GCI GETS NYC 'BIO-TERROR' PACT

GCI Group has won a $289,000 "bio-terrorism" account from New York City's Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene.

The account is a preliminary one covering the next 11 months. Its aim is to instruct the public on responses to possible bio-technology terror attacks.

Among requirements are two educational videos, a speakers bureau and a media campaign.

Manning, Selvage & Lee; George Arzt Communications; Burson-Marsteller; Fleishman-Hillard; Geto & deMilly; Hill and Knowlton; Dan Klores Communications; Ogilvy PR Worldwide, and Stanton Crenshaw Communications also vied for the account.

G/HI DELIVERS FOR USPS

The United States Postal Service has picked Golin/Harris International as its agency of record to help the $65 billion entity educate the public about its efforts to operate in a more business-like manner. Leo Burnett/Manning, Selvage & Lee/Frankel was the incumbent team.

IPG's Campbell-Ewald and Draft Worldwide also work on USPS business.

The USPS account will be managed jointly by Lane Bailey, who heads G/HI's Washington, D.C., office, and Ellen Ryan Mardiks, the Interpublic unit's worldwide marketing and brand strategy director in Chicago. David Nixon, executive VP in D.C., will serve as the account director.

Mardiks said G/HI will help the Postal Service "reinvent itself to deal with the modern world." She said her firm is proud to work for an "American icon."

Bailey said the win will showcase G/HI's various communications capabilities. He said that's especiallynoteworthy in D.C., where PA dominates the field.

United Technologies is looking to recruit a VP-corporate communications to serve in its Hartford, Conn., headquarters. UT compiled $28 billion in 2001 revenues from units such as Pratt & Whitney, Carrier, Otis Elevator and Sikorsky Aircraft. Bob Woodrum, managing director at Korn/Ferry International, New York, is handling the search.

Makovsky & Co. edged Kekst & Co. and Andrew Edson & Assocs. for the six-figure Assn. of German Mortgage Banks account. The Berlin-based organization plans to market its "pfandbrief," a euro-denominated bond, to American institutional investors.

AGILENT CONSOLIDATES AT WS

Agilent Technologies has consolidated its $4-to-$5 million-plus PR account at Weber Shandwick, making the Hewlett-Packard spin-off one of the top five accounts at the Interpublic unit.

Casey Sheldon, president of WS/Northwest, told this NL Agilent began a formal review of its communications requirements late last year. "It's something it is doing with all its vendors," she said.

She said her firm is "energized" by the opportunity to provide message development, product reviews, speaking engagements, media relations and trade show support to the $8.4 billion communications, electronics and life sciences giant.

WS currently has 50 staffers doing PR for Agilent's corporate, semiconductor, electronics and laboratory units. Sheldon, who is global director of the Agilent team, said WS will hire additional people as "we ramp up." The firm's Silicon Valley, London and Hong Kong offices will work on the Agilent business.

WS has handled various Agilent businesses since it was spun-off from H-P in 1999. Agilent, which has more than 37,000 staffers in more than 120 countries, has used A&R Partners, Fleishman-Hillard's former KVO PR unit, and Publicis Dialog for PR.

IPIX GOES INTO PHASE TWO

Internet Pictures Corp. has moved its $250K PR account from long-time firm Ackermann PR to Phase Two Strategies after a six-firm review.

The Tennessee and California-based company, which makes image software and services for forensic photography, security, e-commerce and homeland security applications, wanted a firm with a San Francisco Bay-area presence and a strong B2B record to bolster its five-person in-house staff, said iPix marketing communications manager, Tara Thomas.

She noted Phase Two's work for PeopleSoft and prior experience in the imaging sector.
Knoxville, Tenn.-based Ackermann handled iPix's PR for five years.

Former Vice President Dan Quayle is scouting for homeland security contract opportunities for Cerberus Capital Partners, a New York investment company, with $8.5 billion in assets under management, Quayle runs Phoenix-based Quayle & Assocs. with his wife, Marilyn.

H&K'S NAYIRAH BACK FOR PERSIAN GULF II

Hill and Knowlton did not fabricate the story about Iraqi soldiers tossing infants from their Kuwait City incubators, according to an Oct. 23 letter published in The Business Times (Singapore) by Vivian Lines, H&K's Asia/Pacific COO.

Lines' piece was in response to columnist John Gee who took issue with the fact that the Kuwaiti witness happened to be Nayirah Al Sabah, daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador in Washington, D.C. H&K received millions of dollars for representing a front-group of the exiled royal family called the Citizens for a Free Kuwait, which was created following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

H&K's mission, according to Lines, was to "acquaint Americans with Kuwait, its people and the facts of the Iraqi invasion." The firm, she claims, "played no role in helping determine the question of whether the U.S. should intervene militarily."

The firm claimed that Nayirah chose to remain in her homeland following the invasion, volunteered in a hospital, witnessed the atrocities and escaped the country. She told a U.S. House human rights panel about the horrors, but her identity as the daughter of a top government official was never revealed-at the request of her dad-though Congressmen and staffers knew her background.

H&K, wrote Lines, did not conceal her identity. The Counselor noted that Reuters, The New York Times, Washington Post, and the American Embassy in Kuwait verified there were examples of babies being removed from incubators by Iraqi soldiers and left to die.

Would Have Been Perceived Differently

Gee responded that his facts were based on a Feb. 6 report compiled by the U.S.-based Middle East Watch. He considers the report, "Kuwait's Stolen Incubators: The Widespread Repercussions of a Murky Incident," the fullest account of the affair. He also says that H&K, while not promoting military action directly, must have realized that Nayirah's testimony would build support for the invasion.

Gee noted that he didn't charge H&K with concealing Nayirah's identity, but feels that if the press had known her background-which later became public- the testimony would have been seen in a different light. "If the public had been told that it was watching the Kuwaiti ambassador's daughter testifying, its reaction would undoubtedly have been more cautious than if it had believed (as it did) that it was watching an ordinary Kuwaiti girl," he wrote.

WPP SEES 'DOUBLE-DIP'; DB SAYS 'SELL'

WPP Group reported a three percent decline in third quarter revenues Oct. 24 saying North American operations, PR and public affairs took the worst hits for the period.

Deutsche Bank on Oct. 25 put a "sell" on WPP Group, a rare event in financial circles since about 99% of analyst recommendations are for "buy" or at least "hold." WPP said it faced lower profit margins than expected for 2002.

WPP, which had about $1.4 billion in revenues for the quarter ($165M for PR and PA), said falling stock prices and increasing unemployment on both sides of the Atlantic have hit consumer confidence and fueled a potential "double-dip" recession.

The firm said PR and PA have been hit the hardest, followed by branding and identity, healthcare and "specialist communications" and advertising.

The company has had a four percent reduction in staff since January, from 52,307 to 49,957, down from 55,584 for the period last year.

The investment banker sees "weak fundamentals" at WPP and says it has been hit with "a sharp decline in information and consultancy margins."

AIPAC's CLOUT STIFLES DEBATE

The power of the American Israel Political Affairs Committee, and its support for the Government of Ariel Sharon have cast a chilling effect on the debate on Capitol Hill over the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

AIPAC, according to a report in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a news service for Jewish publications, has little tolerance for dovish stances or criticisms of Israeli military strikes in Gaza and the West Bank.

Many Congressmen feel uncomfortable about buying into the AIPAC line because they feel the Middle East conflict is not so cut and dried, a staffer told JTA.

Lawmakers however are feeling more pressure to line up in solid support for the Israeli government. "Since Sharon became prime minister, they hold their nose and do what they're told by AIPAC," said an activist.

AIPAC, which is likened to the National Rifle Assn., believes it is unfairly criticized for being effective in doing its job.

JTA also notes the role that Jewish groups had in defeating Democrat Reps. Earl Hilliard (Ala.) and Cynthia McKinney (Ga.) in primaries because of their perceived anti-Israel positions.

Those races show that pro-Israel activists will target even the most marginal politicians on Capitol Hill. "It sends a message that you can be from Podunk, Miss., and we'll go after you," said an activist.

None of the sources used by JTA agreed to go on the record.

EAS STRENGTHENS CLARKE WITH $3M BIZ

Nutrition and dietary supplement giant EAS has consolidated its $3M PR account at Clarke Advertising & PR in a four-firm review that included Ogilvy PR Worldwide and Schenkein in Denver and Donnellon PR in Chicago.

Patricia Courtois, VP of PR at Clarke, told this NL an issues management project the firm previously handled for Golden, Colo.-based EAS was an important factor in winning the business over the three other firms, which were not revealed to Clarke staffers.

Courtois heads the work for EAS at Sarasota, Fla.-based Clarke.

JOURNALISTS CAN'T BE 'PLAYED'

"Overt commercialism, hyperbole, artificiality and manipulation are the best ways to turn off a reporter and, in so doing, damage the fragile, but vital relationship between our two professions," said Peter Himler, who is EVP/media relations for Burson-Marsteller's U.S. corporate/financial practice.

"If there's one thing journalists won't stomach, it's being played," said Himler in an article he wrote for B-M's internal website, and gave to this NL.

"They have every reason to distrust us when we bus children to serve as props at a news conference, or when a celebrity appears on a TV talk show with one ostensible goal-to cleverly work in the name of a commercial product, or the name of a prescription drug to treat an ailment from which that celebrity may suffer," said Himler.

Himler said PR professionals need to do a better job of understanding the media's "hot (and cold) buttons when deciding how best to communicate a client's story."
He said "countless factors" can influence the fate of a news event including the general news environment, whether the correct gatekeeper is targeted, the time of day, the language used to describe the event, etc.

"Managing and being sensitive to a journalist's instinctive aversion to covering a `PR event,' as opposed to a natural news event, should be foremost among them," he said.

TRIBUNE TO DO SHOW FOR WALGREENS

The Tribune Co., which owns several newspapers and TV stations, will produce a weekly health program for Walgreens, a drugstore chain, called "Walgreens Presents RxTV."

The show will air Saturday mornings on the Tribune's 24 TV stations, including WGN-TV, in Chicago.

The program's health and medical news content will be drawn from Tribune's stations. It will include topical health and medical news, and be produced and satellite-fed every week from the Tribune Media Center in Washington, D.C.

ERLANGER NAMED CULTURAL NEWS EDITOR

Steven Erlanger, 50, will replace John Darnton, 60, as cultural news editor of The New York Times.

Erlanger, who is the paper's Berlin bureau chief, will take charge of the 60-member cultural news staff, which produces the daily "Arts" section, "Arts & Ideas" on Saturdays, "Arts & Leisure" on Sundays and "Weekend" on Fridays.

Darnton, who became cultural news editor in 1996, will be given a new position of associate editor for special projects, a role that entails arranging and moderating public forums on international, domestic and cultural issues.

Erlanger has been a news reporter and foreign correspondent since joining the Times in 1987.

HOW-TO VIDEO OFFERS PUBLICITY TIPS

Washington, D.C.-based PR consultant Edward Segal has produced a how-to video in which he gives advice on how businesses and organizations can work with news organizations to get press coverage for their products, services, activities, or expertise.

The $95 video, "Secrets to Understanding and Working with the Media," features highlights from a workshop Segal conducted for business executives and entrepreneurs. It includes tips on how to attract the attention of media outlets, conduct successful news interviews, and prepare effective press materials.

Segal writes a column for The Wall Street Journal 's website for entrepreneurs (www.startupjournal.com), and he also conducts PR workshops for business and industry organizations.

The video may be purchased at www.publicrelations.com or by calling 800/823-5380.

PLACEMENT TIPS

The Deal is a new weekly news magazine that was started by The Deal, which publishes The Daily Deal, a newspaper.

The magazine will provide news, columns, profiles of dealmakers behind the deals, other features and statistics. The newspaper will continue to focus on time-sensitive news.

Robert Teitelman is editor-in-chief of The Deal. The main news bureau is located in New York at 105 Madison ave. Carmen Pagan, editorial assistant, will direct callers to the proper news desk. 212/313-9392.

Cosmopolitan is allocating more space to coverage of women's health issues. Four pages in the September issue and five pages in the October number were dedicated to the new feature called "Take Charge of Your Health."

Wine X's "edgy editorial" format is a reason this Santa Rosa, Calif.-based wine magazine, which was started in 1997, has attracted the interest of GenerationXers and younger adults, according to Darryl Roberts, editor and publisher.

Roberts said the bimonthly magazine has 132,000paying U.S. readers, 100,000 in Australia and New Zealand, and a United Kingdom edition is to start soon. The average subscriber is about 27 years old.

The Philadelphia Inquirer is expanding its coverage in Philadelphia and its suburbs in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The paper has hired 30 new reporters for the effort.

The paper's Pennsylvania suburban edition will be divided into three separate editions for Chester County, upper Montgomery County and Bucks County. A fourth edition will cover the city and the inner suburbs. The South Jersey edition will continue to cover the same area.

(Media news continued on next page)

STEEL MILL PR CHIEF BLOCKS JOURNALISTS

Two Japanese journalists, who showed up unannounced at the Weirton Steel factory in Weirton, W.Va., were told to leave by Gregg Warren, who is the company's corporate communications director.

Warren said they wanted to talk with employees and photograph operations for a story on how the three-year descending tariffs that President Bush imposed in March on certain imported products might affect U.S. elections.

The tariffs were designed to give the domestic steel industry time to reorganize, to become more competitive and to recover from "unfair" foreign competition.

Weirton Steel, which is the largest U.S. producer of tin mill products, controlling about 25% of the U.S. market, has been an industry leader in the nearly five-year-old battle with foreign steelmakers.

Warren told the reporter and photographer that his dealings with the foreign media, especially the Japanese, have produced only unfair, negative stories. "I told them Japan has hurt Weirton Steel," said Warren. "The reporter was baffled we wouldn't let him in. He was quite unhappy."

"This kind of information can be used as evidence against us with the World Trade Organization, so why would Weirton Steel or any other U.S. steel producer cooperate?" Warren said. "It's insulting that they would think we would fall for that," said Warren.

Warren said he had recently refused a request for an interview with the CEO and a plant tour submitted by the BBC. "I don't discriminate against foreign media," said Warren, who will cooperate with reporters for U.S. media. "We put out more press releases than any other U.S. steel mill," said Warren.

MEDIA BRIEFS

Inc., a Boston-based business magazine for more than 20 years, is moving to Gruner + Jahr USA's New York headquarters.

The magazine will cut its current staff of 57 employees down to around eight when it moves at the end of the year.

G+J also publishes Fast Company, which will remain in Boston.

The Chicago Tribune's new morning tabloid called the RedEye made its debut on Oct. 25-five days earlier than planned after reports that The Chicago Sun-Times was starting an afternoon edition called the RedStreak.

The new editions are targeted at 18 to 34-year-olds, who have stopped buying newspapers.

The Reader's Digest Assn., in Pleasantville, N.Y., will publish a new line of special publications that will be sold at supermarket checkout racks in Wal-Mart, Target, Kmart and other stores.

The first of 17 digest-sized RD special issues will go on sale Nov. 4. Frank Lalli, who is VP for development, said the specials, which will be aimed at women aged 35-49, will include health, food and home titles with content from Reader's Digest, Taste of Home and The Family Handyman magazines.

Playboy Enterprises has relaunched a Mexico edition of Playboy after a four-year absence.

About 50,000 copies of the November issue were put on newsstands.

The revised Playboy is geared to the tastes of Mexican men ages 25 to 45, according to Manuel Martinez Torres, 31, who is editor of the Mexican edition, which is based in Mexico City.

The New York Times is buying out The Washington Post's 50% stake in the Paris-based International Herald Tribune.

Donald Graham, chairman/CEO of the Post, told the paper's reporters that it agreed to the sale only after the Times threatened to drive the IHT into ruin.

Founded in 1887, the English-language paper has a global circulation of 264,000.

AdSight, a new monthly newsletter, is tracking ads from 12 top life science publications.

The newsletter uses publishers' rate cards to calculate the estimated value of advertising placed in each journal and details top advertisers by dollar, by number of ads placed and by product category.

The newsletter is published by Bioinformatics, in Arlington, Va.

VNU Business Media, publisher of The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard and Back Stage, will become the sole third-party provider of content for Reuters' real time entertainment news service.

Available April 2003, the new service will feature top entertainment stories, expanded film and TV coverage, in-depth industry reporting, and enhanced music and stage reporting, and expanded reviews.

The average cost to produce national TV commercials in 2001 rose eight percent to $358,000 for 30-second spots, according to a study made by the American Assn. of Advertising Agencies of 1,725 commercials.

For national commercials of all lengths, the cost jumped five percent to $322,000. In 1989, the gross cost to make a national 30-second spot was $180,000.

Phillips Investment Resources, a unit of Phillips International in Potomac, Md., has started Health Investing.

Michael Murphy, who is editor of the newsletter, said Health Investing will focus on the advances that are used today to treat the common diseases of aging such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, Parkinson's Disease and Alzheimer's.

BOOK SLAMS PRESS, ESPECIALLY AP

A new book by a Dartmouth teacher slams the press, and particularly the Associated Press, for presenting a warped view of controversies.

The great bulk of the press behaves like cattle in a stampede, according to Press Bias and Politics: How the Media Frame Controversial Issues (Praeger), by Jim Kuypers, senior lecturer and director of the Office of Speech at Dartmouth.

Kuypers studied hundreds of press clips in the wake of controversial stories about black activist Louis Farrakhan, homosexuals, and the Confederate flag.

Since so many papers rely on the AP for coverage of such events, a handful of writers can have immense influence on how Americans think, he contends.

He defines framing as, "The process whereby communicators act to construct a particular point of view that encourages the facts of a given situation to be viewed (or ignored) in a particular manner, with some facts made more noticeable than others."

Based on the universe of facts that exist on the topics above, Kuypers found that the press focused on a small portion of them that appeared to satisfy a certain agenda.

The public, he concludes, is deprived of facts needed to understand the controversies.

Farrakhan's Speech Not Covered

For instance, he found that the press mostly ignored the speech given by Farrakhan at the "Million Man March" in Washington, D.C., Oct. 16, 2002.

Instead it fixated on his previous speeches and remarks, calling him "racist," "bigot," "sexist," "anti-Semite," "homophobe," and many other names.

The speech was mostly "uplifting" and conciliatory, including reaching out to Jews, says Kuypers.

Farrakhan said it was time to stop arguing and sit down with Jewish leaders so relations can be improved. He also urged blacks, in a two-and-a-half hour speech, to accept responsibility for problems they may have and to lead exemplary lives.

Confederate Flag = States' Rights

After Alabama State Senator Charles Davidson gave a speech May 9, 1996 saying the Confederate flag was a symbol of states' rights and not slavery, he was savaged by the press. A typical critic said he had adopted an "outrageous, evil, racist, backwards, lying position" towards blacks.

Media focused on a small part of Davidson's speech, says Kuypers, neglecting the part that showed the economic basis the the Civil War. The industrialized North, via high tariffs, was preventing the agrarian South from trading with Europe, which was giving it a better deal.

Football Hero is Sacked

When Green Bay Packer Reggie White told the Wisconsin legislature March 25, 1998 that the problems of homosexuals should not be compared to blacks since "homosexuality is a decision, not a race," he was hit with everything but the kitchen sink. He was called "incredibly ignorant," "a moron," "homophobic," "mean-spirited," etc.

Almost every news report and editorial agreed that homosexuality is genetic although Kuypers says there is no scientific evidence of this. The press quoted the American Psychological Assn.'s 1973 decision to stop calling homosexuality a mental disorder.

But Kuypers says the press didn't bother to find out that only a third of the members voted and that "eyewitnesses" say the decision "was driven by politics, not science," He adds, 69% of psychiatrists polled four years later disagreed with the resolution.

WEPR HONORS NY TIMES, OTHERS

The Foundation of Women Executives in PR honored the New York Times and nine other organizations Oct. 24 at the Yale Club for "socially responsible" activities in 2002.

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, publisher of the NYT, accepted the Foundation's Prism Award for its long-running "Portraits of Grief" (biographical details of victims of 9/11). Sulzberger spoke of the Times' commitment to the highest values which the paper has recently put in written form.

The "ultimate test" of those principles, he said, was the paper's response to 9/11. "Throughout the shocking, brutal day and its aftermath," he said, "we witnessed countless examples of courage, dedication and tenacity throughout our properties, from The Boston Globe to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, from WQXR radio to The New York Times on the Web, as we pursued the biggest story of our lifetime while doing all we could to help a city we love."

Griswold Award to Eisai

Jack O'Dwyer, who presented the Denny Griswold Award to Bill Sheldon, president of Eisai, which is distributing manuals for those helping senior citizens, said Griswold could well be the subject of a segment on "Biography" or "The History Channel."

Griswold, who founded WEPR, spent the last five years of her life separated from all her friends in the PR world, he noted. Her story puts the spotlight on abuses in nursing homes, he said. Her 50-year collection of PR memorabilia and even the $400 Tiffany tray that WEPR wanted to give to her have vanished without a trace, he noted.

AARP, ConAgra, Others Honored

Crystal Obelisks were given to: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; ConAgra Foods and Cone, Inc., and four teenage daughters of Lt. Col. Tracy Welch and Edelman PR Worldwide, for organizing fund-raising car washes in the wake of 9/11.

Meritorious recognitions went to: Schering Argentina and Burson-Marsteller; Barnes& Noble, Anti-Defamation League and Burson-Marsteller; Indiana Tobacco Prevention, Golin/Harris and MZD Adv., and AARP and Fleishman-Hillard.

Among those addressing the luncheon were C. Virginia Fields, Manhattan Borough president; Pia Lindstrom, entertainment editor, Fox News; Sheila Rose, president of WEPR; Maria Russell, professor of PR, Syracuse University, and Deborah Radman, president, WEPR Foundation.

Press Bias and Politics is an important work for PR people and the press. It is an in-depth study of how the press handles such controversial topics as race and sexual orientation. About the only thing missing is a study of how news from the Mid-East is handled. Perhaps that is next.

Dartmouth's Jim Kuypers can be more objective about these issues than the press itself because he is removed from the battlefield and is also studying flaps that are several years old.

He writes of a familiar phenomenon-the press going berserk on a single issue and taking an almost uniform view of it. Facts that do not fit the press' agenda are simply ignored. Editorial writers run amok without checking facts in the stories.

By printing large portions of the original texts of certain speeches and then the stories that were written about them, Kuypers shows that few reporters read some of the speeches involved.

Another phenomenon is that some groups react so ferociously when attacked or even mentioned, that the press avoids these hornets' nests.

What are readers to do? We advise reading letters-to-the-editor, op-ed pages, listening to talk radio and reading the foreign press via the Web.

Google.com has a program that will translate almost any language into English or another language.

PR pros as well as the press are inveterate "framers." One definition of framing, provided by educator William Gamson in Kuypers' book, is that it is "a central organizing idea for making sense of relevant events and suggesting what is at issue."

Facts remain neutral until framed, says Kuypers.

Press releases, reporters know, are often more notable for the facts left out than for those that are included. Ditto for many news reports.

"Priming" is another technique that is described and illustrated in the book.

Readers are "set up" to expect something from a speech or an event. The likelihood is that they will then see the event in that "frame." "Agenda-setting" is a close cousin of priming. "Agenda-extension" occurs when media not only tell the public what to think about, but how to think about it.

"Sandwiching" is the placement of the side of an issue the press supports between two opposing viewpoints. The press quotes both viewpoints in an effort to be even-handed. But by inserting its own view, it tips the balance to one of the sides.

The press supposedly decries stereotypes but uses them "extensively," says Kuypers. His view is: "The public has the right to know all pertinent information about a given subject."

PR bosses should start taking reporters to lunch again, says Howard Banks, ex-Forbes assistant managing editor. "An almost universal difference in the behavior of top PR people these days is that they no longer talk to reporters," he writes in Media Isn't a Four Letter Word (Aerospace Industries Assn., Washington, D.C.). We couldn't agree more. Heads of PR firms became bean-counters following the sale of their firms to the ad giants. They're concerned with management of their agencies, new business, profits, etc. But they also don't want to risk being seen as friends and possibly sources for the press. The result is a dearth of personal press/PR contact...New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger made a rare public appearance last week. He did so in behalf of the Times, which was honored for its "Portraits in Grief," and to show his support for staff diversity. He introduced nine women at his table who handle PR and related duties. The Times staff, once mostly male, white, Ivy-League, etc., is now about as diversified by gender, race, ethnicity, etc., as can be...PR professor Maria Russell of Syracuse University, a former board member of PRSA, spoke at the lunch, saying college PR sequences will be the main source of PR pros in the future...we're hearing that some of the 21 ex-PRSA presidents who signed the petition blocking Assembly discussion of the student at-large member proposal (10/23 NL) are now sorry they did so. They have positioned themselves as reactionaries opposed to any change or even discussion of change. Since 3,760 colleges don't have a PR sequence (vs. 231 that have them), maybe the PR professors should wonder if those 3,760 colleges know something that they don't. The vast majority of colleges might consider PR to be too fast-moving a field to be captured and brought into a classroom. They might also have found out that integrated marketing is the rage in the business world and that PR is just a small part of this mix, if it is allowed at all. So why teach it? Perfect examples of the hostility to PR are the three giant ad/PR complexes-Interpublic, WPP Group and Omnicom...IABC will cut its 26-member board to 12 by 2004, switching from geographic-based directors (which PRSA has) to directors having the most relevant skills...the PR Student Society of America spent $356,129 on "travel" in the past six years, a major part of PRSA's $950,373 loss on the students in this period. Where do they go? A few leaders are living high on the hog, somewhat like national, which had a $654,179 travel bill in 2000. The APR board billed PRSA $1,188 for travel for the four years of 1992-95 but $89,656 for the four years of 1998-2001. The ethics board, to its credit, spent only $7,334 on travel from 1998-2001.
--Jack O'Dwyer