SOUTH AFRICA RETURNS TO PMA

Peter Martin Assocs. has picked up the six-figure South African Tourism account as the country parts ways with Patrice Tanaka & Co. after two and a half years, a staffer at SAT's New York office told this NL.

Stamford, Conn.-based PMA handled the account before PT&Co. took it over in a 2001 review that included BSMG Worldwide and Lou Hammond & Assocs.

PR work for SAT previously billed at a minimum of $15,000/mo. PT&Co. pulled in $420K from the account for the first half of 2002.

PT&Co. said its parting was amicable. "They basically revamped the way they did business," John Frazier, president of PT&Co., told O'Dwyer's. "When we were hired two and a half years ago, we reported directly to the New York office and had the ability to get things done. Then a new team came in and pulled all their country managers back to Johannesburg. That became problematic and the new process didn't really work that well for us."

Frazier said South Africa has seen a boost in tourism from the U.S., Europe and Asia post-9/11, despite not running any advertising.

CARUSO HEADS PR AT L'OREAL

Rebecca Caruso has been named to take the PR reins at L'Oréal USA with the planned retirement of John Wendt, executive VP of corporate and public affairs, later this year.

Caruso, as executive VP/corporate communications and external relations, leaves a VP/corporate communications post at toy retailer Toys "R" Us.

Pamela Alabaster, senior VP-corporate communications, and Ed Bullock, VP-diversity, report to Caruso. Alabaster told this NL Wendt agreed to stay on for a six-month transition period. He plans to retire in December.

Prior to Toys "R" Us, Caruso was director of media relations and U.S. communications during an eight-year career at McDonald's.

Margaret Tutwiler returns to the State Dept. at the end of the month to become propaganda czar. She succeeds ad woman Charlotte Beers who stepped down in March due to health reasons. Tutwiler had served as Assistant Secretary for PA during the first Bush Administration. She recently shifted from her Ambassador to Morocco post to help the U.S. handle media in Baghdad.

VISA'S CARMICHAEL SHIFTS TO BRUNSWICK

Barbara "Barie" Carmichael, who was executive VP in charge of corporate relations at Visa USA, has become a partner at The Brunswick Group. She will be stationed at the firm's Washington, D.C., office.

She joined Visa in Sept. 2001 and handled its corporate communications, media relations, PR and PA duties. Carmichael sat on Visa's executive management committee and reported to the CEO of the financial services giant.

Prior to Visa, Carmichael served more than a decade at Dow Corning, and made her mark handling PR during that company's restructuring and the controversy regarding silicone breast implants.

BG&R PRESCRIBES PhRMA'S PA PUSH

The Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America is seeking guidance on the Medicare/ Medicaid reform battle from Interpublic's Barbour Griffiths & Rogers public affairs unit. The House and Senate approved a prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients in June, and negotiators hope to iron out the final version of the bill in the Fall.

Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow (Dem.) is trying to convince colleagues to support the House bill that would allow Americans the right to import cheaper drugs from Canada, a move bitterly opposed by PhRMA. The trade group claims that reimportation will flood the U.S. with "unapproved, adulterated, contaminated, or counterfeit" drugs, and distracts legislators from the overall Medicare reform debate.

PRSA PICKS RUSSELL OVER STEVENS

The PRSA nominating committee, meeting Aug. 9-10 in Chicago, picked PR professor Maria Russell of Syracuse University as nominee for treasurer over New York counselor Art Stevens. The post almost always leads to president of PRSA.

Phil Ryan, also a New York counselor, lost his bid for renomination to the board as did counselor Jeffrey Seideman, of Newton, Mass.

Russell's nomination had generated controversy because her name was placed above nine committees and boards in the 2003 PRSA Blue Book of members as "senior counselor" to them.

The committees also have board liaisons who are not named in the Blue Book. Russell said the positioning of her name at the top of the committees and boards made it look like she was in charge of them.

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GRUBMAN TALKS PR

Lizzie Grubman doesn't write a lick, abhors press releases and leads a low-key work-intensive life, rising at 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning to read the national papers and turning in around 10:30 on an average night. That's what she told about 150 people at the Le Parker Meridien Hotel on Aug. 5.

She warned PR hopefuls attending The Learning Annex event that the field is not for everyone and is often misconceived as a ticket to parties and glamour. "You can learn the nuts and bolts of PR, but it's not for everybody," she said. "A lot of PR work is menial. Stuffing envelopes, stamping, making copies. A common misconception is that PR is a party scene, when it is clearly a business. PR is sales and not everybody can sell something."

"I don't believe in the press release," she said. Grubman says her firm customizes each pitch to the journalist being targeted.

On gaining press coverage, Grubman said too much hype is a bad thing, adding she doesn't subscribe to the theory that any PR is good PR. She said about one hit a week in media is more than enough for a client.

She said many reporters have become her close friends in her ten or so years in PR.

Avoids Long Proposals

She rapped PR pros who promise more than they can deliver, criticizing long proposals firms give to potential clients outlining coverage that would never happen. "A lot of PR people get a bad rap because they're not honest," she said.

Grubman said she limits proposals to a page and a half, only reiterating what was said in the initial meeting with a client. Once signed, she said her firm gives clients a weekly status report, keeps in constant communication and never promises more than it can deliver.

She noted a mention on Page Six of the New York Post, for example, can often increase reservations at a restaurant tenfold. Grubman also marveled at the coming of age of the Internet, singling out the numerous links on the Drudge Report and sites like Fashion Wire Daily as good media resources. She recommended the odwyerpr.com website when asked about covering the PR industry.

In the 2.5-hour Q&A session, she did not mention the 2001 hit-and-run incident in the Hamptons which landed her in jail, and some questions submitted by the audience were not read by moderator Michael Katz, a manager for actors and entertainment talent. Grubman was escorted in under bodyguards and the audience was asked to remain seated while she left by a side staircase and departed in a black SUV.

SPITZER DROPS MERRILL PROBE

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has dropped his probe into the July 29 ouster of Merrill Lynch vice chairman Thomas Patrick, 60. The informal investigation centered on whether Patrick, who once oversaw communications and PA at the investment banker, okayed a $75K payment to fund a "smear Spitzer" documentary supposedly being prepared by TV journalist Bill Kurtis. That broadcast was to show how Spitzer "overreached" in his aggressive effort to regulate Wall Street, which has earned him political points in New York.

Merrill said it paid Chicago consultant firm Cambridge Group $75K last November for a video tribute that Kurtis is preparing on the Chicago Symphony, and not for a program slamming the AG. CG forwarded that amount to Kurtis.

The New York Post, which broke the anti-Spitzer broadcast story, said Merrill made the payment to CG at about the same time that Kurtis was meeting with Patrick, former Merrill PR chief Paul Critchlow and global markets chief Arshad Zakaria.

Merrill CEO Stan O'Neal, who has been in post for about a year, fired Patrick in a power struggle last week. Patrick wanted O'Neal, 51, to name Zakaria the No. 2 exec at Merrill. O'Neal, on July 23, named Jason Wright, 42, to succeed 56-year-old Critchlow, who becomes counselor to the chairman and vice chairman-public markets. Wright and Critchlow report to O'Neal.

Kurtis has dropped his Spitzer documentary plans. The AG's office dropped the probe because it says Merrill has now addressed whatever "inappropriate behavior" that might have occurred.

TOBACCO CO. OFFERS FREE CIGS TO CELEBS

Freedom Tobacco, a New York-based company headed by Patrick Carroll, is offering a free lifetime supply of its new Colombian-made cigarettes, called Legal, to celebrity smokers as part of a guerilla marketing campaign to raise the public profile of its brand, which was launched last March.

The company, which is also behind the Right to Smoke Coalition, a group organized to fight bans against public smoking, said it was seeking to "seed" its cigarettes with adult celebrities.

The Associated Press said the offer was made to publicists through a web-based network subscribed to by hundreds of PR agencies.

PR for Legal is handled by Vorticom, a New York-based firm opened by Nancy Tamosaitis after she left Mansfield Communications' New York office.
The 40-year-old Tamosaitis, who has written four books, including "The Joy of Cybersex," which was a best seller when it was published in 1993, had been New York manager of Ogilvy PR's technology practice prior to joining Mansfield, a Canadian-owned firm.

Tamosaitis told the AP that Freedom paid covert actresses, called "leaners," to smoke the cigarettes in Manhattan bars and nightclubs for several weeks this spring in an effort to promote the new brand.
As of July 7, no celebrities, other than a group of clothing designers, have accepted Freedom's offer, Carroll told the AP. He stressed the company was not seeking celebrities who appeal to children.

'TALKERS' ARE HOT TV NEWS TOPICS

Fred Powers, who is the nightside reporter for CBS-46 (WGCL-TV) in Atlanta, said the hottest TV news topics are stories that "we call `Talkers.'"

These are stories "we perceive that people are talking about-or will talk about after seeing it on our newscast. From a mother killing her own children or a police shooting...to a Braves no-hitter or a movie premiere.

"Topics that are `not hot' for us include anything that you can't shoot video of and put on TV," Powers told iCD Media, in Alpharetta, Ga. The video firm featured Powers as its guest columnist in the July issue of its newsletter, called Media Pro.

He said the best time for PR people to get him is between 3 to 3:30 p.m. on weekdays. "That's usually the time right after our daily afternoon editorial meetings and before I hit the street for my story that day," said Powers.

He said e-mail and phone messages and faxes are all great ways to get information to him. However, "sometimes I'm right out the door on breaking news, though, so I don't always have a chance to check e-mails and my phone," said Powers.

Powers said he has "on-going relationships" with many PR pros in Atlanta. "The good ones take care of you making sure you get what you need. Building that relationship with reporters is key."

PRODUCERS WANT PR PROS TO TELL THE TRUTH

A producers roundtable meeting, featuring a panel of TV show producers, attracted a sold-out crowd of 150 publicists for a meeting of the Entertainment Publicists Professional Society that was held in New York on July 30.

The panelists included Steve Cohen, "The Early Show" producer; Lori Teig, senior talent booker for "Living It Up with Ali and Jack," a variety show, premiering Sept. 15; Lisa Mateo, entertainment producer for "WB11 Morning Show," and "The Today Show" producers Tim Bruno and Meredith Klein.

Cohen said publicists should "tell the truth" when pitching their clients, a sentiment shared by the other producers, according to Ellen Lebowitz, a publicist who attended the meeting. She said the panelists also asked the publicists to "please do not stalk them," and to be creative and realistic with their pitch.

All of the panelists prefer pitches by e-mail.

Mateo reminded the group to "send clips as soon as you pitch." She said her show "loves to promote local people."

Bruno said entertainment and celebrities are booked far in advance. "Be sure to disclose if your client is a paid spokesperson for a product because they do not allow any paid celebrity spokespeople on The Today Show," he said.

Teig, who is senior talent booker for her show, looks for personalities who can "talk on camera."

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS CHANGES BEATS

Richard Johnson, 49, founding editor of London-based Automotive News Europe, has returned to Detroit to assume a senior editorial role at Automotive News.

Arjen Bongard, 48, has replaced Johnson as editor of ANE. Bongard most recently was head of the Dow Jones European newswires operation in London.

Kathy Jackson, 53, has joined AN bureau in Los Angeles to cover a beat that includes American Honda Motor, Mitsubishi Motors North America and Nissan North America.

K.C. Crain, 23, who has been covering suppliers and manufacturing, has joined Dave Guilford in covering General Motors. Crain's beat will be the U.S. sales and marketing divisions, including the retail operations of Saab and Saturn.

PLACEMENT TIPS

Allegheny West Magazine, which is published every other month in the communities served by the West Allegheny school district, in Pennsylvania, is launching a second edition in September, which will serve communities adjacent to its current coverage area.

The magazine is staffed by freelance writers from the Pittsburgh area.

Pat Jennette, who runs Jennette Communications Group, a Pittsburgh-based PR firm, which specializes in handling small businesses and school districts, is publisher and editor.

College Parent Magazine will make its debut this October as a bimonthly, designed for the parents of future and new college students.

The test phase begins with 100,000 copies going to a list of affluent households with college bound children in the five-state New York-metro region, with a planned 250,000 national controlled circulation for future issues.

Its target advertisers are companies offering tuition financing, computers, software, wireless, and trave.

Steve Peri is executive editor and co-founder of the magazine, which is headquartered in Liberty Corner, N.J. 908/580-1271, ext. 349.

Endurance Magazine, a regional fitness magazine, has published its first issue.
The monthly magazine, which is based in Chapel Hill, N.C., will be distributed at more than 275 locations in the Triangle area.

The August issue featured a "Women in Motion" column that centers around women-specific issues and concerns regarding fitness, and a "Master's" column, focused on senior athletes. The September issue will have a youth-focused column, as well as a strength training section.

Steve Lackey, publisher and managing editor, can be reached at 919/260-9581.

(Media news continued on next page)

MEDIA OVERSELLS RX 'BREAKTHROUGHS'

Shannon Brownlee, a freelance medical writer, believes the media oversells medical breakthroughs'.

Collectively, the majority of articles produced by medical writers around the country "serve as a kind of pep squad" for the industry, said Brownlee in her article that was published in the Aug. 3 edition of The Washington Post.

Brownlee, who is currently a senior fellow at New American Foundation, said she turned up 939 stories containing the words "breakthrough" and "medicine" from the month of June alone on the Internet.

"With all those breakthroughs, you'd think nobody would have to die of cancer any more and we should all be running marathons into our 80s," said Brownlee. "But we aren't running marathons in our 80s and we are still dying of cancer and heart disase and you name it. Do you think that's because a lot of what passes as medical journalism contains a bit of hype?" she asked.

"Good journalism is supposed to shine light into dark corners, not help sell this or that new drug or treatment," she said.

The Problem is Relationship

She believes the problem is medical writers have a "symbiotic relationship with the industry we are supposed to scrutinize, so much so that we often get our story spoon-fed and pre-digested from the medical journals, which send out embargoed copies of the top scientific papers each week.

"That means the editors or publicists of those journals, rather than reporters, are deciding what constitutes news. Funny, but those digests never seem to include the (rare) editorials that criticize the medical industry," said Brownlee.

Brownlee said the "newest little twist on this time-honored practice is the video news release."

As an example, she cited ThinPrep, a new way of preparing Pap smears that the manufacturer claimed was more accurate than the old method. But because ThinPrep was also more expensive, insurers and HMOs did not want to pay for it, she said.

Five years ago, the company put together a VNR featuring doctors who swore by the new technology and a patient named Peggy Smith saying it saved her life.

"Smith was a publicist's dream come true, a medical technologist," said Brownlee, who noted many of the TV and print stories failed to disclose that Vanderbilt Univ., where Smith and the doctor-experts worked, was being paid by the company to test the new technology.

"In general, editors love stories about the bright, bold future of medicine, undoubtedly because that's what readers love," she said.

"What readers don't seem to like is ambiguity, or probabilities, or uncertainties, which in the end are the very stuff of science," said Brownlee, who said she can "no longer write hopeful stories."

MOSS NAMED FEATURES ED. AT NY TIMES

Adam Moss, the editor of The New York Times Magazine and an associate managing editor of the newspaper, was appointed The Times' assistant managing editor for features, a new position.

Moss, 46, will oversee coverage of the arts and style, as well as weekly sections including the magazine, "The New York Times Book Review," "Travel," "Real Estate," "Circuits" and "Escapes."

He said his primary goal was "to make sure we're as good at covering what goes on in people's daily lives and the material they consume as we are in covering Baghdad."

Moss will take on his new duties after a new editor of the magazine is named.

PEOPLE

Susan Schulz, 31, previously executive editor, was promoted to editor-in-chief of CosmoGirl!, succeeding Atoosa Rubenstein, now editor of Seventeen.

Gregory Solman, 45, has joined Adweek as West Coast editor, covering agencies and entertainment-marketing news.

Victor Westberg, previously PR and government affairs coordinator in Northern California for The First Church of Christ Scientists, in Boston, was named publisher of The Christian Science Monitor, succeeding John Selover, 72, who died Aug. 1.

Westberg will also oversee The Christian Science Journal, a monthly magazine, The Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly, The Christian Science Quarterly and The Christian Science Herald.

Rick Casey, previously a columnist for The San Antonio Express-News, has joined The Houston Chronicle as a metro columnist.

Ted Pincus, former chairman/CEO of the Financial Relations Board and vice chairman of BSMG Worldwide, has begun writing a weekly column about business for The Chicago Sun-Times.

MEDIA BRIEFS

The Star, a supermarket tabloid, which is planning to become a glossy magazine, has moved its editorial staff to New York.

Bride's, published by Conde Nast, ran a story on the rise of gay marriages in the U.S. in its September/October number.

The one-page article, which tells readers what to expect if invited to a same-sex wedding, includes interviews with gays who have exchanged vows.

Millie Bratten, who is editor-in-chief of Bride's, told The New York Times: "We looked at what was happening in the wedding industry. We were hearing from various retailers that same-sex couples had become an important part of their gift registries."

The speech of researcher Lisa Shalett to the NIRI conference (8/6 NL) was an emotional outburst fueled by a deep sense of injustice, unfairness and frustration.

"Don't use bullying techniques," she nearly shouted at the IR people.

She listed a couple of them such as getting a critical analyst fired and "never" again giving the analyst's firm any investment banking business.

Analysts often get "blackballed" for a negative report, meaning they can no longer get on the quarterly analyst teleconferences, don't get invited to company tours, don't get their calls returned, and are snubbed in numerous other ways.

A brokerage or giant institution can easily destroy an analyst's career.

That's why less than one percent of analyst recommendations were to "sell" a stock from March 2002 to nearly the present, although the Dow Jones fell 30% and NASDAQ plummeted 60%.

So poorly did brokerage ("sell side") research perform that Vanguard Group's Jack Bogle, a member of the same panel as Shalett, said it's a waste of hundreds of millions of dollars. Just buy the "indexes" (baskets of stocks via mutual funds), he advised. The funds spend almost nothing on research because they know better, he said.

The key word in Shalett's speech is "never." When Wall Street gets mad at you, it's forever. It's not like the PR/media world used to be: constant quarreling and fighting but no one gets really mad because both sides need each other.

A large part of PR and IR has adopted the Wall Street model: you cross me and you're dead meat.

What does Shalett want? She wants analysts to be allowed to "do their job," which is having opinions different from the company. Analysts who spout the company line are doing a "horrible" job, she says. IR people should give "feedback" but not attempt to "convert" analysts to the company's way of thinking. "Let them have their opinions," she said of analysts. "Don't use bullying techniques."

Reporters should also not be subjected to institutional bullying. Principals of institutions should make themselves available in person to answer questions and provide reasonable replies to negative and positive issues that arise.

Shalett's firm (Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.), recognizing research's credibility problems, has joined with two dozen other firms in Investorside Research Assn., vowing disassociation from brokerage or banking.

A group of PR firms could do a similar thing to help restore credibility to PR. "PR specialist" ranked 43rd in credibility on a list of 45 public figures in a $150K study by PRSA and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Sample pledges: we never duck a press call; we even call the media no matter how difficult the subject matter; we make ourselves and our clients available for in-person interviews; we post a complete list of current accounts on our website; we recognize PR as taking part in sacred public discourse, the defining characteristic of the U.S.; the press is not our "enemy," but the reason we exist, etc.

The big PR trade story last week was Lizzie Grubman's two-hour class on PR in New York. It drew an immediate 16 commentaries on the O'Dwyer website, nine of them negative ("trailer trash turned loose to rampage in the Village of Egos in the Hamptons," "an almost idiot savant," "her type of publicity pretty narrow," "seminar useless and title misleading," "father's clients and friends gave her accounts," etc.

Salon.com, in a grunge journalism piece, even wrote about Grubman visiting the ladies' room before the session. Our take is that she got in front of the press and public for two hours and fielded questions about her 27-person firm (understandably not talking about her accident).

How many leaders of NIRI, PRSA, Omnicom, Interpublic, WPP, etc., would do the same? None.

We would like to hear NIRI officers explain why they won't sell reporters NIRI's directory of members (maybe because NIRI members are listed for Enron, Worldcom, etc.). PRSA leaders could explain how non-APRs are not allowed to address the Assembly when dropping APR as an Assembly rule is the very topic under discussion.

The PRSA nominating committee made a mistake in picking Maria Russell as the official nominee for treasurer because she was on the 1999 board that blocked dissemination of two important research projects (spokesperson credibility and APR/recruiters).

PRSA rhapsodizes about the value of research (about half of Silver Anvil entries must be on pre and post- research) and the PRSA code champions "advancing the free flow of accurate information." We don't see how anyone on that board can be proud of or even defend such censoring. It deepened PR's image as a function that ducks the tough issues, one of the chief reasons "PR specialist" ranked 43rd in credibility on the list of the 45 spokespeople studied.

PRSA leaders no doubt were angered that professors from Duke and Columbia, who made the two-year credibility study, failed to use the term "PR professional" instead of "PR specialist." Maybe they had a reason. The professors, who said they worked so many extra hours that their rate was less than the minimum wage, never got a promised follow-up project.

--Jack O'Dwyer