B-M WINS $4.5M MEXICO TOURISM ACCOUNT

The Mexico Tourism Board has given WPP Group's Burson-Marsteller its $4.5 million 32-month account.

Incumbent Fleishman-Hillard decided not to re-pitch the business after examining the RFP, according to Rissig Licha, F-H's executive VP/managing director of Latin America. "It was not economically feasible to run the business," he told this website, because the Mexicans wanted too much service for a reduced budget.

For instance, he noted that Mexico spent $6 million for PR during the last 23-month period. The new RFP requires the PR firm to station personnel at eight Mexico tourism offices in the U.S. and Canada, which is a cost that Licha finds hard to justify.

Grey Global Group's GCI Group and Omnicom's Ketchum purchased Mexico's RFP, but decided not to pitch, said Licha, who is stationed in the Coral Gables, Fla., office of Omnicom's F-H unit.

Neither B-M nor Mexico tourism executives could be reached for comment.

APCO SEEKS SHARE OF IRAQI ACTION

APCO Worldwide, a Grey Global Group unit, has set up an Iraq reconstruction task force with a personnel roster of ex-government heavyweights to guide clients through the process of pursuing contracts.

Marc Ginsberg, former special coordinator for Middle East and Mediterranean trade and economic policy and ambassador to Morocco who is a senior VP at APCO, is heading the team.

The rebuilding advisement team includes former Sen. Don Riegle, ex-chairman of the Senate Banking Committee; five-year Federal Aviation Administration head Jane Garvey; ex-Rep. Steve Solarz, a Middle East expert formerly on the House International Affairs Committee, and Richard Allen, who was President Reagan's national security advisor.

Ari Fleischer plans to resign as White House spokesperson next month because he says he doesn't want to commit the time needed to serve in second Bush Administratio... Kay Hart, VP-communications and media relations at Hewlett-Packard, resigns her post. as CEO Carly Fiorina said H-P's merger with Compaq is complete and the company is no longer an "integration story. Hart is a Compaq alumnus. Cordiant Communications irons out pact to sell FD International unit to management group for $40M.

EDELMAN GETS TNC CRISIS WORK

The Nature Conservancy, which was hammered by a Washington Post series this month, has hired Edelman PR Worldwide as part of its damage control strategy.

The Post described TNC as "Big Green," an entity that has amassed $3 billion in assets by pledging to save precious places, yet willing to cut cozy deals with its corporate supporters and its trustees. The probe, according to internal TNC documents, has the group desperate to head off a Congressional inquiry into its activities. Senate Finance Committee head Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) have promised hearings.

The Arlington, Va.-based group's PR strategy includes Capitol Hill visits, calls to donors, third-party letters to newspapers, full-page advertisements and attempts to pacify charitable foundations, according to TNC documents obtained by the Post.

Neither Leslie Dach, vice chairman in Edelman's Washington, D.C., office, nor TNC's media reps, have returned this website's calls for comment.
TNC, on its website, claims it welcomes fair-minded public scrutiny of its work, and that it fully cooperated with the Post for the past two years. It criticized the series for "focusing on a narrow set of isolated problems" that do not "present an honest or comprehensive picture of the work of The Conservancy."

STOCKHOLDERS BEEF AT IPG MEETING

Jay Schulberg, a creative director at Bozell, asked Interpublic CEO David Bell at the annual meeting today to justify the potential $32.8 million severance contract that IPG has awarded John Dooner, former CEO of IPG and now CEO of the McCann-Erickson unit.

Under the contract, Dooner will be paid from $930,200 to $2,186,000 yearly for 15 years after leaving IPG whether he is dismissed or leaves voluntarily.

The totals will vary from $13.95M to $32.79M, depending on his age when he leaves.

If he dies while employed by IPG, his beneficiaries would get the $2.18 million for 15 years.

Bell said that the contract is a reward for the 30 years of service that Dooner has given the company and is in line with similar awards that companies give to top executives.

He said it was studied thoroughly by the compensation committee and that the decision was made in

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STOCKHOLDERS BEET AT IPG

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2002 when financial conditions at IPG were better.

"It's where it should be," said Bell of the contract.

Dooner's compensation in 2002 included salary of $1.25M; "other annual compensation" of $80,000; restricted stock worth $2,947,500; $2,480,000 in long-term incentive compensation for the 1999-2001 cycle; $28,272 in medical/dental coverage, and $22,887 for club dues. Restricted stock is given either at no cost or a nominal charge to the recipient, who must usually stay with the company for several years in order for the stock to "vest."

Bell told the meeting that long-term incentive plan awards had been cancelled for executives for the years 2002-2004.

As of Dec. 31, 2002, Dooner had options on 495,240 shares that were exercisable and options on another 1,163,000 shares that were not exercisable. He received options in 2002 on 350,000 shares exercisable at $29.47 and on 25,000 shares exercisable at $27.41.

Dooner, Bell Give Up Options

Dooner is giving back about 500,000 options, Bell announced at the annual meeting as part of the cancellation of options on 1.2 million shares by Bell and other executives. An unspecified number of options are to be given to employees.

Dooner made the transaction May 19, the day before the annual meeting, according to SEC documents. IPG shares closed at $12.12 that day.

He gave up options on 248,000 shares exercisable at $43; 152,000 shares exercisable at $41, and 100,000 shares exercisable at $60.

Bell also said he and Dooner will put their unvested restricted stock in escrow until the shares reach $20.

Other IPG executives with similar 15-year contracts, for amounts ranging from $54,120 yearly to $272,500, are James Heeking, who was fired as CEO of the McCann-Erickson unit; Bruce Nelson, executive VP; Sean Orr, CFO, and Gunnar Wilmot, senior VP.

Stock Increase Questioned

Another stockholder, addressing more than 100 people at the meeting in the auditorium of the Equitable Center on Seventh Ave., asked why IPG is boosting its authorized stock from 387 million to 850 million.

Bell said IPG was down to its last 17 million shares in authorized but undistributed stock and needed the new total for "flexibility."

The stock would be used for "general corporate purposes," for possible acquisitions and for possible stock offerings of one type or another, he said.

The first 45 minutes of the one-hour meeting were taken up with election of directors and other procedural matters; a 20-minute address by Bell in which he reviewed IPG's performance in the last year, saying the company had come through "a rough patch," and a ten-minute reel of commercials by IPG units.

In reply to another question, Bell said employment now stands at 49,000, which would be 13,000 lower than two years ago.

F-H GRABS BEST OF BIG APPLE HONORS

Fleishman-Hillard's New York office received top honors for the year by PRSA/N.Y. as the chapter gave the firm its "Best of the Best" award for its anti-smoking campaign for the New Jersey Dept. of Health and Senior Services.

The campaign, which was run on a PR budget of $450,000, generated more than 90 million media impressions in local and national media and has been credited with reducing the spread of tobacco use by New Jersey teens.

F-H and the other category winners in the 16th annual Big Apple Awards were named May 22 at a luncheon held at Tavern on the Green in New York's Central Park. A complete list of the winners is available at odwyerpr.com.

Thomas Hoog, chairman of Hill & Knowlton/USA, won the John Hill Award, which is presented annually to an individual for leadership in the practice of PR and demonstration of the highest standards of ethical conduct.

Fred Garcia, president of Logos Consulting Group, was awarded the Philip Dorf Award, which is presented for outstanding accomplishments in mentoring PR practitioners and students studying PR.

Don Bates, managing director of Media Distribution Services, was given the President's Award for his outstanding service to the chapter.

H&K SAYS GET READY FOR ATTACK

Hill & Knowlton launched its threat readiness audit service last week as Saudi and American intelligence services buzzed about warnings of an imminent terror attack.

Dick Hyde, director of H&K's U.S. crisis communications group, said stakeholders hold companies responsible for planning for the worst. Those that don't plan for terror will suffer greater damage to their reputation in the event of a strike.

TRA components address "values based decision-making," "timely alert procedures," "preparations for human care," "clarity in message development," "linkages with public authorities," "competency in business continuity planning" and "sufficiency in security and technological safeguards," according to the WPP Group unit's statement.

WILSON CHECKS IN WITH HILLENBRAND

Wendy Wilson, who has more than 20 years of IR experience, has joined Hillenbrand Industries (Batesville, Ind.) as VP-IR. She had been at Avery Dennison for a year, and prior to that was a senior managing director at Hill & Knowlton, and VP-IR at R.R. Donnelly & Sons, both in Chicago. Earlier she was IR director at AMR Corp. in Dallas.

Hillenbrand's units include Hill-Rom Co., maker of hospital beds, incubators and stretchers; Forethought Financial Services, marketer of pre-planned funeral plans, and Batesville Casket Co., which also makes cremation equipment.

RAINES ACCEPTS BLAME FOR BLAIR

Howell Raines, executive editor of The New York Times, told hundreds of staffers at a meeting on May 14 that he did not plan to resign following the outing of a reporter who plagiarized.

Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said he would not accept the editor's resignation even if it were submitted.

Raines, Sulzberger and Gerald Boyd, managing editor, told the staff that they were sorry for mistakes and oversights that allowed former reporter Jayson Blair to fabricate and plagiarize material.

The meeting was called after the paper found that Blair "committed frequent acts of journalistic fraud" in stories from last October through April.

Closed Meeting

The meeting, which lasted more than two hours, was closed to news coverage. Jacques Steinberg, who covers the media beat for The Times but was not allowed to attend the meeting, wrote a story based on information obtained by attendees, as did The Associated Press.

Steinberg said he obtained a recording made by someone in the audience in which Raines said at the outset of the meeting that "I'm here to listen to your anger, wherever it's directed, to tell you that I know that our institution has been damaged, that I accept my responsibility for that and I intend to fix it."

Butt of Jokes

The Times has become the butt of many jokes by TV talk show hosts and comics.

Conan O'Brien said: "A New York Times reporter who resigned after being accused of plagiarism may be paid as much as $1 million to tell his story in a new book. Not surprisingly, the book will be called `The Autobiography of Ben Franklin.'"

David Letterman said "You know the old slogan of The New York Times, `All the news that's fit to print'? They've changed it. The new slogan is `We make it up.'"

Jay Leno said "The former Iraqi minister of information has gotten a new job. He's the new fact checker for The New York Times."

Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central, had at least nine jokes about the Times recently, then conducted an interview with a fake dean of Columbia Univ.'s journalism school about the scandal.

Catherine Mathis, who heads PR for the NYT Co., said the paper's massive apology for Blair's bogus reports totaled 14,027 words-not counting a separate 402-word "Editor's Note."

PAPER SAYS WRITER PLAGIARIZED STORY

A freelancer for The New York Post sold the paper an article that was plagiarized from The National Enquirer, the Post said May 20.

In a 147-word story, headlined: "Post deceived by freelancer," the Post said freelancer Robin Gregg admitted he plagiarized the story from the Enquirer.
"We were deceived by Mr. Gregg and he will never contribute to the Post again," said Col Allan, the Post's editor-in-chief.

The story, which appeared in the Post's May 15 edition, concerened the decision by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to phase out former talk show host Kathie Lee Gifford's clothing line from its stores this year.
Gregg said he had permission from the Enquirer to offer the story to other publications, and denied doing anything unethical.

A comparison of the two stories shows the Post story is a shorter version of the one that appears in the current issue of the Enquirer, with the first four paragraphs almost identical.

In a phone interview from his Los Angeles home, Gregg told The Associated Press he had gotten permission from the Enquirer editors to offer the story to other publications. He said he did not recall whether he described that arrangement when he called the Post to dictate the story, the AP said.

Earlier this month, the Post ran a retraction of a story that "Sex and the City" star, Kim Cantrall, had been signed to a contract to serve as spokeswoman for K-Y Jelly, a product made by a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary.

The Post gave no explanation in the one-paragraph retraction, which appeared in a column of news briefs a few days after the full-page story ran in the business section.

PEOPLE

Erica Levy, 28, a producer at the Travel Channel, and Fox News Channel's correspondent Geraldo Rivera will be married Aug. 10 at the Central Synagogue in New York.

It will be Rivera's fifth marriage. His first three marriages lasted a year each. His marriage to TV producer C.C. Dyer lasted 20 years.

Brad Miner was hired by Bookspan, which operates the Book-of-the-Month Club, as editor of a new club devoted to books with a conservative viewpoint.

Miner, a former literary editor of National Review, was also named an executive editor at Bookspan, according to Kevin Goldman, who is VP of communications for Bookspan.

Michelle Johnson, 33, has succeeded Arthur Helms as city editor of Greenwich (Conn.) Time.

Walker Lundy, 60, has resigned as editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer after 17 months.

Kenya James, founder and editor of Blackgirl Magazine, in Atlanta, was selected as one of the 21 "Outstanding Women Newsmakers for the 21st century" by Women's eNews, a website and electronic news service that reports on issues that matter to women.

James, who is 15 years old, started the magazine, which is targeted at young girls, when she was 13.

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LIFE MAY BE REVIVED AS SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT

Robert Sullivan, editor of Life and Life Books, is overseeing the rebirth of Life magazine as a Sunday newspaper supplement. No date has been set for the reintroduction of the magazine, which stopped publishing as a weekly in 2000.

Sullivan told The New York Times that the supplement will focus on family-oriented activities and consumer goods.

He also indicated photography will be a mainstay of the magazine, which will be printed on heavy paper stock. "Photographers out there don't have that many venues to tell the narrative story that they want to tell," he told the Times.

The national newspaper supplement field currently consists of Parade, USA Weekend, and American Profile. Parade, which is owned by Newhouse's Advance Publications, is the biggest with distribution by 330 Sunday papers, with a circulation of 36 million.

USA Weekend, owned by Gannett, is inserted in 598 papers with a circulation of about 23.7 million, while American Profile, an independently owned magazine, which was recently started, is in 900 papers, mostly weeklies, giving the Nashville-based publication a distribution of about 4.8 million.

TAUNTON PRESS TO START SHELTER MAGAZINE

Taunton Press, based in Newtown, Conn., is starting a bimonthly home improvement magazine called Inspired House. The first issue is due out in October.

Marc Vassally is editor of the magazine, which will target women between 35 and 64 with articles and columns about home decorating and improvements.

The articles will be adapted for a new TV show on PBS. Next year, PBS, will run 13 episodes, titled "The Inspired House," hosted by John Connell, who also will be a columnist at the magazine.

NEW HOME MAG GIVES HOW-TO ADVICE

A new magazine called Detroit Home has made its debut in southeastern Michigan.

The first issue, which has 136 pages, features a "how-to" section with advice on purchasing a piano, redoing a teen's bedroom, buying a home sound system, installing a home gym and hiring household help.

The magazine is published by Hour Media of Royal Oak, Mich., the parent company of Hour Detroit, a monthly magazine, which is seven years old this month.

Rebecca Powers, who is senior editor of Hour Detroit, is editor of Detroit Home, which will be published in September and November of this year.

It will be published more frequently in 2004.

UPI DEEMPHASIZES SPOT NEWS COVERAGE

United Press International, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is laying off 16 news staffers and will no longer focus on breaking news coverage.

Bill Creighton, UPI spokesman, said the "world has become saturated with breaking news, and we believe that the value of our products is not simply in reporting the news, but in telling readers what impact the news will have on them."

The news service, which has made spot news its top priority since its founding in 1907, will now give more analytical and in-depth news reports.

TRAVELGIRL HITS NEWSSTANDS IN JULY

Stephanie Oswald, a former travel correspondent for CNN, is editor-in-chief and co-founder of travelgirl magazine, which is scheduled to hit newsstands in July.

The first issue of the Atlanta-based magazine will have a cover story about the Caribbean, an article on traveling while pregnant and a regular feature about beauty on the go.

Oswald told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she "reads every travel magazine out there and saw there is nothing geared specifically for women."

NEW MUSIC MAG TARGETS GROWN-UPS

Good Music Media will begin publication of Tracks magazine in the fall, with the first issue on newsstands across the country starting Nov. 18.

The magazine, which will focus on "music for grown-ups," will target adults over age 30, which account for 56% of music purchasers in the U.S., according to the Recording Industry Assn. of America.

Tracks will be published quarterly before moving to a bimonthly schedule by the end of 2004. Initial circulation will be 100,000.

Alan Light, who is editor-in-chief, has assembled an editorial staff that includes former writers from Vibe, Spin and Rolling Stone.

The editorial staff is located in New York in the offices of World Publications, which publishes 14 magazines, including Saveur, Garden Design, Caribbean Travel & Life, Cruising World and others.

EX-N.Y. TIMES ED. NAMED OMBUDSMAN

Tony Marcano, 42, is leaving The New York Times to join The Sacramento Bee on June 16 as the paper's ombudsman, or reader's advocate. He was assistant metro editor of the Times, where he oversaw editing projects and editing of daily stories.

PRIMO RECREATES 'EYEWITNESS' FORMAT

Al Primo's "Eyewitness Kids News," a 30-minute program, will make its TV debut on Sept. 27 on more than 135 stations.

Primo, who resides in Greenwich, Conn., created the "Eyewitness News" format for KWY-TV in Philadelphia back in the 1960s before moving to New York's WABC-TV in 1968.

Alan Weiss Productions, New York, will handle production and The Associated Press will provide images.

"Interpublic Executives to Give up Options," ran a headline in The New York Times May 21.

"Interpublic Top Executives to Give up 1.2 Million Options," ran a headline via the Bloomberg wire.

We congratulate IPG for putting out its story and getting these headlines. Its role is to do just that.

Maybe it's good PR.

But we saw it differently.

John Dooner, replaced as the CEO of troubled IPG last year, was given a fat severance plan worth up to $32.7 million over a 15-year period, according to the proxy. That was the news, we felt.

Campaign, a U.K. publication, had written about the $32M, but no U.S. mainstream publication did.

The contract could be worth as little as $13.95M, depending on when he retired. The peak payment would be $2.18 million for 15 years. If he died, his beneficiaries would get the same payments.

Dooner got a salary, stock and other pay totaling about $6.8 million in 2002, a year when IPG was in a peck of trouble with the IRS and SEC over accounting issues and stockholders who say insiders sold at high prices while withholding material information.

Neither the Times nor Bloomberg had further details on the forsaken options, which were in a Form 4 filed with the SEC on the day before the annual meeting.

We wondered if a PR ploy was afoot since word was starting to get out about the $32M deal.

Form 4 showed that Dooner renounced options to buy 248,000 shares at $43; 152,000 shares at $41, and 100,000 shares at $60.

The likelihood of IPG shares shooting from the current $12 level (from the two-year high of $57) to anything close to those prices seems pretty remote.

We think IPG PR and IR should have given a copy of Form 4 to the press at the annual meeting May 20. We only got it because we pay financial sources to closely monitor the big three ad/PR holding companies.

Whether IPG should or should not have given Form 4 to the press would be a good question for the new multiple-choice accreditation test of PRSA, which abounds with ethical choices confronting PR pros.

Financial reporting is a game of hide-and-go-seek when it shouldn't be.

PRSA is up to its old anti-competition tricks in blocking decoupling APR from governance across the board (page 7).

When we first started covering PR in 1968 we noticed a discrepancy in the PRSA code: it was unethical for a member to pitch another's job or accounts but not unethical for a member to pitch a non-member's job or accounts.

Most of the ethics cases in those days were brought by PR counselors who caught another member soliciting his or her account.

A big problem was mass mailings by the larger PR firms. Did these mailings of an agency newsletter or brochure to large lists of prospects constitute "encroachment?"

PRSA was by no means alone in having a competition-stifling "professional code of ethics."

The Federal Trade Commission went after numerous associations including the American Bar Assn., which was forced to end its ban against advertising by members.

PRSA leaders initially fought the FTC, trying to work some deal that would salvage some protection for members. Counselors, in particular, were aghast at losing their protection from competition.

But the FTC was not about to make any deals. It stuck it to PRSA bigtime, forcing it to print the FTC order in a PRSA newsletter.

The unethical, illegal PRSA code had been in force for nearly 30 years before it was brought down by the Feds.

The current undemocratic, unfair governance structure of PRSA is also 30 years old and the "haves" are fighting mightily to keep their perks.

PRSA has not changed much since its founding. It always regarded itself as an elite group in PR and for 30 years it has been ruled by a "super-elite" group within itself.

Probably only the Feds or the New York State Attorney General can force it to reform.

The 1976 PRSA Assembly had a chance to change its anti-competitive, price-fixing code and avoid an embarrassing FTC order but the Counselors section led the opposition to any changes and had them tabled. Tony Franco, Ron Levitt and Bill Koskta argued there wasn't enough time to study the changes and also warned there would be "open warfare" over accounts if the article against "encroachment" was dropped. Supporters of the changes said the FTC would force them on PRSA. After two hours of heated debate, the revised code was sent back to a committee headed by Joe Awad.

PR pros must convince their CEOs that they have to take public stands on important issues, said Robert Ferrante, who is with Cantor Executive Search Solutions, New York. PR is about getting attention in the media and that is a principal way of doing it, said Ferrante, who recently addressed the WestFair chapter of PRSA. CEOs have been laying low in recent years, partly because of their high salaries, he noted. He urged PR pros to develop specialties but said these can sometimes turn into "traps." PR pros too often overlook or underplay their media relations duties, he added.

--Jack O'Dwyer