KRUPNICK JOINS MASTERCARD

Elizabeth Krupnick, VP of global communications at Publicis' Bcom3 unit, has joined Mastercard International, Purchase, N.Y., as senior VP of global communications, succeeding David Ruth, who left the company earlier this year after seven years. Sharon Gamsin is VP-PR at Mastercard.

Krupnick was previously senior VP, corporate communications, New York Life, and president of Dewe Rogerson, from 1997-98. She was at Bcom3 unit Manning, Selvage & Lee before joining the holding company in 2001. Earlier, Krupnick was at Aetna and Prudential Insurance.

Arnold Huberman Assocs. handled the search.

SCOTTS PLANTS PR AT EDELMAN

The Scotts Co., the leader in the $5.8 billion do-it-yourself lawncare market, has selected Edelman PR as its agency because of its environmental and financial savvy, Jim King, director of IR and corporate communications, told this NL.

"We have used a significant number of PR firms in the past, and some were considered in the process," said King, preferring not to name the other firms involved in the pitch.

King feels Scotts had done a "remarkable job" in advertising brands but has fallen somewhat short when it comes to informing people how gardening is good for the environment. He also wants more buzz on Wall Street for Scotts, which earned $107 million on $1.6 billion in nine-month revenues this year.

Edelman's offices in Chicago, Los Angeles, London and Washington, D.C., will work on the account.

MEYER LANDS AT LAWSON

Scott Meyer, a founding partner of Mona Meyer McGrath & Gavin (today's Minneapolis office of Weber Shandwick) and 25-year PR veteran, has joined Lawson Software in St. Paul as chief marketing officer. He reports to CEO Jay Coughlan. Meyer was chief strategy officer for WS, and CEO of Shandwick International prior to that.

Arnold Huberman Assocs., New York, is handling the following searches: VP-PR for TD Waterhouse; deputy dir. of PR for Vanity Fair; publicist, The New Yorker; PR dir., Aventis Pasteur; PR mgr., Bourjois Cosmetics; SVP, Financial Dynamics; VP, PR21, and consumer VP for Weber Shandwick.

M/P CONNECTS WITH VODAFONE

McGrath/Power PR has edged three other finalists to handle PR in the U.S. for Vodafone, the mobile telecommunications behemoth based in the U.K.

The firm began work last week as Vodafone inked a deal with Microsoft to develop mobile Web services standards and other projects. It is the company's first U.S. PR firm of record.

Fifteen firms were invited to pitch for the PR work, a field which was narrowed to four.

M/P CEO Jon Bloom confirmed the win and told this NL Vodafone, which operates in 35 countries, is looking to carve out some space in the U.S. market. He said the account "made the year" for his firm.

CASSIDY POWERS RR'S NAVY PITCH

Rolls-Royce North America has hired Cassidy & Assocs. to ensure that it gets a chunk of the $100 billion that the U.S. Navy wants to spend in developing its next-generation DD (X) family of destroyers, cruisers and littoral (near-shore) combat ships.

Former Marine Corps General Terry Paul, who heads C&A's defense unit, is leading RRNA's charge. He is supported by Michael Silvestro, a former Army captain, and Shawn Edwards, Senate Armed Services staffer under the late Strom Thurmond and John Warner, who was former Navy Secretary.

RRNA won a $25 million contract in February to deliver gas turbine "demonstrator" engines to Northrop Grumman in Philadelphia. NG has a $2.9B contract to design, construct and test the DDX. Raytheon is systems integrator. The Navy wants to begin production of the 70-member DDX fleet in 2005.

RR employs 8,000 of its 39,000 employees on this continent, and recently won a contract to supply two Royal Navy aircraft carriers with engines.
C&A is part of Interpublic.

WATSON DEPARTS IPG IR POST

Susan Watson, Interpublic's senior VP-IR, has left the company, according to Vanessa Schwartz, of The Financial Relations Board unit. Schwartz is now handling financial inquiries regarding IPG and setting up one-on-one interviews with executives. She does not know of Watson's whereabouts.

Watson was recruited with great fanfare by former IPG CEO John Dooner on Oct. 13, 2000. She was VP-IR at PepsiCo, and heralded as IPG's first IR head. Dooner now is CEO of IPG's McCann-Erickson WorldGroup subsidiary.

FITZ-PEGADO PROMOTES LYNCH BOOK

Lauri Fitz-Pegado, the former Hill & Knowlton exec who worked for the Kuwaiti government in the build up to the Gulf War in 1990, is promoting the pending release of Because Each Life is Precious: Why an Iraqi Man Came to Risk Everything for Private Jessica Lynch for her Livingston Group colleague, Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief.

The Livingston Group hired al-Rehaief, a 33-year-old Iraqi lawyer, in May, after he was granted asylum in the U.S. for tipping U.S. Marines to Lynch's whereabouts. He sold his story to HarperCollins for $500K.

Fitz-Pegado has not yet answered a request for comment regarding the book, which was released Oct. 17.

Lynch's own book is slated for a Veteran's Day (Nov. 11) release, although she has told doctors she does not remember much from her capture during the Iraq invasion earlier this year, according to reports.

A principal at TLG who handles the firm's external communications and media relations, Fitz-Pegado, while at H&K, promoted and aided in 1990 the riveting testimony of a 15-year-old girl who told the UN Security Council and Congress she saw Iraqi soldiers toss babies from incubators in Kuwait.

That story has been widely questioned and criticized as propaganda - H&K was working or a front group of exiled Kuwaiti royals called Citizens for a Free Kuwait - to push the U.S. toward intervening in Iraq, and the girl, Nayirah, was later outed as the daughter of Kuwait's Ambassador to the U.S.

NPR TAPS KLORES FOR BIAS PROBE

National Public Radio, which has been accused of holding an anti-Israel bias, has been using Dan Klores Communications for "community outreach on the Mideast conflict," Rodney Huey, VP-communications at the network told this NL.

Andrea Levin, executive director of CAMERA, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, launched a broadside in an opinion piece in the New York Post.

In her piece, Levin charges that NPR "amplified Arab perspectives and those of fringe Israelis critical of the Israeli government, while slighting mainstream Israeli or pro-Israeli voices."

Huey said NPR's stories on the Mideast are "praised by some and criticized by others."

The radio network dialed up DKC's expertise to gauge what "observations made by critics are legitimate."

NPR is not out to favor one side or the other, according to Huey, who spent 10 years as VP-PR at Feld Entertainment-owner of Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus and Disney on Ice- before taking the NPR post in March. The network is looking for "middle of the road" programming, he added.

Huey said NPR's six-month contract has just expired. NPR is examining whether there is a need to go forward with a PR firm," said Huey.

CASTE-RIDDEN NASA FAULTED

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has "all the trappings of communication (but) you don't actually find communication," the Atlantic Monthly was told in researching the disaster of the Columbia shuttle that cost eight astronauts their lives this past Feb. 1.

Hal Gehman, retired four-star admiral, headed the $28 million investigation into the tragedy.

NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe, who will address the PRSA conference in New Orleans Oct. 28, wanted to be on the investigating team, along with others involved in the flight of the Columbia. But Gehman complained to Congress and O'Keefe disbanded his "Mishap Investigation Team." Ham and another manager, Ralph Roe, "reacted badly" to being barred from the investigation, according to the article.

O'Keefe's role is questioned by the article, saying that his ignoring the danger of the foam strikes while proceeding "at full speed" in the program focused attention on "the limitations of leadership without vision, and the consequences of putting an executive like O'Keefe in charge of an organization that needed more than mere discipline."

Close with Cheney

O'Keefe, a former congressional staffer and budget specialist and a "longtime protege" of Vice President Dick Cheney, according to the article, had been at NASA one year when the accident happened. His role was said to be "to bring discipline to NASA's budget and performance."

Gehman said NASA claimed to have a open culture in which anyone could voice a criticism. But he said that in actuality there was a "very strict informal chain of command...so even though they've got all the trappings of communication, you don't actually find communication." What "caste" a complainant is in can make all the difference, Gehman told the magazine.

The article lays the blame for blocking of the picture-taking at the feet of Ham, who is described as coming to "embody NASA's arrogance and insularity in many observers' minds."

MARTIN SUCCEEDS DROBIS AT PAGE

Tom Martin, senior VP and director of corporate relations at ITT Industries, has been elected president of the Arthur Page Society. He succeeds Ketchum chairman Dave Drobis--who has served two one-year terms--in January.

Martin handles PR, brand management, government affairs, community relations and internal PR at ITT. He was previously VP-CC at Federal Express.

ARMY HALTS MEDIA CAMPAIGN

At least 11 small and large newspapers from Massachussetts to California published identical letters to the editor from soldiers in the 503d Airborne Infantry Regiment, stationed in Kirkuk in northern Iraq.

Gannett News Service first reported the form letters were not written by the soldiers who signed them, but instead by senior officers seeking to insert a more positive message in the Iraq war coverage by media.

An Army spokesman said the unit was ordered to stop the PR campaign.

Normally, soldiers fill out a form for the Hometown News Release Program listing their high school, local newspaper, and other information that is used by the San Antonio-based operation to write up a short news story that is then sent to the local print outlet.

In this case, about 400 or so form letters were attached to the soldiers' HNRP form.

FREE NEW YORK CITY DAILY DEBUTS

amNew York made its debut on Oct. 10.

In an editorial, the paper said it was aiming for a young readership used to getting its information for free from websites and cable TV. It said it hoped to snag readers where they have no Internet hookup-on subways and buses.

"In 20 minutes, we'll update you on the most important news of the day," the editorial said.

The paper, which is distributed free in Manhattan, will be published Mondays through Fridays with regular features including an opinion page, a daily column and political cartoon. It also has weekend, entertainment and sports sections, and TV listings.

Storozynski Joins as Editor

Alex Storozynski, 42, formerly at The New York Daily News for 7.5 years where he wrote editorials, is editor. Marcus Baran and Pete Catapano are news editors and Piers Parlett is assistant managing editor.

amNew York is at 2 Park ave., 18th flr., 10016. 212/448-2970; fax: 448-2950; [email protected].

ODE PUBLISHES NEW U.S. EDITION

Ode's editor-in-chief and founder, Jurriann Kamp, has started a new U.S. edition.

Kamp, 44, the former chief economics editor of NRC Handelsblad, a Dutch daily, started the magazine in 1995 with his wife and private investors.

The first issue of the U.S. edition has a cover story "Crisis? What Crisis?" on job angst-and the search for meaningful work, around the world.

Davia Temin, whose New York-based PR firm is handling publicity for Ode, said the magazine's editorial staff reads hundreds of publications every month to find new ideas and stories to showcase.

"The focus is on ground-breaking solutions to global problems, such as terrorism, environmental crises, political corruption, and even the fight against cancer," said Temin.

TV STATION OFFERS PAID PLACEMENTS

WFLA-TV, the NBC affiliate in Tampa, is charging a fee of $2,500 to get four to six-minute placements on a new morning program, called "Daytime."

"Daytime," which follows the "Today" show, looks like a regular morning show, with NBC's peacock logo and a "News Channel 8" insignia at the bottom of the screen.

No mention of payment is made during the interviews. The words "the following segments were paid advertisements" appear in small type on the screen for about four seconds.

Adam Handelsman, who runs a New York-based PR firm, tipped off The Washington Post about the paid placements. He said he was offered a "sponsored segment" when he tried to set up an interview for a client.

When he asked if it were possible for his client to be interviewed without making the $2,500 payment, a salesman told him it was at the producer's discretion.

Eric Land, WFLA's president/general manager, told The Post he sees no problem with the payments from an ethics standpoint because "Daytime" is not a news program, nor is it operated by the news department. It is a separate entertainment program.

WFLA, which is in the nation's 14th largest market, is owned by Richmond, Va.-based Media General, which also owns 25 other stations in 12 states and 25 newspapers, including The Tampa Tribune and Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Lou Nabhan, a spokeswoman for Media General, said other Media General stations are looking at the concept. but none have begun offering such a program as of yet.

PLACEMENT TIPS

Crain's New York Business will publish a "Guide to Growing a Business" on Nov. 10.

Last year's guide featured four real life stories about small businesses who solved problems thanks to the organizations in the New York metro area who offer services such as: advice and education, disaster relief, small business development centers, local development centers, local development corporations, financial assistance, and women and minority assistance.

Eric Ipsen, deputy managing editor of CNYB, is editor of the guide. 212/210-0211.

Men's Fitness, which has been redesigned, has added two new sex columns, a new style section and a six-page fashion spread. It also expanded its "Fast Track" section to include more brief items of information and trivia.

Peter Sikowitz, the new editor-in-chief, said the magazine will take a broader look at total fitness.

There will be expanded coverage of sports and fitness-related adventures and more advice on careers, money, travel, appearance and other areas.

(Media news continued on next page)

TILIN JOINS BUSINESS 2.0 AS SENIOR EDITOR

Josh Quittner, editor of Business 2.0 magazine, has named Andrew Tilin a senior editor, and promoted writer/reporter Nancy Einhart to associate editor.

Tilin, who is a former senior editor at Outside, and contributing editor at Wiredmagazine, has also freelanced for several publications, including The New York Times, Worth, GQ, Rolling Stone, and Details.

Business 2.0 is headquartered in San Francisco.

ANTUNES JOINS FORTUNE AS EXEC EDITOR

Xana Antunes, former editor of The New York Post, joined Fortune magazine as an executive editor.

Antunes, who worked on newspapers in London before joining the Post in 1995 as deputy business editor and then editor from 1999 to 2001, will be one of the three executive editors at Fortune who work on editing the front of the book and special feature packages.

PEOPLE

James Politi was named a correspondent in the New York bureau of The Financial Times, covering acquisitions, bankruptcies and private equity deals.

Jennifer Yates, New Jersey news editor for The Associated Press, was named correspondent in Pittsburgh, replacing Todd Spangler, who resigned.

Lynda Lopez, whose sister is singer/actress Jennifer Lopez, has joined WCBS-TV in New York, as a correspondent, covering fashion, celebrity news and pop culture trends.

The Lopez sisters are developing a daytime talk show with Universal TV Enterprises.

Michael Kramer, a managing editor and columnist at The New York Daily News, left the paper along with Pete Hamill, another columnist.

Doug Most, 35, senior editor in charge of features for Boston magazine, is joining The Boston Globe as editor of the paper's Sunday magazine.

He will oversee the March relaunch of the magazine. New sections will provide added coverage of food, fashion, home, personalities, and the local scene.

Bernard Kamenske, 75, who was chief editor of Voice of America from 1974-81, died Sept. 25.

Charles McNulty, a contributing editor since 2000, was named theater editor of The Village Voice, a weekly paper in New York.

John Moore, a celebrity stylist, has joined Vibe magazine as fashion director. 212/448-7313.

Kelly Conlin, former CEO of tech publisher International Data Group, Boston, and a former business reporter for The New York Times, was named CEO of Primedia, New York.

PLACEMENT TIPS

Natural Home, a Colorado-based bimonthly magazine devoted to "living green, living well," wants to feature more homes in the Midwest and on the East Coast.

Started four years ago by Interweave Press Publications, Loveland, Colo., NH has a total paid and requested circulation of 89,000, and has grown in page count from 88 pages to 120 pages.

Linda Ligon, president/publisher, said NH is read by well-educated woman in their late-30s to mid-40s who have a healthy income and fairly liberal social and political beliefs.

Robyn Lawrence, a 39-year-old Boulder, Colo., mother of two, is editor-in-chief of NH. She works from her home.

Connecticut Public TV and American Public TV are in the process of sponsoring a magazine format version of NH, set to get underway by the end of 2004. Lawrence, who will have an editor's spot at the end of the show, said the show will go on location to homes, showing viewers how these homes are put together, and what makes them "green."

"The Restaurant Review," which made its radio debut on Sept. 14 on WBIX-AM, Boston, will feature a 13-week series of one-hour discussions with New England restaurateurs and chefs about the concept behind their establishments, food presentation, wine selection and the latest trends in food and dining.

Guests will also discuss upcoming food and restaurant events in and around Boston, new restaurant openings and other timely subjects.

Stu Taylor, a national syndicated radio talk show host, hosts the program. Producers and co-hosts, Pia Proal and James Ringrose, both successful entrepreneurs and food and wine afiocionados, will help conduct interviews.

Program information can be found at www.restaurantreview.biz.

Event Management Services, a publicity firm run by Marsha Friedman in Clearwater, Fla., is offering for a limited time 50 interviews for $125 each and no start-up fees.

For nearly seven years, Friedman has offered an introductory service, consisting of 15 interviews on talk radio shows around the U.S., for $6,250 ($350 per interview-plus a $1,000 start-up fee).

Friedman can be reached at 727/443-7115 ext. 201, or [email protected].

"Trading Spaces," the home-remodeling TV show, is becoming a product placement dream for equipment manufacturers.

ShopBot Tools of Durham, N.C., was featured in an episode that was aired Oct. 5.

"I just cannot believe the versatility of this tool. This is awesome," said Ty Pennington, the "carpenter about town" on Trading Spaces.

Almost none of PRSA's Assembly delegates know this, but the Society has been shopping for new offices and a move is planned next year.

The move could be downtown where there is cheap space or to a midtown sublet from a failed company. Locations in the "tri-state area" were also under consideration. PRSA still has five years to go on its current lease.

The Assembly voted twice in 1984-85 to move h.q. from New York. Pitches, requested by the board, were made by chapters in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Denver, Indianapolis and Memphis.

The board voted 7-5 on Aug. 16, 1985 to stay in New York, saying the Assembly did not have the power to shift h.q. The 1985 Assembly, in an overwhelming show of hands, voted to ask the board to reconsider its action. The board refused.

The 1984-85 "search" for h.q. outside of New York was as phony as a three-dollar bill.

It was rigged from the outset because Washington, D.C., probably the most logical contender, was barred from the contest because it wasn't one of the initial applicants.

David Ferguson, president, gave preposterous estimates of the cost of the move. He warned in a letter to 12,000 members Sept. 25, 1985 that a move could cost $800,000 and would require a dues increase or an assessment of $65 per member. He told PRSA/ Houston president Margot Dimond that costs could go as high as $100 per member.

One reason given was that the 38-member staff was threatening to quit virtually en masse (only four said they would stay). Hiring and training replacements would cost an initial $300,000, members were told.

The Assembly didn't buy such statements. When Ferguson told it that savings of an h.q. outside of New York could not be projected beyond three years, he was met with boos and hisses.

Nineteen chapters wanting a move caucused the night before the Assembly to plot strategy. Dimond, following the put-down of the Assembly, charged the h.q. move issue had been "railroaded by the national board" and was "just one more example of national's unresponsiveness to members."

PRSA/Houston was so mad it urged members not to pay their national dues. PRSA/national, itself angered at the obstreperous Assembly, canceled the spring Assembly in 1985 and never restored it.

National leadership has not scheduled any discussion of its h.q. move plans for the Assembly Oct. 25 in New Orleans. It does not want to awaken this sleeping monster.

But the pro-movers were right in 1985. They said PRSA could save a bundle in rent and staff costs by moving to almost any other city.

PRSA payroll costs soared to $3,946,760 in 2002 or an average of $82,224 for each of the 48 staffers. Such costs now eat up 42% of revenues, a jump from 29% in 1989. The American Soc. of Assn. Executives says payroll costs average 29% for groups in the $5-$10 million range. Catherine Bolton, hired as PR head at $150K in late 2000 and promoted to COO in early 2001, was paid $236K in salary in 2002 and received a bonus of $23,380 plus a pension payment of $20,830.

PRSA in 1987 moved from 7,000 sq. ft. in midtown to 33 Irving pl., paying $22 per sq. ft. for 11,700 sq. ft. Costs lately have been close to $30 per sq. ft.

PRSA might as well have moved to Kansas City, as far as PRSA/NY members were concerned.

The new location, 25 blocks from midtown, was a continuation of open hostility to PRSA/NY.

This hostility became evident in the late 1970s when forces led by the late Patrick Jackson, 1980 president, took over. Rea Smith, COO from 1975-79, was shifted to the PRSA Foundation after the appointment of Betsy Kovacs as COO on Jan. 1, 1980. Smith was ousted from h.q. and given her own office on Madison ave.

About a half dozen senior PR pros who worked at h.q. were off-loaded. Jackson believed that association pros and not PR pros should staff h.q. Another belief was that press relations should be minimized. He told a PRSA ethics seminar in 1994, in response to a question about his attitude to reporters: "I have no problem with them for clients. We usually duck 'em, find ways to go direct and screw 'em."

Jackson told PRSA/NY president Bob Weintraub at the 2000 national conference: "New York is irrelevant...New York should get out of PRSA."

PRSA/NY, after being based for 40 years at h.q., moved out in 1992 at the request of Kovacs, 1992 president Rosalee Roberts and 1993 president Hal Warner. Chapter leaders at a meeting with those three were told PRSA needed the space (despite PRSA's spacious new h.q. and the fact that it later sublet some space). PRSA/NY was happy to leave because its COO, Debbie Butler-Clark, who died in 1991, had been treated like a "pariah" by h.q. staffers. She was not invited to their meetings and was given no help by them.

PRSA, which once had a library that was well-used by New Yorkers, barred visitors without an appointment. One or two a day may visit now.

The chapter, which in the 1960's and early 1970's had 1,200 members and monthly lunches drawing 350-400, now has paid membership of about 650. It pays a service firm $100K a year for administration.

--Jack O'Dwyer