HALLIBURTON CALLS IN SITRICK & CO.

Halliburton has hired Sitrick & Co. for corporate PR and investor relations work, Michael Sitrick, CEO of the Los Angeles-based firm, told this NL.

Sitrick, who heads the account, said he reports to Cedric Burgher, VP-IR at the energy services giant. He stressed that his firm is not providing crisis PR counsel to the client.

Halliburton, which was headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, faces a slew of corporate difficulties including a Securities and Exchange Commission probe, shareholder suits and $602 million in asbestos liability. Halliburton, which has announced a corpo rate reorganization, posted a $476M first-half net loss on a 3.7 percent dip in revenues to $6.2 billion. Its stock trades in the $14 range. The shares have traded in a $29.61 to $8.60 range during the past year.

BYRUM OF PRSA IN OWN FIRM

Reed Byrum, incoming president of PR Society of America, has set up his own PR firm after leaving Trilogy, computer software company based in Austin, Texas. He continues to consult for Trilogy, which was founded 12 years ago and provides software for clients including Ford, Lucent, IBM, Sun and Hewlett-Packard. The company has 425 employees and is privately held.

Byrum said he also has other high-tech clients and is doing work for several community groups including counseling his parish during a transition to a new rector, helping the ballet company in Austin, and doing work among the homeless. He feels his new independent status will give him more freedom to make speeches and travel in behalf of PRSA.

Joann Killeen, current PRSA president, is a sole practitioner as were recent presidents Sam Waltz (1999) and Luis Morales (1996). The late Stephen Pisinski, 2000 president, had a small PR firm.

Fred Cook, a 17-year veteran of Golin/Harris International, has been upped to president. He had served as chief client officer at the Interpublic unit.

Previously Cook was regional managing director for the firm's Western region and managing director of its Los Angeles office.

Dave Gilbert left the G/HI presidency post last year to reestablish his own firm, David R. Gilbert & Assocs. CEO Rich Jernstedt took over oversight of the firm's Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., and European offices following Gilbert's exit.

EDELMAN HANDLES PFIZER IMAGE PUSH

Pfizer, the world's biggest drug company, is considering a multimillion-dollar advertising and grassroots PR campaign to improve the image of the battered pharmaceutical industry. Edelman PR Worldwide is to coordinate that effort. Edelman executives refused to comment on the project.

Former White House spokesperson Joe Lockhart and his Glover Park Group along with grassroots specialist Bonner and Assocs. are expected to be part of the Pfizer team. Pfizer is said to be talking with other drug companies and the industry trade group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, to help bankroll the effort.

Pfizer, which announced a $60 billion acquisition of Pharmacia in July, has been keenly focused about the perception held by consumers that they are getting ripped off by pharmaceutical companies. In early September, Pfizer launched "Connection to Care," a program that provides free medicines to up to 22 million uninsured patients suffering from diabetes, hypertension and depression. Single persons who make less than $16,000 a-year, and families with annual income of $25,000 or less are eligible.

Spivak Departs Health Group

Joan Spivak has left Edelman after 15 years to serve as president of Prime Medica, a U.K.-based medical communications firm. She will head the firm's U.S. operations from New York.

Most recently, Spivak was executive VP and GM of Edelman's health practice. She also had headed the firm's life sciences division for the Americas.

SHELDON, EX-H&K/NY HEAD, JOINS LT.

Phil Sheldon, who left in June after a three-year stint as head of Hill and Knowlton/New York, has joined Lippe Taylor Marketing PR. He also headed Porter Novelli's healthcare unit, and was PR director at Pharmacia, the former Upjohn Co. that has agreed to be acquired by Pfizer in a deal worth $60 billion. At PN, Sheldon counseled Pfizer, Novartis, and Bristol-Myers.

Maureen Lippe, CEO at LTMPR, has made expansion of the firm's healthcare practice a key priority at the one-time beauty and fashion PR boutique.

Sheldon joins LTMPR as managing director. He replaces Bill Daddi, the Dilenschneider Group and Cotton Inc. PR veteran, who joined Magnet Comms. in July as SVP in its national consumer practice.

STANLEY SHELLS OUT FOR TAX DODGE

The Stanley Works paid lobbyist Williams & Jensen a whopping $220K in fees during the first-half of this year to deal with issues that arose with the Corporate Patriot Enforcement Act of 2002.

SW's controversial plan to reincorporate in Bermuda to escape $40 million in U.S. taxes spurred widespread outrage that ultimately resulted in legislative support for the Act, which is designed to prevent corporate tax dodgers.

John Trani, CEO of the New Britain, Conn.-based toolmaker, dropped plans to shift its corporate headquarters to Bermuda on Aug. 1 even though he said SW's "ability to compete is being undermined by the U.S. tax code." He noted that U.S. competitors Cooper Industries and Ingersoll-Rand Co. have already reincorporated overseas.

The company called in Weber Shandwick to help deal with media requests about Bermuda.
SW outlays at W&J compare with the $100K that W&J received from Coca-Cola; $60K from Norfolk Southern, and $40K each from J.P. Morgan & Chase and Novartis during the first six months.

DELL HALTS SEARCH

Tom Green, Dell Computer's senior VP of law and administration, and secretary of Dell, issued the following statement regarding the company contacting PR executive search firms. Elizabeth Allen, VP-corporate communications at the $32 billion company, reports to Green.

"At Dell, we periodically explore the outside market for strong senior talent that could potentially strengthen and enhance our internal capabilities. We recently initiated this process for a global marketing and communications leader.

"After completing an exhaustive review, we are convinced that our Vice President of Corporate Communications, Elizabeth Allen, provides Dell with the most effective and strategic communications leadership for the company.

"We know that to achieve our ambitious goals for the future, we need the experience, customer-focused leadership and passion that Elizabeth has brought to our senior team. Therefore, we have ended our external search," said Green.

ACCENTURE HIRES TLG FOR TAX ISSUES

Accenture, the Hamilton, Bermuda-based consult ing giant, has hired The Livingston Group as lobbyist for federal tax and government contracting matters.

Former House Appropriations Committee chairman Bob Livingston heads that firm. He resigned the Speaker of the House-elect post when news of his extramarital affair received major play during the Clinton impeachment proceedings.

Accenture has retained Jones Walker Waechter Poitevent Carrere & Denegre for good measure. Paul Cambon, who was Livingston's legislative director, is director of government affairs at that firm.

The consulting giant issued a statement in April denying that its Bermuda corporate headquarters was mainly a way to dodge U.S. taxes. That statement followed the public outcry over The Stanley Works plan to move its headquarters to the Bahamas to avoid $40 million in federal tax, a plan that led to the introduction of the Corporate Patriot Enforcement Act.

That statement noted that Accenture did not " reincorporate from the United States to Bermuda." Accenture, it said, has never been a U.S.-based or -operated organization and has never operated under a U.S. parent corporation.

In 2001, Accenture's 2,500 partners, more than half of whom were non-U.S. citizens, decided to reorganize as a corporation and go public. Bermuda was chosen as a headquarters because it is a "neutral location," according to Accenture.

Accenture's revenues from its U.S. federal government business tallied $334 million for its fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2001.

B-M ON SIDELINES IN BOTOX VS. FDA

Burson-Marsteller, which generated the media buzz for Botox, is sitting on the sidelines regarding the tussle between client Allergan, maker of the wrinkle-remover, and the Food and Drug Administration regarding Allergan's advertising.

The FDA claims Allergan is running misleading Botox ads, and wants them pulled. (Grey Global Group was awarded the $50 million ad campaign in April.) The agency contends the ads do not specify the particular wrinkles that Botox has been approved to treat.

Allergan has refused the FDA's request, but says it looks forward to entering into "meaningful discussion" with the Feds, said David Pyott, Allergan's CEO on Sept. 12. Pyott, however, has complained about media accounts that give the impression that Allergan wants to 'take on the FDA.' The FDA, he noted, has every right to express its concern about promotional issues, just as Allergan has the right to respond.

Ame Wadler, chair of B-M's healthcare practice, told this NL that the WPP Group unit has nothing to do with the ad flap. She helped spearhead the wave of publicity for Botox, which culminated in a New York Times front page report earlier this year.

Wadler said Allergan's in-house PR staff is well-equipped to deal with media inquiries regarding the ad issue. Christine Cassiano and Suki Shattuck are the key media contacts at Allergan.

PUBLICIS NET INCHES AHEAD BY 2%

Publicis Groupe recorded a two percent rise in first-half net profit to 55 million euros ($53.6 million) on a 2.4 percent rise in revenues to 1.2 billion euros. Organic revenues slipped 3.6 percent.

CEO Maurice Levy said the firm's growth was "not easy" due to the global economic downturn. The outlook for the advertising market is "difficult to assess," he added.

ESSENCE MAGAZINE TO TRY A BOOK CLUB

Essence , a magazine for black women, is starting its own book club. It will be run by Patrik Henry Bass, who is book editor for the New York-based magazine, which has a circulation of 1.1 million and claims a readership of seven million.

All Essence's selections will be books about African-American experiences, and selections will be displayed in the magazine quarterly.

The first books to be recommended, in the October issue, will be four black classics chosen by Bass and his colleagues. Readers will then have 30 days to vote-via e-mail or even postcard-on which of the four they want to discuss in the magazine's online chat room at www.essence.com.

Subsequently, readers will be asked to submit nominations for the club's selections, which will then be determined by a combination of members' submissions and a group of the magazine's editors.

The magazine will conduct a website chat for members with the author if living, or a guest author if the writer is dead.

Since Oprah Winfrey gave up her book club in April, other book clubs have been started by USA Today, the "Today" show on NBC, ABC's "Good Morning America," and "Live With Regis and Kelly."

Paul Bogaards, SVP/executive director of publicity, promotion, and media relations for book publisher Alfred A. Knopf, said the new media-sponsored book clubs are driving "explosive sales" in the retail marketplace (7/17 NL).

MEDIA BRIEFS

Men's Health magazine and LMNO Prods. have signed an agreement that allows the Los Angeles-based reality TV producer to develop a TV series based on the MH brand.

Shows already in development for the partnership include such non-scripted concepts as "Let's Dare John," an adventure/science program; "Second Chances," a reality-based program that helps men correct a regret or mistake, and a cooking show based on MH's best-selling book.

A magazine-style show based directly on the content of MH is also in development, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

E! Entertainment's sister TV network, Style, is starting two new series this month-"Style Star" and "Fashiontrance."

Style Star focuses on celebrities who are setting new fashion trends. The show will debut on Sept. 22 at 10 p.m., and will continue to air on Sundays at 9 p.m.

Fashiontrance, which will be an hour-long show featuring coverage of major fashion shows, premiers Sept. 20 at 10 p.m.

Based in Los Angeles, Style has 24 million subscribers.

PLACEMENT TIPS

InTouch, a three-year-old magazine about cancer prevention and treatment, uses only celebrities on its covers.

Randi Londer Gould, who is editor of the bimonthly, which is headquartered in Melville, N.Y., told Newsday the celebrities generally have either been diagnosed with cancer (such as current cover subject Geraldine Ferraro, who is fighting multiple myeloma) or are advocates because of special interests, relative or friends (such as upcoming cover subject S. Epatha Merkerson of "Law and Order," who had friends die of lung cancer).
Gould, who is the magazine's only full-time staffer, likes to add practical tips, such as how to deal with red tape and what to say to a cancer patient who's just been diagnosed-a topic that got Gould on the "Today" show last year.

The magazine is part of PRR Inc., which John Gentile founded 25 years ago to publish scientific and professional journals and books in the oncology field. It goes to 50,000 doctors' waiting rooms, hospitals, bookstores and a few subscribers.

All InTouch issues are available at www.intouchlive.com.

The Chicago Tribune started publishing a new section in its Sunday edition this week, called "Q."

The section, which is described in a press release as "quotable, quirky and a quick read," will offer information on a lot of different topics, with shorter items covering people, fashion, entertainment, health and fitness, ethics, ideas and more.

Q replaces the Sunday "Health & Family" section.

Denise Joyce, a features editor, is overseeing the new section.

PEOPLE

Tim Appelo, previously an editor with Amazon. com, will join Seattle Weeklyon Sept. 30 as senior arts writer, focusing on local and national arts and culture. Culture editor Mark Fefer will continue to oversee the paper's arts coverage.

Tim Arrango, 27, who was covering retail news for TheStreet.com, will join The New York Post as a media beat reporter, replacing Dan Cox, who left the paper.

Lambert Mayer, who published Media Relations World Letter, a newsletter about professionals in media, journalism and PR, is in a geriatric institution following a heart attack Jan. 1.

Alev Aktar, 36, who is fashion and beauty editor of The New York Daily News, and Nelson Thayer Jr., 38, an assistant U.S. attorney in Newark, N.J., were married in June.

(Media news continued on next page)

McCORRY PUT IN CHARGE OF REPORTERS

John McCorry was named by Bloomberg News to oversee all of the news organizations' 1,200 print journalists worldwide.

McCorry, a former business reporter for The New York Times , had been Bloomberg's Princeton, N.J., bureau chief. He was president of the New York Financial Writers' Assn. from 1994-95.

Ken Kohn, former chief of Bloomberg's European print news operation, was named head of worldwide broadcasting operations, which includes Bloomberg TV, a financial cable news network, and WBBR-AM, a New York-based news radio station.

Kohn, who started out at Bloomberg as a corporate bonds reporter, has spent his entire career in print journalism.

McCorry and Marty Schenker, who runs Bloomberg's domestic radio and TV operations, will report to Kohn. Schenker had been reporting to Matt Winkler, editor-in-chief.

NIEVES JOINS THE WASHINGTON POST

Evelyn Nieves, who has been San Francisco bureau chief for The New York Times, is joining The Washington Post as a national political correspondent.

She will remain in San Francisco for another year before relocating to Washington, D.C.

Dean Murphy is replacing Nieves, whose departure is the fifth by a bureau chief or correspondent at the Times since the start of 2002.

Earlier, Atlanta bureau chief Kevin Sack took a job with The Los Angeles Times , which permitted him to stay in Atlanta, and Jim Sterngold, former Los Angeles correspondent, joined The San Francisco Chronicle.

In Seattle, bureau chief Sam Howe Verhovek went to the L.A. Times, and former Boston bureau chief Carey Goldberg joined The Boston Globe.

OPC ELECTS NEW OFFICERS

Alexis Gelber, Newsweek's director of special projects, was elected to succeed Larry Martz as Overseas Press Club president for the next two years.

Other officers elected were: First VP-Marshall Loeb, senior correspondent of CBSmarketwatch.com; Second VP-Richard Stolley, senior editorial advisor of Time Inc.; Third VP-Robert Dowling, managing editor of Business Week International; Treasurer- Jacqueline Albert-Simon, U.S. bureau chief and associate editor of Politique Internationale, and Secretary-Michael Serrill, senior editor/international, Business Week.

New associate board members elected were: Bill Collins, PA dir., Ford Motor; Yvonne Dunleavy, author/journalist; Minky Worden, electronic media director of Human Rights Watch, and Peter Cullum, VP, Donley Comms., who is an associate alternate.

HAJARI NAMED M.E. OF NEWSWEEK INT'L.

Nasid Hajari was named managing editor of Newsweek International.He was previously Asia editor for the overseas editions since his arrival at the magazine in Feb. 2001.

Hajari, who is based in New York, will oversee the content and direction of Newsweek's overseas issues. Newsweek has three distinct English-language international editions: Atlantic (distributed throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa), Asia and Latin America.

Hajari replaces Steven Strasser, who retired after 25 years with Newsweek.

William Dobson has joined the overseas staff as Asia editor. He had been an associate editor at Foreign Affairs.

WILLEN IS EDITOR OF THE FEDERAL PAPER

Mark Willen, a 33-year veteran of Washington journalism, who previously ran Bloomberg News' political unit, is editor of The Federal Paper a new weekly paper making its debut on Sept. 23.

Dan Leeds, a former principal at CMP Media before it was acquired by United Media, is starting the weekly paper, which will target White House officials, political appointees, upper-level GS-grade decision-makers, members of Congress, top state and local elected officials and private-sector interests.

Willen also spent a decade at Congressional Quarterly where he was editor of Congressional Monitor and managing editor of CQ Weekly.

Stacy Mason, who spent 10 years at Roll Call, where she held various positions including editor-in-chief, executive editor and managing editor, is associate publisher, and Chris Hertz, formerly the CEO of Evolving Data Corp., is deputy publisher.

Nina Easton, formerly a writer for 10 years at The Los Angeles Timesand author of "Gang of Five: Leaders at the Center of the Conservative Ascendancy," is deputy editor.

Other members of the editorial staff include senior staff writers David Morris, and Stephen Norton. Morris most recently was White House bureau chief for Bloomberg News, and Norton is a former reporter with National Journal's CongressDaily and Legi-Slate.

Kerry Kantin, previously a reporter for The Hill, is a staff writer, along with Taylor Lincoln and Derrick Wetherell. Ron Elving, currently the senior Washington editor for National Public Radio news, is a political columnist.

The paper's offices are located at 1150 18th st., N.W., #475, Washington, DC 20036.

Belo Corp., Dallas, will offer free airtime to qualified political candidates and expand its coverage of the 2002 election on a national and local level.

Additional information is available on Belo's website (www.belo.com) and from Scott Baradell, VP/corporate communications (214/977-2067).

PRSA & NIRI HEADS ASK IR REFORM

Reed Byrum, incoming elected president of PR Society of America, and Louis Thompson, paid president of the National IR Institute, both called for reform of IR last week.

Byrum, addressing the American Electronics Assn., called on CEOs to break their silence and become "vocal leaders" of the business community.

"We are deafened by the silence of the majority of corporate leaders," he said. Byrum also said CEOs should end "pro forma" and other misleading financial reports. The AEA is the largest high-tech industry association.

Thompson, speaking to NIRI/Chicago, said, "The problem of restoring investor confidence has moved far beyond accounting and regulatory reform to one that is a major PR problem."

He called on NIRI members to assume an even greater role in their companies.

"Never before...have the opportunities to expand our role been greater," he said.

While Thompson called for a greater role for IR people, Byrum called for PR people to become more involved in IR.

Byrum had previously said in an op-ed piece to the Austin Business Journal that CEOs should use "professional communicators" who will "bring clarity to financial complexities...CEOs must start telling their company's story to more than just Wall Street analysts."

Reporters Banned from Analyst Calls

Reporters are almost never allowed to ask questions at analyst teleconferences. The conferences, con ducted via phone, do not allow the analysts to see the reactions of the CEOs and CFOs to their questions.

A moderator, usually the IR person, decides who is allowed to ask questions. Analysts complain that supportive analysts and those from major brokerages have an edge on other questioners. Almost all NIRI members have Wall Street rather than press backgrounds.

Byrum said that there are only "a few rotten apples, corporate criminals who deserve to be memorialized for future generations as symbols of institutional avarice and hubris."

But the silence of "well-performing CEOs in every activity other than telecommunications have through their omissions allowed these rotten apples to dominate perception," he added.

He also noted that a survey by FD Morgen-Walke found that 54% of professional investors say the current round of scandals represents "a broader crisis of confidence" than just a few "bad apples." Also, he said, "54% of the public do not believe corporate financial results are credible."

Thompson noted the Enron scandal was followed by "accounting scandals at Global Crossing, Tyco Int'l, ImClone and Adelphia Communications."

The 100 million U.S. investors lost $7.9 trillion since March 2000 because of the stock market slide and pulled a record $52.6 billion from their mutual funds in July alone, he added.

"Now is the time for companies to be aggressively telling the investment community what they're doing to restore confidence," he said. At another point he said NIRI must help restore "investor and public confidence in corporate America."

LERACH RIDES AGAIN, SAYS NEW YORKER

Securities lawyer Bill Lerach, surviving the 1995 "Safe Harbor" bill that was meant to cripple his business, is back at the top of his game, according to the Sept. 9 New Yorker.

His firm, Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, which recently sued Omnicom and Interpublic, files an estimated half of all the shareholder class action suits nationwide and 80% of those in California, where the firm is based.

The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, passed at the end of 1995, was in reality an act meant to cripple Lerach, sources told New Yorker writer Jeffrey Toobin (author of A Vast Conspiracy).

Major backers of the law included the then "Big Six" accounting firms (now the "Final Four"), the National IR Institute, Public Securities Assn., Nat'l Venture Capital Assn. and numerous dot-com companies that were often the object of stockholder suits.

They said a few specialist law firms like Milberg Weiss were acting like "ambulance chasers" who practiced "extortion."

The Securities Act made it harder for lawyers to involve accounting firms in the lawsuits.

The bill also increased the likelihood that plaintiffs would pay defendants' legal costs if a suit fails. NIRI lobbied strenuously for passage of the bill. Literature was distributed via Powell Tate, which represented the Big Six.

NIRI Is Corporate Oriented

Corporate-oriented NIRI has 14 corporate members on its current board of 16 (plus CEO Lou Thompson). Mary Dunbar of Dix & Eaton is the one counselor member from a major PR firm. Counselor Donald Allen spent most of his career in corporate jobs. Counselor Vickie Gorton has joined Carreker Corp., Dallas software firm, as director of IR.

Thompson said that the Act was not designed to eliminate legitimate lawsuits and that a number of them were filed in the wake of the Act. It was meant to stop "frivolous" lawsuits that followed whenever a stock took a dip, he told this NL.

Analyst Conference Statements Used

Milberg Weiss cited statements made by Omnicom CFO John Wren and CFO Randall Weisenburger at a conference call June 12 in launching a suit June 17.

Statements made Aug. 13 by IPG CEO John Dooner and CFO Sean Orr are cited in a suit launched Aug. 15 by the law firm.

Among other charges, Dooner, Orr and 15 other IPG executives are accused of selling $100 million worth of IPG stock at prices inflated by erroneous earnings reports.

Reed Byrum of PRSA and Lou Thompson of NIRI have called for corporate reform in financial reporting (page 7).

It certainly is a mess with the profusion of outright false financial reports plus the pestilence of "pro forma" and numerous other types of misleading reports such as "headline" earnings, "net debt," EBITDA (earnings before taxes, etc.), and so on.

The Enron scandal alone cost investors about $93 billion, which is nearly equal to the amount President Bush had in his economic stimulus package for the entire country.
IR, as presently practiced, blocks press access to CEOs and CFOs. It even blocks analysts who show the slightest hostility to the companies they cover.

One reason for the profusion of corporate scandals now is that the press has not been allowed to do its job of overseeing corporate behavior in recent years.

Not only have the CEOs used their IR and PR people as shields, they have used their CFOs to put out increasingly snarled and opaque financial statements that hide key dealings. The reports are beyond the expertise of all general and even most financial reporters. Mountainous SEC filings loaded with doubletalk are the rule.

Reporters who go to the SEC databank (EDGAR) are confronted with hundreds of filings identified only by long series of letters and numbers. There is usually no one at the company to help them decipher this code.

If they're sincere in their efforts to bring about reform, Byrum and Thompson have to call for the opening of analyst conference calls to the press and for such exercises to be in-person.

The slavish analysts are at a huge disadvantage in these calls which former NIRI chairman Tim Cost once called "Kubuki theater" (i.e., a rigid, predictable ritual). The analysts can't see the reactions of the CEOs and CFOs, don't follow up on unanswered questions, and get cut off if they ask an impertinent or probing question. They're quickly told to call after the conference.

Some of these companies (e.g., Omnicom, Interpublic) are in the New York area where the bulk of analysts and press are located. The CEOs of other companies could easily fly to New York if they wished to.

Companies have given short shrift to the press for too long with disastrous results for the U.S.

Both PRSA and NIRI have set a poor example for press relations. PRSA, for the past 20 years or so, has had only one person on PR, usually a junior or mid-level pro. For a year and more at a time, there has been no one on PR at the Society. The current staff at PRSA numbers 47 (one on PR). PRSA, meanwhile, has a $10 million budget.

NIRI, with $4.6 million in its treasury last Dec. 31, is worse. It has never had an on-staff PR person in its 32 years. Thompson is often on the road and says he is jammed with numerous tasks in the rare instances he can be reached. Companies similarly escape press relations by the simple expedient of having little if any staff to handle press calls.

PRSA and NIRI, before they can start lecturing CEOs to be more communicative, must build up their own PR staffs.

IR people, almost all of them with Wall Street or financial backgrounds and few, if any, from the press, are culprits here. They have acted very territorial, barring PR people from anything financial. We don't see IR people holding classes in financial reporting for their PR departments. NIRI, despite its huge treasury, makes no move in this direction either for PR people or the general or financial press. NIRI appears to have one thing on its mind-NIRI. Its new, enlarged code, lacks the word "public."

This makes NIRI a non-professional group since, by definition, a profession is concerned with the welfare of the general public and not any one segment of it (such as investors).

Bill Huey, Atlanta PR pro, says it's about time that CFOs retired "EBITDA" (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization). It is the equivalent of a wage-earner reporting income before payroll deductions. Huey, formerly with BellSouth and who now heads Strategic Communications, said the letters might better stand for "Earnings Before Information Technology Disasters Appeared." He proposes a new phrase-EBAT-standing for "Earnings Before Accounting Tricks." It could be teamed with EAAT ("Earnings After Accounting Tricks") so that companies could report earnings both ways, he said...a consultant who was helping a client pick a PR firm said he sat in on the presentations and that one firm used the words "brand" and "branding" at least 50 times within a half-hour. The client told him during a break that he needed either earplugs or a scotch before he could listen to more. The consultant said the account was won by a "meat and potatoes" firm that focused on the "ink" that it could win...moviegoers in New York are greeted with five commercials before the start of the feature. One of the commercials at a theater on 32nd st. and Second ave. was by New York University Medical in which it offers $7,000 for a woman who will donate one of her eggs. This sounds like a quick way to make a lot of money but medical sources said this is a very arduous and possibly dangerous procedure.
--Jack O'Dwyer