H-P NAMES PR TRIO FOR $40M ACCOUNT

Hewlett-Packard has officially consolidated its $40 million worldwide PR account at Burson-Marsteller, Hill & Knowlton and Porter Novelli, completing an overhaul of its communications strategy that was triggered by finalizing its acquisition of Compaq Computer last May.

Tim Marklein, director of corporate media relations, said H-P last August invited a dozen firms to pitch the account. Seven firms were ultimately considered for the account, including Applied Comms., Weber Shandwick, The Hoffman Agency and Golin/Harris International.

B-M, which had handled Sun Microsystems and IBM's PR business, assumes H-P's enterprise systems and services groups.

H&K, which had worked for Compaq, will continue to handle the personal systems group. The shop has added corporate communications duties.
PN retains command of H-P's flagship imaging and printing group.

Marklein noted that the combined H-P/Compaq entity dealt with more than 100 PR firms worldwide. He feels the consolidation will enable H-P to "leverage its communications dollars."

SAUDI ARABIA ADDS TO PR FIREPOWER

Saudi Arabia has given the lobbying firm, headed by the former national finance co-chairman of the George W. Bush for President committee, an $840K government relations and trade development contract.

Former Texas Republican Congressman Tom Loeffler, founder of Loeffler Jonas & Tuggey, also served as Texas co-chairman of Bush for President (1988) and was national advisor to the 1992 Bush-Quayle White House run. He also worked in the Reagan Administration, serving as principal coordinator for Central America.

LJ&T is based in San Antonio, and has offices in Austin and Washington, D.C. Its contract with the Royal Embassy calls for LJ&T to establish and maintain "close working relationships" with key members of Congress, the Administration and "quasi-governmental and non-governmental organizations."

The firm reports to Adel Al-Jubeir, the Saudi spokesperson who doubles as foreign policy advisor to Crown Prince Abdullah. The Kingdom spent $14.6 million for ad/PR services at Qorvis Communications during the six-month period ended Sept. 30.

F-H PICKS UP $1M POTATO BOARD BIZ

Fleishman-Hillard has picked up the nearly $1 million U.S. Potato Promotion Board account from Omnicom sister agency Ketchum, according to John Segale, senior VP and GM of F-H's Sacramento office, which will handle the account.

"Our goal is to increase usage and encourage consumption" of spuds, he told this website.
The F-H account team headed by Susan Mesick will do consumer PR, media relations, special events, nutritional outreach and Hispanic communications for the Board. Segale added that the shop is to carve out new consumer niches for potatoes, such as "empty nesters" who are prime targets of new and smaller packaging of potatoes.

Asked whether F-H will tackle childhood obesity concerns relating to children eating too many french fries, Segale said that may be an issue handled somewhere down the road by the Omnicom unit.

F-H's offices in Miami, St. Louis and Washington, D.C., also will deliver the potato pitch.

Ketchum retains the Board's foodservice PR.

US AIRWAYS GETS CHAPTER 11 BOOST

US Airways has hired Burson-Marsteller's lobbying wing BKSH & Assocs. and its well-connected chairman Charlie Black as its Washington, D.C., representative.

The Arlington, Va.-based airline has issued a "fast-track" voluntary plan that it hopes will enable it to emerge from Chapter 11 in March.

That restructuring program is contingent upon US Airways receiving final approval for $1 billion in loan guarantees from the Air Transportation Stabilization Board, plus a raft of cost-cutting initiatives from its rank and file.

The nation's No. 7 airline eyes a Jan. 16 hearing at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to rule on the adequacy of its reorganization plan.

Black was an advisor to former Presidents Reagan and Bush, and most recently a damage control spokesman for ex-Majority Leader Trent Lott.

He is assisted on the US Airways account by M.B. Oglesby, who was a chief of staff at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and Jeffrey Weiss, who counts transition PR for John Ashcroft's ascension to the Attorney General position among his career highlights.

MORGAN FIRES QUOTED EMPLOYEE

Morgan Stanley has fired another employee ostensibly for being quoted in the press.

Anthony Feld, 32, an equity salesperson for Morgan, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal in November 2002 about his fondness for $3,800 tailored suits. The article was about the buying habits of well-to-do consumers.

According to sources quoted by the New York Post Dec. 29, Feld was "promptly canned" by Morgan.

A Morgan spokesperson confirmed that Feld left the firm and also that the Morgan "Code of Conduct" has a statement forbidding employees from using the company name to media without permission of the corporate communications department.

The spokesperson said individual employee matters are confidential and would not comment specifically about Feld.

A similar story about Morgan appeared in the Oct. 20, 1997 New York Times.

Philip G. Potter, a security analyst at Morgan, told the Times he was an "uber-consumer" who bought $800 suits and had a $3,500 watch. The next day he was fired, said the NYT.

An unidentified spokesperson at Morgan confirmed the firing was related to the article, according to the NYT. It quoted the Morgan code as saying: "You should not be identified as a Morgan Stanley employee or use the firm's name in any way without first clearing it with Corporate Communications."

CLS&A WORKS ON PIPELINE

Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter & Assocs. is handling PA duties for the controversial Transportadora de Gas del Peru gas pipeline project. Environmentalist and human rights groups have expressed concerns about the impact construction of the 400-mile pipeline will have on the Amazon rainforest and indigenous groups in the region.

TGP is owned by a consortium of energy groups based in the U.S. (Hunt Oil), Argentina, Peru, Algeria and South Korea.

Peter Schechter, a CLS&A partner, heads the TGP account. He is joined by managing director Maria Cristina Gonzalez Noguera, who formerly worked at Ted Turner's Better World Fund and Puerto Rico's Banco Popular, and senior VP Shannon Hunt.

CLS&A is a unit of Gavin Anderson & Co., which is owned by Omnicom.

PFIZER'S BAGGER BAGS N.J. SENATE SEAT

Richard Bagger, who was recently promoted to senior VP/government relations and public affairs at Pfizer, is resigning as a New Jersey state senator.

The current deputy Republican whip said he would not have time for the part-time legislative post and his new job at Pfizer. He plans to step down Jan. 15.

Bagger, 42, began his political career in Westfield, N.J., where he spent eight years as councilman, mayor and planning board chairman. He served five terms in the Assembly before winning the Senate seat.

KEAN GOES BACK TO FKH

Marcia Kean has returned to Ogilvy PR Worldwide's Feinstein Kean Healthcare unit as CEO. She had left the pharmaceutical and biotechnology operation for a post at Ardais Corp., a privately held clinical genomics company.

Kean had been managing director of FKH's corporate communications practice for a dozen years. Ogilvy CEO Marcia Silverman asked Kean to return because of her "strong track record for attracting, growing and retaining executive talent."

Kean also has served as VP-corporate communications at Damon Corp., and was manager of financial relations at SmithKline Corp.

CORPORATE TRUST IS SEMINAR TOPIC

Mercy College business Prof. Robert Schachat, author of The Seven Conditions of Trust, will chair an 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. conference Jan. 29 at the college's New York building at 66 W. 35th st. Mercy College is based in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.

Registration fee for the event is $795 (914/674-7759; fax: 674-7395; [email protected]).

Schachat has counseled more than 200 businesses worldwide on trust issues, said Mercy College. He also consults with government officials.

Jonathan Herman, partner and chief litigator, Dorsey & Whitney, will give a luncheon address on complying with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. S-O, passed last summer, gives the Federal government increased powers over corporate behavior which has largely been subject to state rules and regulations.

Exploring trust issues in a Socratic dialogue will be:

-John Barkat, president, The Ombudsman Assn.
-Robert Fraum, clinical psychologist and executive coach.
-Steve John, head of global organizational effectiveness, Aventis.
-Frank McCluskey, fire chief and author, Burning for Business Success.
-Keith Mullin, CEO of Lincolnshire/Mullin & Associates.
-Joyce Newman, The Newman Group.
-Ronald Ries, American Express Tax & Business Services.
-Randy Williams of Redmond, Williams & Associates, and former ombudsman, American Express.

The afternoon will include hands-on breakout workshops covering trust assessments, identifying the trust leaders of an organization, and what it takes to be an effective leader.

"There are few things more important in American business today than trust," said Schachat.

The Center for Continuing Education at Mercy offers a program of training, certification and education courses in health science, law, technology, and workplace issues. Its classes and seminars are offered at company sites and at Mercy facilities in Westchester and New York.

MORE NEWS IN PARIS-BASED IHT

The New York Times, which became the sole owner of the Paris-based International Herald Tribune on Jan. 2, plans to increase the paper's news coverage of European and Asian topics, particularly business.

The Times reached an agreement to buy The Washington Post's 50% stake in the IHT for about $70 million.

The contents of the IHT, which had consisted of mainly articles and editorials from both papers, will become increasingly from the news department of the Times in New York.

Howell Raines, executive editor of the Times, who will oversee the news operations of the IHT, said eventually the paper will become part of the Times' strategy to make its journalism available in a variety of formats, including local and national editions, as well as TV, radio and the Internet.

"What we are moving toward is a kind of integrated New York Times report that is carried in a variety of media, including The International Herald Tribune," Raines said.

Raines said there were no plans for staff changes at the IHT, which has about 335 employees.

In December, Walter Wells, a former managing editor of the IHT, was named acting managing editor.

All IHT's editorials will now be written by Times staff members, with some done exclusively for the international paper.

The IHT's senior foreign policy editorial writer, David Unger, is shifting his hours to provide timely copy for the Paris deadline.

Although most of the content of IHT will be produced by the staff of the Times, and the international paper's own staff, the paper will publish fewer articles from The Washington Post, its former partner, and other papers in the U.S.

24-Hour News Operation

A memo to the foreign staff-signed by Roger Cohen and Glenn Kramon, who are business editors at the Times in New York-said the paper will immediately begin a 24-hour news operation in New York.

The goal is to make the Tribune "fresher and timelier and therefore more important, and to serve our growing Internet readership," the memo said.

"We will also be reinforcing our presence in Europe and Asia," and deadlines are being changed to make sure that stories are filed in time for the IHT.

Current steps planned include:

-The foreign and business news desks will move to a 24-hour operation with the appointment of David Rampe as joint overnight editor. Rampe, a senior editor, will make assignments and be available for consultation and guidance during the Asian and European days.

-There will be long-term increases in news staffs in Europe and in Asia. The Toyko bureau is being reinforced with a third staff member, and Hong Kong with a second staffer.

-The IHT looks to hire a number of new stringers, with responsibility primarily for business coverage elsewhere in Asia, with an eye toward China and Geneva.

AP MAY RELOCATE N.Y. HEADQUARTERS

The Associated Press may move its headquarters in New York to a new location when its lease expires in September 2004.

The AP, which has been at 50 Rockefeller Center since 1938, is negotiating to lease the top three floors of a building at 450 W. 33rd st., which also houses The New York Daily News.

MEDIA BRIEFS

Mexico City's only English-language paper, The News, was shut down on Dec. 31, along with Novedades, its sister Spanish-language publication, for economic reasons.

The News had been published for 53 years. Novedades had been around for 65 years.

Gannett Co., the McLean, Va.-based publisher of USA Today as well as 93 other newspapers, may start a cable TV network that would repackage news generated by its 22 TV stations across the country.

America Today, as the channel would be called, would be aimed at travelers across the U.S. who want to get news from home.

Gruner + Jahr USA publishing has mailed test copies of Flash to 500,000 potential subscribers.

The magazine, which features articles and photos of celebrities, lifestyle shopping and sex, is targeted at the 20-something market.

Emily Listfield, editor-in-chief of Fitness, is overseeing the magazine.

(Media news continued on next page)

PR PRO PICKS 'MOST DUBIOUS STORIES'

The "obesity epidemic" was picked by publicist Alan Caruba as one of the "Most Dubious News Stories of the Year."

He said the "drumbeat of news about an 'obesity' epidemic stayed in the news much of the year.

"This attack on the fast-food industry was greeted with joy by trial lawyers, the only people to actually benefit from idiotic lawsuits," said Caruba.

Other stories cited by Caruba included a lawsuit against major chocolate makers for failing to warn consumers against the alleged danger of infinitesimal amounts of lead and cadmium; the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers' defense of toxic sludge dumping in the Potomac River on the grounds it may "actually protect the fish"; Greenpeace's claim that New York and Shanghai among other coastal cities could be underwater because of the rise in water levels, and coverage of the International Dark-Sky Assn.'s efforts to reduce nighttime lighting to "save the night skies."

LABATT MAKES PLACEMENT DEAL WITH FOX

Three Labatt USA brands will be featured in program segments throughout the year on "Best Damn Sports Show Period," which runs five nights per week on the Fox Cable Sports network.

Beginning Jan. 7, the three beer brands-Labatt Blue, Rolling Rock and Dos Equis-will be featured via signage and in branded features built into the program. BDSSP talent will do selected segments of the show each week from a bar. The segment is called "Labatt USA Bar." Brands will rotate on a monthly basis.

In addition to on-set nightly branding and positioning visibility, the Labatt brands will sponsor three weekly BDSSP features focusing on topical sports highlights.

BDSSP telecasts each weeknight at 8-10 p.m. and repeats at 11:00 p.m.-1 a..m.

The show is a blend of sports and comedy with an irreverent tone. Sports and entertainment celebrities visit in-studio to discuss the day's topical sports stories with the BDSSP cast, which includes actor Tom Arnold, former Philadelphia Phillies first baseman John Kruk, ex-NBA star John Salley and three-time Super Bowl winner Michael Irvin. Chris Rose is host.

CNN DROPS 'PINNACLE'

CNN has cancelled "Pinnacle," a weekend business show. Three or four people who worked on the show were also dropped, according to the Atlanta-based network.

CNN said Pinnacle will be replaced by another business show.

Separately, at least three veteran on-air reporters were cut for economic reasons.

Leaving are Mark Potter, in Miami, Brooks Jackson in Washington, and Allan Frank, who was a reporter on "Moneyline."

Frank, who won a Gerald Loeb award last year for stories on the financing of the Sept. 11 attacks, told The Miami Herald that CNN is "getting rid of anybody whose contract is up who is not a superstar anchor or a 25-year-old willing to be paid in Canadian dollars."

Matthew Furman, CNN spokesman, said this is not a "round of layoffs by any means."

"The company can put any spin on it they want to attempt," Frank said. "But if you stay tuned, you will see veteran faces disappearing."

CRAINS HIRES THREE FOR N.Y. BUSINESS

Greg David, editor of Crain's New York Business, has hired the following staffers: Cynthia Riggs, Jacqueline Gold, and Christina Merrill.

Riggs was appointed special sections editor; Gold is a general assignment reporter, and Merrill will cover law, accounting, and telecommunications.

Two current staffers were given new beats to cover. David said Tom Frederickson, who covers the New York economy, also will cover the banking beat, replacing Heike Wipperfurth, who recently left.

Lisa Fickenscher, a general assignment reporter, was assigned to cover technology, replacing Judy Mussina, who also left the paper.

Riggs, who was managing editor of CNYB when she left two years ago, will rejoin the paper the second week of February.

Gold was previously a senior writer at Institutional Investor, and Merrill had been a freelancer.

PEOPLE

LuAnn Brandsen was named editor-in-chief of Renovation Style, a quarterly magazine that takes readers through the entire renovating process.

Brandsen was previously editor of Country Gardens and garden editor for Country Home magazine. She started at Meredith as an intern at Grandparents magazine in 1990.

John Gallagher, associate editor of Traffic World magazine, was elected to the 14-member board of governors of the National Press Club, in Washington, D.C.

Jamie Estes, VP of FSA PR, in Louisville, Ky., was elected president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council.

Ellen Koteff, executive editor of Nation's Restaurant News magazine, in New York, was elected VP; Laura Yee, food editor of Restaurants and Institutions magazine, Oak Brook, Ill., was elected secretary, and Don Odiorne of Idaho Potato Commission, in Boise, was elected to a second term as treasurer.

IFEC is a 250-member association of foodservice communications professionals. It is headquartered in Hyde Park, N.Y.

Dan Rather, managing editor of CBS News, will address the annual Overseas Press Club Foundation's scholarship luncheon on Jan. 23 at the Yale Club.

Dr. Michael Guillen, a former science editor at ABC News, is heading a panel to determine whether a girl born to an unidentified American woman is a clone of her mother.

Sandy Whiteley, who was editor of Chase's Calendar of Events from 1998 through last year, is now editor of On This Date: A Day-by-Day Listing of Holidays, Birthdays and Historic Events and Special Days, Weeks and Months, published by Contemporary Books.

While birthdays make up about half of the 2,000 entries, the date book includes events created by PR firms and trade associations.

The food category lists 28 of these contrivances, such as Baked Beans Month, and another 87 dates are devoted to health-related causes, such as Pediculous Prevention Month.

WAR, ECONOMY ON MINDS OF PR PROS

The economy, spending, and a possible war with Iraq top the list of concerns of PR pros in 2003, according to an informal survey at a recent industry holiday party.

Members of the Entertainment Publicists Professional Society, Hispanic PR Assn., National Black PR Society, and PR Society of America/L.A. attended the joint event at NBC in Burbank, Calif., to benefit United in Harmony, a charity for homeless children.

Greg Waskul, president of Waskul Worldwide Comms., told this NL one of the biggest challenges he sees for 2003 is the current economic slide, with no apparent recovery in sight. He said, as a result of that slump, clients are looking for outstanding work at a relatively low cost. "At a certain point, you reach a point of no return in being able to provide great work with less resources," he said.

Dan Orsborn, president of The Orsborn Co. and a former Porter Novelli exec in Los Angeles, said large firms are watching and waiting. "From the big agency perspective, we were all waiting and hoping and holding onto the idea that things were going to turn around in the fourth quarter, and they really haven't," he said.

HPRA president Brenda Mendoza noted media will be tough to pitch if the U.S. goes to war. "[A war] will impact spending, the economy and especially how we handle media relations," she said, noting that air time and column space becomes limited, providing a challenge to the industry.

"If we go to war, we're all going to have to look for different avenues and creative outlets for our work," said Rita Tateel, president of Celebrity Source and a PRSA/L.A. board member, who chaired the event. "The reality is that the public's attention is somewhere else and that provides great challenges ahead creatively, intellectually and financially."

Many firms scaled back or cancelled holiday parties this year, as they did last year following the Sept. 11 attacks, a sharp contrast from the boom days of 2000 and the lavish events held across the country in the industry.

GROUPS TO HOST PR SUMMIT

Sixteen IR, PR and public affairs groups have planned a Jan. 14 summit to discuss "societal trust" in corporations and ways to restore public confidence in business.

James Murphy, global managing director of marketing for Accenture and immediate past president of Arthur Page Society, is coordinating the one-day event, titled "Trust: Models for Action." Reps from the Arthur Page Society, PR Society of America, Council of PR Firms, IABC, PA Council, National IR Institute and the Institute for PR are among those organizing the summit under the group name, Public Relations Coalition.

Murphy said in a release that the groups will share experiences and thinking, with a goal of singling out the half dozen ideas which can help businesses move forward in the face of public "distrust." He said the groups want to provide advice to the majority of ethical business leaders who are charged with regaining the public trust.

Murphy said the coalition hopes to publish position papers on views from the meeting.

Shaw to Council

In other organization news, Matthew Shaw has joined the Council of PR Firms as VP, replacing Sarah Drennan, who moved to Chicago following a maternity leave. She gave birth to a baby girl and continues as a consultant to the CPRF.

WOODS, S.WILLIAMS ARE TOPS IN SPORTS PR

Tiger Woods and Serena Williams are the most attractive spokespersons among athletes, according to a survey conducted by Alan Taylor Communications, which specializes in sports publicity.

PR pros and marketing executives from various sports leagues and companies were asked which male and female athletes would best represent them if they were launching a new product or service.

Woods was an overwhelming choice at 28%, with Derek Jeter (13%) second and both Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan (7%) finishing third.
Williams got 20% of the votes for women, beating Mia Hamm (17%), last year's top choice. Serena's sister, Venus, was third at 15%.

Anna Kournikova was chosen as the most overexposed athlete (20%), followed by Jordan at 18% and Woods at 14%.

Baseball's highest paid player, Alex Rodriguez, was selected as the most underexposed, followed by Falcons quarterback Michael Vick and Spurs forward Tim Duncan.

SC NAMES PR HITS, MISSES OF `02

Mariah Carey's comeback was picked by Stanton Crenshaw Communications as one of the year's most successful PR campaigns.

In its year-end report of "PR Hits and Misses," the firm said Carey's comeback was "exquisitely orchestrated, projecting both honesty and a little bit of 'tude that one would expect of a true diva."

Other successful PR efforts cited by the New York-based PR firm were campaigns for Apple computers, Jet Blue, the National Hockey League, Atkins Diet and the Compaq/Hewlett Packard merger.

ABC's handling of the David Letterman negotiations was at the top of SC's list of PR blunders.

"The network shot itself in the foot when news leaked that [Ted] Koppel's time slot was being dangled to lure David Letterman to ABC. Its failure to address and resolve the situation quickly-coupled with David's ambivalence-angered the news elite and made ABC executives look inept," the firm said.

Also on the "miss" list were: Harry Belafonte, America West, Hootie Johnson, and the cruise ship industry.

PR pros, as indicated by remarks made at the holiday meeting of PRSA/Los Angeles and other groups, are worried about the future after two years of a recession in ad/PR without any signs of relief. They find that clients have cut budgets almost to the point of "no return."

A highly possible war with Iraq is making the future even more uncertain. Some PR pros say they are only doing "consulting" now, setting up turn-key publicity and PR programs that clients can handle themselves. Specific projects rather than longterm programs with 60 and 90-day cancellation clauses are more salable

The firing of another Morgan Stanley employee ostensibly because the employee gave a quote to a newspaper and identified his employer, is a case of corporate overkill. It makes Morgan look like a heartless company. No doubt many other companies have this same rule, written or not. Get the company's name in the press without permission and you're history. This exerts a chilling effect on all communication and makes life especially difficult for PR pros who have to deal with the press. Each time they pick up the phone, they put their jobs on the line.

Job creation (or lack of it) is one area of weakness in the Bush Administration. While President Clinton averaged 230,000 new jobs a month during his eight years, President Bush has averaged a loss of 69,000 jobs monthly, according to government statistics quoted in the New York Times Jan. 3 (1.5 million jobs have been lost in the two years of Bush).

Republicans counter that a Clinton-inspired recession was starting just as Bush took office.

The NYT (Jan. 3) charged that Bush is withholding too many records that had been public. In the year to Sept. 30, 2001, 290,978 documents were withheld, up 18% from the previous year.

The NYT also feels Presidential press secretary Ari Fleischer is too tight with information (Oct. 14, 2002).

"Tensions have escalated far beyond the inevitable grousing between press secretaries and journalists," said the article.

While on the subject of the NYT, it has bumped up its price 33% from 75 cents to $1 daily making the cost $9 a week ($3 for the Sunday NYT) or $468 a year.

The paper, which used to be two sections, is now frequently eight sections for which the readers are now being asked to pay.

APR zealots at the PRSA Assembly Nov. 17 in San Francisco, using disruptive tactics, citing a questionable "poll," and making a possibly improper motion to table when the main motion was already on the floor, blocked a move to "decouple" Assembly membership from APR.

The transcript of the meeting shows that PRSA president Joann Killeen three times pleaded with the delegates to "please sit down."

The motion to table the decoupling proposal, made after Killeen said three times that the main motion was to be voted on, was made by an unidentified woman, a violation of Roberts Rules which say a "mover" must be identified.

There is no record of a second. Up until that time, speakers had to identify themselves. Some delegates left their seats and caused disorder as the proposal to decouple neared a vote.

APRs had blocked even discussion of such a motion for years.

Hired parliamentarian Mary Barber, who also pleaded with the delegates to "sit down," ruled that the motion to "refer" was the last question "stated by the chair." But the last "question" by Killeen was asking for a vote on decoupling, which had been properly moved and seconded.

Because of this possibly improper vote to table, which was influenced by a questionable "poll," a new Assembly should be convened and a proper vote taken.

The "poll" was cited by Mary Pat Adams of the Colorado chapter who said it showed her chapter members were opposed to decoupling.

But the e-mail poll violated many rules of a legitimate poll. It said the chapter board was against decoupling. The exact results of the "poll" have never been revealed.

Opponents of decoupling were centered in the Northwest. Besides Adams, anti-decoupling speakers included Gina Seamans of Colorado, Rebecca Brandt, Portland, John Kvasnosky, Puget Sound, and Cary Greenwood of Oregon Capital. In the disorder that took place when a vote on decoupling neared, at least four people spoke without identifying themselves.

When the Assembly was recovened after a break, Killeen, after again asking the delegates to sit down three times, said she felt like a "schoolteacher," implying the delegates were behaving like children.

This is not the first time we have seen delegates become disruptive. In 1996, the Assembly was supposed to have received a report from the board on charges by 12 authors that PRSA illegally copied and sold their articles.

But the board, not waiting to report to the Assembly, took its own action by apologizing to the authors while refusing to admit anything illegal was done and refusing to pay the authors any royalties. Nancy Wolfe, a professor at Elon College, asked for a discussion of the topic at the close of the 1996 meeting. President Luis Morales said a motion to adjourn had been made and had to be voted on first. He asked for a voice vote but ruled it was so close a standing vote was needed.

The scene became one of confusion as delegates left their seats and non-delegates came into the voting area. Without taking a count, Morales ruled that a majority favored ending the meeting.

Here are New Year's resolutions for four business "professions": accountants should go back to keeping straight books; analysts should analyze and stop recommending stocks; PR people should deal with the press and stop trying to be ad people, and IR people should stop addressing just Wall St. and start addressing the general public.
--Jack O'Dwyer