PARIS PICKS WS FOR OLYMPICS.
Paris has selected Weber Shandwick from a field of eight firms to guide its bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games. It marks the first time that the city has used a foreign firm for Olympics activity. Paris lost out to Beijing for the '08 Games. Weber Shandwick had served as PR counsel for Beijing, and has worked on bids for Sydney '00 and Turin '06.

Philippe Baudillon, director general of Paris 2012, said WS was hired because the city wanted to promote its bid beyond France's borders. He also cited the Interpublic unit's experience in the Olympic bid world.

WS will handle international media relations for Paris, coordinate the city's relationship with the International Olympic Committee and monitor IOC protocol and ethics guidelines.

London, the archrival to Paris, is expected to hire its own PR firm. The U.K.-based Evening Standard reports that WPP Group's Hill & Knowlton is the "hot tip" to win that effort.

Nine cities submitted bids last month to host the Games. British bookmakers give Paris, which hosted the Olympics in 1900 and 1924, the best odds to land the Games.

The International Olympic Committee will announce the winner next July.

HOWARD JOINS PR21.
Barbara-Jo Howard, who was executive VP/marketing and client development at Cohn & Wolfe, has joined PR21 in New York. "My job is to flesh out its consumer business," she told O Dwyer's .

PR21 was founded in 1998 as a tech firm by Edelman PR Worldwide.

Howard said PR21 has a strong consumer practice in Chicago as evidenced by its high-profile launch of Ted, the discount carrier of United Airlines. That campaign has led to other assignments from United. Bridget Brennan is the senior VP in charge of PR21/Chicago.

Howard left C&W two years ago to set up her own marketing firm that counted the WPP unit as a client. She also worked at Ketchum Promotions, Paddington Corp. and Buckingham Wile Co.

Circuit City is considering Ogilvy PR Worldwide, Stanton Crenshaw, Fleishman-Hillard and hometown Richmond-based Carter Ryley Thomas for its PR account. Weber Shandwick, the incumbent, decided not to pitch the business of the electronics retailer.

OMC REPORTS 10% GROWTH
IN Q4 NET.
"PR for the first time in two years showed good solid growth," said CEO John Wren during the Feb. 17 webcast announcing that Omnicom reported a 9.8 percent rise in fourth-quarter net to $221.3 million on an 18.3 percent jump in revenues to $2.5 billion. Full-year net jumped five percent to $675.9 million on a 14.4 percent spurt in revenues to $8.6 billion.

OMC's PR units, including Fleishman-Hillard, Ketchum, Brodeur Worldwide and Porter Novelli, combined for a 9.5 percent gain in the year, chalking up $248.6 million in revenues. Overall, they posted a 3.7 percent rise in growth to $955 million for ‘03.

OMC spent $473 million in `03 acquisitions, including $236 million in earn-outs, during the year.

Deals included the acquisitions of PR firms Fischer Health, Mercury PA and Harrison & Shriftman, plus Hall & Partners communications research firm.

The ad/PR conglom disclosed $2.6 billion in total debt, up from $2 billion from yearend `02. The company continued its policy of not releasing a balance sheet. That counters the recommendation of NIRI CEO Lou Thompson.

C&W SPEAKS FOR
MUTUAL FUND INDUSTRY.
Clark & Weinstock has registered as lobbyist for the Investment Company Institute, the group representing the $7.4 trillion mutual fund industry that has come under fire for abusive trading practices and hidden fees.

ICI opposes the Mutual Fund Reform Act of 2004 introduced this month by Republican Sens. Pete Fitzgerald (IL), Sue Collins (ME) and Democrat Carl Levin (MI) that would overhaul fund fee structure.

"We're taking the brokerage community off the gravy train," said Fitzgerald at a Feb. 11 press conference to introduce the measure.

ICI president Matthew Fink criticized "vague provisions in the bill" that "would seriously jeopardize the interests of current and future mutual fund investors." The group, instead, supports reforms proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The ICI, on Feb. 18, issued a report that it hopes will debunk the perception that fundholders are getting ripped off by costly fees/expenses. The report, says ICI, tackles "multiple misconceptions."

C&W's team includes former Congressman Vic Fazio (D-CA), Niles Godes, former chief of staff to Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), and Kent Bonham, ex-policy director for Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE).

CINTAS ADDS PR VETS.
Pam Lowe, who headed corporate communications for apparel manufacturer Fruit of the Loom, has taken a VP/corporate communications post at Cincinnati-based uniform giant Cintas Corp.

Lowe, prior to ten years at Fruit of the Loom, was executive director of The Mid-America Committee and worked in the White House public affairs office in the early days of the Reagan Administration. She was at Hill & Knowlton in D.C. before that. Lowe has not yet been reached.

Cintas has also added Joyce Hergenhan, a former top General Electric PR exec, to its board of directors. She retired from GE recently after 22 years, serving as VP of corporate PR, president of the GE Foundation and a close advisor to then-CEO Jack Welch.

Hergenhan was also former chair of PR Seminar and, prior to GE, was VP of PA for Con Edison.

Sues for Defamation

Cintas filed a defamation suit against a Boston Trust & Investment Management company and one of its executives following an October accusation that it used sweatshops to produce its millions of uniforms.

The executive, Timothy Smith, who is part of Walden Asset Management, a socially responsible investment unit of Boston Trust, linked Cintas to a Haitian factory he described as a "poster child for sweatshops" during a Cintas shareholder meeting last fall.

Cintas has filed the suit seeking $75K plus punitive damages in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati.
The company has also rapped a needletrades union, UNITE, which is believed to be the source of Smith's charges. (UNITE is attempting to organize Cintas workers.) In a statement, Cintas said UNITE's charges are "highly exaggerated" and part of the union's ongoing campaign against the company, which has included 100 Unfair Labor Practice charges in the last year, two-thirds of which were dismissed or withdrawn.

PN CONNECTS WITH SUPERIOR.
Superior Essex, the billion-dollar cable and wire manufacturer, has tapped Porter Novelli to handle communications and IR support following its emergence from Chapter 11 late last year.

The Brunswick Group had guided communications for Superior, which was previously known as Superior Telecom, through bankruptcy.

Hank Pennington, director of IR for the company, told this NL CEO Stephen Carter (formerly CEO/ president of Cingular Wireless) liked Porter Novelli's approach after hearing from a handful of firms.

Brad MacAffee heads the work for PN in Atlanta, where SE is now based.

The company filed for Chapter 11 protection in March 2003, emerging in November. Once one of the country's top copper wire makers, the company now produces mainly fiber-optic and magnet wires and cables for customers like Sprint and the regional Bells. It reported 2002 sales of $1.4 billion.

SAUDIS SEE NEED FOR TRUST.
"Exaggerated reporting and biased conspiracy stories" are hurting the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the U.S., according to a report distributed by Qorvis Comms. on behalf of the Kingdom's Embassy.

"Ten Reasons for Reforging U.S. and Saudi Relations" is written by Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. It raps the "pointless anger and antagonism" between both countries. "There has been enough talk about ‘Fourth World Wars, ‘Zionist conspiracies in the U.S., and fatal flaws in Western and Arab cultures," according to Cordesman, who was national security assistant to Sen. John McCain and director of intelligence assessment at the Dept. of Defense.

"While the events of 9/11 cannot be forgotten, there is no way to go back to the past," wrote Cordesman in urging both sides to reforge social, political and security ties. He wants new information campaigns that can build understanding rather than anger and fear. "The cycle of U.S. ‘Saudi bashing by Congress and the U.S. media and its mirror image in the form of U.S. bashing by Saudi opinion leaders and media is largely destructive in character," he wrote.

Both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia must work to avoid a "clash of civilizations," which benefits "hate mongering extremists like Bin Laden." Wrote Cordesman: "The last thing either the U.S. or Saudi Arabia need is to hand Bin Laden and his inevitable successors a victory, paralyze effective cooperation through continued tension, or pass up the opportunity to create new forms of cooperation where they are so clearly in both nation's interests."

EDELMAN HOLDS ONTO
ILLINOIS TOURISM.
Edelman PR Worldwide has fended off a challenge on its hold on the Illinois tourism account, picking up a contract worth $6.2 million over the next three years. It has received $12.2 million from Illinois for tourism work since 1980, according to the Feb. 15 Chicago Sun-Times.

Laura Hunter, a spokesperson at the state's Dept. of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, noted that Edelman was not the lowest bidder on the account, but offered a superior communications strategy to help Illinois reach its tourism goals. She said Illinois negotiated a lower price for the work that was originally proposed by Edelman.

The newspaper suggested that Edelman's $32,600 contribution to the `02 campaign of Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich may have been a factor in its win.

Toby McCarrick, SVP at Edelman, rejected that notion, saying Edelman won because it was the best agency. He also said Edelman has given money to past Republican Governors Jim Edgar and George Ryan.

Doug Dowie, head of Fleishman-Hillard's Los Angeles office, adds public affairs oversight for the firm throughout the state and becomes co-chairman of its national PA practice.

SPORTS DESKS SEEK
NEWS & FEATURE TIPS.
The Publicity Club of New York's Feb. 10 luncheon featured a discussion on pitching news and features to the sports desk.

Jill Agostino, who is the sports assignment editor at The New York Times, starts her day by reading USA Today, The Times, Post, News and Newsday to find out how they cover various events "so once I get into the office I can start calling our reporters."

Agostino, who is usually the first one in the office in the morning, said it is "really bad for someone to ask, `Can I talk to someone who knows sports? That usually doesn't go over very well."

Big on E-mail

Agostino, who also takes calls from PR people when "you guys call in pitching us stories, said she is a big e-mail person. "I love e-mails and I ll often tell you guys that because we ll have three or four phones ringing at the same time.

"Give me a real quick pitch, send me an e-mail and then I ve got it right there, I can print it out and talk to my bosses about it," said Agostino, who tries "really hard" to get back to everyone.

In terms of what the Times is interested in, Agostino said it is "different stuff."

"If it's just going to be an athlete with 20 or 25 reporters around, there is not much different that we can get out of that."

But if there is something different—like last summer when she got an e-mail about women for A League of Their Own, who were going into the inner city of Los Angeles and teaching young girls how to play softball—that was something they like and "we sent someone over and it ended up being just a great story."

Agostino said the "new regime" at the Times is making some adjustments. She said one thing that did carry over from the old regime is "we are trying to go a lot more national."

Events Get Covered

"We absolutely love PR events," said Tim McHugh, executive producer/sports for WCBS-TV (Ch. 2).

"I can't tell you just how important they are to what we do," said McHugh.

Getting an athlete at a certain event talking about his childhood or talking about some angle to breast cancer or whatever it may be is "really important to us," said McHugh, who also advised the publicists to "plan ahead and look at the seasons."

"Yesterday {Feb. 9} is a perfect example: not a single event on our sports calendar, no pro team played and unfortunately there was no PR event," said McHugh. "I assure you, if there was an event yesterday we would have had a camera there."

McHugh prefers to get any information from publicists by e-mail and fax, and then a follow-up call.

His "biggest rule, biggest pet peeve" is never call a TV producer after 4 p.m. "If you re on deadline and trying to get on at five or six o clock, try to make your calls early, try to fax us."

Real Booker's Challenge

Yvette Michael, who is one of three bookers for ESPN2's "Cold Pizza"—a new show that airs on Mondays to Fridays from 7-9 a.m., which is a combination of hard news, sports news and interviews— said her job is to "make sure men watch us for about eight minutes every morning."

"What I try to tell people when they pitch ideas or suggestions to the show is to have a sports angle for it."

She cited two recent celebrity guest appearances as examples—Billy Baldwin, who is involved with keeping the wrestling program going at SUNY-Binghamton, where he went, and Matt Dillon, whose father is a golf coach at an upstate New York university.

"So there are lots of ways to peg it to sports. It's not an easy thing to do but we try really hard to do it," said Michael.

The other two bookers on the show are Tammy Caputo and Meredith Walker. All three can be reached at ESPN2's New York studio at 305 W. 34th st., 12th fl., or by phone and/or e-mail.
Michael: 212/609-4533; yvette.c.michael@espn. com; Caputo: 244-0824; [email protected], and Walker: 609/4530; [email protected].

Crazy Topics Work

Al Gattulo, who produces an afternoon talk show on 1050 ESPN Radio, co-hosted by Wally Matthews and Tom Keegan, who are both former sports writers for The New York Post, said even though "we re a sports show and we talk mainly about the four major sports in the area—baseball, football, hockey and basketball—no real topic is too crazy for us."

He said the program, which runs the gamut of sports and entertainment topics, is designed to interest listeners who are driving home from a long, hard day at work.

"We play little games, we have some fun people on, we don't take ourselves too seriously. My advice to all of you would be that nothing is too small for us," said Gattulo.

E&P CREDITS NEWSLETTER
FOR SCOOP.
Ethics columnist Alan Wolper devoted a whole page to the recent link of Associated Press Wide World Photos and PR Newswire in Editor & Publisher's February issue under the headline: "Blurring the lines of PR photography."

Wolper pointed out the "only journalist to pay attention to the AP/PRN marriage was Jerry Walker, a writer for Jack O Dwyer's Newsletter, a New York City publication devoted to PR news."

Jane Kirtley, who teaches journalism at the University of Minnesota, condemned the marriage, telling Wolper that "news folks have no business getting into the PR trade."

(Media news continued on next page)

WORKING WOMEN
SWITCH MAGAZINES.
Susan Lapinski, who had been executive editor of Working Mother magazine, was promoted to editor-in-chief of Working Women magazine. Betty Wong replaces her at WM.

Wong previously was senior editor of Parents and editor-in-chief of Parents Baby.

PEOPLE
Mary Ellen Egan was recently promoted to deputy chief of reporters at Forbes.

Frank Markus has replaced Jack Keebler as Motor Trends' Detroit bureau chief.

At Sync, a new gadget lifestyle magazine from Ziff Davis, Ron Bernstein was named features editor. He had been senior associate editor at Maxim.

Damien Cave was named associate editor at Rolling Stone.

Adi Ignatius was appointed editor of Time Canada. He will keep his job as executive editor of Time's U.S. edition.

John McManus has replaced Seema Nayaar as editor-in-chief of American Demographics magazine.

George Whipple, NY1's society reporter, whose late father ran Benton & Bowles PR department for several years, is engaged to marry Lisa Woodward, the widow of banking heir William Woodward III, who jumped out of a window during their divorce proceedings in 1999.

Lori Yacavone, previously deputy managing editor of Jane magazine, has joined Vibe as managing editor, succeeding Andrea Rosengarten.

Floyd Norris, chief financial correspondent for The New York Times, has begun writing a weekly column on international markets for the Times-owned International Herald Tribune, working from both Paris and New York.

Terry Anderson, the former AP reporter who was held hostage in Lebanon for nearly seven years by pro-Iranian Shiite Muslims, is running as a Democrat for an Ohio State Senate seat.

D.C. POST RETIRES
OVER 50 NEWSPEOPLE.
The Washington Post's early retirement offer was accepted by 54 editors, photographers and other newsroom staffers, who were 55 or older and had worked at the paper for more than 10 years.

As much as two years salary in one payment and an extensive medical plan was included in the program.

More than 24 of the retired staffers have signed contracts to stay on as freelancers for as long as a year to help ease the transition of losing about 7% of the newsroom staff at once.

BLYTH'S BOOK RIPS
WOMEN MAG EDITORS.
Myrna Blyth's new book, entitled "Spin Sisters," about women's magazine editors, will be published March 1 by St. Martin's Press.

James Brady, who wrote a blurb for the book jacket, found the "inside stuff the best," especially about how magazine editors have to "cope with monstrous PR people, employ celebrity wranglers and put up with the egos and the narcissism of the stars they want and need for their covers."

Blyth, who recently retired as editor of Ladies Home Journal, which she took over in 1981, and More, a magazine she started for older women, told the columnist she is angry about how women's magazines and TV shows position American women as victims.

"The crux of Myrna's argument is that instead of serving their readers, the women's magazines are doing them a disservice. And as a self-described moderate-Republican, she lambastes the majority of women in media as working from a liberal, feminist bias," Brady said.

"Look, media for women influence women much more than media for men influence men," Blyth said. "Women are told in the magazines that they can't cope with their lives. While the truth is, women can cope marvelously."

PLACEMENT TIP
Sunset, a magazine owned by Time Warner, has been redesigned in an attempt to attract more readers under 40. The average age of the magazine's 1.45 million subscribers is in the upper 40s.

The new layout allocates more space for short items in the front pages, with a larger "feature well" for longer stories in the back.

Sunset, based in Menlo Park, Calif., will continue to focus coverage on home, travel, food and garden. Katie Tamony is editor-in-chief.

MEDIA BRIEFS
Albert and John Scardino are co-writing a regular column for The Manchester Guardian.

Al, executive editor of the U.K. paper, along with his wife Marjorie, publisher of The Financial Times, co-published an award-winning weekly paper for many years in Savannah, Ga. He later became a reporter for The New York Times and press secretary to former New York Mayor David Dinkins.

His brother John is an independent PR consultant, who was a Democratic candidate for Congress from Georgia in 1992.

Bild, a Berlin-based daily newspaper, replaced its usual menu of stories about crime, violence and scandal on Dec. 24.

Under a front page headline, "There's only good news today," the paper filled its columns with articles about tax cuts, falling gas prices and accelerating economic growth.

The New York Times has started a new weekly column called "Consumed," which is devoted to consumer products.

The column, written by Rob Walker, a contributing writer, appears in "The Way We Live Now" department of The New York Times Magazine.

The column, which was described as "part business report, part cultural anthropology," will cover everything from toys and appliances to jewelry and beer, cell phones and TV shows.

Technology Marketing has been folded into Brandweek, a sister publication.

"Reputations of Big Companies Tumble in Consumer Survey," said a headline in the Wall Street Journal Feb. 19.

A survey by Harris Interactive found the image of big companies is rated either "not good" or "terrible" by three-quarters of respondents.

Despite the stock market and economic recovery, people still remember the evidence of "corporate fraud, deception and greed" that dominated business news two years ago and which is continuing.

The WSJ didn't mention that the dismal image of business continues despite the "PR Coalition Summit" that brought together leaders of 19 PR and IR groups in Madison, N.J., Jan. 14, 2002, and that was specifically designed to counteract that image.

Represented were PRSA, IABC, NIRI, IPRA, PAC, Page Society, Institute for PR, WEPR, Council of PR Firms and others.

A lengthy paper was produced about eight months later giving companies and their PR/IR pros detailed instructions on how to restore trust in corporate America. It appears to have done no good.

James Murphy of Accenture and the Page group was chair of the meeting. We spent a full day in Madison with the leaders of these groups and two of the statements that were made come to mind.
One participant said what proof is there that doing good things such as telling the truth, being transparent, etc., impacts the bottom line? No one will want to do that if it doesn't , he added.

Another said he was in favor of transparency as long as it was done after the company had cleaned up its act. Whew! is all we can say about the moral level of such comments.

The paper that was put out did not mention one of the negatives that so many CEOs are shouldering –their high pay vs. foreign CEOs.

U.S. CEOs are making 531 times what their average workers get while this ratio is 57 in Brazil, 45 in Mexico, 25 in Britain, 21 in Canada, 16 in France, 11 in Germany and 10 in Japan.

The average reputation score among 60 companies ranked hit 66.7 out of 100 points, a record low. Even Johnson & Johnson, usually helped by its association with babies, kept its No. 1 rank but fell below 80 for the first time in the survey's five years.

Omnicom last week said its Q4 earnings were up 9.8% to $221 million and revenues were up 18% to $2.5 billion. But the stock fell about five points to $79. Why? OMC, as usual defying the guidelines of NIRI and the practice of almost all other public companies, did not supply a balance sheet with its earnings report. It did admit that debt rose from $2B on Dec. 31, 2002 to $2.6B on Dec. 31, 2003.

Very simply, OMC is buying much of its sales and earnings via acquisitions which put it deeper into debt. It doesn't want to show its balance sheet because that would give the new goodwill total, last seen at a staggering $5.58B as of Sept. 30, 2003, up $730M in the first nine months of 2003. As of Sept. 30, OMC had a minus $2.55B in net equity.

Stockholders who chat on Yahoo! are waiting for OMC to depreciate some of this goodwill. It will come out of earnings but won't reduce taxes. As for OMC's claim that PR was up 9.5% for Q4 and 3.7% on the year, we re not told how much of this came from acquisitions on which OMC spent $473M in 2003. PR continued as OMC's worst performer in 2003 since ads were up 14%, direct mail up 20% and specialty up 9.9%...

Companies are complaining about the cost of Sarbanes-Oxley, said the Wall Street Journal Feb. 10. One cost that hasn't been reported on much is setting up a secure hotline so employees can report ethical and other abuses. Some companies are hiring an outside service to do this to counter any fear that the identity of the source will be revealed. Telephone calls are used because e-mails can be traced. One outside service doing this is The Network (www.tnwinc.com) which takes calls 24/7. Many calls come in after hours or on the weekends...

New York PR counselor Mallory Factor, who heads his own firm, is one of the organizers of "The Monday Meeting," a group of conservatives who meet one Monday each month at the Grand Hyatt. As profiled in the New York Observer Feb. 9, the off-the-record, invitation-only group is a "power center" whose guests have included a half dozen U.S. senators. Members are the "right wing" of the city's "financial and intellectual elite" who are major Republican donors. Factor is quoted as saying, "We re trying to cause action; we re trying to get support for people who deserve support"...

Evan Smith, editor of Texas Monthly, is steamed over President Bush's remarks that he gets briefings from aides rather than by reading newspapers. "What kind of message is he sending to the country, and to young people in particular?" asked Smith in an editorial. "Does he think the rest of us shouldn't read newspapers either, that they serve no useful function?" he added...

Tina Santi Flaherty, former PR exec at GTE and Colgate-Palmolive, authored What Jackie Taught Us, about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. They were neighbors in an upper Fifth Ave. apartment bldg. Perigee will publish it in April. Onassis worked hard at her image, writes Flaherty.

Using a technique of her father, she perfected "the lighthouse look," shining her smile on all whether they be ambassadors or waiters...

HMOs spend 11.7% of revenue on administration while Medicare spends 3.6% and Canada's single-payer system spends 1.3%, noted New York Times columnist Paul Krugman Feb. 17.

--Jack O'Dwyer