992 to Phillips Publishing, which sold it in 2000 to Veronis Suhler & Assocs.

Griswold and her husband Glenn Griswold, former publisher of Business Week, created PR News in 1944. After the death of Glenn Griswold in 1950, she married Sullivan in 1951.

PRN for many years hosted the annual "Gold Key Awards" banquet at which PR executives were honored. The last was in 1992 when only six of 89 award winners attended.

Griswold, who had a B.A. from Hunter and an M.A. from Radcliffe, was a founder of Women Executives in PR and a founder of PR Seminar.

NEW YORKER 'FRIES' McDONALD'S FRIES

The March 5 New Yorker called French fries sold by McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's "unhealthy" and said the technology exists now to create a "delicious" French fry that is "much more than a delivery vehicle for fat."

The lengthy article by Malcolm Gladwell said McDonald's and the other chains switched from beef fat to vegetable oil in 1990 but the oil becomes "trans unsaturated fat" which is "worse" than saturated fat, according to experts quoted by Gladwell. Such fats are also in crackers, potato chips, cookies and other processed foods.

He accused the three chains of switching to a product, "without disclosing its risks, that may cost human lives." Americans now consume 30 pounds of fries yearly vs. four pounds in 1954.

McDonald's responded that its fries and other foods "can be part of any balanced diet and lifestyle." It said there are no "good" or "bad" foods. It noted the wide variety of foods it sells including salads.

FAIR DISCLOSURE IS WORKING, SAYS SEC

Regulation Fair Disclosure is forcing companies to provide information to the public as well as analysts, said Meyer Eisenberg, deputy general counsel of the Securities & Exchange Commission.

He told a March 7 conference sponsored by Business Wire at the Intercontinental Hotel in New York that Reg FD must be working since some analysts are complaining they are no longer getting "juicy tidbits" from companies they cover.

Mary Beth Kissane, of Abernathy, MacGregor, said FD is having a profound impact on IR pros since they can no longer deal just with sell-side analysts, portfolio managers and investors. Media complain that IR pros keep them out of the loop, preferring to deal with analysts who, fearing loss of investment banking or being blackballed, provide "buy" or neutral recommendations 99% of the time.

"Although things are not yet perfect, more IR pros are thinking about FD," said Neal Lipschultz, senior editor, Americas, Dow Jones Newswires. He said he was dismayed by criticism that media are exempt from FD. He noted it's the job of media to disseminate information to the general public.

Perry Boyle, director of East Coast research at Thomas Weisel Partners, said analysts are now getting "boilerplate information" instead of "insightful information" from companies. He said there is "overwhelming caution" by IR people because of FD. It has done little to bring "full" disclosure, he said.

Cathy Tamraz of BW moderated the conference.

HIGH COURT TO RULE ON COPYRIGHTS

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on a landmark case regarding the right of publishers to republish freelancers' print articles on the web without further pay in cases where the author has not specifically signed over such rights.

The Court will hear oral arguments March 28 on The New York Times vs. Tasini (Docket 00-201).

Jonathan Tasini, president of the National Writers Union, and 11 other freelancers sued the Times, Newsday and Sports Illustrated in 1993. They argued that the reselling or articles to Nexis was not covered by the 1976 copyright law amendments.

BUSINESS EDITOR LOOKS TO PR

David Andelman, who recently joined The New York Daily News as deputy business editor, said the "best PR people I know are the ones who pitch appropriate and interesting stories, and can make something happen."

"My priority is to get real and compelling stories, and PR people can steer me in that direction," said Andelman.

He is especially interested in breaking financial and business news that other papers have either overlooked or not bothered to cover. He also wants to make the News' business coverage visually interesting. "We are still New York's picture newspaper," said Andelman, who has also worked in PR.

His editorial experience includes jobs at The New York Times, Bloomberg and smallcapcenter.com, a financial news website. From 1987 to 1992, he was at Burson-Marsteller, where he learned the importance of developing a good rapport with reporters.

CNN ADDS THREE SHOWS TO LINEUP

Three new programs are being added by CNN.

The first one, "Take Five," a talk show, will feature a panel of reporters, opinion makers and observers.

Panelists will include Jake Tapper, Salon.com, Michelle Cottle, from the New Republic, and Robert George, New York Post. The show debuts March 17 at 8:30 p.m.

"People in the News" will be produced with People magazine and profile a newsmaker or personality. The show, to be hosted by Daryn Kagan, premieres March 31 at 11:30 a.m.

The third new show is "CNN Presents," an hourlong documentary series featuring single-topic stories and investigative packages from CNN correspondents and producers. The show will be seen Sundays at 10 p.m. in the spot now occupied by "CNN Perspectives," which it replaces.

Leon Harris is the host of "CNN Presents," which debuts May 6.

EDITOR WANTS 'TRENDY' GADGETS

StreetMiami, a free weekly paper published by The Miami Herald, is starting a new products feature on March 16, called "Itemize," that will be written by Lesley Abravanel, a freelancer.

Editor Jim Murphy is seeking information and images about new gadgets, gizmos, fashions, accessories, etc. for the feature. "Just about anything really, as long as it's hip and trendy," said Murphy.

About 72,000 copies of the paper, which is targeted at 18 to 34-year-old readers, are distributed. The paper is also available on the Web at www. streetmiami.com.

Publicists can e-mail material directly to Abravanel at [email protected]. Murphy will also forward mail to Abravanel.

Pictures in jpg format of a least 300 dpi are preferable to photos; either format is preferable to slides.

Murphy's address is 1401 Biscayne blvd., 2nd flr., Miami, 33132; 305/376-4451; [email protected].

COLUMNIST SEEKS RESTAURANT NEWS

Mort Hochstein, who was beverage columnist with Nation's Restaurant News for many years, is now writing a column on restaurant activities for BevAccess.com and Beverage Media.

He can use information on new openings, people on the move and special promotions.

"Names, names and more names," said Hochstein, who wants publicists to send the information to [email protected] or to 70 East 10th st., #3M, New York, NY 10003. 212/420-2270.

NEW YORK TIMES PUTS FOCUS ON STYLE

The New York Times Magazine will double the size of the magazine's regular style coverage by publishing four special sections this year devoted to fashion, entertainment, beauty, architecture, food and home design.

Adam Moss, editor of the Sunday magazine, said "Style, the way we dress, the way we entertain and the way we enjoy ourselves, is a huge part of how we live. Readers can't get enough of it, so we wanted to give them more in these style-focused sections."

The sections, which will average 20 pages, will be edited by style editor Amy Spindler.

Editors Choice Debuts

The first section, "Editors Choice," which was published March 11, covered the spring/summer season.

It contained articles by Spindler, who reported on fashion; a men's fashion report by Robert Bryan; Pilar Viladas, who wrote on architecture, and William Norwich, who covered style and entertaining.

A second "Editors Choice" section, focusing on fall/winter offerings, will be published Sept. 30.

Spindler said the May 20 section, called "Structures," will show new forms taking shape all over, from architectural feats to dress construction to culinary experiences.

On June 10, "Weekend" will show how to take time off and feature second homes, new weekend wear and other ways to rest, relax and rejuvenate.

BUSINESS WEEK DISMISSES TECH EDITOR

Marcia Stepanek has been dropped as technologies strategies editor of Business Week for allegedly plagiarizing information from The Washington Post for an Oct. 30 story she wrote.

Stepanek said "it was an honest error."

Kathy Rebello, who is senior editor for technology, said Faith Keenan has replaced Stepanek, who joined the magazine three years ago.

Stepanek has been a journalist for 22 years.

(Media news continued on next page)

MAGAZINE EDITORS AIR PR COMPLAINTS

Don't leave long phone messages or e-mail, Nancy Clark, deputy editor of Family Circle, told about 130 publicists at the Publicity Club of New York's luncheon on March 7.

Clark was on a panel of magazine editors, whose publications are read by more than 50 million women.

The other editors were Pamela O'Brien, executive editor of Ladies' Home Journal; Stephanie Young, health editor of Redbook, and Lesley Alderman, technology editor of Real Simple. Panel moderator was Lisa Kovitz of Burson-Marsteller.

Clark, who oversees the articles department, said her editors' other pet peeves with PR people include follow-up phone calls, and voice mail messages that don't begin and end with the caller's name and phone number. The editors want to see a hard copy of the pitch.

Target Pitches, Then Wait

She advised the publicists to target their pitches to the appropriate editors, who are listed by their beat on the masthead, and then wait for them to get back.

Clark said Family Circle does not publish stories about healthcare for children or do celebrity pieces. It does cover new products, particularly in the fashion and beauty areas.

In May, the magazine will start a new column, called "Good Life" that will feature travel information as well as product news. The column will be written by Jonna Gallo, a senior writer.

O'Brien said 15 million readers of Ladies' Home Journal "come for news and service information."

Health is a big area, she said, because readers seem to be confused by all of the news available to them about healthcare in other media.

The magazine has a new "Parenting" section that delves into timely issues related to rearing children.

O'Brien said the number one complaint among editors at LHJ about PR people is they send pitches to the wrong editor. She suggested they read the masthead; stop sending e-mail inquiries, and making follow-up calls. "We will call you back-trust me," said O'Brien.

Young, who covers health, fitness and nutrition topics, said publicists should "never, ever call me" to find out what editor should be pitched.

Editorial Calendar Is Useless

She said publicists should call either Emily Burton or Alyson Diebert, who are assistants to the editor-in-chief, Lesley Jane Seymour. The best time to call them is before 10 a.m. on Monday or Friday.

She said publicists can get clues and a sense of the areas the magazine is covering by reading the editor's letters, the table of contents ("What's important is always first), and reading the letters page. She said the editorial calendar is useless because "no one is going to tell you what they are going to do" a year in advance.

Alderman, who also covers money, health and fitness, said Real Simple is broken down into two parts. The front of the book is oriented to money, health and technology, which she called "essential information."

The back is devoted to the "enjoyment side," such as travel, beauty, fashion and products.

The main criteria for both sections is for the information or story idea to be "functional, beautiful, and add value to life," and the products must also be affordable and available nationally. "We don't do stories about $500 shoes," she said.

Editors at RS prefer to get e-mail and hate long phone pitches. Her e-mail address is [email protected].

Kovitz asked the editors if they would be receptive to a story pitch that also included a writer.

Clark thought this was an "interesting concept," but she was not sure how she would react. Young would be "highly suspicious" of the writer, and Alderman and O'Brien said "no" to the question.

All four editors said they are usually unavailable for lunches and events. Young tries to attend as many health conventions as she can, and she likes to get tapes of speeches and participate in telephone conference calls.

HAMILL REJOINS DAILY NEWS

Pete Hamill, columnist and former editor-in-chief of The New York Daily News. will rejoin the paper as a columnist and correspondent in early April.

He wrote a column for the paper from 1977 to 1979 and wrote "Tales of New York" for two years during the 1980s.

Hamill also has been a columnist for The New York Post, Newsday, the Village Voice, New York magazine and Esquire, and was a staff writer for the New Yorker.

He said Ed Kosner, who is editor-in-chief of the News, edited the first piece of copy he ever wrote for a newspaper (at the Post in 1960).

Dwyer Departs for New York Times

Jim Dwyer is leaving the Daily News, where he has been a columnist, to join The New York Times as a reporter for the paper's Sunday magazine.

K.C. STAR TESTS SOFT NEWS EDITION

The Kansas City Star is testing a new soft news Monday edition.

The revamped edition has a "week ahead" theme.

The two main hard news sections-"A" and "Metro"-were combined, resulting in a smaller newshole for national, local, world and business news in the Monday afternoon Star.

The news cut was made in response to a directive by owner Knight-Ridder to reduce expenses for 2001.

Mark Zieman, the Star's editor, said on Monday people are busy and want their information quickly.

TYLENOL, MEDIA DISCUSSED (cont'd)

Lukaszewski feels "it's simply not possible" for reporters to understand the businesses they are writing about because of their workload. He estimates reporters do four stories a day, five days a week, and that this adds up to 1,000 stories a year.

"It's impossible for a reporter to meet these production demands and still have time to know about your business or your issues in any meaningful way," says one of his three workbooks, which sell for $295 each and are "presented" by PRSA.

A chapter on "Understanding Journalists" in a volume on "Media Relations Strategies in Emergencies" says reporters are trained in "aggression, hostility and skepticism" and that they are increasingly expected to add interpretation to their stories. Editors are apt to trust such speculation, he adds.

Says the text: "The only way to understand the reporter's understanding is by seeing it in print or hearing it broadcast. This is why it is foolhardy to expect reporters to understand much of anything about your business or organization.

"It is you who must organize the information, decide what is relevant, important, and in the public interest, and be prepared aggressively-but in a focused way-to be interviewed about your subjects, topics, and issues."

Reporters Will 'Sacrifice' Ethics

Quoted in the chapter are 16 "valid grievances" about journalists as tabulated by the Josephson Institute of Ethics, Marina del Rey, Calif.

These include such statements as, "Journalists are inaccurate too often"; "Journalists' decisions are driven by peer group competitive pressures";

"Journalists sensationalize news and overplay stories in a way that unjustly injures"; "Journalists sacrifice almost any ethical principle to get a story they think is important," and "Journalists oversimplify stories and issues."

ABC-TV's Sam Donaldson is said to belong to a category of reporters, "who, for the most part, are show biz types. They are celebrities who make huge amounts of money. They have become extraordinarily skilled readers of information...but their work is done predominantly by producers and others."

[Editor's note: Donaldson can be seen Sunday mornings on ABC-TV's "This Week" discussing current events in detail with George Will, Cokie Roberts and George Stephanopolous.]

Another statement in the chapter is that the "vast majority of reporters have very little to say over what happens to their material once it goes into the editorial process."

O'Dwyer Asks, 'Whom Is He Talking About?'

O'Dwyer asked what media was Lukaszewski talking about-Business Week, Fortune, the trade or local press-when he said, "Reporters don't know about your business, don't care about your business and can't care about your business."

Lukaszewski said he works at getting companies to talk to the media rather than to avoid media, and would not discuss the question further.

Panelists at the meeting were counselor Robert Dilenschneider; Fred Garcia of Clark & Weinstock, who teaches a course on ethics in PR at New York University, and Harvey Greisman, VP of communications, IBM Software Group.

Dilenschneider told the meeting, "Thank God for the free press in America, we're lucky to have them." He said that anyone traveling abroad would soon see the difference between the media in the U.S. and the media in other countries.

Dilenschneider, who had been faxed a dozen pages of the Lukaszewski chapter on "Understanding Journalists" by this NL, said there was "no need to be so confrontational with the press...to be negative about the press is a big mistake."

Tylenol Case Discussed

Garcia said he uses Johnson & Johnson's Tylenol recall in 1982 as an example of how companies handle crises although there is a lot of "mythology" attached to the case. The recall came after seven people were poisoned by Tylenol capsules.

He said students, when asked how quickly J&J acted to remove Tylenol from the shelves, usually respond, "from 24 to 72 hours." The actual removal order was made eight days after the murders, Garcia said. It took this long because of the careful way big companies move on anything, he later told this NL.

Asked about actor Russell Crowe's description of the removal of Tylenol in the movie, "The Insider," as something the company did "instantly," Garcia said that was the script following the mythology rather than the reality of what happened.

CEO Jim Burke was praised not only for the alleged quick reaction but also for going on TV after the murders, he added. Another Tylenol murder in 1986, in spite of improved seals, resulted in the permanent withdrawal of the capsules. Burke said he was sorry he ever re-introduced the product.

Media Deception Discussed

Also discussed at the meeting was the deception of news sources by media.

The Lukaszewski workbooks describe how ABC-TV had reporters lie to the Food Lion food chain in order to obtain jobs and that a court found they had trespassed in gathering their materials.

The workbooks reprint the code of the Society of Professional Journalists which says reporters should "avoid undercover or other surreptitious methods of gathering information" except when "traditional" methods don't work.

Use of such methods "should be explained as part of the story," the code adds.

O'Dwyer told the meeting that the SPJ code was "unethical" and that he would call the SPJ.

Ray Marcano, president of SPJ, commenting on the code, said undercover methods are needed in cases such as exploring whether there is discrimination in the sale or rental of housing.

PR OPINION/ITEMS

The death of Denny Griswold, who was held in virtual captivity the last six years of her life (page 2), is a major PR historical event. She was a tireless promoter of PR, PR executives and her newsletter. She not only gave out thousands of awards to PR executives but accumulated more than 130 herself.

For 50 years, she brought PR to the attention of top management. She wanted PR to be a member of it.

She went from the city-owned Hunter College to Radcliffe and then to Columbia. After tours in PR at Edward Bernays and other PR firms, she joined Forbes, working for founder B.C. Forbes. She joined Business Week and married its former publisher, Glenn Griswold. The year after he died in 1950 she married J. Langdon Sullivan, whose family dates back to the Revolutionary War.

Griswold, born Denora Pragman, hid her family background. Even the Sullivan family does not know the name of Griswold's brother or her mother and father. Were they wealthy? How did she get the money to go to Radcliffe?

Griswold had a taste for the rich and powerful. She helped found Women Executives in PR in 1945, an elitist group for decades. Only the top PR woman of any company was accepted. She was a founder in 1952 of PR Seminar, the elite corporate PR group. She attended every meeting but never reported on them, damaging her right to be called a reporter.

Her definition of PR was pure Denny: "PR is the management function which evaluates public attitudes, identifies policies...with the public interest, and executes a program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance."

This was aimed at putting the PR person in the boardroom, hobnobbing with the biggies. This is just where Denny wanted to be. PR started out being a public function, the early practitioners hobnobbing with the press. It was not to be another corporate "propaganda" function. PR pros were supposed to be advocates for the public, not the company. Griswold helped PR to "flip" from being an ombudsman to being just another sales function. A similar thing happened to security analysts, who were once working for the public. They are now openly derided as "cheerleaders" and "shills" for stocks they analyze.

PRSA's sponsorship of Jim Lukaszewski's three workbooks on crisis communications, with their numerous negative statements about the press (page one), gives new fuel to the charge that PRSA is a press-demonizing organization.

Another statement from the workbooks is this: "...reporters neither understand the complexities of business nor care much about them." There are pages after pages of negative comments on reporters, who are portrayed as uncaring and unknowing. We sent about 15 pages of Lukaszewski's writings to Dan Edelman, Art Stevens, Robert Dilenschneider and others and they all said the picture painted is entirely too negative. "Reporters are more sophisticated than ever," said Stevens, adding: "I can't imagine any of this stuff applying to Business Week, Forbes and trade magazines."

For Lukaszewski to harp on the inadequacies of individual reporters misses the point in a crisis. A whole pack of reporters will show up and they will not only learn from each other but enlist the help of every available expert on whatever the subject is. For Lukaszewski to assert reporters "don't know about your business" is preposterous.

Thus far, PRSA is insisting on allowing Lukaszewski to continue to state that "PRSA presents" his works. But it has also agreed to sell in its library the O'Dwyer Media Guide, subtitled, "How to Work with Media and Enjoy It." A disappointment to us was the failure of PRSA chair Kathy Lewton to attend the ethics workshop even though she lives in Stamford. She said she was "too busy."

The incident that PRSA's sponsorship of Lukaszewski recalls is PRSA's identification with a speech given by financial reporter Dean Rotbart to the 1993 PRSA conference. That speech had numerous negative comments about the press in general and individual reporters. PRSA videotaped the speech with two cameras for use in its video library as a guide to press relations. Rotbart said the presentation was a "sampling" of what went on in his "Newsroom Confidential" seminars for which attendees signed an agreement of confidentiality. We not only objected to many of the statements made in the speech but to any criticism of media and individual reporters in private sessions. This NL was sued for about $20 million by Rotbart for copyright violations and other charges but they were all thrown out in Federal court. It cost us $80,000+ to answer the charges. PRSA, it turned out, had perpetual unlimited copyright to the Rotbart presentation but wouldn't give it to us. Also fresh in our minds is PRSA's year-long boycott in 1999 of this NL. Our charges of PRSA's failure to report its finances correctly turned out to be true... an astounding fact emerged last week in connection with the sinking of the Japanese fishing boat by U.S. submarine Greeneville. Its only mission was a "PR" or "joyride" for the 16 civilian guests on board. One major way the Armed Services views PR is conducting such junkets. Ronald Sconyers, who now heads Kids in a Drug-Free Society, led many such tours for "thought leaders" as PA chief of the Air Force. Not surprisingly, the main KIDS program is aimed at educating small groups of parents at their workplaces rather than via a mass media program.