SCHWARTZ WINS BIOGEN PITCH

Biogen has selected Schwartz Comms. as its PR firm to position the $1 billion-plus (revenues) company as the "pioneer in the biotechnology market," Lloyd Benson, executive VP at SC, told this NL.

Founded in 1978, Biogen bills itself as the "oldest independent biotechnology company." SC was invited about a month ago to pitch the account, Benson said. Weber Shandwick was among those in the competitive mix.

Amy McKnight, who runs PR at Biogen, would not comment on why SC was picked. "We hire a lot of outside vendors, and it would be a full-time job if I had to comment on why we hired each one," said the veteran of SC and Citigate Cunningham.

Avonex, which treats multiple sclerosis, is Biogen's flagship drug. The company earned $42 million on $262 million revenues during the third quarter.

Cambridge, Mass.-based Biogen has $828 million in cash and marketable securities.

SC senior VP Jim Weinrebe assists Benson on the Biogen account, which calls for media relations, corporate branding and messaging. Biogen has used Spectrum Science and Regan Communications.

JORDAN, MOROCCO TURN TO EDELMAN

The Kingdoms of Jordan and Morocco-two key Arab states being wooed by President Bush in the impending invasion of Iraq-have hired Edelman PR Worldwide.

The firm bills the Royal Hashemite Court $8,500 a month for media relations, messaging and image building. Christine Cimko, who was communications director at the Senate Armed Services Committee, is the key Edelman player on the Jordan account. She reports to Sima Bahous, director of the Jordanian Govt.'s communication and information division.

Morocco signed an interim agreement with Edelman on Oct. 1 for media relations duties relating to that country's parliamentary elections.

The PR firm is in the process of finalizing a formal contract, but Peter Segall, Edelman/Washington, D.C., general manager, could not be reached to talk about the status of the negotiations.

Ketchum has been picked over Hill and Knowlton, Weber Shandwick and incumbent Grant Jacoby to handle industry and media relations for International Truck and Engine Corp., the nation's biggest truck maker. SVP Lee Bush oversees the account.

GA HANDLES UAL CHAPTER 11 FILING

United Airlines is using Gavin Anderson & Co. to handle media relations concerning the Dec. 9 Chapter 11 filing by its parent company UAL Corp. The Air Transportation Stabilization Board's rejection of UAL's bid for $1.8 billion in loan guarantees last week spurred the bankruptcy filing.

UAL CEO Glenn Tilton, who recently joined the company from ChevronTexaco, promises "business as usual" as the carrier restructures. He cited the "tragic events of Sept. 11" in which two United planes were hijacked, and the decline in business travel among reasons for the reorganization.

The company, which has lost a combined $3.8 billion during the past seven quarters, has arranged a $1.5 billion "debtor in possession" financing from a group headed by J.P. Morgan Chase and Citibank.

CT's Rosemary Moore joined UA as SVP-corp. affairs in November. She was VP-PA, gov't affairs at the San Francisco energy giant. GA is an Omnicom unit. President Robert Mead heads the account.

QORVIS PARTNERS DEPART

Qorvis Communications, the Washington, D.C., firm handling PR for Saudi Arabia, was hit by the departure of three founding partners to Omnicom's Clark & Weinstock on Dec. 4. News reports suggested that the resignations came as a result of the firm's work for the Saudi government, which has been criticized for not cracking down on terrorism.

Judy Smith, a former deputy White House press secretary in the first Bush Administration who has since represented Monica Lewinsky and the family of Chandra Levy, was the most prominent of the three. Bernie Merritt and Jim Weber also departed.

Qorvis has recruited Direct Impact's Michael Tucker and Curtis Robinson as partners.

Qorvis receives $200K from the Saudi government for PR/PA work. It orchestrated a PR session in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 3 wherein Adel Al Jubeir, the foreign advisor to Prince Abdullah, outlined the Kingdom's effort to fight terrorism.

The New York Daily News mocked the session and editorialized on Dec. 5: "Al Jubeir, with a straight face, complains that his country 'has been unfairly maligned.' America would settle for unfairly maligned. America was unfairly attacked in an act of war that turned thousands of innocents into dust.

The Saudi kingdom bears a significant share of the responsibility."

HBO BRINGS BACK NAYIRAH

"Live From Baghdad," an HBO-produced drama about CNN's coverage of the Gulf War, which aired on Dec. 7, rehashed the PR-fueled story of Nayirah Al-Sabah and her tale of Iraqi soldiers tossing babies from incubators in a Kuwait hospital.

Pacific News Service's Lucy Komisar has suggested that "such fabrications may invite other, more dangerous hoaxes" as the U.S. and Iraq may go to war.

Nayirah, who testified on behalf of a front group of exiled Kuwaiti royals called the Citizens for a Free Kuwait in 1990, was later outed as the daughter of Kuwait's Ambassador to the U.S. She was coached by Hill and Knowlton VP Lauri Fitz-Pegado and starred in a VNR the firm produced. President George H.W. Bush cited the incubator story in building support to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. H&K received over $10M in fees from Kuwait's government during the Gulf War.

The movie used a real clip of Nayirah's testimony in which she says, "They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators and left the babies to die on the cold floor!"

"Live from Baghdad" was promoted as a fictional account based on truth. The screenplay was written by CNN field producer Robert Weiner.

Fitz-Pegado continues to defend her work with Nayirah. "I have always found it mind boggling that more attention has been paid to discrediting the observations of Nayirah Al-Sabah than to the Iraqi atrocities she and others described," she wrote in a letter to the O'Dwyer website in May.

She cited a 1992 Kroll Assocs. report commissioned by Kuwait which said "Iraqi misconduct during the occupations resulted in infant deaths by numerous causes, including removal of babies from incubators.

M/S VETERANS HOLD REUNION

Sixty-five ex-staffers of Miller/Shandwick Technologies held a holiday reunion Dec. 3 in Boston, two years after many were laid off following M/S's merger with The Weber Group.

Liz Erk, a senior A/E at Topaz Partners - a firm launched by former M/S president Tony Sapienza earlier this year - told this NL M/S alumni have kept in touch via a Yahoo! community.

The staffers convened at Boston's Bay Tower, a Topaz client whose PR manager also worked at M/S.

Erk said former colleagues from around the U.S. flew in for the event. She noted the PR pros are holding a holiday party for a company that no longer exists as other companies are cancelling parties for economic reasons.

Ketchum, for instance, is scaling back on holiday party expenses by holding them on site instead of at clubs and other venues, according to USA Today.

In New York, Ketchum's employees have put together an in-house band, reports the paper.

A study by Hewitt Assocs., showed the number of companies hosting holiday parties dipped from 67% in 2001 to 64% this year.

RF LAUNCHES IBS PR PUSH

Novartis has kicked off a national educational campaign called "Talk IBS" to give women the facts about irritable bowel syndrome.

Ruder Finn handled the press conference launch at the New York Marriott Marquis' JW's Steakhouse on Dec. 4. Lynda Carter, who played "Wonder Woman" is spokesperson of the campaign that debuted under the auspices of the Society for Women's Health Research.

Carter, whose mother suffers from IBS, was on hand during presentation of a study called "Irritable Bowel Syndrome in Women: The Unmet Needs" that deals with the abdominal discomfort, bloating and constipation associated with IBS.

The Report contends that IBS is the No. 2 cause of workplace absenteeism-the common cold is No. 1 -and costs the U.S. healthcare system $30 billion annually. It reports that 20 percent of the U.S. population experiences IBS; 70 percent of that group are women.

Lisa Shakner is responsible for the PR program.
Novartis is the producer of Ex-Lax, overnight laxative, and prescription drugs Zelnorm and Zelmac IBS treatments.

F-H NAMES McCAFFREY HOMELAND CZAR

Fleishman-Hillard has created a homeland security practice office headed by retired U.S. General and drug czar Barry McCaffrey. It will tap into the Omnicom unit's PR resources in biotech, agribusiness, healthcare PA and technology, offering clients ways to capitalize on anti-terrorism opportunities on the federal and state levels.

Paul Johnson, president of F-H's mid-Atlantic region; James Hoskins, executive director of Wirthlin Worldwide, and former New York City Police Commissioner Howard Safir, CEO of Omnicom's SafirRosetti security/intelligence operation, join McCaffrey at the homeland security practice.

McCaffrey, who serves on F-H's international advisory board, was commander-in-chief of the U.S. Armed Services Southern Command responsible for Latin America, and led the 24th Infantry Division during the Persian Gulf War
President Clinton named McCaffrey director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy on Feb. 29, 1996. He served until Jan. 7, 2001.

McCaffrey is a professor at West Point, and national security and terrorism analyst for NBC News.

SPRING ADDS CORPORATE POST AT WS

Micho Spring, chair of Weber Shandwick's New England operations, is adding the role of chairperson of the firm's U.S. corporate practice.

A 10-year WS veteran, Spring is charged with generating new business and coordinating with corporate practice leaders in Europe and Asia, along with the firm's U.S. operations.

She was previously president and CEO of Boston Telecomms. Co. and deputy mayor of the City of Boston for four years.

NEWSWEEK SAYS NY TIMES IS LEFTIST

Many people around the country are noticing a change in how The New York Times covers issues, from the looming war with Iraq to the sex-abuse scandals in the Catholic Church, reports Newsweek.

But increasingly, the Times is being criticized for ginning up controversies as much as reporting about them, writes Newsweek's national correspondent Seth Mnookin in the Dec. 9 issue.

In pointing out the paper's growing left-wing bias, the magazine says the Times turned a non-story into its own crusade: Augusta National Golf Club's policy of male membership.

A Page One story on Nov. 25, "CBS Staying Silent in Debate on Women Joining Augusta," was the Times' 32nd item in less than three months on Augusta's choice not to admit women as members, says Mnookin, who notes, "The story spanked the TV network that has a contract to air the Masters for `resisting the argument that it can do something to alter the club's policy,' although it was unclear who- other than the Times-was making the argument."

One Times staffer told the magazine: "That was just shocking. It makes it hard for us to have credibility on other issues. We don't run articles that just say so-and-so is staying silent. We run articles when something important actually happens."

Newsweek says "the chorus of complaints at the Times has been getting louder" and executive editor Howell Raines is "in danger of losing the building" because of his injection of political bias into so-called news stories."

NYT PRINTS TWO 'MEN-ONLY' COLUMNS

Two sports columns, which were rejected by editors two weeks ago, were published in the Dec. 8 Sunday edition of The New York Times.

Both columns, which are about the controversy over Augusta National Golf Club's refusal to admit women members, had been withheld after a Times editorial last month urged Woods to boycott the Masters tournament over the issue.

One of the columns was written by Dave Anderson, who said Woods should play because the Augusta National dispute was not his fight.

The other column, by Harvey Araton, compares the Augusta National ban to the elimination of women's softball from the Olympics, and argues that women had more important battles to wage than admittance to a golf club. Gerald Boyd, managing editor, had said in his memo to the staff that "the logic did not meet our standards."

Boyd's memo assured employees that "our news columns enforce no `party line.'" He said columnists in the news pages have "wide latitude to speak with an individual point of view," but unlike op-ed columnists, who are independent of the news staff, "all newsroom writers are subject to our standards of tone, taste and relevance to the subject at hand."

EDITOR: JUST SAY NO TO CELEBS

David Kiley, the Detroit bureau chief for USA Today, said the news media should "all agree" not to do any more stories about healthcare issues featuring celebrities who get paid by the interested drug and healthcare companies.

He aims his attack at Spotlight Health, a Los Angeles-based website which specializes in providing celebrity featured health issue awareness programs.

Kiley believes SH is "held up too frequently as some sort of independent source of health news and information.

In fact, it is little more, so far as I can tell, than a PR agency with a website," Kiley said in a Dec. 2 memo to Jim Romenesko's website (www.medianews.org).

In his memo, Kiley said he was "pushed over the edge" by a piece on singer Ann Wilson's obesity surgery that CBS aired Nov. 29 on "48 Hours."

Kiley said Inamed, the company that manufactures and markets the "adjustable lap-band" device that was implanted in Wilson, is paying SH to promote the surgery. (SH distributed a news release about the rock singer's weight-loss surgery, using Inamed's new system, last July 22.)

SH's website discloses it is a private company funded by Prism Venture Ptrs. and PPD, Inc.

The company said its website and newsletter is sponsored by Aventis Pharmaceuticals, Guidant Corp., Inamed Corp., Tenet Healthcare Corp., and Vista Medical Technologies.

"All content on the website, unless specifically identified, is written by Spotlight Health and reviewed by our independent medical editorial board, or one of its healthcare issue-specific medical advisory boards for accuracy, completeness, impartiality and many other criteria to ensure our users are receiving the best, most credible information available," the company said.

CNN talk show host Larry King, who was named a member of the Spotlight Health's board of directors last June, said: "We harness the magnetic attraction of celebrities' intimate personal health stories to generate strong interest, promote enhanced awareness and motivate positive behavorial change.

"These compelling stories of celebrity health challenges serve as a unique platform for delivering understandable expert medical advice," said King.

AOL OFFERS MORE CONTENT FROM PARENT

America Online said Dec. 3 it will start offering exclusive content from other divisions at parent AOL Time Warner in an effort to keep and attract customers to the online service provider.

Among the initiatives announced were plans to offer video from CNN for free to AOL members. Such video is now available for a fee on the Internet.

Content from Time Inc. magazines like People and Real Simple will also be exclusively offered, as will music and entertainment offerings.

(Media news continued on next page)

BUSINESS SCRIBES OFFER PLACEMENT TIPS

Greg Frost, a business reporter in the Boston bureau of Reuters, told a recent meeting of the Publicity Club of New England that only one out of 75 pitches sent to his bureau makes it to a story.

To make the cut, stories should have both a local angle and an international impact, said Frost, who was on a panel with business reporters from Bloomberg News, The Boston Herald, and The Boston Business Journal.

Before pitching him, Frost said publicists should ask: "So what?" and "Will a money manager in Hong Kong or Johannesburg care about this story?"

If the story passes the test, publicists should e-mail Frost the information, but don't call to make sure he got it. His e-mail is [email protected]. The bureau's phone number is 617/367-4106.

Christine Dunn, who is one of 14 news staffers in Bloomberg News' Boston bureau, said her beats include healthcare, technology, real estate, and mutual funds, among others.

She said reporters prepare stories that go straight out to other papers as well as stories that appear only on the proprietary Bloomberg Terminals that are rented out to companies and media outlets around the world.

The bureau has an in-house studio and on occasion it will bundle an audio clip with the print article.

Dunn said all stories coming out of the bureaus are written in a strict "Bloomberg Style" and this means all stories must be of interest to a wide audience, detail oriented and easy to understand.

When pitching a mutual fund story, Dunn said she wants to get information about the fund's financial performance as well as information about the company and access to the people behind the fund.

She said releases should be sent to [email protected]. She will forward pitches to the appropriate reporters.

Make it Fast & Interesting

Greg Gatlin, who covers the retail, advertising, media, publishing, and airline beats for The Herald, said the key to getting him to do a story is to make it fast and interesting.

Most importantly, Gatlin said publicists should not give their story to him and to The Boston Globe as well.

He said stories that answer the questions "Will this make a difference to Boston companies in the future?" and "So what?" for the Boston reader are more likely to get his attention.

He is always looking for new sources to put an idea or event into context. Currently, he is looking for people who can comment on the business side of the upcoming holidays. His number is 617/619-6458.

Pitch Inside the Belt

If you are unwilling to give Ed Mason's weekly Boston-based paper an exclusive, or if the client is outside the 495 belt, don't even bother calling or pitching the Boston Business Journal.

Mason, who covers finance and government beats, said publicists should get information to him by Wednesday at 5 p.m. for any chance of getting the story covered in the Friday paper.

He is especially interested in getting exclusives about layoffs, new hires, and office expansions as a sign of a bigger trend within the Boston area.

He can be reached at 617/330-1000.

He is always looking for good experts who can comment on a story, and keeps an active file or two for future use.

Joe Klein, 56, a staff writer for The New Yorker will join Time magazine to write a national and international affairs column. His first column will appear in the first week of January 2003.

PLACEMENT TIPS

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who is CNN's healthcare reporter and a medical columnist for Time , has added one more stop to his rounds with "Paging Dr. Gupta," in which he delivers, via "cut-ins," medical information about the illnesses and procedures in each episode of "ER."

Gupta, 33, who is a neurosurgeon at Emory University's school of medicine in Atlanta, frequently travels to New York where he appears five days a week on CNN's "American Morning with Paula Zahn."

Gupta also is host of the network's weekly half-hour show "Your Health," and co-host of another program, "Accent Health," that airs in physicians' waiting rooms.

Hearst Magazines will begin publishing Town & Country Travel next October as a magazine for more affluent travelers than the category's top publications reach. Pamela Fiori, who is editor of Town & Country, will also have that title at T&CT.

Fiori told Ad Age the magazine, which will not target younger consumers, is going to be for the "highly seasoned, sophisticated traveler that's been everywhere, and gone every place."

She indicated T&CT would reflect a more literary bent and cover higher end hotels and second homes.

Renay San Miguel, who covers the high-tech beat for CNN, said gift-giving this Christmas is going digital, but it will "likely be in consumer electronics and children's toys," he said in a recent report on CNN Headline News.

He said PR specialists are pushing grown-up gadgets such as MP3 players, digital cameras, plasma TVs and next generation cell phones in e-mail pitches.

"If I had a dollar for every time I've received a PR e-mail that began, `If you're looking for a good high tech Christmas gift segment...,' I could start my own consumer electronics company," he said on a recent segment.

SUDDEN DEPARTURES HIT COLUMBIA PA

Six of the nine public affairs staffers of Columbia University left the school within about three months after the arrival of June Massell as the new head of the office, which handles press relations for the Ivy League school.

The story ran in the Nov. 13 Columbia Daily Spectator , an independent publication, and was confirmed by the PA office.

Eileen Murphy, who joined the staff in mid-November as director of media relations and PA, said interviews are being conducted with PR people with media placement backgrounds.

The Spectator theorized that the university wants more PR for the university itself as opposed to individual teachers and wants more attention focused on recently appointed university president Lee Bollinger.

Jo Kadlecek, a staff writer for the Columbia University Record, which is published by the school, told the Spectator that "Within the past two months the climate in our office has noticeably deteriorated."

Kadlecek, who resigned as of Dec. 2 "in protest," told the Spectator: "People no longer feel respected as the professionals they are and are afraid for their jobs."

Massell spent her early career in TV journalism and 12 years ago founded Massell Communications, described as a "media strategizing firm."

She was a correspondent for the "MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour" on public TV from 1983-88.

She succeeded Virgil Renzulli, who left in the summer to head PA at Arizona State University.

Suzanne Trimel, a press officer, left in the summer to be VP for PA at Barnard, the women's college that is affiliated with Columbia. Also leaving were Lydia Gardner and James Devitt of the press office and Ileana Ferreras of the web staff.

Lauren Marshall, described as the "most senior press officer" by the Spectator, who was heading the office before Massell arrived, joined Harvard University Nov. 22 in a PA-related post.

Roger Hackett, former Record editor who had been at Columbia 23 years, retired Nov. 18.

KCSA STUMPS FOR SHARON

KCSA PR Worldwide coordinated the Dec. 5 press conference in New York for Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmert, who is running for a parliamentary seat on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Likud ticket. Olmert discussed his endorsement of Sharon and predictions for Israel's upcoming elections.

In a statement issued by KCSA, Olmert called the elections "extremely important" as the country faces "continued attempts by the Palestinian Arabs to destroy the State of Israel."

Calling Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat and Osama bin Laden "one and the same," Olmert says the Israeli people are committed to a strong leader in Sharon, who, along with the U.S., should bring the ouster of Hussein.

KCSA's Ronn Torossian handles media inquiries regarding Olmert.

PAINE GIVES TIPS TO EVALUATE PR STUDIES

Most studies today are commissioned with the ultimate purpose in mind of generating publicity for the people who paid for it, says Katie Delahaye Paine, publisher of "The Measurement Standard." She provided this NL with the following checklist to evaluate a study.

1. Who paid the bill and what do they get out of it? Do the sponsors of the study have an axe to grind or a product to promote? Is it just me, or do most studies commissioned by public relations agencies or organizations always seem to conclude that the world needs bigger public relations budgets?

2. Who was interviewed for the study? Was the list randomly selected or was it drawn from a mailing list that is, in and of itself, biased.

3. Are there external factors that might have skewed the results? After the excesses of the recent election, if the study was conducted by telephone, chances are it only reached unemployed people without caller ID. That's not necessarily a representative sample of the American worker.

4. To what extent is the sample self-selected? If you are conducting an Internet study, it is by its nature self-selecting. You are only reaching people with computers, with Internet access, and most likely high-speed Internet access, since few people will waste dial-up time responding to surveys.

5. Did every company or individual within the segment have an equal chance to participate? If not, you are dealing with some sort of selected or self-selected sample.

6. Does the data support the conclusions? Correlations are the most slippery slope in research. Too often conclusions are leaped to without considering other factors. The Council of PR Firms study on PR effectiveness was recently challenged since it failed to account for the size of the organization when it "correlated" PR spending with performance.

7. How many superlatives do they use? Is the "growth over last year" truly significant or did it just inch up a notch? Just because one bar is bigger than the next, is the difference truly significant?

8. How strong was the response rate? If you send a survey out to 10,000 people and only 50 reply, chances are good the people responding truly have nothing better to do.

9. How was the research conducted? In his book on The Marketing Revolution, Kevin Clancy tells of the billions of dollars wasted on failed products that owed their creation to research conducted among "mall zombies."

10. Who's doing the actual research? Is it a reputable research firm or a few agency interns? Do the surveyors understand how to get unbiased answers and how to draw out the respondents?

Media content analysis is rife with research flaws, since public relations people are hardly "typical" readers. They spot key messages a mile away, and chances are good they know who's paying the bills that introduce bias into the results.

"Despite (virus) Outbreaks, Ships are Sailing Full," said a headline in the Dec. 6 New York Times. This is amazing since more than 900 passengers on at least four cruise ships have become ill since October. A travel reporter who called us said cruise lines have been open to the press, answering calls and holding press conferences.

Disney president Matt Ouimet held a press conference at the pier after the Disney Magic was affected. Carnival chief Bob Dickinson met with reporters at a Miami pier hours after a bug struck the Fascination

News item in 12/6 NYT: "Three Partners Quit Firm Handling Saudis' PR." The New York Post, in a column the same day by Joel Mowbray of the National Review, headlined: "Saudi Flacks on the Run." Mowbray called PR pros Michael Petruzzello and Jamie Gallagher and Patton Boggs lawyer Jack Deschauer "The Saudis' gold-plated PR flacks." He portrayed them as cowards evading Federal subpoenas. Their testimony is wanted concerning charges a Saudi father "kidnapped" his two daughters from their Chicago home in 1986. Any PR firm or lawyer representing the Saudis or certain other Mid-East countries risks coming under immense pressure in the current incendiary climate.

The Dave Anderson/New York Times censorship mess is a case of the NYT's political correctness clashing with writer independence. Anderson violated PC in saying Tiger Woods did not have to join the NYT's crusade (40+ stories) vs. Augusta National on the women's membership issue. The NYT at first blocked the column, but when outed by the Daily News, decided to run it with a slight change. Augusta National should allow women members and Tiger should support the women up to and including not playing in the Masters

We attended a press lunch at New York's Gracie Mansion Nov. 20 at which City officials said the red carpet has been rolled out for film and commercial producers. But the New York Post 11/24 said NYC's share of North American feature-film production has dropped from 18% in the 1990s to 4% in 2001. The unkindest cut is that "Rudy!," about ex-mayor Rudy Giuliani, is mostly being filmed in Montreal. Mayor Bloomberg was hit for "a watered-down set of initiatives" to bring films back

IR continues to take a pasting. Reporters are annoyed at a new gambit attempting to put the blame on them. The New York Stock Exchange would bar analysts from talking to media that don't disclose the analysts' conflicts of interest. Apparently, all stories are supposed to carry some sort of "warning" notice. Commenting on this, New Yorker financial columnist James Surowiecki (12/9) says Wall Street needs to eliminate conflicts, not just expose them. A tough prescription is offered by Olstein Financial Alert Fund: ban price targets for stocks; ban buy or sell advice; require balance sheets with every earnings report; value stocks according to excess cash flow (from Gretchen Morgenson column in the 11/24 NYT).

Companies don't like to show balance sheets because that's where the debt is (or it's supposed to be)

PRSA COO Catherine Bolton on Jan. 1, 2003 will start the second year of a four-year contract. Her pay in 2001 was $215K in salary; $68K in bonuses, and $10K in medical plan reimbursement, for a total of $293K... PRSA in 2001 gained 5,324 members and lost 5,263 for a net gain of 61 and a renewal rate of 73%. Membership has been around 19,600 (including three months of arrears) for six years. Only one month of expires will be kept under a bylaw passed at the Assembly Nov. 16. Members will be billed two months in advance of expiration and kept on the books one month after that

Cigar Afficionado in November ran a diagram of 70 "power tables" at the Four Seasons in New York. The only PR pro with a table was Gershon Kekst...a reporter for a major hotel/travel publication, asked if he had any "friends" in PR that he regularly socialized with, said PR pros were "friendly" with him but he did not have any whom he considered "social friends"

Maintenance of PRSA accreditation is still in effect for all APRs who came in after Jan. 1, 1993. Fee now is $50 every three years. Maintenance income is about $14,600 for 2002. All APR members who remain in PRSA are paying the fee, the Society said. Big chapters have APR chairs who assist and PRSA staffer Kathy Mulvihill helps the others

There is a "critical shortage of qualified PR faculty," says Kirk Hallahan, of Colorado State University, who operates www.PR-education.org. More than 90 faculty vacancies are listed, which he believes is a record. The quality of PR instruction is being threatened, he said. Some 500 colleges (out of 4,000) have some form of PR instruction and 231 have the five courses specified by PRSA. One problem is that the schools want Ph.D.'s in PR, he notes.

PRSA Gold Anvil winner Phil Lesly's 50-page 1992 "Report on the Stature of PR" (co-authored with 32 PRSA leaders) said experienced PR pros are often "barred from teaching" because they lack advanced degrees while many PR profs "lack practical experience." PR courses are selected by "many" students because they're considered "easier than journalism and more glamorous," the report also said. It questioned the value of APR ("no clear evidence it has uplifted others' regard for the PR field") and said PR was becoming too "feminized" which would result in lower salaries. Lesly noted 70% of new entries in PR were women. PRSA refused to publish the report, enraging Lesly who said he spent six months and $20K of his time on it and that committee members had approved it.
-- Jack O'Dwyer