WAGGENER EDSTROM WINS MASTERCARD

MasterCard International has awarded its $500K+ PR account to technology specialist Waggener Edstrom. Ogilvy PR Worldwide, Manning, Selvage & Lee and incumbent Brodeur Worldwide were finalists.

Sharon Gamsin, MasterCard's VP-PR, described her company as a technology-driven one while talking about the selection of Wagg Ed.

The Bellevue, Wash.-based PR firm will open an office in Stamford, Conn., to service the account of Purchase, N.Y.-headquartered MasterCard.

MasterCard has more than 1.7 billion credit, charge, and debit cards in circulation.

Wagg Ed counts Microsoft, SAP America, Victoriasecret.com, Universal Electronics, The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Net Perceptions as clients.

CARVILLE SPRUCES UP ISRAEL'S IMAGE

James Carville, Bill Clinton's former political advisor, has been hired to spruce up the image of Israel in the U.S.

He and partner Stanley Greenberg met with officials of Israel's Foreign Ministry director general Avi Gil and deputy director for communications Gideon Meir.

Carville and Greenberg are to be paid by a group of American Jews who believe Israel's PR "needs improvement," according to The Jerusalem Post.

The duo are expected to submit an outline of a PR plan to the Ministry, as well as a prospective budget.

It's unclear whether the Government of Israel will foot any of the PR bill.

Meir said an effort to reach out to younger Americans will be a top priority.

Carville and Greenberg have worked for former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

PERRY TAPPED FOR H&K'S CORP. GROUP

Diane Perry, a 20-year financial PR pro, has joined Hill and Knowlton as senior managing director and head of its New York corporate practice. She oversees 28 staffers involved in financial, litigation, social responsibility and crisis communications.

Perry held executive VP posts at both Weber Shandwick, where she was global practice director of corporate communications, and Edelman PR Worldwide, where she directed its IR unit. Most recently, Perry was managing director at Gavin Anderson & Co.

COMPAQ HIRES PATTON BOGGS

Compaq Computer has hired Patton Boggs for counsel on its merger with Hewlett-Packard, a deal that has been panned by Wall Street and the media. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, owner of more than 10 percent of H-P stock, meets Dec. 7 to review a presentation prepared by Booz Allen & Hamilton concerning the pros and cons of the $23.6 billion merger.

Family members opposed to the deal so far represent 7.5 percent of H-P's stock. They are upset with the prospect of massive layoffs if the deal is approved, and oppose increased exposure to the competitive PC market.

The New York Times reported Dec. 2 that the fate of H-P CEO Carly Fiorina depends on whether she wins approval of the Compaq merger.

IR firm Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher is advising the Hewlett family, while Citigate Sard Verbinnen is pitching the deal's benefits.

WALKE LANDS CEO POST

David Walke, who stepped down as senior managing director of Morgen-Walke Assocs. Sept. 1, has been named CEO/director of Find/SVP, a New York-based business advisory, research and consulting firm.

Walke said he had "ambitious plans" for the 30-year-old "knowledge services" company, which has advised companies from consumer products and manufacturing to publishing, advertising and PR, including Edelman PR Worldwide, Ogilvy and Mather, and Porter Novelli.

A group led by Walke and investor Martin Franklin recently acquired a substantial equity interest in the company.

F-H CUTS STAFF AS NORTEL RETRENCHES

Fleishman-Hillard is cutting eight staffers in its 50-plus member London office following the decision of struggling telecom giant Nortel Networks to withdraw from the European PR market.

Nortel, according to spokesperson David Chamberlin, has achieved its European PR communications objectives.

F-H "remains our global agency of record," he said. "We are very happy with Fleishman-Hillard, and there are no plans for an agency review," the Nortel exec added.

Nortel reported a whopping $25 billion nine-month loss this year following various charges.

DOSAGE TOO HIGH FOR MANY DRUGS

Many drugs are being over prescribed by doctors, causing many of the 100,000+ deaths yearly that are due to adverse drug reactions and causing millions of severe side reactions, according to Over Dose, by J.S. Cohen, M.D.

The new book, published by Tarcher/Putnam, concentrates on the side effects of many popular drugs including Lipitor and Viagra (Pfizer); Premarin (Wyeth-Ayerst); Prozac (Eli Lilly); Celebrex (Searle/Pfizer), and Motrin (Upjohn).

Ad/PR budgets for these and other drugs are substantial and are one reason 46% of all Americans take at least one drug a day.

The many deaths from drug reactions tabulated by The Journal of the American Medical Assn. for 1998 makes medication side-effects the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S.

Such deaths exceed the total caused by auto accidents, AIDS, alcohol, illicit drug abuse, infectious diseases, diabetes and murder.

Ketchum has handled Lipitor for many years while Viagra was at Chandler Chicco until last January when it was switched to Porter Novelli.

Cohen, quoting the Journal of the AMA, said 106,000 people died of drug side effects in 1998 and there were 2.2 million known cases of severe reactions. He feels that many severe reactions go unreported.

Cohen faults the drug companies as well as the Food and Drug Administration. He lays much of the blame on the quest for "marketing strategy," saying companies market drugs in strong doses in order to "produce inflated effectiveness statistics."

Marketing, Not Science, Is Served

"Drug company research and development often serves marketing strategies more than sound science or patient safety," he writes.

He accuses the companies of conducting multiple studies on new drugs and then publishing the most favorable ones while suppressing the rest.

He says they hire "professional writers to prepare articles according to company guidelines, using favorable phrases and terms selected by the companies" and that they hire "experts" to place their names on company-generated articles "although the experts have not participated in the studies and their financial connections with the drug companies are not disclosed."

The No. 1 anti-cholesterol drug is Lipitor, for which doctors wrote 48.7 million prescriptions in 2000 worth $4 billion. It is the top-selling such drug and No. 2 among all drugs. Premarin, a hormone for women, was prescribed 47.7 million times in 1999.

Concludes Cohen: "Drug companies dominate the entire process of medication therapy-from early research to ultimate usage-as few other industries control their products today."

He also accuses the FDA of approving unsafe drugs and improper dosages and says it fails to adequately monitor new drugs.

CLONING COVERAGE RAPPED

The mainstream media's coverage of Advance Cell Technology's alleged cloning of a human embryo has been criticized.

The Worcester, Mass.-based company's founder and president Michael West made several appearances on TV programs, including "Meet the Press," and "Late Edition," to announce the company had taken steps to create human embryos through cloning. His story made front page news in major newspapers.

There was only one problem: ACT's statement was "more hype than reality," said Anthony Violanti, a staff reporter for The Buffalo News. "Also, the few embryonic cells it had created had died, and the methods used have already been done in animals, and some scientists insisted it wasn't cloning at all," said Violanti.

Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, said: "This was a PR campaign. It was aimed at investors and the public, but not scientists."

ACT made arrangements to release the story online to a science website and also coordinated to have articles published in Scientific American and U.S. News & World Report, which ran the headline, "The First Human Clone."

Caplan believes biology is going to be the major story of the 21st century, and the media has to make a commitment to better cover science, technology and medicine, or this will happen again and again.

Jonathan Cohn, writing for The New Republic's online site, said it was no accident that West and his colleagues managed to generate such buzz.

"As West later acknowledged to The New York Times' Gina Kolata (one of the few reporters to greet the announcement with appropriate skepticism), ACT deliberately by-passed the prestigious peer-review journals like Science and Nature in order to find an academic outlet that would agree to publish the study simultaneously with U.S. News," said Cohn.

Robin Menard, an executive assistant to Dr. West, who handles media relations for ACT, said no outside PR firms or individuals were used.

Menard said Dr. West disagreed with critics, who said he had manipulated the media.

RASKY/BAERLEIN PITCHES BOSOX SUITOR

The Tom Werner/Les Otten group, which is among those bidding to buy the Boston Red Sox, has retained Rasky/Baerlein, a Boston-based PR firm.

Larry Rasky, chairman/CEO of the firm, is the spokesman for the investment group, which also includes The New York Times Co. as a minority partner along with former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell.

R/B is also the agency for the Boston Celtics.

Werner, who is a Hollywood TV producer and former San Diego Padres team owner, said Larry Lucchino, the former San Diego Padres chief, will serve as Sox president, if his bidding group prevails.

MANY EDITORS FROWN ON FRIDAY NEWS

David Armon, president of PR Newswire Americas and a former bureau manager for United Press International, said "Fridays are still yawners" when it comes to breaking big-time corporate news.

Armon believed the taboo against issuing news on Fridays had become outdated in view of the fact that the number of Friday press releases has continued to climb.

"After interviewing print, broadcast, wire and Internet journalists, it became clear that the rules had not changed that much," he told readers of the National Investor Relations Institute's magazine, IR update.

"Fridays are still out-except for small-cap news trying to break through the clutter, `evergreens' (stories with a long shelf life) and the items that legal insists must get disclosed" said Armon.

Jonathan Friedland, Los Angeles bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, said "we still prefer to break news in the paper, and news issued on Fridays, particularly later in the day, is often suspect."

Friedland prefers to get advance notice to any big announcement so that "we are prepared. In fact, we'd rather see an announcement at 5 p.m. on Thursday than 8 a.m. on Friday."

Armon got similar sentiments from regional dailies, where business editors advise against breaking news on Friday because of low Saturday circulations. In many markets, editorial deadlines for Sunday business sections are midweek, and Monday sections are reserved for such specialty topics as personal investing or technology.

Compounding the problem for journalists are analysts and other expects who are often not available for interviews on Fridays, said Armon.

Wrap-up Day

At CNNfn, "Street Sweep" executive producer Mike Cahill describes Fridays as "wrap-up day" and advocates Tuesdays and Wednesdays as best for news releases.

Dave Callaway, executive editor of CBS Marketwatch.com, said Tuesday through Thursday are prime time on the web for news that will "create a stir."

He said PR pros may find it easier for getting an article published on weekends on the web because web traffic drops off, and "we are always looking for stuff to use on the weekends to attract more readers."

Armon said editors of spot news services, such as Reuters and Dow Jones Newswires, welcome Friday releases because they offer an opportunity for coverage of stories that might get ignored on busier days.

Radio networks also see Friday as a good day to put quirky, offbeat news "in the can" for weekend airing. Armon said many large-market network affiliates that produce their own local news during the week turn to their network for weekend coverage, sometimes airing the full, five-minute-ling national newscast.

PLACEMENT TIPS

The editors of the "Sunday Styles" section are considering new story pegs now that the weekly section is being distributed in the national edition of The New York Times.

The national edition has a circulation of about 800,000 outside the New York metropolitan region.

Trip Gabriel, who edits the section, said the section will continue to focus on coverage of fashion trends that start in New York, or in Los Angeles, but his boss, Barbara Graustark, who, as head of the Times style department, oversees "Sunday Styles," "House & Home," "Dining In/Dining Out," as well as the fashion pages, sees things differently.

She believes the challenge is to run stories that are as relevant to a national audience as a New York audience. As examples, she cited recent stories about traveling home for the holidays and an assessment of ABC's broadcast of the Victoria's Secret fashion show.

"TR Daily" has been relaunched by Washington, D.C.-based Telecommunications Report, a unit of CCH Inc.

The revamped e-mail publication has expanded its daily news offering to meet the demand for same-day intelligence on regulatory and legislative developments.

Coverage is organized under these headings: Telecom Regulation, Legislation, Telecom Business, Capital Markets and People On the Move.

Tom Leithauser is associate editor of TR Daily. 202/312-6060; fax: 312-6111.

The Wall Street Journal was ranked as the No. 1 media outlet in terms of impact in a survey of CEOs.

When asked which media outlets deliver the greatest impact, 89% of the CEOs named the Journal, followed by Business Week (61%); Forbes (52%), The New York Times (51%) and Fortune (47%).

The CEO Survey, which was partially funded by Burson-Marsteller, was conducted in October. Written questionnaires were sent to CEOs at 1,000 companies and their subsidiaries.

The survey findings are based on 206 responses.

Automobile Magazine unveils a new look with its January issue. Jean Jennings, editor-in-chief, believes the new look for the monthly is "going to revolutionize the entire car magazine industry."

AM offers articles on personalities, travel destinations, automotive art, vintage cars and industry trends.

PRSA/N.J. TO HOLD MEDIA MEETING

Representives from 14 media outlets that cover news in the Garden State have been invited to speak at PRSA/N.J.'s annual "Meet the Media" luncheon meeting, which is scheduled for Dec. 12 at the Somerset Marriott in Somerset, N.J.

Res.: Kathleen Gaughran, 973/984-6184.

(Media news continued on next page)

NEW YORK SUN MAY RISE AGAIN

Conrad Black, publisher of The Chicago Sun-Times and other newspapers, intends to spend up to $15 million to relaunch The New York Sun, which folded in 1950. The paper's launch is expected to take place early next year.

Seth Lipsky, previously editor of The Forward, a New York weekly for Jewish Americans, and Ira Stoll, a former managing editor of The Forward, who is editor of Smartertimes.com, a website known for its critiques of The New York Times, will edit the daily paper.

Stoll recently posted help wanted ads on his website seeking applicants for editorial positions for the unnamed paper (NL, Nov. 14).

Besides Black, who is chairman/CEO of Hollinger International, there are nine or 10 other investors, including Michael Steinhardt, who is vice chairman of The Forward.

MAG GETS LIFT FROM ORGANIC CRAZE

Organic Style magazine has added 100,000 to its circulation base, raising the total to 500,000.

The magazine, which is sold at many Whole Foods grocery stores, was started last August.

USA Today's Bruce Horovitz said the magazine's popularity is a sign that organic products are "hot," with sales expected to top $9.3 billion this year, up about 25% over last year, according to the Organic Trade Assn.

"Organic isn't just about healthier food anymore," said Horovitz. "It's about a lifestyle change that is increasingly striking a chord with consumers who suddenly feel disconnected in an unpredictable world."

While the traditional definition of organic meant products produced with no chemical pesticides or fertilizers, no irradiation, no genectic engineering, no hormones or antibiotics, OS's editors have redefined organic as "whatever is authentic to your nature as a general way of life."

Maria Rodale is editor of OS. Her grandfather, J.I. Rodale, founded Rodale Press with Organic Farming and Gardening (now OG) magazine in 1942.

PERSONAL FINANCE MAGS SLUMP

Personal finance magazines are experiencing declines in advertising and newsstand sales even though sound advice has become even more essential to investors, according to David Handelman, who is covering the magazine beat for The New York Times.

Media Industry Newsletter said the four largest circulation magazines-Money, Kiplinger's, Smart Money and Mutual Funds-are down in annual ad pages, by 17.1% at Money to 32.8% at Smart Money.

Newsstand sales for the first six months through June, compared with the same period in 2000, also dropped, according to circulation bureau reports.
Money (1.9 million circulation) dropped 25%; Smart Money (809,000) is down 30%; Kiplinger's (1.03 million) lost 42%, and Mutual Funds (800,000) fell 43%.

As a result, several magazines are being redesigned to distinguish themselves in how they deal with the post-attack world, according to Handelman.

Mutual Funds, published by Time Inc., is streamlining its front and back sections on investing and financial planning; SmartMoney, which is owned by Dow Jones and Hearst, will play up its connection with The Wall Street Journal, and Money will use heavier paper stock and run articles that examine the new landscapes of travel, housing and investing.

MEDIA BRIEFS

The New York Daily News has restored the Brooklyn section after a 10-week hiatus. The daily neighborhood section was pulled following the terrorist attacks to make more space available for coverage of the disaster.

Time Inc. is closing down On, Asiaweek and Family Life magazines due to the continuing ad recession.

Jet magazine, which first appeared Nov. 1, 1951, is celebrating its golden anniversary. The weekly, published by Johnson Publishing, Chicago, has stuck to its original format of covering the latest fashions, information about which black stars would be in TV shows and movies, and "beauty of the week" photo of a smiling 20-something in a bathing suit in the middle of the book.

Dow Jones & Co. told employees on Nov. 29 that the company won't return to its World Financial Center headquarters in lower New York until spring 2002 at the earliest. The company had previously said employees might return to the building in the first quarter.

About 425 news and editorial employees of The Wall Street Journal and Barron's, are expected to return to the WFC as soon as the building is available.

CN8, a cable TV network owned by Comcast Cable Communications, is opening two new bureaus in New Jersey in a move to increase primetime news coverage of state issues.

The new Union bureau is located at 800 Rahway ave. The other new bureau in Toms River is located at 830 Route 37 West.

CN8's other bureaus are in Jersey City; Port Murray (Mansfield); Middletown; Trenton; Cherry Hill; Willingboro; Woodbury; Pomona, and Wildwood.

BRILL TO WRITE FOR NEWSWEEK

Steve Brill, who founded the now-defunct Brill's Content magazine, will write a column for Newsweek,entitled "Homefronts," covering the legal, business and lobbying controversies stemming from the Sept. 11 tragedies.

CONGRESSMEN WANT PROBE OF U.S. PR

Congressional leaders have asked for a "wide-ranging evaluation" of the way U.S. embassy public affairs officers are conducting media relations.

"The U.S. has a range of programs that constitute our public diplomacy efforts, including public affairs officers stationed at U.S. embassies overseas who work with host country media outlets, academic and professional exchanges with 140 countries, and radio services broadcasting to people around the world in their languages," U.S. Reps. Henry Hyde (R.-Ill.) chairman of the House International Relations Committee, and Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), the panel's senior Democrat, wrote in a letter, dated Nov. 29, to U.S. Comptroller General David Walker.

"While these and other efforts have been galvanized by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 to help fight the international war on terrorism, it would appear that the problem is too great and too entrenched to be solved by current efforts alone," the two said in the letter.

Hyde and Lantos include requests for an analysis of the effectiveness of U.S. international broadcasting efforts including methodologies to identify target groups and audience surveys and how such information is incorporated into planning and programming; an evaluation of how effectively TV, AM and FM radio, the Internet, and other electronic media are being used by the overseas broadcast agency, and analysis of efforts by U.S. embassies "to carry out an effective and sustained public diplomacy program"; an evaluation of the impact of the 1998 merger of the now-defunct U.S. Information Agency with the State Department; an evaluation of the obstacles, opportunities, and available resources of U.S. public diplomacy efforts and how such efforts differ from region to region; an analysis of how the Muslim world presents special difficulties regarding the delivery, reach and effectiveness of U.S. public diplomacy efforts; and an evaluation of successful programs administered by other countries or private sector organizations that can serve as a model for U.S. public diplomacy efforts.

A preliminary report is expected to be complete in the spring of 2002.

YOU CAN COUNT ON US, SAYS SAUDI ARABIA

Saudi Arabia, stung by stories that it is a less-than-willing foot soldier in President Bush's "War on Terror," issued a statement via Qorvis Communications on Nov. 29 saying that's just not so. "Officials Reconfirm Saudi Commitment to Freeze Terrorist Assets" ran its headline.

The statement quoted Ari Fleischer, White House Press Secretary, and Richard Boucher, a State Dept. spokesman, lauding the Saudis. Fleischer said both Bush and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill are "satisfied and are pleased with Saudi cooperation on the financial as well as many other fronts in the war on terrorism." Saudi Arabia, said Boucher, "has been prominent among the countries acting against the accounts of terrorist organizations."

The New York Times has been prominent in the panning of Saudi cooperation with the U.S. It ran a Nov. 27 story headed "Saudis Balk at U.S. Request to Freeze Bank Accounts."

Qorvis is affiliated with Patton Boggs.

D.C. POST COLUMNIST RIPS PNI

"Below the Beltway" columnist Gene Weingarten blasted Porter Novelli International in the Sunday Washington Post Magazine for a release the firm sent out touting the popularity of its client Chef America's "Hot Pockets" sandwiches in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Although the last few weeks have been a challenging time for everyone both personally and professionally, I know that we are all striving to return to 'normal,'" read the release. "In the coming weeks as you begin to return to your regular areas of focus, I wanted you to be familiar with Chef America, makers of HOT POCKETS brand sandwiches."

Weingarten quips, "This release cannot possibly be tasteless because it issues from no less distinguished a source than Porter Novelli International, a company that is, to quote its website, `a world leader in the field of brand building and reputation management.'"

He continues, "At first I was surprised that the image burnishers at PNI failed to mention, in the press release, the true fact that Chef America has donated a substantial amount of money to disaster relief... But then I realized this was counterintuitive, PR-wise. People don't buy HOT POCKETS because they are grateful to the manufacturers for their humanitarian gestures. They buy HOT POCKETS because they're scared of Osama."

PNI's Amber McCasland told Weingarten that the firm was not trying to capitalize on the events, but rather "trying to introduce the product to different people, and after Sept. 11 less people are eating out."

WHITE HOUSE SEEKS CLIPPING SERVICE

The White House has issued a request for quotations to provide the Executive Office of the President with a 15- to 20-page "executive news summary" and a 75-page package of news clips, seven days a week starting Jan. 1, 2002.

Newspapers included in the summary are The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Detroit News, New York Post, Baltimore Sun, Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Boston Globe.

Breaking or "unique" stories from other regional and overseas papers, Congressional Quarterly, and other major newsweeklies are also included, along with AP, Reuters, Bloomberg, Dow Jones and UPI.

TV coverage should include ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, CNN, Fox and MSNBC.

Offers are due Dec. 7. Questions to [email protected] or 202/395-3387.

Here are some questions for the 17-member National Investor Relations Institute board:

. How can you justify keeping the $425 annual dues when you have nearly $6 million in the treasury (at least two years of total dues)?

. How long can you ignore the web as an educational tool for all IR pros instead of concentrating on money-making seminars for the few?

. How can you send "earnings release guidance" to members and not tell them to put the true earnings first and leave "coulda, woulda, shouda" earnings for later, nor tell them to supply a balance sheet?

. With such a fat treasury, how can you justify not having a $100K PR pro on staff to build press ties and use the media to reach large audiences?

. How can you justify not distributing your soft-cover directory of 5,300 members to the press, especially since Regulation Fair Disclosure mandates equal treatment of analysts and reporters?

. How can you sit silently while Business Week, the New York Times and financial figures like the former head of the American Institute of CPAs say earnings releases have become a "Tower of Babel."

. Why not set a good example for financial reporting by providing your own results quarterly instead of annually and following basic CPA rules such as booking income as earned (you have no deferred dues account whatsoever for future obligations).

. How long are you going to ignore the Federal tax code which says associations must work for their entire industries and not just their members?

If NIRI is going to act like a private company, with a fat treasury as a major goal, then it should pay taxes on the millions it has socked away.

The NIRI philosophy is that it works only for its members. The IR members, mostly corporate, work only for their employers who put out these misleading earnings reports. This circle of stroking leaves no room for the public.

Public service is not a concept that is much in evidence either at NIRI or other communications groups. Very few NIRI members and few PR people today have media backgrounds where the goal is informing the general public. IR and PR pros mostly know about aiming at "target audiences," "market segments" and "stakeholders." Instead of thinking, "How can I best describe this subject?" they think: "What do I have to tell this group to make its members jump through the hoop I want them to?"

We're not that hopeful that the NIRI board will respond in any way to us. It's easy for 17 people in a room to band together against a single critic and hard for one or two board members to voice an opposite opinion.

The staffs at associations love big boards because they're easily manipulated. "The bigger the board, the weaker it is," is an old trade group saying. Jerry Dalton, ex-president of PRSA, said the PRSA board started making big mistakes when it expanded past seven people (it now has 17 like NIRI). The PRSA board allowed staff to kill the conference exhibit hall for five years when suppliers were jumping out of their skins to exhibit. PRSA's losses were $1.1 million in 1999-2000 during a good economy. It was unable to print its members' directory in 2000. IABC's 25-member board blew $1 million on an abortive website and now IABC can't print its members' directory at all. The top paid staffers of IABC and PRSA resigned as the boards of both groups took back power they should never have given away. The 17-member NIRI board (14 from corporations) is at www.NIRI.org.


Interpublic and Omnicom regularly report "new business" wins totaling $1 and $2 billion or more with each quarterly earnings report. The figures are misleading because they are billings rather than net commission amounts which their sales and earnings numbers are. The accurate thing would be to say the new business wins are worth about $100-$200 million in fees (commissions of about 10% or so).

But something even more misleading is going on. Sources tell us that sometimes one of these big agencies will only get the media placement part of an account which is worth 2%-3% of the total rather than 10% but will still report the full gross billings amount in its "net new business wins."

The New York Post said Nov. 17 that a spokesman for Chase bank did not return a call about fraudulent withdrawals being made from ATM machines in grocery stores, delis and other places not on bank premises. People at some stores have found a way to steal PIN numbers of ATM users. ChasePR said it received no calls from the Post but reporter Andy Geller said he left two voicemails on numbers given to him by Post business reporters. The problem is that the voicemails only got to "aides" in the unit rather than PR "pros." Many companies have "blockers" and "screeners" that guard PR pros from direct press calls. Chase said PR pros answer all the press calls they can and aides get the rest. It's odd that no "live" person was available among the huge Chase PR staff to talk to the Post. The Chase unit is chopped up into too many segments: corporate, retail, investment, financial, private banking and e-business. Reporters not familiar with the Chase and similar setups can undergo the third degree by aides trying to decide which unit should get the call.
--Jack O'Dwyer