BRUSHFIRE’S $42M WIN LIGHTS UP N.J.
New Jersey marcom firm Brushfire has won the Garden State’s review for its $42M, three-year travel, tourism and economic development account. Winning Strategies was the incumbent for the work.

Tourism promotion represents the bulk of the $14M/year assignment, representing between $9M and $13M of the annual budget. The state was looking for a firm to showcase its vacation spots as well as attract families and businesses. Tourism is New Jersey’s No. 2 industry behind pharmaceuticals.

Eight agencies – Dana Communications, GMMB (Washington, D.C.), Masterminds, Novocent Partners, Grafica Group and Princeton Communications Group were the others – submitted proposals and seven were evaluated, according to contracting officer, Ken Dietel.

Brushfire, based in Whippany, N.J., has worked for the state’s lottery on a campaign to attract a younger demographic to its games.

Winning Strategies continues to represent state agencies including New Jersey Transit and the Department of Human Services / Division of Family Development.

C+K HITS CONNECTICUT LOTTERY.
Cashman + Katz has picked up the Connecticut Lottery Corp. account in competition with incumbent Cronin & Co., Dennis Chapman, VP marketing & sales at CLC, told O’Dwyer’s. He said they were the only firms pitching the business.

The lottery business is worth about $5 million for advertising, PR and marketing research over the next three years.

The lottery contributed nearly $270M to the Constitution State’s general fund in fiscal `05, benefiting the education, public health and safety sectors. Officials say nearly $9B in prizes have been awarded since the sweepstakes began in ‘72.

HOPSON HEADS TO RF.
Andy Hopson, who held top positions at Burson-Marsteller, Publicis Dialog and EvansGroup, has been named head of Ruder Finn’s Chicago office. He assumes the duties of Howard Solomon, who has moved to RF’s San Francisco office.

Hopson headed B-M’s northeast region, served as PD’s COO and was the senior partner at EG who negotiated its merger into PD.

He had been running Real Good Idea, a brand marketing firm before joining RF to report to Americas president Richard Funess.

B-M SCOUTS FOR CEO.
WPP Group executive VP Howard Paster is scouting for a CEO for Burson-Marsteller following the abrupt exit of Tom Nides after eight months on the job.

Nides is quitting B-M in a few weeks to rejoin his mentor John Mack at Morgan Stanley. Mack replaced Philip Purcell at the helm of the investment banker on June 30 after a messy executive coup.

Nides, who had never worked at a PR firm prior to B-M, will work closely with Paster to find a replacement “in order to maintain continuity” at the firm, according to B-M’s one-paragraph July 14 release.

B-M had recruited Nides from Credit Suisse First Boston, where he had followed Mack in `01 after the 60-year-old MS president resigned after a bitter power struggle with Purcell.

At both CSFB and MS, Nides handled corporate communications, marketing, government relations, human resources and advertising. He returns to MS as its chief administrative officer and a member of its management committee.

Nides, who had also worked at Fannie Mae and on the staffs of former U.S. Trade Rep. Mickey Kantor and House Speaker Tom Foley, had taken over for 60-year-old Chris Komisarjevsky at B-M.

B-M, in announcing the hire, touted Nides as an “outstanding communications professional with a superb track record of leadership in global organizations.”

He was expected to build the B-M brand and increase collaborative efforts with Young & Rubicam.

O&M’S SEIFERT, EARLY OFF TO JAIL.
Shona Seifert, who had headed Ogilvy & Mather’s White House Drug Office account, was sentenced to 18 months of prison July 14 and fined $125K for her role in bilking the U.S. Government.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Berman also ordered Seifert to draw up a code of conduct for the advertising industry.

Seifert was convicted of one count of conspiracy and nine counts of submitting false claims to the Government.

She was found guilty of inflating the hours that agency staffers worked on the anti-drug campaign in `99. Seifert had been executive group director in O&M’s New York office.

Thomas Early, the former finance director at O&M, received a 14-month sentence last week and was fined $10,000 for his role in the plot.

Ogilvy, which is an Omnicom unit, paid a $1.8M fine in ‘02 to settle civil charges.

CHINA OIL DEAL SAID TO OFFER NO THREAT.
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld will represent China National Offshore Oil Corp. and its bid for Unocal before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, according to a June 22 confidential engagement letter sent by attorney Rick Burdick to CNOOC CEO Chengyu Fu. China’s government is a 71 percent owner of CNOOC.

The CFIUS ruling could determine the fate of the deal, according to the July 13 New York Times.

Since its creation in `88, CFIUS, which is headed by Treasury Secretary Jack Snow, has reviewed whether foreign takeovers of American companies pose a threat to U.S. national security.

Those reviews largely concerned technology that could be used to develop weapons.

The Times, however, reports there is a “gathering groundswell in Congress to make sure oil is defined as a product vital to America’s national security.” That momentum could provide Chevron, CNOOC’s takeover rival, an edge for Unocal.

The Wall Street Journal also reported July 13 that CFIUS is not expected to probe the $18.5B CNOOC offer until Unocal shareholders vote next month on Chevron’s $16.8B bid.

The Akin Gump letter also says the firm will explain the Unocal transaction to Members of Congress and state legislators.

It will coordinate strategy with CNOOC financial advisors Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan.

Akin Gump will work closely with Public Strategies Inc. in “developing a roll out scenario and a general media plan.”

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) sent a letter to Akin Gump last week, questioning its role as “being on the payroll of the Chinese government.”

He wrote that it was inconceivable that any D.C. lobbying or law firm would have represented the Soviet Union if one of its state company’s made a bid for a U.S. firm during the Cold War.

WARSCHAWSKI GOES TO BAT FOR RIPKENS.
Ripken Baseball, the sales/marketing arm of Hall of Fame Baltimore Oriole Cal and brother Billy, has hired Warschawski PR to promote the `05 “Cal Ripken World Series” slated for Aug. 12-21.

The Ripkens are dedicated to re-energizing enthusiasm for baseball among youth, which have been preoccupied with electronic entertainment and competitor sports, such as basketball/soccer.

The WS will feature 15 teams of 11 and 12-year-old youngsters from around the world.

There will be ten teams representing the U.S, and squads from Australia, Canada, Mexico, Korea and the Dominican Republic.

They will play on the currently-being-constructed-“Cal Ripken Sr.’s Yard,” which is a youth-sized replica of Baltimore’s Camden Yards, located at RB’s Aberdeen sports complex.

The elder Ripken played, coached and managed in the Orioles system for 37 years.

He managed both sons on the big league team in `88, and died in ‘99.

SAUDIS SPEND $5.6M AT QORVIS.
Saudi Arabia spent $5.6M at Qorvis Communications during the six-month period ended March 31. The Kingdom spent $7.3M during the previous period.

The outlays were designed to promote the Kingdom’s commitment to the “war on terror” and peace in the Middle East, according to the Washington, D.C.-based firm’s Justice Dept. filing.

Qorvis geared up an extensive grassroots media effort that included editorial board meetings with the L.A. Times, Cedar Rapids Gazette (IA), Detroit Free Press, Kansas City Star and St. Louis Post Dispatch.

The Saudis also spent more than $300K for advertising and symposia conducted with The New Republic magazine.

On the political campaign front, Qorvis CEO Michael Petruzzello contributed $1,000 to South Dakota Republican John Thune who defeated Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle in the ‘04 election.

RHODE ISLAND HEARS MEDICARE PITCHES.
Rhode Island is looking for interested firms to develop a marketing and PR campaign to educate the state’s elderly population about its pharmaceutical assistance program and how it relates to Medicare Part D.

The Ocean State has earmarked $750K for the two-month campaign, which must include public service announcements, direct mail, town hall meetings and at least one “enrollment party,” among other PR efforts suggested by the firm.

There are about 38,000 participants in Rhode Island’s pharmaceutical assistance programs that are the target of the campaign.

The state’s Department of Elderly Affairs is administering the solicitation, which is slated to be awarded by August 1 and concluded by Sept. 31.

SCHWARZENEGGER DROPS MAG DEAL.
California Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has removed himself from the payroll of America Media after a storm of negative publicity triggered by Securities and Exchange Commission disclosures that he stood to earn at least $1M a year as a consultant to its two muscle magazines.

The BBC reported the former actor could have received up to $8M for his service during the next five years as a consultant to AM’s Flex and Muscle & Fitness magazines. The deal was structured to enable Schwarzenegger to earn up to one percent of the company’s advertising revenues.

The BBC and other major news outlets noted that the muscle mags receive much of their advertising revenues from dietary supplements, and that Schwarzenegger has vetoed a bill that would have had supplements regulated by Sacramento.

Jackie Speier, a Democrat in the California State Senate, called for the Governor to quit his consultant post because of the appearance of a conflict of interest.

A Schwarzenegger aide said the Governor did not get involved in sales or marketing activities at AMO. He wrote a monthly column for both mags, and provided overall editorial direction.

BLOGGER LEADS ANTI-PR CAMPAIGN.
The Internet became ablaze with anti-PR rants after Russell Beattie, a longtime blogger, who works for Yahoo! in Sunnyvale, Calif., said he is “seeing a notable downward trend in the quality of the discussion online” now that people in PR have “discovered” blogging.

Under the headline of “PR People Are Morons,” Beattie, whose one stint in PR lasted for six months at IBM in Boca Raton in 1994, said the great thing about blogging is “we were finally able to cut out these morons and get to the opinions and ideas of the people who actually contribute to the world!”

He said these “bull—— artists are sort of weaseling their way back into the conversation somehow and it’s annoying. And don’t misunderstand, these people aren’t trying to participate in the conversation, they’re trying to `influence’ it.”

Beattie is most annoyed with e-mails from PR people wanting him to talk about “this or that product.”

He said he also went through the comments on his blog recently and “deleted crap from PR people pretending to comment on a post to promote some (usually completely irrelevant) product or another.”

Beattie said he does blogging for fun, and is “not looking to fill column inches or dead airtime with your crap.”

He urged bloggers to delete e-mail from PR people. “Don’t even respond. Don’t link to their websites either. If someone claims to be some sort of PR expert, just ignore them. Don’t give them a voice. Let them link to each other in their own cesspool of pitches and press releases,” said Beattie.

His posting has attracted dozens of “comments” from readers and other PR bloggers. Most of them agree that PR people have begun to adversely impact blogs.

Michael Clarke, a Toronto-based publicist and a blogger, said Beattie wasn’t wrong, but “I don’t think he’s entirely fair either. It’s a sweeping generalization and, like absolutely all generalizations, it’s inherently flawed,” said Clarke.

BRITISH REPORTER RIPS U.S. PR PROS.
Brett Arends, a British journalist who joined the Boston Herald last summer as a business reporter, said PR people in the U.S. “wouldn’t last a week in London.”

“Nearly every day I find myself staring at the telephone handset in disbelief after dealing with yet another example of `Podunk PR,’” Arends wrote in the July 10 edition of the Sunday Herald.

He complained that press offices don’t return calls for four days; media teams can’t confirm basic facts about their company, and everyone leaves their office by 4:51 p.m. on a big news day.

“This sort of stuff would be a disciplinary offense in any decent PR office in the U.K.,” said Arends. “But it’s amazingly common over here. And it isn’t just Boston. It’s true in New York and elsewhere,” he said.

He said U.S. press officers “actually seem affronted if they ever have to talk to the press.”

He said some companies employ whole teams of “apparent mutes. I call them ‘Radio Shack PRs’ because they could be replaced, without any loss of functionality, by a ... Radio Shack answering machine.”

On the other hand, he said these “flacks” will proactively reach out to the press and offer an “exciting interview opportunity” with a “senior VP” who wants to talk about “the challenges facing his industry. They will then call five times a day to follow up.”

He said journalists get story ideas from a wide variety of independent sources. “But many press offices here, I’ve discovered, are simply incapable of co-operating with any story that they didn’t originate. It doesn’t matter if it’s positive, critical or neutral. Call them with an original question and they go to pieces,” said Arends.

TV PRODUCER ATTACKS MEDICAL VNRS.
Maria Dorfner, founder of NewsMD Communications, a production company specializing in health-related subjects, said TV stations “should not rely on prepackaged” health stories.

Dorfner, a veteran broadcaster who has focused on health writing, producing and reporting, told Broadcasting & Cable: “Many physicians who migrate to TV news believe their knowledge and understanding of medical terminology will make them better at communicating with the public. But since they lack actual reporting or producing skills, they end up relying heavily on prepackaged content. They quickly learn all they have to do is retrack the video with their own voice—and, presto, they’ve got a health story for the day.

“That is not good enough and is dangerous, as these stories are press releases promoting a product or service. Tempting as it may be, health reporters should not lean on satellite feeds to substitute for real medical reporting,” she said.

Dorfner also believes it is crucial for reporters to keep track of “experts” who will not talk or seem almost too eager to help.

“They may have a financial tie to a product, company or person related to the story. Reporters should find out who is talking and why or which medical institutions are offering access and why (or why not),” she said.

Media Numbers________

266—The number of media and information mergers and acquisitions that were completed in the first six months of 2005—compared to 231 in the first six months of last year, according to a report from The Jordan, Edmiston Group in New York.

935—The number of e-mail newsletters listed in the 2005 edition of the Oxbridge Directory of Newsletters, which is published in New York. In 2004, the directory listed 588 e-mail newsletters.

20,000—The number of new blogs created daily, according to a report by Edelman PR and Intelliseek.

49—The number of states and the District of Columbia that have adopted “shield laws” protecting journalists from having to divulge sources of information given them in confidence.

(Media news continued on next page)

CBS TO START ONLINE NEWS SERVICE.
CBS Digital Media and CBS News have announced plans for a major expansion of CBSNews.com, creating a 24-hour, multi-platform digital news network, bypassing cable TV in favor of a broadband distribution system.

In so doing, CBS News will move from a primary TV and radio news-based operation to a 24-hour on-demand news service, available across many platforms, drawing on the resources of the TV network, offering video clips, breaking news and reports from CBS correspondents.

The new site will mark the debut of “Public Eye,” a blog that will create a dialogue between CBS journalists and the public.

Vaughn Ververs, previously an editor of The Hotline, a daily web briefing on politics published by the National Journal, who will be the conduit between the public and CBS News, will go inside the news gathering, production and decision-making process via the use of original video and outtakes, interviews with correspondents and producers, and input from independent experts, among other methods.

The new site will also have a fully redesigned home page featuring “The EyeBox,” an on-page video player which makes breaking news video immediately available.

CBS correspondents will file, update and expand their stories throughout the day on CBSNews.com, and “CBS Evening News” anchor Bob Schieffer will host a daily online version of his TV broadcast and White House correspondents—John Roberts, Bill Plante and Mark Knoller—will produce weekly features to address viewers’ and users’ questions about their beat.

The online site’s staff will be doubled to about 60 people.

‘NET, TALK RADIO PROPEL BOOK SALES.
Ed Klein, author of “The Truth About Hillary,” attributes his controversial book’s success to the power of the Internet and conservative talk radio.

The former editor of the Sunday New York Times magazine believes Sen. Clinton’s people are putting pressure on media, especially broadcast outlets, not to interview him.

“Hillary and her people have called up...all the TV networks and the newspapers and said to them that if you give Ed Klein exposure, we’re not going to be very happy about it,” he told WABC Radio’s conservative commentator Monica Crowley.

The result: “I’ve been canceled on many of the TV shows that I was booked on,” Klein said, “and have not had my book reviewed by any of the major media.”

Klein appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity & Colmes” the day his book was released on June 21, but the network canceled three scheduled interviews with the author.

A wave of other cancellations followed, and CNN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight” and Sinclair Broadcasting’s News Central were the only other programs to interview Klein about his book.

The New Yorker magazine published a negative review of the book in its current issue.

Despite the media censorship, the book is on the New York Times best-seller list. It just debuted on Publisher’s Weekly best-seller list in the No. 4 slot.
The Times, which has yet to review the book, published a disclaimer attacking the book in a column that ran next to the best-seller list in its July 10 book review section.

L.A. TIMES PUTS SPOTLIGHT ON MEDIA.
“Current,” the new Sunday opinion section in the Los Angeles Times, which made its debut July 10, has five new columns devoted to the media business.

The following regular and rotating columns will appear:

—“Love Your Work”: A regular column by Joel Stein on Hollywood and America’s culture of entertainment.
—“Word Watch”: A spotlight on newsmakers or the media or both who abuse their verbal license.
—“Outside the Tent”: A rotating stable of writers will offer their criticism of the Times.
—“Mediavore”: A synthesis and critique of the week as fought out in magazines, radio, and TV or on the Internet. Each week, a biased observer offers their narrowly focused take on the good, bad and critically important issues as covered in a specific medium or across media.
—“Debriefing”: A Times reporter or editor offers an inside take on a small and, intriguing aspect of the journalistic trade.

Bob Sipchen is editor of “Current.”

PEOPLE_______

Geoffrey Precourt, a former editor of Point magazine, Fortune, Smart Money and Booz Allen’s Strategy and Business magazine, was named editor-in-chief of Business Empowered magazine, published quarterly by BearingPoint, a business consulting and system integration firm, based in McLean, Va.

Kitty Hearty was named editor of Show Circuit, an equestrian lifestyle magazine, based in Malibu, Calif.

Linda Fibich, 49, deputy bureau chief of Newhouse Newspapers’ Washington, D.C., bureau, will take over as bureau chief on Aug. 1, replacing Deborah Howell, who went to the Washington Post as its new ombudsman.

Fibich appointed Rick Beaudette, 56, executive news editor as her deputy.

Tom Squitieri, a 16-year-veteran of USA Today, who left the paper last May after being accused of using quotes from the Indianapolis Star, has joined Dittus Communications in Washington, D.C., as a senior media adviser.

Kelly Dove, who was director of PR for a leading workstation company in the entertainment and digital content creation industries, has joined Computer Graphics World magazine in Nashua, N.H., as editor-in-chief.

“Rovegate,” the attempt to make Presidential advisor Karl Rove take the hit for the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative, continued at full blast as of press time.

PR’s dog in this show is the jailing of New York Times reporter Judith Miller for refusing to give up her source on this story.

PRSA president Judith Phair has supported Miller’s right to have confidential sources. We applaud PRSA for this stand partly because it means PRSA leaders can no longer criticize this page when we cite “confidential sources” about PRSA topics.

Rigid party lines have now been drawn in this dispute with pro-Rove supporters refusing to budge and attackers (including Democrats, the liberal press, etc.) continuing their quest for more evidence.

As an example of the ferocity of the debate, Joseph Wilson, husband of Plame, was accused by the New York Post July 14 as having “lied thoroughly and repeatedly” about his wife’s role in sending him to Nigeria, lied about whether Saddam was seeking uranium there, and lied about whether Wilson’s mission was authorized by VP Richard Cheney or CIA director George Tenet.

The James Carville/Mary Matalin show, which played at the 2003 PRSA national conference in New Orleans, was the keynote presentation at the conference of the Int’l Assn. of Business Communicators June 26-29 in Washington, D.C.

Reporters at the IABC conference had to agree in writing not to use any “direct quotes” of either Carville or Matalin. Reporters had been forbidden to tape record C/M at the PRSA meeting.

IABC took a dive in agreeing to such conditions for C/M. It should have gotten other speakers since the entire 14,000 membership of IABC is helping to pay for the conference (not just the 1,400 in attendance) and they deserve to know what’s being said.

According to David Murray of The Ragan Report, which covered the IABC meeting, Carville told the IABCers exactly what he told PRSA members: that the “sound bite” is the best form of communication and no issue is too complicated for it.

Murray said the attendees had a good time and were satisfied with the networking events. But he found that with the exception of C/M at the beginning and Hewlett-Packard’s CEO Mark Hurd at the end, the meeting was “uninterrupted by a single inspirational mind-stretcher of questionable relevance to the work of professional communicators.”

One IABCer attending his first conference told Murray he was “surprised and disappointed to learn IABC was so internal-communication focused.”

New chair Warren Bickford of Canada and the new board (reduced to 12 from 24) considered an “advocacy” program on PR ethics and other current issues but tabled the idea.

IABC’s 2004 finances, released to the members nearly six months after the close of the fiscal year Dec. 31, 2004, included revenues of $4.6 million, providing a surplus of $163,416. IABC still has net assets of minus-$502,377 because of the $1M loss on the abortive website called “TalkingBusinessNow.”

The balance sheet shows $1.54M in “deferred dues,” which is more than half of dues income of $2.21M.

IABC does not book all dues immediately because it says it owes future services to members. It does not book income it has not earned.

Looking over the presentations of the three candidates for president-elect of PRSA (treasurer Rhoda Weiss and directors Steven Lubetkin and Tom Vitelli), we find none mention the problem of PRSA’s dysfunctional governance including the inordinate power of h.q. staff.

–We believe it is the staff, aided by a few past and current leaders, that bars senior members from working at h.q., a root cause of dysfunction.

–Staff controls the PRSA web and PRSA publications, omitting trips to be taken by staff and leaders (China, London, Trieste, Italy), dates of board meetings, or other subjects that might cause member concern (such as the legal pursuit of an anonymous e-mailer who criticized COO Catherine Bolton last Oct. 18).

–Staff refuses to post on the PRSA website an address book of the 290 Assembly delegates, making it easy for rank-and-file members to express their opinions to them. These e-mail addresses are readily available on chapter websites.

–The move downtown away from members and the media was staff motivated.

–The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, calling for outsiders on boards, has been ignored for years by PRSA. Vitelli, in his pitch, says there has been “much talk” about SOX at PRSA but no “rigorous process” for following its “spirit.”

–The 110 PRSA chapters are stroked into submission by staff and national leaders, partly via the “weekend in June in New York” for presidents-elect which costs $100K.

The 50 or so chapters with 100 or fewer members like having their inordinate voting power in the Assembly and no leader appears ready to challenge this inequity by the obvious reform of proportional voting (one vote per chapter member).

Weiss, in her pitch, says organizations improve “by passionately embracing change.” We don’t see any change being advocated for PRSA.

–25 or more staffers go to the national conference each year although PRSA members in the conference city, who are just as expert in handling meetings, could do the job, saving $$.

Lubetkin wants more help for PR pros who are forced to start their own firms while Vitelli notes PRSA has been hit with “alarming declines” in support by big PR firms and corporations.

– Jack O'Dwyer