RITZ-CARLTON LOOKS
FOR PR FIRM.
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. has put out a "Request for Information" providing details about plans to hire a PR firm to "elevate the brand to the next level in terms of creativity, support and execution."

The Marriott International unit says global luxury branding experience is a must, while travel background is not necessary. It's more interested in a PR partner that can understand the needs of the chain's 57 hotels in 20 countries and communicate with corporate constituencies.

Julie Gajcak, VP-communications, told O'Dwyer's that the budget will be determined based on the amount of work proposed by the winning PR firm. This is the first time that Ritz-Carlton Co. is using a firm though individual units have relied on PR, according to Gajcak.

The RFIs will be reviewed during the week of Oct. 18 at the company's Chevy Chase, Md., headquarters. The plan calls for sending a "Request for Proposal" to selected agencies on Oct. 22.

The deadline for returning RFPs will be Nov. 5.

Ritz-Carlton plans to consider up to 10 firms for the job, and based on "capabilities, philosophy and fit" will short-list five for final presentations.

CRUISE LINERS SAIL TO SILVER.
The Cruise Line International Assn. has retained M. Silver Assocs. in New York as its PR and marketing communications agency. CLIA was at Diana M. Orban Assocs. in Morristown, N.J.

Gary Gerbino, who headed the Cunard Line account at MSA, which recently launched the company's $800 million Queen Mary 2 ocean liner, will direct the CLIA account.

The agency will provide media management services, special events and promotions to showcase CLIA's 30th anniversary in 2005.

CLIA, whose 19 cruise line members represent 95 percent of the cruise berths marketed in North America, has more than 16,000 member agencies engaged in the sale of cruise vacations in the U.S. and Canada.

The University of Tennessee is looking to hire a VP of public and governmental relations to replace Tom Ballard who retired in June. The individual will oversee more than 40 staffers, and a $3.3 million budget.

AT&T SLASHES PR STAFF.
AT&T CEO Dave Dorman has slashed the company's PR staff in the latest round of cutbacks, according to spokesperson Jim Burns. "The cutbacks are across the board," he told O'Dwyer's . He could not say how many individual PR people are losing their jobs because the company has "not broken down" that figure into individual departments. Burns, who has more than 20 years of AT&T experience, is among those leaving the company.

Dorman is trying to re-fashion the 125-year-old Ma Bell as a jazzy "networking" company. He has cut more than 20 percent (12,000 people) of AT&T's headcount this year. The company employs less than 50,000.

AT&T, on Oct. 7, announced an $11.4 billion write down in assets due to July's decision to exit the residential phone business. The company spent billions to upgrade that network during the technology boom of the `90s. That value of the phone network needs to be cut because of a big reduction in revenue. In anticipation of the announcement, the AT&T CEO cancelled plans to appear at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference on Oct. 6.

It was Dorman's decision to recently split up PR and related areas at AT&T resulting in PR losing its direct CEO report for the first time since 1927.

White House Office of National Drug Control Policy has retained incumbent Fleishman-Hillard to handle PR. The Office had shifted its $150M ad budget to Interpublic's Foote, Cone and Belding from WPP Group's Ogilvy & Mather. F-H is an Omnicom unit.

SECRET ASSEMBLY
VOTING CRITICIZED.
Several chapter presidents and other leaders of PRSA criticized a ruling by Society president Del Galloway that continues the practice of anonymous voting by Assembly delegates.

Delegates have been voting since 1999 via electronic keypads that provide no record of how individual delegates have voted.

Prior to this, close votes would result in standing votes being taken, which would reveal sentiments of the delegates. Roll call votes are also permissible but none has been called in many years.

Galloway, asked Oct. 6 if members shouldn t know how delegates vote, said the Assembly is "not unlike [citizens voting] in a democracy. These votes are anonymous." (continued on seven)

EDELMAN JOINS
WIDMEYER AS INDIE THINKER.
Edelman unveiled its "independent thinking" philosophy on Oct. 1 to describe the way the No. 1 independent PR firm conducts its PR program. The line is featured on Edelman's website and promotional materials. The site's opening page carries a quote from firm founder Dan Edelman saying, "We think differently than our competitors...."

Washington, D.C.-based Widmeyer Communications, however, thinks along the same lines of Edelman, and has been doing so since December `00. That's when the PA firm began using the "independent thinking" concept to communicate how it tailors "strategies to meet each client's unique needs." Widmeyer uses independent thinking as a tagline on its National Public Radio ads in New York and D.C.

Derek Creevey, an Edelman spokesperson, told O'Dwyer's that he wasn t aware that Widmeyer uses the independent thinking line.
Widmeyer's Michael Fleischer says Edelman's use of the independent thinking theme "doesn t show much independent thinking."

PR21 Becomes Zeno Group

PR21 has been rebranded as the Zeno Group because it is a "different kind of PR firm" than the high-tech entity that Edelman PR Worldwide established in `98, CEO Jerry Epstein told O'Dwyer's.

Epstein described his firm as "nimble, flexible and smart," dedicated to serving the needs of its corporate, technology, healthcare and consumer clients.

He said Zeno approaches PR from a more "scientific research" basis that differs from competitors that "run in and throw out some ideas to clients."

Landor Assocs. chose the name Zeno for PR21 to reflect that Greek philosopher saying, "We have been given two ears and but a single mouth in order to hear more and talk less."

Zeno, said Epstein, is committed to "listening more to clients" so it can develop PR programs that "move minds and move markets."

Asked about potential independence from Edelman, Epstein said he is very happy with the current relationship with his firm's parent company.

Zeno handled last week's blockbuster announce-ment that radio shock jock Howard Stern will join Sirius Satellite Radio in a deal worth $500 million.

SUMNER STARS AT F-H.
Hayley Sumner, an entertainment PR veteran, has joined Fleishman-Hillard's Los Angeles office as senior VP in charge of consumer and celebrity PR.

She had been running her own "bi-coastal" shop doing PR for clients including The William Morris Agency, Elite Model Look, and Artisan Entertainment.

Sumner was a co-founder of Dan Klores & Assocs. in `92. As head of Dan Klores Entertainment, she counseled Mariah Carey, Jay Leno, Magic Johnson Foundation, "Saturday Night Live," Sony Music, Miramax and Ian Schrager's hotel properties. She began her career at Howard Rubenstein & Assocs.

FINANCIAL KNOW-HOW IS KEY .
"Research shows that finance is the most likely functional stepping stone to the top executive suite of a company," New York counselor Robert Dilenschneider told the Council of Financial Executives of the Conference Board at its national meeting on Oct. 1 in Charleston,'s .C.

Speaking on "The 21st Century CFO: A New and Critical Role," he said that the role of the CFO "has evolved suddenly from keeper of the balance sheet to leader and broad-based executive--part analyst, part change agent, part consultant and full-time strategic advisor to the CEO."

Many people believe that "greed rules many boardrooms," said Dilenschneider, noting the corporate scandals in recent years. He said there is "a compelling need to convince the public that ethical considerations are being given primacy in the boardrooms of the country, and that transparency and good governance are the rule, not the exception."

CFOs should be an equal rather than a subordinate partner with the CEO, said Dilenschneider, who heads The Dilenschneider Group in New York. He was president and CEO of Hill & Knowlton earlier in his career.

THEISMANN DELIVERS UAV PITCH.
Joe Theismann, the legendary quarterback who led the Washington Redskins to two Super Bowls, has signed on as pitchman for Proxity Digital Networks, a maker of unmanned aerial vehicles for military and commercial use.

PDN promotes its Cyber Scout as a 10 lb. UAV "designed to operate innovative, clandestine reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition." It can be "hand-carried into battle to perform hunter-killer missions."

PDN also has a pilot-option helium airship that is equipped with surveillance gear to guard borders.

Theismann, whose career ended in `85 on national TV when New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor crushed his leg during a "Monday Night Football" broadcast, will represent PDN at financial/investment events and tradeshows.

Since 1975, Theismann has run "Joe Theismann's Restaurant" in Alexandria, Va.

Emerson Gerard Assocs., in West Palm Beach. Fla., handles PR for PDN.

IPR HONORS FELTON.
The Institute for PR will award its retiring president Jack Felton the Alexander Hamilton Medal for lifetime achievement in PR at its Nov. 10 dinner in New York.

Felton has led IPR since `95 after stepping down from the VP-corporate communications post at McCormick Spice Co. He also is past national president of PR Society of America.

Felton began his PR career during the Korean War where he served as a public information officer for the U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command.

NY TIMES CHANGES
CONTENT OF SECTION.
Publicists may have to adjust their pitches to fit the new direction of The New York Times Book Review section.

Sam Tanenhaus, the new editor of the Sunday section, has begun adding new content and broadening the range of books selected for review in an effort to attract more "middlebrow" readers.
Tanenhaus, who took over as editor of the Sunday section in April, told "Poynter's Book Babes" -- Margo Hammond and Ellen Heltzel -- that he is making the changes because the Times is a "middlebrow publication," read by "people who are smart and educated, but they don t have Ph.D.s, and they aren t professional intellectuals."

Books Are News About the Culture

"We re going to treat books not as literary artifacts but as news about the culture," Tanenhaus said in his interview with the writers, who contribute reports to Poynter's website.

"Publishers and authors may squeal, but The Times, which has aggressively built its brand as the country's national yuppie newspaper, is simply extending this branding to the book section," said Heltzel, a freelance book reviewer.

Hammond, who is book editor for The St. Petersburg Times, said Tanenhaus has already begun to liven up the section by "juxtaposing such peculiar bedfellows as a round-up of sex books (low culture), a literary work by William Trevor (high culture?) and two books about the Apostle Paul."

Heltzel said the Oct. 3 issue offers an "excellent study of Tanenhaus priorities—varied lengths, big-name bylines and using a specific book as a jumping off place for considering the world."

Other Changes to Come

Other innovations are still to come, according to Heltzel. A poetry issue is scheduled for November, and later this month, Rachel Donadio is coming over from The New York Observer as a reporter and enterprise editor, "which translates as a plan to go out and get the stories of who's reading what and where."

Tanenhaus told readers in the Oct. 10 issue that he uses reviewers from the left and the right. The former contributor to Vanity Fair also prefers bylines from the magazine world because a newspaper reporter's job is to report, to tell you what a story is. "Magazine writers write in narrative form, and the most compelling form of writing is narrative."

Each Monday, 380,000 copies of the NYTBR are available for sale in bookstores across the U.S.

EDITOR TO RIP PRESS
AT GIRL SCOUT EVENT.
Atoosa Rubenstein, editor-in-chief of Seventeen magazine, will criticize the media's coverage of young women in her keynote speech at the 12th annual Women of Distinction Breakfast, sponsored by The Girl Scout Council of Greater New York.

The event, which honors five women who exemplify the Council's mission to help girls grow into outstanding women, will be held on Oct. 20 at the New York Marriott Marquis.

This year's honorees include: Rubenstein, Madeline de Vries, CEO, DeVries PR; Diane Ashley, VP/director of Citigroup Supplier Diversity; Cholene Espinoza, a captain at United Airlines, and Lillian Vernon, founder, Lillian Vernon Corp.

Deborah Norville, anchor of "Inside Edition," host of "Deborah Norville Tonight," and a council board member, will lead the ceremonies.

In her speech, entitled "Mean Media: The Gossip We Love is Also Destroying Us," Rubenstein will speak out against the tabloid press treatment of women, especially teen celebrities, according to Davia Temin, whose firm Temin and Co. is handling PR for the event.

As young women are becoming more successful, Rubenstein believes the media is dehumanizing them through its vicious gossip, Temin said.
Rubenstein believes the press needs to be mindful of the popular culture it creates, and to celebrate successful young women—not denigrate them.

PLACEMENT TIPS
Libby Callaway, former fashion editor at The New York Post, who recently joined The Nashville Tennessean as assistant features editor, is also writing articles for Shop Etc., a new shopping magazine for women, published by Hearst Corp. and edited by Mandi Norwood.

Callaway's first freelance assignment, which appears in the Fall 2004 issue now on newsstands, is an article headlined: "Why do clothes cost so much more this season? We found five good reasons."

The writer has started working on her next piece for the February issue. Fashion Week Daily said the article is on, among other subjects, the new Esprit stores.

SGMA International, a trade association for retailers and marketers in the sports products industry, is inviting reporters to "meet and mingle" with the sporting goods industry at an event scheduled for Dec. 1 at the Marriott Marquis in New York (6-9 pm).

This event will allow the media to "touch, feel, and try" the latest product innovations in the sporting goods industry, according to Mike May, who is director of communications for the North Palm Beach, Fla.-based association, which also publishes Sports Edge magazine.

Ziff Davis Media's Internet division has begun a website dedicated to the experience of using Apple Computer's iPod (www.extremeipod.com).

(Media news continued on next page)

ABC REPORTER SEEKS
LOCAL COMPANY NEWS.
Justin Rubner, who is this month's iCD Media Pro, covers local technology and telecom companies, not technology itself, for The Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Rubner told the Alpharetta, Ga.-based interactive CD producer that he covers anything that affects business in the Atlanta area, from small startups to large public companies.

"My readers are small and medium-sized companies, so pitch with that in mind," said Rubner, who writes a weekly tech column and one or two A-section stories every week.

"I aim for everything in my column to be exclusive (no regurgitation of press releases). As for stories, they are in-depth, exclusive and analytical. No fluff. I also occasionally write executive profiles for the `B' section."

Rubner said the hot topic is "anything that's exclusive and local" that his readers would be interested in. "It has to have some hard news angle to it, though."

The deadline for his column is Tuesday, and the deadline for news items and stories is Wednesday. Since he usually gets his column done on Monday, he prefers to get pitches and information by Friday.

No `Fodder,' Please

Rubner stressed the importance of his column. "I put a lot of effort into my column. I don t want `fodder. I want a good dish my readers won t know about," he said.

He is looking for investments ("give me the amount"), contracts (ditto), new CEOs and chairmen, lawsuits, major changes in revenues, profits, or long-term stock performances, lobbying efforts, relocations, expansions, new businesses, new spinoffs, hirings and/or firings, interesting studies, and so on.

Rubner said "I get a lot of e-mails, so make them stand out. If I don t understand the header, I usually delete them. Avoid industry jargon."

ABC's office is located at 1801 Peachtree st. N.E., #150, Atlanta, GA 30309-1881. 404/249-1078; e-mail: [email protected].

PEOPLE
Karen Schaler has signed on as editor-in-chief of Item magazine as the oversized Scottsdale, Ariz.-based publication expands its coverage to include Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

Thomas (Tigre) Wenrich, former VP/director in The Boston Consulting Group's Miami office, has joined Poder as president/executive editor of the business magazine, which targets top executives in Mexico and the Andean region, in Spanish, and locally in Miami and nationally in the U.S. in English.

Brian Bain, a journalist with 45 years of experience, including 36 years with Reuters, was promoted to managing editor of The Korea Herald in Seoul, succeeding Yu Kun-ha, who was named to the Herald's team of editorial writers.

Brian Moss is stepping down as deputy Sunday editor at The New York Daily News.

John Strahinich, previously executive editor of Boston magazine, has joined The Boston Herald as a business reporter.

Jamie Malanowski was named features editor of Playboy, and Leonard Froehlich and Stephen Randall were promoted to executive editor and deputy editor, respectively.

YM MAGAZINE TO
STOP PUBLISHING.
The December/January number will be the last issue of YM magazine.

Gruner & Jahr sold "certain assets" of YM, including the money-losing teen magazine's subscription list, to Conde Nast, which publishes Teen Vogue.

Former YM subscribers will get the first issue of Teen Vogue in February, which will boost that magazine's guaranteed rate base from 650,000 to 850,000.

Gruner & Jahr is laying off about 70 people at YM, including editor Linda Fears.

Maurie Perl, chief communications officer of Conde Nast, said it will continue to run YM's website.

MEDIA BRIEFS
Portada, a national bimonthly publication that covers news and trends in the business of print media for Spanish-speaking audiences, has established a new website (www.portada-online.com) that is designed as a one-stop source for news, analysis and competitive intelligence for advertisers, publishers and direct mailers targeting Hispanics through print.

GQ's 2004 "Men of the Year" issue will come out in December instead of November this year.

Jim Nelson, the magazine's new editor-in-chief, has also replaced the "Reader's Choice" balloting with in-house selections.

The New York Times has created "For the Record" as a new heading for correcting errors that pertain to such things as spellings, dates, or historical references. "Substantive errors" will continue to fall under the "Corrections" heading of the column that runs on page A2 every day.

Traditional Home will celebrate its 100th issue on Oct. 21 with a cocktail party at Sky Studios in New York.

Advertising Age will publish a Custom Guide to Multicultural Marketing and Media on Nov. 8.
Each participant buying an ad gets equal advertorial space to showcase company information.
Chiqui Cartagena is handling space reservations at 212/210-0156.

The break-up of the AT&T PR dept. (10/6 NL) remains one of the biggest PR industry stories.

We were able to track down "Bad News" Burke Stinson, long the voice of AT&T with the press, who took an agreeable retirement package in 2001 when he reached 60.

Burke now lives half the year in Alberta Province, Canada, but he also spends time in New Jersey where he teaches communications at Rutgers.

Stinson, as outspoken as ever, feels that what happened to AT&T PR (loss of direct report to CEO and shifting of some PR people to marketing and others to human resources) is a "godzilla step backwards for PR." About 120 PR people are employed by AT&T worldwide.

Too many PR departments, he says, hire people with no media backgrounds. He doesn't believe that someone with no media experience can counsel management on how media will handle a story.

He has said on several occasions that PR has been "dumbed down" and he remains of that opinion.

The buyout of many PR firms by ad agencies was also a bad development for PR, he feels.

Some of the many graduates of AT&T will have a chance to analyze what happened at a seminar Thursday, Nov. 11 sponsored by PRSA/New York ("What Really Happened at AT&T?").

Dick Martin, PR head from 1997-2002, who has authored Tough Calls–AT&T and Lessons Learned in the Telecom Wars (Amacom), will lead the discussion. He was with AT&T 32 years.

The session will cover what CEOs look for in a PR counselor and "seven myths of `big time PR."

Arthur Page, VP-PR at AT&T from 1925-1948, and for whom the Arthur Page Society is named, at first believed that companies should hire newspeople for PR because they would have credibility with the public. He later felt that PR staffers should come from within the company because they had the knowledge needed to describe it to the press.
Page, who was born to wealth, belonged to the Harvard and New York Yacht Clubs and was a vocal critic of President Roosevelt and the New Deal.

The AT&T shakeup recalls the revamping of the formerly huge General Electric PR dept. in the 1980s.

GE once had 60 PR pros working in ten offices throughout the U.S. handling product publicity.

They were called the "GE News Bureaus" and were headed by Jim McGarry. By 1972 it did PR for every major GE division after taking the housewares and entertainment units from N.W. Ayer PR. The bureaus were closed in 1985 after being put under advertising & sales promotion. McGarry was transferred. A few years later, corporate PR as a separate entity was closed.

In 1990, General Motors combined PR with marketing in a new "communications and marketing staff" that reported through three levels to chairman Robert Stempel.

Business Week Oct. 4 had a cover story called "Fuzzy Numbers" in which it rapped "distorted and confusing" financial reporting in spite of the reforms sought by Sarbanes-Oxley.

So we opened a 2004 Assembly delegate packet of PRSA and turned to treasurer Maria Russell's report which says PRSA "continued to successfully build on its solid financial foundation" established in 2000.

Russell reports a gain in unrestricted net assets of $341,000, resulting in a total of $2.39 million.
That's not the way we see it. PRSA had at June 30 $2.4 million in cash and investments but it owes at least $1.7 million in future services to members (which obligation it doesn t acknowledge) and also had a large heap of unpaid bills totaling $859,261.

It has the cash but it hasn t earned $1.7M of it and it would have $859,261 less if it paid all its bills. It's about time PRSA was candid about its finances.

Also, the June 30 figures PRSA gave to the Assembly have a beard on them. Delegates should get 9/30 figures and a full financial report (like the audit) a week before the Assembly. That would be good financial reporting. A really well-off group is the smaller NIRI, with $4.5M in cash/savings.

Secret Assembly voting is condemned by the vast majority of individual members and chapter leaders that we have spoken to. It's indefensible but we have yet to attract the attention of either the national board or ethics board to this matter .... what puzzles us is the hard campaign 2004 president Del Galloway waged for decoupling the Assembly in 2003 when he was president-elect while dropping any efforts at all in 2004. This was classic blowing hot and cold.

We asked about this Oct. 6 in our first conversation with him in about six months. He said he announced last year after the defeat that further moves to decouple the Assembly would have to come from the chapters. We know he announced that but it doesn t make it right. Decoupling only lost by five votes and he could have continued the fight or assigned president-elect Judith Phair to do it like Reed Byrum and the board had assigned him. Finding out the identities of the 90 delegates who voted against decoupling should also have been done. They need education in what democracy is.

Galloway says speeches on the state of the Society, its finances and long-range plan are needed before the decoupling debate to provide "context and framework." What's really needed is a report on how few people are taking the new APR test.

– Jack O'Dwyer