COORS TAPS GOLIN/HARRIS

Coors Brewing Co., the No. 3 brewer in the U.S., has tapped Golin/Harris International over a "handful of other agencies" as its first lead PR firm, Hilary Martin, a Coors spokesperson, told this NL.

Martin said G/HI's work for the company's London-based subsidiary, along with its internal communications experience were key factors in the decision.

Coors acquired Bass Brewers' Carling business from Interbrew earlier this year in a $1.7 billion deal, renaming it Coors Brewers Limited.

Ellen Mardiks, G/HI's worldwide director of marketing and brand strategy, heads the account.

AUGUSTA TURNS TO CRISIS COUNSELOR

Augusta National Golf Club, the exclusive, all-male golf club under fire by the National Council of Women's Organizations and some editorial pages across the country, has hired crisis counselor Jim McCarthy amid a barrage of media coverage, the Washington, D.C.-based counselor told this NL.

McCarthy declined to go into specific detail about his work for the club, saying only he specializes in "high-stakes media situations" and is currently assessing media coverage of his client. He set up McCarthy Communications in 1994.

STEVENS STEPS DOWN AT PD/NEW YORK

Art Stevens (67) is stepping down from his CEO post at Publicis Dialog PR/New York effective Dec. 20. That completes his three-year employment contract that he inked with the France-based Publicis Groupe ad/PR conglomerate following its acquisition of LobsenzStevens.

Stevens, who was elected 2003 Secretary of PR Society of America, plans to work from his Sanibel, Fla., residence during the next few months. He can be reached there after Dec. 21. 239/395-3922.

George Jamison, VP-corp. comms., Hughes Electronics Corp., El Segundo, will join United Technologies Corp., Hartford, in February as head of comms. Hughes is a unit of General Motors...Matt Gonring, former managing partner-communications and integrated marketing, Arthur Andersen, to Rockwell Automation, Milwaukee, as VP of global marketing and communications..Mary Matalin, Vice President Cheney's top PR advisor, is leaving so she can spend more time with husband Jim Carville and their children. She also counseled President Bush.

BOSTON CHURCH READIES FOR CHP. 11 PR

Rasky-Baerlein Group is handling PR for the team of bankruptcy lawyers preparing the Boston Archdiocese for a possible Chapter 11 filing. The church is considering that move to protect itself against egregious payments to abuse victims.

Larry Rasky, chairman/CEO of the Boston-based PR firm, is handling media calls to Goodwin Procter, which counts 500 lawyers among its Boston headquarters and New York and Washington, D.C., offices. Rasky has not returned calls for comment.

Cardinal Bernard Law resigned on Dec. 13 as head of Boston's Catholic Church and Bishop Richard Gerard Lennon was named as the diocese's interim leader until Pope John Paul II names a permanent leader.

R-B also represents the Archdiocese's Caritas Christi Health Care System.

STOKKE JOINS MS&L FROM AVENTIS

Doug Stokke, who was director for global product communications at Aventis Pharma, has joined Manning, Selvage & Lee as senior VP in its New York healthcare practice. He reports to Wendy Lund, head of the group.

Stokke had been responsible for communications at AP therapeutic groups, including oncology, asthma/allergy and cardiology. The 20-year PR veteran also put in an eight-year stint as director of U.S. product communications at Glaxo Wellcome, where he launched several HIV therapies.

MS&L, a Publicis Groupe unit, says its medical group has units dedicated to "branding, messaging, tipping influencer opinion, media relations, health policy and medical affairs."

The O'Dwyer website, www.odwyerpr.com, will only be available to subscribers to this Newlsetter as of Jan. 1, 2003. NL subscribers who wish to access the site can do so for a $20 fee payable via a secure credit card process on the site.

H&K CEO DISMISSES UPI ESSAY AS 'RUBBISH'

Hill and Knowlton CEO Paul Taaffe dismissed as "rubbish" a Dec. 12 UPI essay charging that his firm coached Kuwaiti refugees, and then videotaped them lying about alleged atrocities committed by Iraqi soldiers in the Persian Gulf War. That charge was made by Morgan Strong, a former professor of Middle Eastern history at SUNY Poughkeepsie, who said he interviewed Kuwaiti refugees fleeing into Saudi Arabia.

Taaffe, who was not part of H&K's management when the firm was hired by the Citizens for a Free Kuwait, said he carefully reviewed the file after being contacted by this NL. That enabled him to categorically deny that H&K interviewed any refugees fleeing Kuwait. He did note that major broadcasters such as CNN, BBC and Agence France-Presse did extensive interviewing of refugees.

"We did establish an offshore TV studio facility for the Kuwaitis, which operated like the current Al Jazeera, and were active in making the Citizens' case for war with Iraq," said Taaffe.

Strong wrote that refugees admitted lying because they were trying to help liberate their country. The professor credited H&K for "selling" the first Iraqi war to the American people.

COKE CANS 'EARNINGS GUIDANCE'

Coca-Cola announced Dec. 13 it would no longer give Wall Street "earnings guidance" because it believes fixation on beating/meeting the next quarter's numbers distracts investors from the long-term prospects of the Atlanta-based company, according to CEO Doug Daft.

"We believe that establishing short-term guidance prevents a more meaningful focus on the strategic initiatives that a company is taking to build its business and succeed over the long-run," he said in a statement.

Daft told analysts he expects a "strong year" for 2003, and is confident that Coke can reach its 11-12 percent long-term earnings per share growth. Though Coke has backed off from guidance, it will provide investors with a "perspective on its value drivers" and factors needed to understand the business climate that the company faces, added the executive.

Daft said the board discussed the decision to clam up on guidance during the course of the year. "Our shareowners are best served by this because we should not run our business based on short-term 'expectations,'" he said.

AMEX HIRES JEFFREY GROUP

American Express, which operates a 500-member Latin American regional headquarters in Miami, has selected The Jeffrey Group to handle PR duties.

The firm will promote AmexCo's charge/credit cards, Travelers Cheques, investment products, insurance and banking businesses.

Miami Beach-based TJG resigned MasterCard/Latin America earlier this year. It handled that account for a half dozen years.

PR RESEARCH TOOLS DESCRIBED

The numerous research tools that can be used by PR pros are described in Primer of Public Relations Research by Don Stacks, Ph.D., professor and director of the University of Miami School of Communications Program in Advertising and PR.

Stacks, who has already authored six books and more than 60 articles in academic journals, covers about every known research technique in a 318-page volume published by Guilford Publications, (72 Spring Street, New York, NY 10012).

Described are the quickest and cheapest research techniques as well as the most expensive and timeconsuming.

"Opinion" or "attitude" research is often more expensive than "quantitative" research.

For instance, checking to see how attitudes were changed by a PR or ad campaign would be more expensive than comparing sales totals, floor traffic or rise in stock price, said Stacks.

Reporters are also researchers, he noted, but they often do secondary research or case studies of particular events that do not provide grounds for generalizing.

"Nonprobability" Sampling Is Popular

A "nonprobability sample is often the only way to quickly and efficiently gather data," he notes.

This type of sampling is conducted when the researcher does not have access to every unit in a population of people or messages.

The sample may be indicative of what the general population is thinking but the researcher can only refer to those who have been sampled.

"The problem is we will never know just how representative" the sample is, he says.

"Convenience sampling" is when participants are picked just because they're available.

"Quote sampling" involves accessible people but the sample is "weighed" so that certain characteristics are represented in the sample.

"Purposive sampling" is choosing participants who may have experienced a specific event such as reading a story and who were available to comment on it.

"Volunteer sampling" involves people who have agreed to take part in a research project.

Stacks defines PR "broadly" as "the management of credibility." He admits this "barely suffices to explain an area as large as PR."

He also feels more attention should be given to the ethics of research, pointing out that the codes of PR trade groups only make general references to ethical behavior.

UNITED TO PAY GA&CO. $15K PER MONTH

UAL Corp., which filed for Chapter 11 on Dec. 9, has paid Gavin Anderson a $50,000 start-up fee, but U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Northern District of Illinois must approve the $15,000 a-month fees, plus expenses for the Omnicom unit.

Robert Mead, the PR firm's deputy CEO, said his firm was retained earlier this year to plan for a Chapter 11 contingency.

FORBES IS A TOUGH SELL FOR PR PLACEMENTS

Dennis Kneale, managing editor of Forbes, said his first rule for getting covered is to "pitch writers, not editors" at the magazine.

"Most stories come from writers," Kneale told 130 PR people who attended a Dec. 10 Publicity Club of New York meeting, which was moderated by PCNY president Peter Himler of Burson-Marsteller.

Kneale, who apologized for the rotten way reporters treat PR people, said he has gotten "zero number of stories" from PR people since he joined Forbes last year from The Wall Street Journal.

The editor said the PR pro's job is made harder because Forbes does not have any reporters on assigned beats. He advised the pros to read bylines and to pick reporters where they might have their best chancefor getting coverage. He said "under 20%" of the stories pitched are about topics they want to cover.

Long Lead Times

He said publicists can't spoon feed scoops to Forbes like they do everyday to The Wall Street Journal. Forbes' writers work on a long lead time ("way out"), and they have to "go the extra mile" to unearth information to make a story more interesting.

Forbes' stories have conflict, drama and setbacks, and they are usually about people and not products, said Kneale, who warned the newsroom is "not a nice place."

"If your client can be in Forbes and survive, then you've done a great job," said Kneale.

His second rule is for PR people to "develop personal relationships" with reporters and editors.

Kneale said he will take calls from only certain people because "I trust their hides."

Ben Edwards, who is the Economist's U.S. business editor, based in New York, is interested in covering topical business issues.

Edwards also said he has never written a story from a PR pitch, and he indicated the chances for a PR pro to get a story in the six-page business section that runs every week are "slim to none."

He finds PR people are helpful when they can give a "thoughtful and intelligent discussion" about a topic.

He said the best opportunities for coverage are in the "survey stories," which are assigned to reporters by Barbara Beck, an editor in the Economist's London headquarters.

News Driven

The third panelist, Susan Fraker, who is assistant managing editor of Fortune, said Fortune tends to "thrive on bad news," which makes a publicist's job more difficult because "you never pitch us bad news."

"We eliminate almost everything that is not driven by the news," including profiles, she said.

She said the focus of stories in Fortune is on managers and not investors, which distinguishes the magazine from Forbes. As an example, she said both magazines recently published cover stories on Eliot Spitzer, New York's attorney general.

Fortune described Spitzer as the "enforcer," while Forbes portrayed him as the "bane of Wall Street."

Fraker said publicists should send appropriate information to reporters, whose e-mail addresses are listed at the end of their articles.

During the question and answer period, Kneale said not all of the articles in Forbes were negative.

Some of the best stories have a silver lining in them, but they still need to have drama and struggle," he said.

Kneale said he returns 2% of calls he gets from PR people, but he returns every single call he gets from a CEO of any company.

He finds it very helpful when PR people give him "mean spirited ideas about your rival." He does not like to get calls from PR people who want to tell him something on background about their client. In those situations, Kneale said the publicists should tell their client to call him with the information.

Edwards, who does a limited amount of travel, is interested in face-to-face meetings with CEOs in their New York offices to find out what is going on in their minds.

PUBLICIST RAPS CELEBRITY COVERAGE

Alan Caruba, a Maplewood, N.J.-based publicist, said the 10 celebrities on his 19th annual list of "The Most Boring Celebrities of the Year" are not boring, but their media exposure is.

"The bottom line is that the media does not know when to stop; they write about a celebrity long after the story has lost its value," said Caruba, who created the list in 1984-Michael Jackson headed it that year-as a spoof of the famous end-of-the-year lists.

"The list is based on `massive media overexposure'; it has been intended to call attention to the way the media identify a handful of celebrities in any given year generally based on their egotism, stupid, criminal or self-destructive behavior."

If the celebrities on the list are already overexposed in the media, United Press International asked Caruba why give them another shot of publicity via the annual list?

"I find once the list goes out, a lot of journalists make a mental note that we've had enough of those on the list and they decide not to chase them anymore," said Caruba.

Caruba's list for 2002 includes: (1) Ozzy Osbourne; (2) Anna Nicole Smith; (3) Martha Stewart; (4) Winona Ryder; (5) Barbra Streisand; (6) Jennifer Lopez; (7) Ted Williams; (8) Robert Torricelli; (9) James Traficant; (10) Osama bin Laden.

The Boring Institute, started by Caruba as a media spoof, has evolved into a clearinghouse of information about boredom's impact on individuals and society.

Information is posted on www.boringinstitute.com.

(Media news continued on next page)

EARLY A.M. IS BEST TIME TO PITCH TV EDS

Assignment editors are early risers at four Boston-based TV stations-WCVB (ABC), WFXT (Fox), New England Cable News (NECN), and WLVI (WB), making early morning pitches a must.

Joe Roche, who is assignment manager at WCVB, told a recent meeting of the Publicity Club of New England that he gets to the office around 7 a.m. Starting at 9:15 a.m., he is tied up in the daily staff meeting, and he is busy throughout the day. So make pitches quick, succinct and relevant, he said.

Due to limited resources, little stories tend to get lost to big stories so be persistent and join your pitch with a bigger issue, Roche advised.

When pitching a "filler story," give a few days' notice and understand that breaking news will take precedence. He rarely accepts B-roll and he never uses VNRs.

Roche, who is not a fan of e-mail, prefers to get faxes and phone calls. He can be reached at 781/ 449-0400; fax: 449-6681.

He said a follow-up call is not a nuisance but rather a necessity to get his attention.

Drops Self-Serving Articles

Scott Tetreault, who handles assignments for WFXT and gets in the office at 6 a.m., is not interested in self-serving stories or stories that do not relate to the people of Massachusetts.

The best time to pitch him is before his 10 a.m. staff meeting.

When pitching, make sure stories are backed up with evidence and not empty promises.

Tetreault prefers to get information and ideas by e-mail, but he can be contacted by fax and phone at 781/467-1300; fax: 467-7213; e-mail: tatefox25@ hotmail.com.

Rob Sancho, who oversees assignments for NECN, said the "earlier the better" when contacting him about doing a story. Staff planning meetings begin a 9:30 a.m. and the day is planned from there.

NECN focuses more on a "hard approach" to news without a lot of "fluff" and has a strong focus on politics.

PR pros should only promise something that can be delivered or the relationship will cease, said Sancho, who also said he does not like to get calls during the noon news as everyone is extremely busy.

Know the broadcast schedule and contact accordingly, said Sancho, whose first choice is E-mail with fax a distant second. His e-mail is: [email protected]; fax: 617/630-5055.

Wants the Human Side

Sean Martin, WLVI's assignment manager, gets to the office at 7 a.m., with a morning meeting at 9:30. So contact should be made early in the day.
The economy has become a central focal point of news, but he is also looking for the personal stories-the human side of things.

Keep in mind that the "picture is everything" when pitching him stories.

For filler stories, offer real people and no B-roll. Let the news speak for itself-do not try to spin something until it is unrecognizable.

Martin does not like e-mail as he believes that it can get lost. He prefers to get information by phone or fax. 617/282-0938; fax: 287-2872.

BOSTON GLOBE GETS NEW BUSINESS ED.

Caleb Solomon, 43, assistant managing editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe, was named assistant managing editor of The Boston Globe with responsibility for the paper's "Business" section and its "Real Estate" and "Boston Works" sections.

Solomon will join the Globe in early February, returning to the city where he spent almost four years as editor of The Wall Street Journal/New England, a weekly section devoted to regional news.

The Globe's previous business editor, Peter Mancusi, stepped down last month to become a SVP of Weber Shandwick, a PR firm.

NARISETTI TO RUN WSJ EUROPE

Raju Narisetti, who was deputy national editor at The Wall Street Journal, was appointed managing editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe.

Narisetti, who was born in India, joined the Journal as a reporting intern in 1991 after coming to the U.S. in 1990 with $2,300 in travellers checks and two suitcases to get a masters in journalism at Indiana University.

He will move to Brussels to take up his new position, and said he is looking forward to challenging The Financial Times on its home turf.

SHRIBMAN TO EDITOR OF PITTSBURGH P-G.

David Shribman, assistant managing editor, columnist and Washington, D.C., bureau chief of The Boston Globe, will become executive editor of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Feb. 3. He succeeds John Craig Jr., the editor for the last 25 years.

Shribman's wife, Cindy Skrzcki, is a financial columnist at The Washington Post.

PEOPLE

Elisabeth Perez-Luna was named interim news director of WHYY radio in Philadelphia, replacing Bill Fantini, who resigned.

Beth Karlin was named editor-in-chief of Primedia's Shopping Center World magazine, based in New York. She was managing editor for Registered Rep.

Alex Ben Block, previously editor of The Hollywood Reporter and associate editor of Forbes magazine, is joining Electronic Media, in Los Angeles, on Jan. 6 as editor. For the past two years, Block has been executive director of the Los Angeles Press Club as well as editor of Hollywood Star News.

REVIEW OF 2002

Advertising Age editorialized 4/29 that the "Big Four" (Interpublic, WPP, Omnicom & Publicis) "are here to stay." But the Economist (6/20) doubts this, saying giantism works with media buying but not creativity. IPG, WPP and OMC are $6.1 billion in debt. IPG and OMC face stockholder suits on insider trading charges. IPG legal costs are running $24M a quarter, said an analyst.

OMC's bulletin board on Yahoo! generated 1,800 messages from its start on 11/26/97 to 6/13/02 (when the Wall Street Journal questioned its off-loading of dot-coms, merger payouts owed, etc.) and 8,278 messages after that.

The boards are the best place for discussion of OMC/IPG including getting managements' viewpoint (at least four posters on OMC are thought to be management).

PRSA won't tell the settlement with former COO Ray Gaulke but the tax return of the PRSA Foundation (where Gaulke was shifted in late 2000) showed "accounts payable and accrued severance" was $205,672 in 2001 vs. $2,808 in 2000. Gaulke, who has a contract to Dec. 31, 2004, was being paid around $250K.

The National IR Institute, which fought for the 1995 "Safe Harbor Act"(making it hard to sue firms whose stock dipped), opened a "Center for Integrated Communications" to push IR/PR departments.

Brig. Gen. Ruth Yaron, the first woman chief press officer of the Israeli Defense Forces, was profiled in the January 2003 Vanity Fair. She was brought in after charges there was a massacre of Palestinians in Jenin.

Academic scene sounds like PR. Profit is becoming king at colleges, resulting in 43% of college teachers now being part-timers, said Nick Bromell in February Harper's. Future is E-colleges since "machines can do the job better." Schools please students and parents with "grade inflation" (Harvard graduates 91% of its seniors with honors.)

An ex-New York PR A/E said he endured "daily job threats" by his supervisor, was left off important e-mails, and was subjected to "gender discrimination." His bosses often worked at home Thursdays and Fridays or took sabbaticals lasting months while A/Es put in "obscene" hours. Six days after being told his job was "safe," he was fired by phone while home sick. He plans to go to graduate school "to find a new and more secure career."

Waiting for him eagerly will be Prof. James O'Rourke of Notre Dame, Clark Caywood, Northwestern, Maria Russell, Syracuse, Marian Pinsdorf, Fordham, Jim and Larissa Grunig, Maryland, Paul Argenti, Dartmouth, and Jerry Swerling, USGAnnenberg. Educators champion academic study as the route to success in PR.

O'Rourke, a member of the Arthur Page Society, told PR Week 9/16 that "at that level [referring to someone with high corporate post], knowing how journalism works is useless" and that the exec "went out and got educated" (about business). O'Rourke shows a disdain, common in business-subject academia, of journalism.

We wonder how these "lords of communications," trailing their expensive MBAs, will do when faced with a city editor or beat reporter?

About 600,000 (29%) of the 2.1 million students who entered college last fall needed remedial reading and writing (Time, 10/14). This tracks with a 1995 PRSA Counselors Academy study by Prof. Jack Haberstroh (current whereabouts unknown) who concluded: "PR grads can't write...it's a disaster area." (4/5/95 NL).

The 2.1 million figure suggests an undergrad population of at least 8M. PR Student Society of America, after 34 years, has only 7,000 members. It is a very rare student who joins PRSSA. Hmmmm.

High health insurance costs are one reason for hiring freelancers, who don't get on the company medical plan. A married employee with children costs $12,000 to $16,500 yearly in New York. A small PR firm owner said: "I pay $150 a month to everyone and they get their own policies."

About 41 million Americans (as of 2001) lack health insurance. Much of the decline in coverage came from small firms, the Census Bureau said.

Healthiest PR practice is healthcare. "Health- scare" stories abound in the daily and weekly press framed by drug ads. Reading the Reader's Digest is like touring a hospital ward. Radio is worse.

Ironically, if a drive is mounted for a single-payer system (eliminating the 1,500 HMOs), adver- tising/PR pros will battle it, probably reviving the "Harry & Louise" ads that roused fears of "socialized medicine."

The U.S. leads in healthcare costs but is No. 17 in actual health, said "As Sick As It Gets" (Olin Frederick) by Dr. Rudolph Mueller, N.Y.

PR pros, even senior VPs, have lost their discretionary expense accounts, said PR management consultants. "Any expense must be justified in advance and approval obtained," said one.

The consultants, who have become confessors to out-of-work PR pros in recent months, say fear rules the life of an account executive-fear of the client, the boss, the press and even their computers (which can lock, crash, lose files, behave like a mule, or cease to function for any reason at any moment).

The Vatican, trying to re-frame the publicity over the Catholic Church's failure to deal sternly with sex abuses by priests (almost all involving young boys), said the root of the problem is homosexual priests in parishes. A ban on such priests is expected in 2003.

Security analysts came under such heavy fire in 2002 that a New York Times column 11/15 headlined: "Don't Shoot the Analyst."

Now that Prof. Don Stacks of the University of Miami has written the first primer on PR research, it's time to take a look at research's place in PR.

This highly abstract book, finally put together more than ten years after it was first proposed by Stacks and Prof. Donald Wright of the University of South Alabama, mostly concerns formal, statistics-driven research. Almost no companies or real-life research projects are mentioned.

Stacks concedes that scientific research, the kind that develops generalizations that can be used elsewhere, "is almost never found in PR." It's too time-consuming and expensive.

Isolating the influence of PR when so many other variables are present is nearly impossible. PR "case studies" describe what happened in specific instances in the past but the findings often can't be used elsewhere without "major revisions," Stacks warns.

PR pros have been taught to worship research. No project can begin without it, they are told.

But Stacks says that reporters are researchers, too.

Their mostly "informal" or "qualitative" research can be useful if not decisive. Almost all statistical studies carry a "margin of error" that can be large.

If PR A/Es can position reporters as "researchers," which they are, maybe they might win approval for building press contacts.

Reporters do research all day long and their companies, especially the trade pubs, usually have voluminous materials on the topic at hand as well as veteran editors who can provide interpretation. Reporters have their fingers on current "skinny" that can redefine historical patterns. They are glad to help PR pros if they get some help in return.

There's no reason for PR pros to look down on "informal" or "qualitative" research. Anna West of Kearns & West, San Francisco, writing for the PRSA Counselors Academy in 1998, favored "qualitative" research over "quantitative." Statistically valid studies are expensive and take lots of time, she noted. Five or ten calls to the right people in a day or two "can have a tremendous impact on a project's strategy, direction and outcome," she said. "In almost all our work," she added, "qualitative research has proven to be more useful than quantitative."

Plenty of hard evidence of PR's effectiveness is already available such as floor traffic, sales totals, stock price, media pickup and the "bottom line" itself. Clients can wonder if too much time is being spent on "research" and elaborate plans and too little on good writing and building press relationships.

The Silver Anvils contest of PRSA is weighted heavily towards rewarding research and making plans. This is why two firms that emphasize that, Ketchum and Fleishman-Hillard, have won 90 Anvils in the last nine years while the closest to that total is Edelman PR Worldwide with eight. Most big firms have only won 3-5 Anvils...the problem with research is the research that is not published and not done, e.g., the deep-sixing of the $150K PRSA/ Rockefeller "credibility" study and the PRSA Fellows' study of recruiters' views of APR...the last opinion poll PRSA made of members was done by president Debra Miller in 1997 (a weighted sampling of 618 of the 18,000 members was called on the phone by Kerr & Downs Research)...PR firms already know their fee incomes, employee totals and payroll totals for 2002 but many of the big ones will not release this information until nearly mid-2003. W-3s are due to the government Jan. 31...if companies are going to pick and choose what to research or allow to be researched, it cannot be called "research" at all. It's sales materials...PR pros often work hard to kill a possibly inaccurate story or deflect it and the effect of something that didn't happen cannot be measured.

Henry Kissinger resigned as head of the 9/11 commission rather than reveal his clients. This same issue resulted in the junking of the 50-year-old PRSA code in 2000. Key PR firms would not reveal their clients since the code only said they had to be "prepared" to do so. The new code doesn't mention the subject of client identification...for the first time in memory, an ailing economy has helped cancel holiday parties by four New York PR groups, PRSA/NY, WEPR, Publicity Club and Black PR Society. Leaders said neither members nor sponsors would cough up the money. The economy was blamed as well as anxiety over a possible Mid-East war or subway strike. Some 400 club members held a joint party in 2000 at Float, a midtown disco. But 17 corporate sponsors donated $1,000 to $5,000 each. PR pros, almost all lacking expense accounts, were unable to launch a party on their own. Recruiters say almost no PR pro has an expense account today although these ran from $3,000-$5,000 a month and more when winning press mentions was the main game...Hospital PR Marketing Society, New York, which also includes healthcare PR pros, partied at the Harmony Club, showing the strength of this PR specialty. Parties were also held by three New York press groups- Deadline Club, Press Club and Science Writers. PRSA/Chicago and nine other groups put on the "Acronym Bash," attracting 400. PRSA/L.A. had its usual holiday party.
--Jack O'Dwyer