DOD SEEKS FOREIGN
MEDIA WATCHDOG.
The Pentagon wants a PR firm to help monitor and analyze foreign media for current and future operations in the so-called global war on terror.

The U.S. Strategic Command, or STRATCOM, the Defense Department's branch for strategic forces and missions like missile defense and counter-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, is looking to support its communications efforts.

Maj. Bret Ashworth, a STRATCOM spokesman, told O Dwyer's the military hires firms like The Rendon Group for such assignments. He forwarded along a request about current firms under contract.

STRATCOM, which is based in Offutt Air Force Base, Omaha, Neb., anticipates issuing an RFP for a five-year contract in the coming weeks and has put out a request for sources to see which PR firms can handle the work.

The firm would also handle databasing of themes, patterns and other information in foreign press, and production of web-based products at the unclassified, "Secret" and "Top Secret" levels. It is required to have experience with non-English media, notably Arabic, Urdu and Pashtu-language outlets.

PEPPERCOM PITCHES TYCO.
Tyco International, which employs more than 260,000 people, has hired Peppercom to handle its "growth PR and corporate positioning initiatives."

The firm is to promote Tyco's business sectors (fire/security, electronics, healthcare, engineered products/services and plastics/adhesives), and line-up media placements/speaking engagements for its execs.

Tyco's former CEO Dennis Kozlowski and CFO Mark Swartz are currently on trial in New York, charged with looting more than $150 million from the company and securities fraud.

ROWAN MARCHES TO ROWLAND.
Beth Rowan, who was national media director for the March of Dimes, has joined Rowland Communications, which is part of Publicis Groupe.

She is senior VP/director of advocacy and media relations. Her role is to develop cause-related marketing initiatives for Rowland's client roster.

Rowan had handled the MoD's "National Premature Awareness Day," a venture among the American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists, CIGNA, FedEx, Working Mother Media and Johnson & Johnson.

BUSH SAYS NO MORE
‘WILLIAMS' DEALS.
President Bush said on Jan. 26 there needs to be a "nice, independent" relationship between his administration and the press corps, after taking questions about the Ketchum-Armstrong Williams affair at the White House.

The President told reporters the White House was not aware of the Dept. of Education's deal with Williams through the PR firm and said he had ordered government agencies not to employ the tactic.

The President's remarks came as House Democrats commissioned a report which said the current Administration spent $88 million on government-funded PR in 2004, a 128 percent increase over 2000, according to the Associated Press.

KIRKPATRICK PLAYS BALL AT H&K.
Scott Kirkpatrick, who spent a dozen years at Kemper Lesnik Communications in Chicago, is now senior VP and U.S. director of Hill & Knowlton's sports marketing practice.

AT KLC, Kirkpatrick developed programs for the NCAA Basketball Tournament, Frontier Communications, Monsanto and Seagram Americas.

He joins H&K from Draft Worldwide, where he counseled Quaker Oats, R.J. Reynolds, Bank of America and Canon.

Kirkpatrick reports to Steve Singerman, director of U.S. marketing communications.

PRSA HAS 76 NEW APRs
IN 18 MONTHS.
The new accreditation process of PRSA has resulted in 76 new APRs for PRSA in its first 18 months. The last half of 2004 produced 35 new PRSA APRs.
An average of 274 PRSA APRs yearly were created in the previous ten years. Highest number was 411 in 2002, the last full year of the previous exam.

Forty-one new APRs of PRSA were created in the first full year of the new process, which was introduced on July 1, 2003.

Blake Lewis, PRSA member who chairs the board of the ten groups sponsoring the APR exam, said that besides PRSA members becoming APR, there were three new APRs from the Southern PR Federation and two each from the Florida PR Assn. and National School PR Assn. Total of new APRs for the last half is 42.
(story contines on page seven)

OGILVY DEFENDS
STROKE CAMPAIGN.
Ogilvy PR Worldwide's Washington, D.C., office has won a $7 million PR contract with the National Institute's of Health to guide a five-year outreach campaign for stroke education. The firm was defending the account in a re-bid by the federal government.

Ogilvy has dedicated a staff of about 10 to the work, said VP senior Christine Shreeve, who noted stroke is the No. 3 killer in the U.S.

The sweeping assignment – two option years could put the budget over $10M – is aimed to enhance and build on the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke's ongoing campaign, "Know Stroke. Know the Signs. Act in Time."

Among the tasks for Ogilvy are public and professional outreach on warning signs of strokes, partnerships with medical institutions, the entertainment industry and other entities. TV and print PSA production, media relations and training, web work and celebrity outreach are part of the deal.

Two option years worth over $3M in total are part of the contract with Ogilvy, to be awarded for a "superior performance."

PN ‘SMOKES OUT' NASCAR.
Porter Novelli has unveiled a "new era" of sponsorship for NASCAR as client GlaxoSmithKline sponsors a racing car with its anti-smoking brands.
The move comes two years after NASCAR and 33-year tobacco company sponsor RJ Reynolds parted ways, ending one of the most recognizable sponsorships in sports, the Winston Cup.

PN's New York office handles GSK's Nicorette (nicotine gum), NicoDerm (patches) and Commit (lozenges) brands.

Nicorette will be associate sponsor of the Chip Gnassi Racing Team's No. 41 Dodge car, which will be unveiled in Atlanta in March at the Golden Corral 500 race. That coincides with Nicorette's launch of a mint-flavored nicotine gum.

RJR and NASCAR split in 2003 after the cigarette maker hit financial woes in Q4 of 2002.

Telecommunications company Nextel took over the Winston sponsorship that year in a ten-year deal worth $700 million.

RATNER NETS BAUM.
Barry Baum has left Dan Klores Comms. for client Forest City Ratner Cos., the real estate developer pushing to build an arena in Brooklyn for the New Jersey Nets basketball team.

Baum, who takes the title VP of PR, will head communications and work on government and public affairs efforts for the proposed $2.5 billion Brooklyn Arena and Atlantic Yards, a housing and commercial development. FCRC president and CEO Bruce Ratner led an investment group that brought the Nets for $300M last year.

DKC and Geto & deMily work on the project.

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
NEEDS TO BE FIXED.
America's public diplomacy is in crisis, a situation that threatens to doom the "positive legacy of U.S. leadership in WW II and the Cold War," according to a "white paper" issued Jan. 25 by the Public Diplomacy Council.

The PDC raps U.S. public diplomacy as too scattershot, and ridicules recent initiatives such as the creation of Radio Sawa to beam American pop songs to the Middle East.

It calls for quadrupling the public diplomacy budget to $4 billion, and boosting overseas staff by 300 percent.

Propaganda oversight would be housed within a new group, U.S. Agency for Public Diplomacy, within the State Dept.

Its mission would be to handle civilian international information and exchanges.

The agency is to be "field-driven," rather than "Washington-driven."

For instance, the USAPD would have 1,800 foreign service officers and 7,000 foreign national employees stationed overseas.

Headquarters, meanwhile, would have 1,500 staffers.

The paper notes that until 1999, public diplomacy was handled by the U.S. Information Agency. That unit was absorbed into the State Dept. in an administrative streamlining move.

"The unintended result, however, was to weaken strategic communications as an effective, cohesive foreign policy tool," according to the paper.

TITAN HARVESTS CHALLENGER.
AGCO Corp., the agricultural equipment combine, has awarded a "high six-figure" advertising, PR and special events account to The Titan Network.

Tony DeMartino, CEO of Atlanta-based Titan, said his firm edged four others for AGCO's Challenger division business.

AGCO, which is based in Duluth, GA., acquired Challenger from Caterpillar in `02.

Challenger markets a line of combines, mower-conditioners, hay equipment and balers.

Titan's goal is to boost Challenger's brand recognition in the agricultural market to that of which CAT (Caterpillar) enjoys in the earth-moving/heavy equipment category.

Caterpillar builds the bulk of the engines and powertrains that are used in Challenger products.

Challenger markets its products exclusively through the Caterpillar dealer network.

New York Stock Exchange-listed AGCO had more than $4 billion in `04 revenues.

Investor Relations Co. CEO Woody Wallace says his firm was not a finalist in the pitch for the World Poker Tour account as reported on Jan. 26. "We had been asked for advice on organizing a conference call," he said.

PUBLISHERS RAP
WAL-MART's PR PLAY.
The head of the National Newspaper Assn., whose members publish mostly small-town papers, has criticized Wal-Mart's national PR campaign, which Hill and Knowlton is handling.

The campaign, which is designed to "set the record straight about the facts about Wal-Mart," consists of full-page ads in 100 major metro news- papers, but ignores newspapers in places where Wal-Mart has many of its rural and suburban stores.

Buffington wrote to H. Lee Scott, CEO of Wal-Mart, after he got a call from Jack Newton of H&K's Atlanta office advising him that Wal-Mart's representatives were "available for interviews" about the campaign.

"As both a newspaper publisher and as a spokesman for several thousand community newspapers in America, I want to let you know that I, and many of my fellow publishers, are insulted by this Wal-Mart PR effort," he told Scott.

Buffington said many NNA members want to know why community newspapers are "good enough to help fend off your critics with free PR, but we re not good enough for your paid ads."

N.Y. TIMES SELLS
PAID WEDDING ADS.
The New York Times is starting a new section, called "Social Announcements," featuring paid
announcements of engagements, weddings, anniversaries or partnerships.

The ads, which will cost $48 a line, will run in the "Sunday Styles" section.

Jyll Holzman, senior VP of advertising, said the new section is "a guarantee that your big day" will be mentioned in the Times.

The ads can also appear on the Times new online weddings section that includes vendor listings and features from TheKnot.com, such as a gift registry locator and a wedding checklist.

ARTICLES ARE TRUSTED
MORE THAN ADS.
Approximately nine of 10 people across all markets believe information conveyed by articles or news stories more than advertising, according to findings from The Edelman Trust Barometer, a survey of 1,500 opinion leaders in eight key markets.

The new study also found more than 80% of respondents overall do not trust information unless they see or hear it from multiple sources.

"The trust void and democratization of information compels corporations to fundamentally seek a new approach to communications.

"You can t buy trust by speaking at audiences through advertising," said Richard Edelman, president/CEO, Edelman.

"CEOs need to engage stakeholders in a very personalized way, through local media and in a direct way via the Internet, empowering employees while using credible third parties as spokespeople," he said.

FOTOG DECRIES LACK OF ACCESS.
Celebrity photographer Brad Elterman's photo exhibition, which just opened at the Don O Melveny Gallery in West Hollywood, Calif., is called "Like it Was Yesterday".

"The show really underscores the access I had to stars, musicians and actors," said Elterman, who believes entertainment publicists have limited or prohibited access to their clients in the last 10 or 20 years to create "very generic poses and `photo ops ."

"The PR people have taken the fun out of the scene and hampered the art," said Elterman, who has covered the Oscars for 15 years.

MAG FOR HISPANIC
WOMEN UNVEILED.
Meredith Corp. will begin publishing a bimonthly lifestyle and shelter magazine, Siempre Mujer!, for Hispanic women in fall 2005 with an initial rate base of 350,000.

Johanna Buchholtz-Torres will be editor-in-chief of SM!. She is the former editor-in-chief of Ser Padres magazine, a national parenting magazine.

TWO MORE COLUMNISTS
PAID BY GOV.
Maggie Gallagher, a marriage advocate and syndicated columnist, said in her Jan. 26 column that she made a mistake in not disclosing that she was paid $21,500 in 2002 to do research and write brochures for the Dept. of Health and Human Services.

"If a scholar or expert gets paid to do some work for the government, should he or she disclose that if he writes a paper, essay or op-ed on the same or similar subject?" she asked. "If this is the ethical standard, it is an entirely new standard," said Gallagher, who now believes she was wrong not to have disclosed her contract.

Another syndicated columist, Michael McManus, was outed Jan. 28 by The New York Times for being paid $10,000 to work on marriage iniatives for the DHHS. The General Accountability Office and the Depts. of Education and HHS are now investigating the practice.

PEOPLE
Russ Rymer, previously editor of Portland Monthly, is joining Mother Jones as editor-in-chief.

Juleyka Lantiqua, formerly managing editor of Honey and a syndicated columnist, was named managing editor of XXL, a music magazine.

William Safire, 75, who wrote more than 3,000 op-ed columns for The New York Times, bid farewell to readers on Jan. 24.

Safire will take on the chairmanship of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, and continue to write the "On Language" column for the Times Sunday magazine.

(Media news continued on next page)

NEW MAG TO TARGET
‘20 SOMETHINGS.'
Sunset Publishing will publish a one-time shelter/lifestyle magazine that will speak directly to the universe of 14 million young adults in the West.

Members of the "twentysomething" group generally "have left their parent's household, but have not yet started their own. They are experiencing a myriad of life changes in a short period of time—graduating from college, living on their own, entering the workforce, marriage," said SP.

Living 101 will have articles on home design and landscaping, food and entertaining, and regional travel in 13 Western states.

The articles will show how to do things like maximizing small space, being a hostess, planting a window box, and planning a quick, affordable getaway.

Katie Tamony, editor-in-chief of Sunset Magazine, will oversee the content of the new title, which will appear on newsstands in the summer.

Living 101 may publish regularly if it is successful in its trial run.

FOOD MAG AIMED
AT SMALL HOUSEHOLDS.
The first issue of Cooking for 2 magazine, published by Reiman Publications, went on newsstands last week.

Catherine Cassidy, editor-in-chief, said the magazine will cater to the pared-down American household, such as empty nesters, newlyweds, retirees, and singles. The U.S. Census Bureau says there are 61.6 million households of just one or two people, an increase of nearly 38% in the past decade.

Cooking for 2 is solely devoted to the preparation of small-scale recipes that yield only a few servings. It will rely heavily on reader recipes that have been tested by an in-house test kitchen staff.

Kathy Pohl is executive editor of Cooking for 2, and Janaan Cunningham, who heads the department that tests, selects and places recipes in 10 of the company's magazine and cookbooks, is food editor.

Reiman Publications is based in Greendale, Wisc.

PREP TRAVELER
TO DEBUT IN MAY.
The publisher of Premier Tourism Marketing in Downers Grove, Ill., is starting a new magazine called Prep Traveler to fill a void in the youth travel market.

The magazine will debut in May with a circulation of 26,000.

Jeff Gayduk, PTM publisher, said research, as well as feedback from readers and advertisers, concluded that youth travel publications today are general in nature and do not focus on special interest youth groups.

Prep Traveler is targeted towards organizers and leaders of student performance and athletic groups, which make up the most lucrative market segments of youth group travel.

PTM is a publisher of trade journals, websites and e-newsletters for the travel industry.

Gayduk can be reached at 630/964-1431, or e-mail: [email protected].

NEWSWEEK.COM
ADDS NEW COLUMNS.
Rabbi Marc Gellman will write a weekly column on Newsweek.com called "The Spiritual State."

Deidre Depke, senior editor, said the column will offer commentary on religion in American life and the role it plays in politics, culture and communities, with emphasis on how followers of different faiths can relate to one another. It will appear on Wednesdays.

Gellman is the rabbi of the Beth Torah Synagogue in Melville, N.Y. He and his friend Msgr. Tom Hartman host "The God Squad," a cable TV talk show about faith and values.

Another new weekly column on Newsweek.com is "The Oval" by senior White House correspondent Richard Wolffe and correspondent Holly Bailey. The pair will provide a behind-the-scenes look into the world's most powerful office.

BUSINESS ETHICS
MAG HAS NEW OWNER.
Business Ethics magazine, which focuses on ethics and corporate social responsibility, was sold by Mavis Publications to New Mountain Media, a New York-based distributor of content and programming.

Former owner and longtime editor Marjorie Kelly will remain as editor of the magazine, which is published four times a year with a total distribution of approximately 10,000 readers, while Michael Connor, 54, owner of NMM, will become publisher and executive editor.

Connor, who worked at the Mag Rack division of Cablevision Systems Corp. and was a journalist at ABC News and The Wall Street Journal, prior to starting New Mountain in 2003, plans to extend the BE brand into new businesses, including conferences, seminars, newsletters, and the Internet.

The publisher will host the first Business Ethics Summit on April 21 in New York, entitled "Corporate Scandals, Corporate Responsibility and the Media: Who Should We Believe?," focusing on media coverage of ethics scandals and how the perception of trust is created.

Connor believes there is "a surge in demand for information and perspective on business ethics and corporate social responsibility issues."

This growing demand is driven by several factors, including increased government regulation (e.g., Sarbanes-Oxley Act) and accompanying compliance issues; a growing sense in the corporate community that ethical behavior has become a prerequisite to effective stateholder relations, and new evidence that responsible companies often carry lower risk and are better positioned for long-term performance than less enlightened peers.

PLACEMENT TIPS
"The Small Business Show," the only nationally syndicated program that talks to entrepreneurs every weekday, is celebrating its seventh anniversary.

The radio program is hosted by Jim Blasingame, who is president and founder of the Small Business Network.

Blasingame has conducted over 1,000 live interviews annually with is 400+ member Brain Trust, a group of small business experts.
The show is sponsored by IBM, Office Depot, and Palo Alto Software. The SBN website is www.jbsba.com.

Michael Santarini, previously with EE Times, has joined EDN magazine as senior editor of the electronics design magazine.

Based in San Jose, Calif., he will oversee reporting, features and news stories on a variety of topics, including design automation. He will also cover local press events, functions, and conferences in Silicon Valley.

John Dodge, editor-in-chief of EDN Worldwide, in Newton, Mass., can be reached at 617/558-4404.

Tin House Magazine is a new literary quarterly that features author interviews and articles about underappreciated books, plus prose and poetry, and excerpts of actual pages.

The name comes from the zinc-covered Victorian home, which is the magazine's headquarters.

Win McCormick, publisher, has set out to showcase the works of the best new writers in fiction and poetry from around the world, including excerpts of actual pages.

A free issue is available upon request. The magazine is located at 119 E. Grand ave., Escondido, Calif., 92025.

Facial expressions tell whether a person is lying, according to the February Reader's Digest. Police, reporters, jurors, security analysts and others need to know how to read these expressions.

An emotion often appears on the face of someone before the person feels it, says the article.

Narrowed eyes, red-faces, twitches, tics, etc., all "leak concealed feelings," says psychologist Paul Ekman. He teaches police to "pick up the fleeting facial micro-expressions" that reveal feelings.

Ekman doesn t get into body language, which can also send signals. What's the body language of people who won t even let you see them?

Numerous PR and businesspeople are evading the press these days.

This includes Ray Kotcher and Lorraine Thelian of Ketchum (in the Armstrong Williams mess); 16 of the 17 PRSA board members who ducked us when they were in New York Jan. 12-13, and John Wren, the CEO of Omnicom (owner of Ketchum), who has given one press interview in 2.5 years and bars the press from OMC's quarterly teleconferences.

Wren, setting an example for the OMC PR firms that bill nearly $1 billion, has taken the OMC annual meeting from New York to Los Angeles (2003) and Atlanta (2004) and who knows where this year?
Reporters, who once often met PR pros at press conferences, company events or informal lunches, etc., now rarely see them. Businesses, PR and many media have policies that impede personal interaction (e.g., the New York Times "Code" that discourages relations between its reporters and PR pros).

The columnists-for-sale scandal widened to include three more: Maggie Gallagher, who didn t tell readers she took $21,500 from the Dept. of Health & Human Services for "expert" advice on marriage; religion columnist Michael McManus, who was paid $10K by the same Dept., and Charles Krauthammer, who consulted on President Bush's inaugural address and then praised it. Democrats say government agencies spent $88 million on PR in 2004, up 128% from 2000. Four probes of K/W are under way: Dept. of Education; FCC, GAO, and Congress itself. Execs can t duck subpoenas.

While media figures are being flayed in public, no one from Ketchum, PRSA's most honored PR firm, has taken any blame. We were disappointed that Frank Rich of the NYT wrote more than a thousand words Jan. 16 on the scandal, mentioning Williams by name 21 times but never once mentioning equal partner Ketchum. An aide to Rich said there was no conscious avoidance of Ketchum. The aide had never heard of Ketchum. The interest was on Williams at the time, the aide said. We hope Rich will return to this subject and treat Williams more fairly, writing also about Ketchum's role.

The PRSA board could expel both Kotcher and Thelian if it wanted to since the firm they lead has been "sanctioned by a government agency." The GAO said May 19, 2004 that the VNRs produced for the Dept. of Health & Human Services by Home Front Communications under contract to Ketchum broke federal law by not identifying the source of the VNRs within the VNRs.

PRSA's record of criticizing prominent members who get in hot water is poor.

One example is the EIFS/brick industry/Duffey Communications incident described on page 7. The EIFS industry accused the PR firm of setting up front groups supposedly operated by home owners but secretly funded by the brick industry. Staffers at Duffey answered the phone of one of the home owners groups. Press coverage was extensive but neither the national board nor ethics board ever said a word. PRSA then rewrote its code and abolished any enforcement. Finding someone at Duffey who was a PRSA member and also on the account may have been hard since only three of 40+ Duffey employees were members of PRSA (even though Lee Duffey at the time was a national officer). Ketchum similarly now has few PRSA members. Only 22 belong vs. 81 in 2001. The firm in 2000 reported 1,299 employees. PRSA's code is only enforced against members. Signing the contract with Williams for Ketchum was Elizabeth McLean, senior partner in the D.C. office and not a PRSA member.

The firm headed by 1991 PRSA president Joe Epley gained notoriety throughout North Carolina that year when a lawsuit "outed" 500-pages of Epley reports. One item said 12-13 sites for burial of radioactive wastes might be described as of interest (when only 4-5 actually were) in order to "disperse" the opposition. Outraged critics condemned the possibility of such a tactic, even if was never used. PRSA ignored the situation.

In another case, the Iran/Contra hearings showed former PRSA national officers Kal Druck and Ken Clark were among five PR pros giving advice on a fund-raising drive to CIA head and Reagan cabinet member William Casey. Member Summer Harrison criticized this and publicly asked PRSA to investigate.

When the board asked her for help, she gave them details from published reports. The board exonerated the ex-officers and censured Harrison twice–for talking to the press about the case and not responding to a request for more information. She lost her job in D.C., quit the Society and moved to Hawaii.

–Jack O'Dwyer