BECTON TAKES VP POST AT AICPA

Robert Becton, a financial PR pro who has held top posts at Moody's and HSBC Group, has moved to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants as a VP.

The position was vacated by Geoff Pickard, who left to revitalize the Journal of Accounting, according to AICPA's director of PR Linda Dunbar. She said the vacant post was split into two VP jobs: Becton's media relations role and another overseeing member communications, which was filled internally.

Becton is charged with overseeing media relations, and financial and crisis communications for the 330,000-member trade group, which sets ethics and auditing standards for CPAs and has operations in New York and Washington, D.C. He reports to senior VP of public affairs, Jim O'Malley, who left Burson-Marsteller last year and is based in D.C.

In a seven-year career at Moody's, Becton rose to managing director of communications and IR. He was previously director of public affairs for HSBC Group/Americas and a VP at J.P. Morgan Securities.

GANNON EXITS WHITE HOUSE FOR NACDS

Kelley Gannon, special assistant to President Bush and White House director of press advance, has returned to the Nat'l Assn. of Chain Drug Stores as VP of communications. She left the group in 2001 as VP of media relations.

Gannon headed domestic and international media for presidential events, often negotiating the press component of President Bush's trips abroad with foreign governments.

She was previously senior manager of corporate comms. for MCI and VP of comms. at Cable & Wireless, USA. Earlier, she was director of comms. for the American Gaming Assn.

Craig Fuller, a former Reagan and George H.W. Bush staffer, heads the NACDS, which counts 210 members like CVS and Eckerd.

Kirvin Doak Communications, Las Vegas, handled the media crush following the mauling of illusionist Roy Horn, of "Siegfried and Roy" by a seven-year-old white tiger on Oct. 3. The MGM Mirage show has been cancelled indefinitely, throwing 270 people out of work.

Siegfried Fischbacher has vowed that the show will go on. The duo have performed at the Mirage for 14 years, and signed a lifetime contract in 2001.

CLARK HANGS UP LOBBYING CAP

General Wes Clark has "de-registered" as lobbyist for Acxiom Corp., according to federal documents filed Oct. 1 with the Senate. He also plans to resign his board seat.

The Democratic Presidential candidate had been lobbying the Department of Homeland Security and Commerce Department on information transfer and airline security issues.

Clark, who received $40,000 in lobbying fees during the first-half of the year from the Little Rock, Ark.-based company, officially terminated his Acxiom ties on Sept. 17. That was a day before wired.com broke the story about Acxiom's involvement in the Jet Blue passenger privacy crisis.

Wesley K. Clark & Assocs., Clark's consulting firm, has a contract with Acxiom worth $150K a year plus commission for new business obtained through Clark's efforts. Those commissions are offset against the retainer, according to Acxiom's proxy statement.

The former NATO Commander served on Acxiom's audit committee, which met four times last year. Each director receives $1,000 per-committee meeting, and $2,000 for each quarter board meeting attended. They receive 2,000 shares of stock as the annual retainer, plus another 2,900 stock options. The company's shares currently trade at $16.25.

Clark is beneficial owner of 4,210 shares.

INDY FILMMAKERS BRING IN PR HELP

AFMA, the trade group for the independent film and TV industry, has brought in the Lippin Group to fight a ban by major studios on distributing "screeners," copies of movies sent to industry pros and critics who review films or vote on awards like the Oscars. Independent film companies, which often lack the marketing dollars of larger studios, rely on the screeners to generate buzz for films and shows.

The group, formerly the American Film Marketing Assn., counts 170 members, including Artisan Entertainment, New Line and Discovery Comms.

Los Angeles-based Lippin will provide overall PR work for AFMA, but will focus on the "screeners" issue as it begins work, according to Paul Nichols, who heads the account. He told this NL the firm complements policy work by Podesta Mattoon on behalf of AFMA. Several firms pitched for the work.

The Motion Picture Assn. of America this month said its members would not send out any screeners as part of a crackdown on piracy.

PANEL SAYS BUSH MUST LEAD PROPAGANDA

A public diplomacy advisory group commissioned by Congress is calling for the Bush Administration to devote to public diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim world a "seriousness and commitment that matches the gravity of its approach to national defense."

The group, dubbed the U.S. Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World and chaired by Edward Djerejian, former U.S. ambassador to Syria and Israel under Republican and Democratic presidents, formed in June after Congress became concerned about growing animosity directed at the U.S.

Djerejian addressed about 50 members of the media at the State Department on Oct. 1. He stressed that President Bush must be at the head of a strong public diplomacy push in the Arab and Muslim worlds.

The group proposed a new White House special counselor with cabinet-level rank to work closely with the President on coordinating public diplomacy government-wide.

Margaret Tutwiler has replaced former ad woman Charlotte Beers as the State Department's propaganda czar. She is expected to outline her plans for public diplomacy efforts before the Senate foreign relations committee this fall.

Funding Inadequate

Djerejian, meanwhile, noted that current funding for public diplomacy, especially toward Arabs and Muslims, is "absurdly and dangerously inadequate." The group's report shows that last year $600 million was allocated for all U.S. public diplomacy programs, with $25 million dedicated to efforts towards Arabs and Muslims.

There are only 54 Arabic speakers in the whole State Department and only five of those have the skills to participate in media discussions on Arab TV and radio, according to Djerejian. "The U.S. is not even in the daily discussions about the Islamic world," he said.

The advisory group has plans to train 300 fluent Arabic speakers within two years.

GOLDBERG GOES TO QORVIS

Don Goldberg, who was special assistant to President Clinton, is now a managing director at Qorvis Communications, the Patton Boggs affiliate.

At the White House, Goldberg drew up responses to investigations and integrated Clinton's communications and legal strategies. He also served as advisor to the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and Sens. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and John Glenn (Ohio). Qorvis CEO Michael Petruzzello said the addition of Goldberg will bolster the shop's crisis communications expertise.

Goldberg joins from Navigant Consulting. Another NC veteran Brian Lustig also is new at QC.

Lustig handled PR at the 1996 Democratic National Convention, and was media relations director at the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

Qorvis also has hired Carrie Blewitt, who managed media campaigns for the Rubber Manufacturers of America and AAA. Blewitt was an A/S at Weber Shandwick's Weber Group, working on the Eastman Kodak account. She is the daughter of Richard Blewitt, who sold his Rowan & Blewitt shop to Shandwick in 1999.

RWS ENLISTED TO SAVE MILITARY BASES

Kentucky has given Rhoads Weber Shandwick a $200K pact to protect its military bases from shutdown. The 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Act calls for the Pentagon to shed 25 percent of its excess capacity.

The military is the fifth largest employer in Kentucky, pumping $4 billion into its economy. Fort Knox and Fort Campbell are its prime facilities. Fort Knox, for instance, has a $600 million annual payroll that rivals the $690 million earned by workers at Ford Motor's Louisville plant.

Kentucky lost two bases in the 1988 round of shutdowns, resulting in the loss of 13,500 jobs. The Pentagon shut 450 facilities during that round. The DOD is expected to shutter at least 100 more this time.

Barry Rhoads heads RWS. He served as deputy general counsel of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission during the first Bush Administration. His firm also is working with the Texarkana and Rapid City Chambers of Commerce to save their military bases.

PR VETS SET UP BEACON

Four veteran PR counselors have set up Beacon Advisors, targeting top executives who need senior PR counsel but lack the budget for a large firm.

Hud Englehart, the managing partner who is based in Chicago, told this NL the firm is targeting mid-cap companies which can be pressed for senior communications help and are often restricted to tight PR budgets. "We want to go in, help them get their story straight and align that story among shareholders, the media and others," he said, adding that ongoing PR and other "implementation services" like advertising would mostly be left for another firm down the road, whose selection Beacon would advise.

Englehart, a veteran of Hill & Knowlton, noted NutraSweet and GES Exposition Services are charter clients for the firm in the Windy City. Diebold, Gerber and WMS Gaming are other clients.
Tim Croasdaile, the managing director based in Denver, had done work in Chicago at Bell & Howell and H&K client Gerber.

Jim Hurley, a 35-year IR veteran, heads the new firm's push in Los Angeles, and Ralph Allen, a former corporate IR and PR exec for ITT and Eastman Kodak, is in New York.

Eleanor Lambert, the "grande dame" of fashion PR who is credited with putting American designers like Bill Blass and Calvin Klein on the map when European brands dominated the industry, has died. She turned 100 on Aug. 10.

14 THINGS REPORTERS HATE TO HEAR

Sally Stewart, who was a reporter for USA Today for 13 years, lists 14 statements PR pros should avoid saying to reporters in her new book, "Media Training 101." They are:

1.This story you're doing will really help my sales/company/negotiations.
2. What's your angle?
3. Here's my cell phone number.
4. Do you like what you've seen so far?
5. Do you know what the headline will be?
6. I'll tell you off the record.
7. Let's go to Las Vegas (or Atlantic City or the bar down the street) and do the interview there.
8. You weren't supposed to find that out!
9. Let me send you free tickets (or shoes, etc.).
10. I am not a crook.
11. Did you get the fax?
12. Can I see the story before it is published?
13. To tell you the truth....
14. That bankruptcy/product failure/recall/big mistake was a learning experience.

Stewart, who is head of SA Stewart Comms. in Santa Monica, also gives how-to advice for writing press releases, pitching stories, crisis control, and dressing appropriating for interviews in her book, published by John Wiley & Sons.

NEUHARTH: MEDIA MUST TARGET READERS

Al Neuharth, the former head of Gannett Co., said the news media need to get rid of the long, boring stories and target articles that grab readers.

He said one of the reasons he started USA Today in 1982 was because the TV generation was not reading newspapers. They would not fight its way through dull, grey newspapers, he said.

"Now I think the Internet generation is not reading newspapers," said Neuharth, who writes a column for USA Today.

"Very little was new in USA Today," he said. "We stole most of it from the tube or magazines, and made it colorful and graphic and aimed it at the TV generation. It caught on."

CURTCO MEDIA TO START DIGITAL TV MAGAZINE

A quarterly publication called Digital TV will be launched by CurtCo Media, which publishes the Robb Report and other magazines.

The new title will focus on products and technologies driving the consumer electronics market, offering the latest news and product reviews on plasma and LCD flat-screen TV, high definition TV, DLP and front projection TV systems, as well as releated speaker and audio technologies.

Digital TV will also cover new video technologies, such as LCOS and OLED; explore the increase in digital TV programming offerings, and the convergence of computers into the video market.

It is scheduled to reach newsstands on Dec. 2 with an initial distribution of 75,000 copies.

Michael Wood was appointed editor of Digital TV. He previously was senior technical editor of Home Theater magazine.

NON-TRASHY WOMEN'S MAG LAUNCHED

A new women's magazine, called Be Unlimited, which was launched in the U.K. on Sept. 18, will focus on personal development, career and business advice, motivational articles and lifestyle topics, according to Rebekah Renton, who is founder and editor.

Renton said the magazine, a subsidiary of Mobius Strip Ventures, a publishing company, will cater to the rising number of women looking for a more intelligent, celebrity-free periodical.

Renton, who spent 12 years in senior marketing management positions with IBM, Lotus and other companies, said a survey of 250 professional women found 75% of them are bored by magazines with "dumb, trashy content," and a "never-ending stream of celebrity news."

MEDIA BRIEFS

Bloomberg Television has begun broadcasting its "Morning Call" program on Canada's Report on Business TV, a national channel reaching 4.3 million households on cable and satellite.

"Petkeeping with Marc Morrone," a half-hour syndicated program, made its nationwide premier earlier this month. The weekly program, which is produced by Linda Corradina, executive producer of "Martha Stewart Living TV," provides how-to information about the care of all kinds of pets.

Charles Krauthammer, a news columnist at The Washington Post, was named as one of the first winners of $250,000 Bradley Prizes, a new program of the Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, which will award prizes annually to people who have been criticized, generally from the liberal side of the spectrum, for their views on bioethics, foreign policy and other issues.

LexisNexis Court Link is offering members of the media access to the Recording Industry Assn. of America's 261 lawsuits. Complaints and other supporting documents in these cases and new cases filed by RIAA can be downloaded for a fee by filing out a form on the web page (www.lexisnexis.com/riaaformedia).

The Beachcomber, a biweekly newspaper distributed in East Long Beach, Calif., with a circulation of 38,000, is published by Beeler & Assocs., a PR firm in Long Beach, which was founded 25 years ago by Jay Beeler, a former journalism professor at Calif. State Univ. The paper's offices are located in the Los Altos Market Center above the Fish Tale Restaurant, which is also a client of the agency.

(Media news continued on next page)

SHOULD PR PROS STOP 'LURKING' ONLINE?

Robert Berkman, author of a new book, "Digital Dilemmas: Ethical Issues for Online Media Professionals," says it may be unethical for PR pros to gather information by eavesdropping on Internet chat rooms.

PR pros who secretly monitor chat rooms-a behavior called "lurking"-run the risk of invading the privacy of the participants, as well as misrepresenting their purpose in being there, according to Berkman, who teaches a class on "New Media Ethics" at the New School University, in New York.

Berkman said "Internet lurkers" typically log on to chat rooms and discussion forums or join e-mail lists and newsgroups with little or no intent of sending messages; rather they prefer to read the communications of others.

Whereas a radio lurker cannot see the telephone numbers of those who call in, the online lurker usually has access to the e-mail addresses and screen names of anyone who sends a message or participates in a discussion.

MAG STOPS PREPRODUCTION CAR TESTS

Consumer Reports magazine will no longer give automakers a quick review and recommendations for preproduction cars not yet for sale.

Formerly, General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler Group would bring vehicles not yet in mass production to the magazine's auto test facility in East Haddam, Conn. The magazine's staff would recommend changes, some of which the companies made.

Consumer Reports decided to discontinue the practice after questions were raised about the early testing practice in a Sept. 16 USA Today story.

George Hoffer, an economics professor at Virginia Commonwealth Univ. who studies the auto industry, had questioned whether the magazine's staff might be less inclined to criticize a vehicle during final testing if an automaker incorporated recommendations from preproduction testing.

"The practice may raise questions in some minds about the objectivity of our final automotive test reports," the magazine's spokeswoman Linda Wagner wrote in a letter to USA Today. "Since our impartiality is so essential to the public's trust in our published information, we have decided to discontinue this activity."

AGENCY TESTS TWO-MINUTE AD SITCOMS

DDB Entertainment Paris' experimental series of two-minute sitcoms for Le Chat laundry detergent has "created great word-of-mouth value among French viewers," according to Keith Reinhard, DDB's CEO in New York.

Reinhard believes "Laverie de Famille" ("Family Launderette"), which has aired in prime time five days a week on TF1, the main French TV channel, since early May, may prove to be a solution for integrating brands into entertaining content and getting viewers to watch commercials again.

The sitcoms, which Reinhard compares to the old soap operas that were sponsored on the radio by soap companies, have four main characters and their neighbors are featured living life in a typical French neighborhood. The continuing cast includes a cat, Nickel (which stands for "clean" in French). The cat is used to link the program and the brand Le Chat, which means "the cat" in French.

A total of 75 episodes have been produced for Henkel by DDB Entertainment Paris for the series which will run at least through February of next year.

AOL SEEKS MORE HISPANICS AND KIDS

America Online has started AOL Latino, a new Spanish-language version for new 9.0 Optimized software. The current Latino version already has 2.3 million Hispanic members.

Spanish-language content will include news, sports, entertainment, music and lifestyle. The information is being provided by Time Warner sister company People en Espanol, BBC Mundo, La Opinion, El Diario-La Prensa and BuenaSalud.

The AOL Latino launch comes just as the online service seeks to devlop niche versions to please different segments of its audience. AOL has released its version for kids, KOL, which is aimed at youngsters 6 to 12. It is also planning a KOL Jr. version for even younger children.

As of June, AOL said it had 3.3 million users under 11; most visit the existing Kids Only Channel.
AOL also is developing a version aimed at teens.

TIMES STARTS SMALL BUSINESS FEATURE

The New York Times has started a new weekly feature on small business. Articles will focus on the challenges and opportunities of small business entrepreneurship, for companies and their employees.

The first article in the Oct. 2 edition was about professional women who start their own businesses after they become mothers.

FORMER BLOOMBERG EDITOR HIRED

Daylan Ratigan is joining CNBC as anchor of a new evening program, which air against CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight."

The veteran business journalist, who is a former global managing editor at Bloomberg News, has been running the Ratigan Group, a PR firm.

MEDIA BRIEF

Hispanic Market Weekly, a Miami-based newsletter for executives interested in the U.S. Hispanic market, has started HMW Online, an interactive website, which will offer Market Profiles on the top 21 Hispanic market DMAs, and an in-depth analysis of the most outstanding trends taking place in the Hispanic market. Cynthia Corzo is editor of HMW.

At least five top people with a hand in President Bush's PR offensive have left: trusted aide Karen Hughes; press secretary Ari Fleischer; global PR head Charlotte Beers; advisor Mary Matalin and Pentagon voice Torie Clarke. Adwoman Beers efforts to win favor among Muslim populations often provoked laughter.

Clarke helped craft the "embedded" journalists program. Columnist Deborah Orin, noting this blood loss, says its no wonder the press "is putting an anti-Bush spin on almost anything, as if to make up for the positive reports from journalists on the frontlines during the war"

...meanwhile, a panelled by Edward Djerejian, Arab specialist and White House spokesman, says "hostility toward America has reached shocking levels." A new public relations "team," with some acknowledged PR leaders and not just ad people and political loyalists, is needed by the President.

Columnist Robert Novak, writing about the controversy over the proposed $20 billion contract between Boeing and the Defense Dept. for refueling tankers, said the "most shocking admission" in a Boeing memo was this one: "The [Boeing] team is still working the art of the possible in terms of obfuscating construction financing, transaction costs and lease administration." Obfuscation is an obvious goal of many a financial report

...we covered the murky, almost unintelligible financial reports of the Big Three ad/PR giants in last week's, and many previous, issues. Giving adland control over financial reports has not been a good thing for anyone, the companies themselves included. The ad giants came into PR by purchasing almost every major PR operation and brought their habits with them. Working via the Council of PR Firms which they largely fund (through $50K dues by the top firms), the congloms set out to do their own ranking of PR firms based only on the claims of the CFOs of these units. Gone were proofs such as CPA statements; W-3s showing payroll; account lists; CPA-certified employee totals, etc. Credibility in these numbers plummeted. Then, faced with a disastrous 2002 caused by the recession, the congloms forbade their 51 PR operations and hundreds of ad agencies from releasing any statistics, citing the new Sarbanes-Oxley Act. But accounting czar Doug Carmichael (chief auditor of the Accounting Oversight Board), said employee totals and payroll costs are not GAAP but merely compilations and could be released

...although Omnicom's John Wren was considered as a candidate for CBS MarketWatch's "CEO of the Year" (10/1 NL), the actual choice went to Meg Whitman of Ebay

...OMC's goodwill account was said to be $4.8 billion in the 10/8 NL but that was as of 12/31/02. The new balance sheet of OMC, released Sept. 30, shows goodwill rose to $5.4 billion as of June 30, meaning OMC has a tangible net equity of minus $2.5B. The firm does not release its balance sheet with its earnings reports although this is urged by the National Investor Relations Institute. OMC s receivables of $4.1B were exceeded by payables of $6.4B

...two other media told us they don't use titles such as "sir" or "lord" in their reports – CBS MarketWatch and The Washington Post.

Opponents of decoupling APR from PRSA offices appear to be carrying the day. Attacking national's position that chapters should have the right to send whomever they wish to represent them, the opponents rightly argue that the Assembly is a national body and that national standards should apply. In other words, chapters can t send anyone they feel like to the Assembly.

But the pro-APRs lose on two other points. They argue illogically that non-APRs are no more likely to attend an Assembly than APRs even though the former outnumber the latter by four-to-one. They also fail to realize that the elitist APRs have turned PRSA into a profoundly undemocratic organization whose "principles" hypocritically say PRSA espouses "democratic values." A third point, which the APRs will never concede, is that they are not one whit better than the non-APRs...

... a vocal APR proponent, the Colorado chapter, is conducting an informal, person-to-person poll on decoupling. APR chapter leaders are checking around. But this violates the first rule of polling–it must be done by someone who is neutral. An APR agency head who asks an employee what he or she thinks of APR can pretty well be assured of the answer... one reason for the tide against decoupling, some members tell us, is the 10-month campaign by president Reed Byrum and president-elect Del Galloway focusing on this one issue to the exclusion of all others. "They treat us like we re stupid," said one delegate. The 250 delegates were called by Byrum, Galloway and other members of a "task force"...

... Byrum named Kathy Lewton and Grace Leong as co-chairs of the national conference in New York next year...

...the 2003 Lewton nominating committee is the first in the history of PRSA ever to push back the date for accepting nominating materials, based on research among past nomcom chairs. PRSA is also researching this and has yet to find any such postponements...

...John Robinson, chief marketing officer of PRSA, whose wife had a baby girl about six weeks ago, is on a three-month paternity leave-of-absence lasting until about December. PR director Libby Roberge, who also had a girl, was due to return last week following a three-month maternity leave.

--Jack O'Dwyer