PENTAGON DRAFTS $8M FOREIGN MEDIA RFP.
The Defense Department has drafted a request for proposals to review its $8M pact with the PR firm The Rendon Group to analyze and track foreign media coverage of the Pentagon’s so-called Global War on Terrorism.

StratComm told this website that it wanted to foster competition, which includes tracking and analyzing foreign print, online and broadcast media in languages like Arabic, Urdu and Pashtu, especially relating anti-terror operations.

Rendon was awarded no-bid assignments for military PR following the 9/11 terror attacks and has handled the foreign media analysis work for about a year and a half. It has 56 staffers on the account.

To date, 49 media monitoring shops have expressed an interest in the RFP, including Medialink, TV Eyes, Factiva and Thomson – Dialog. Ubiquitous defense contractors like Raytheon and Titan Corp. are also looking at the solicitation.

StratCom is eyeing a one-year base contract with four option years.

Building databases of key communicators and media outlets, analyzing the perception of U.S. actions and communication, and identifying vulnerabilities are some of the assignments expected of a contractor.

A firm would be required to “map” media outlets in areas deemed critical to achieving U.S. objectives in the “war on terror.”

A firm must be able to have staffers at StratCom’s headquarters at Offut Air Force Base in Omaha, Neb., and off-site on a 24/7 schedule during critical periods.

DUNKIN’ DONUTS SERVES RF BINDER.
Dunkin’ Donuts has handed its $2M PR account to RF Binder Partners, which nosed out Marina Maher Communications in a competitive pitch.

Omnicom’s Fleishman-Hillard was the incumbent.
RFB has done project work for Dunkin’ Donuts, which has more than $3.5 billion in U.S. sales. Dunkin’ Donuts is part of Allied Domecq. RF Binder is a Ruder Finn Group unit.

SanofiPasteur, the Swiftwater, Pa.-based vaccine maker, is looking to hire a corporate communications director. Healthcare experience is a must… Citigroup needs a VP/director of public affairs to support its North American credit card operations. The position is in New York City. Arnold Huberman Assocs. is handling the searches. Resumes go to [email protected]. No phone calls.

CHINA HIRES PB TO BOOST U.S. TIES.
Patton Boggs is looking for a “mutually gratifying relationship” with the People’s Republic of China, according to a confidential July 11 engagement letter written by Mark Cowan, a PB partner.

Cowan’s letter to Su Ge, Minister Counselor at China’s Washington, D.C., embassy says PB will receive $22,000 a month as it handles Congressional matters for its client. The letter is light on specifics.

Cowan is a key player in the D.C. public affairs arena. He founded The Jefferson Group and held positions at Cassidy & Assocs., Hill & Knowlton and Gray & Co.

He will work on the account with Tim Chorda, the former U.S. Ambassador to Singapore, and Bob Horn, Chairman of the Republican National Lawyers Assn. who was the lead attorney in Broward County, Florida, during the 2000 recount.

U.S./China ties have been strained over trade matters, and the recent Congressional opposition to China National Offshore Oil Co.’s takeover bid for Unocal.

Fenton Communications is promoting the story of Cindy Sheehan, the Gold Star Mother who went to Crawford, Tex., for a meeting with President Bush. The New York Times called Sheehan a “media phenomenon.”

The Wall Street Journal reported that the Sheehan publicity is upsetting White House plans to use Bush’s Texas vacation to control the media and political agenda.

Casey Sheehan was killed in an ambush in Iraq.

JONES PLAYS FOR NINTENDO.
Stephen Jones, a high-tech PR guru, has joined GolinHarris as an executive VP in Los Angeles.

He will handle Nintendo, GH’s biggest account, and be responsible for the 30-member team working on the games business in L.A., Seattle and New York.

Jones reports to Judy Johnson, who heads GH’s western region. She lauds Jones’ experience in the consumer electronics, enterprise computing and entertainment sectors.

Before joining the Interpublic unit, Jones was managing director of Ogilvy PR Worldwide’s global technology practice. He represented clients such as Sun Microsystems and Legato.

Earlier, Jones was an associate director in Ketchum’s Silicon Valley office, handling Federal Express, Deloitte Consulting and IDG.

Jones also worked in journalism (BusinessWeek, ComputerWorld, and San Jose Business Journal).
Nintendo is a 13-year GolinHarris client.

RF MARKS AMERICA’S 400TH BIRTHDAY.
Ruder Finn has won the $750K account to promote America’s 400th anniversary as PR firm for Jamestown 2007, Barbara Shipley, managing director of the firm’s Washington, D.C., office told O’Dwyer’s. The account is worth $500K in fees to RF.

“We will shine a spotlight on the impact that Jamestown had on America and the rest of the world,” said Shipley.

RF is to commemorate the four legacies of the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. Shipley identified those legacies as democracy, rule of law, cultural diversity and entrepreneurship.

RF will handle media relations, do celebrity outreach and line up sponsorships for the events. Shipley said other RF offices, such as its London unit, will pitch in on the Jamestown account.

The celebration, which continues into `08, peaks in May `07 with “America’s Anniversary Weekend” roster of events.

Jamestown 2007, which is part of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, also has plans to celebrate 225th anniversary of the Revolutionary War victory at Yorktown, which ultimately led to the expulsion of the British from the U.S.

British General Charles Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington on Oct. 19, 1781.

Ross Richardson, of Jamestown 2007, said seven firms responded to the RFP, and RF edged two finalists, which he would not name.

WEBER SHANDWICK HIRES SCHEFFT.
Weber Shandwick has hired Jen Schefft, the former star of ABC’s “The Bachelorette” and “The Bachelor” reality TV shows as a senior account executive in Chicago, Cathy Calhoun, head of the office and global consumer marketing co-president, told O’Dwyer’s.

Schefft was engaged to Firestone Tire fortune heir Andrew Firestone before a national audience of 17.5 million.

Calhoun calls her well-qualified for PR, citing five years of experience at Getty Images selling photos to ad agencies/PR firms and news outlets, and her summa cum laude degree from Ohio University (Athens), where she studied PR/advertising and journalism.

Schefft, according to Calhoun, understands pop culture, and will be a natural fit counseling WS packaged goods clients. She will initially handle Unilever’s personal care products.

Schefft, 29, also will get a “lot of training,” added the WS exec.

Calhoun said WS didn’t seek any publicity for hiring Schefft. WS did not put out a release, but Calhoun suspects that one of the other firms who wanted to hire Schefft may have tipped off Chicago Sun-Times ad columnist Lewis Lazare, who wrote about “Bachelorette’s new reality in PR” on Aug. 11.

After her engagement to Firestone, Schefft moved to the West Coast, where she worked as a sales manager for the Firestone Family Vineyards, and as a goodwill ambassador for the tiremaker.

She moved back to Chicago after she broke up with Firestone.

SEITEL OFFERS PR WRITING COURSE.
Fraser Seitel, author of one of the most widely used college PR texts, The Practice of Public Relations, is offering a six-week writing course for PR pros covering basic and advanced PR writing techniques.

Students will be e-mailed a new lecture each Monday and Friday on topics such as PR writing philosophy; news releases that work; round-up stories that get used; pitch letters that attract interviews; internal communications that get read, and external speeches that get remembered.

Students will submit writing samples for review and feedback.

As part of the course, students will receive full access to the O’Dwyer website and a special web page for those who are enrolled in the course.

Cost is $495 per student. Further information and sign-up is handled by e-mailing [email protected].

FLORIDA SHRIMPERS REVIEW PR.
Florida wild shrimp industry, which has been stung in recent years from rising foreign imports, is reviewing its PR account and accepting proposals from firms through late August.

The Sunshine State’s Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which oversees the marketing of Florida shrimp, has issued an RFP for an outside PR firm to bolster the campaign. Tallahassee-based Moore Consulting Group is the incumbent.

The state wants a firm to complement its in-house staff and help create recognition of the “Ask for Shrimp from Florida” logo, boost awareness of “Wild and Wonderful” campaign, and promote the health benefits of Florida’s wild, ocean-caught shrimp.

The DACS notes that, in the last few years, imports of foreign shrimp – from countries like India, Brazil and Vietnam – are up 17 percent while domestic prices have plunged 29 percent.

Proposals are being accepted through August 25. Questions about the RFP are directed to Christie Hutchinson ([email protected]).

KEKST GUIDES HILFIGER THROUGH INQUIRY.
Kekst and Co. is representing Tommy Hilfiger Corp. as the marketer of the iconic clothing brand settles a U.S. Attorney’s inquiry about whether it shuffled payments to foreign subsidiaries to avoid U.S. taxes.

The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, David Kelley, was investigating whether the Hong Kong-incorporated company was paying overseas units to reduce its U.S. tax bill from 1990-2004. Hilfiger’s base of operations is in New York.

The Attorney’s Office said on Aug. 10 that it will not pursue criminal tax charges and Hilfiger has agreed to pay $18.1 million ($15.4M in taxes and $2.7M in interest), in addition to filing amended returns for 2001-2004 and adopting an ethics and compliance program.

Kekst partners Rith Pachman and Wendi Kopsick are handling press inquiries for Hilfiger.

Dan Klores Communications has been Hilfiger’s main PR firm for consumer work since last year.

Hilfiger markets the Tommy Hilfiger and Karl Lagerfeld brands.

PUBLICIST IS HIRED AS EDITOR.
Judith Lederman, president of JSL Publicity & Marketing in New Rochelle, N.Y., has joined the Westchester WAG as editor of the three-year-old magazine, which features trendy stories.

“For all the PR executives who have heard the door slam on their pitches, I invite them to try pitching me,” said Lederman, who is interested in any news, venues, services, or outlets that WAG readers will find “exciting, fashionable, trendy, and new.”

She said WAG covers health and beauty, parties, and fund-raisers on a regular basis. She is also interested in getting interviews with high-profile people who live in Westchester.

Lederman, who will have an office at the magazine’s New Rochelle headquarters, is succeeding Emily Liebert, daughter-in-law of WAG’s publisher Mary Ann Liebert.

WAG, which has a circulation of about 50,000, has an audience of “upper echelon, 40-plus readers,” who are mainly female, according to Lederman, whose resume includes a year at Rubenstein Assoc. in 1996, where she wrote speeches for Mia Farrow and Benjamin Netanyahu, and Geltzer & Co.

“I am well aware of the ‘editor-publicist’ conflict of interest problem,” said Lederman, who emphasized she believes in the “church and state” separation between editorial and ad/PR.

She will turn over any “interesting stories” involving her clients to Liebert to handle as she sees fit.
Publicists can pitch Lederman at 914/740-2151; e-mail: [email protected]. Her cell phone is 914/589-4990.

HOW TO PITCH A PRIZE-WINNING COLUMNIST.
Anna Quindlen, who has won several writing awards, pays attention to “a handful” of pitches from PR people.

“One in particular can call me anytime because she is a model of the form,” Quindlen, who writes a column for Newsweek, told Alison Stateman, managing editor of The Strategist, a magazine published for members of PRSA.

Quindlen, who will speak at PRSA’s 2005 annual conference in Miami, said her favorite publicist “almost always pitches things that I could conceivably be interested in.”

“She has specific ideas that are not egregiously client-oriented; in other words, I could write [about it] without feeling icky about being in the tank for some institution or entity.

“And, two sentences in, if I say, ‘I don’t think so,’ she stops. She knows I know what works for me,” said Quindlen.

As a result, she said her clients are “seamlessly mentioned in my pieces from time to time.”

“She knows me, she knows my work, and she knows how my mind works. And that makes all the difference,” she said.

The title of PRSA’s conference is “Many Beats-One Rhythm: Creating Harmony through PR.”

NEW MAG TACKLES FERTILITY PROBLEMS.
The first issue of Fertility Today magazine is available to readers in doctors’ offices nationwide and internationally.

Infertility affects approximately 17% of all couples in the U.S., which translates into more than 12 million couples in the U.S.

Almost two million couples seek help from infertility specialists each year.

Dr. Diana Broomfield, an infertility specialist, who is the founder/editor of Fertility Today, believes the magazine can bring infertility issues out into the mainstream from behind closed doors of shame, humiliation, and embarrassment into an arena of support and candid discussion.

Fertility Today will be written, edited and backed by the Advisory and Editorial Board of American Board Certified Reproductive Endocrinologists, along with infertility specialists, urologists, mental health practitioners, and top legal experts.

The magazine will provide first-person accounts of men and women who are battling infertility.

Jocelyn Coleman of Favor PR and Ramon Broomfield are handling press inquiries, celebrity cover bookings and story pitches. Coleman can be reached at 310/968-5624, and Broomfield is at 917/407-0746.

PLACEMENT TIPS________

Golf Living Magazine, which will be available beginning Sept. 1 in 28 of the most affluent Southern California ZIP codes, will focus on golf travel destinations; and will also cover real estate, golf personalities and equipment picks.

An annual special issue focused on “Best In The West,” real estate will be published in 2006 by the quarterly.

George Fuller, former editor of Links magazine, is editor-in-chief. Editorial offices are located at 202 W. 1st, Los Angeles, Calif. 90012.

Journalists can request a free copy of the 2005/06 Source Book of Multicultural Experts, published by Multicultural Marketing Resources, a New York-based PR firm.

The Source Book has listings of experts, categorized by industry and market segment.

The book can be ordered online via www.multicultural.com.

Media numbers________

80–The percentage of journalists in Bennett & Co.’s annual media survey who said they had spoken with a PR pro in the past week.

2–The percentage of online users in the U.S. who read blogs once a week or more, according to a survey by Forrester Research.

48–Percentage of NYTimes.com readers that meet the criteria for influentials/opinion leaders, according to a Roper Public Affairs & Media study of 4,120 users.

(Media news continued on next page)

GOOGLE: PUB WENT TOO FAR IN GOOGLING.
Google, the search engine company, has blackballed online technology news service Cnet News.com for googling its CEO Eric Schmidt.

A Google spokesman told a Cnet editor that it will not speak with Cnet reporters until next July, according to Jai Singh, editor-in-chief of Cnet News.com in San Francisco.

“We published a story that recounted how we found information on the (Google) CEO in a public forum using their service,” Singh said. “They had issue with the fact that they felt it was private information and our point is it was public information obtained through public channels using Google search.”

Google declined to comment, according to several media outlets.

The Cnet article, written by Elinor Mills, pointed out that Google, which is used by more than half of U.S. Internet users, has potential for privacy invasion, especially through data it collects that is not available to the public, such as logs of Google searches.

JANE AND ELLE GIRL GET NEW EDITORS.
Brandon Holley, who is editor-in-chief of ELLEgirl, will take over as editor of Jane magazine on Aug. 15.

Christina Kelly, who is executive editor of ELLEgirl, was named to replace Holley as editor-in-chief.

Holley, 38, a former contributor to the magazine, joined ELLEgirl in 2001 as its founding editor.

Kelly, 43, who joined ELLEgirl a year ago, was editor-in-chief of YM before it was folded into Teen Vogue.

PEOPLE_______

Tanya Steel, previously New York editor at Bon Appetit magazine, was named editor-in-chief of Epicurious.com.

Kelley Damore, formerly editor-in-chief of CMP Media’s Computer Reseller News, and Michael Ybarra, previously with the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, have joined the staff of Tech Target’s Information Security and CIO Decisions magazines, respectively, as editor-in-chief and senior features writer.

Bruce Vernyi, previously a senior editor at IndustryWeek, was named editor-in-chief for Penton’s Cleveland-based American Machinist Group publications, which includes American Machinist, Welding Design & Fabrication, Cutting Technology, Gases & Welding Distributor and the websites.

Hugo Kugiya and Erin McClam were named national writers at the Associated Press in New York, reports Jerry Schwartz, editor of AP NewsFeatures.

Bob Anez, who was the AP’s chief statehouse correspondent in Helena, Mont., for 24 years, has joined the state Dept. of Corrections as communications director at an annual salary of $67,500, according to the AP.

Cynthia MacGregor, who has more than 20 years of editing experience and 50 published books to her credit, has joined Poker Pro magazine in Deerfield Beach, Fla., as managing editor.

Emily Church, previously bureau chief in London for MarketWatch, has rejoined Reuters as U.S. editor of its digital media outlets.

WORTH NOTING________

The Media Center, the Reston, Va.-based think tank funded by the American Press Institute, will hold a conference on Oct. 5 in New York at the headquarters of the Associated Press, to discuss such topics as citizen journalism; activism and democracy; media gawking; culture, politics and buzz; marketing, and trust networks.

Richard Edelman, president/CEO of Edelman PR, is on the list of about 30 confirmed speakers, according to Gloria Pan, communications director for the Media Center, who can be reached at 703/715-3301 for more information.

Mallory Factor, a 55-year-old banker and former PR specialist, who five years ago was a political nobody, has become “a leader of a tiny but powerful army of New York conservatives whose checkbooks sustain the national Republican majority,” according to a report by Ryan Lizza in the current issue of New York Magazine.

Lizza said Factor is now the “guy to see to unlock the essential political commodities—money and media—that all GOP candidates come searching for in Manhattan.”

Sony Pictures Entertainment has to pay $1.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit accusing the studio of citing a fake movie critic for a Connecticut-based weekly newspaper in ads for several films.

The lawsuit, originally filed by two California moviegoers, claimed the ads fooled the plaintiffs into seeing “A Knight’s Tale.”

In one ad for the movie, a critic identified as “David Manning of The Ridgefield Press” was quoted calling star Heath Ledger “this year’s hottest new star!”

In an ad for “The Animal,” Manning was quoted declaring “The producing team of ‘Big Daddy’ has delivered another winner!” At the time, the Ridgefield Press did not have a movie critic named David Manning.

American Public Media, which produces programs for public radio stations, is getting a $2.1 million grant from the Tides Foundation to support expanded news coverage and programming on global sustainability and the economy.

The grant, which will be disbursed over three years, will support the creation of a new editorial desk for APM’s Marketplace business programs, including “Marketplace,” “Marketplace Morning Report,” and “Marketplace Money,” a personal finance program.

More than 325 public radio stations air the Marketplace programs. With a weekly audience of more than 8.5 million, the combined programs have more listeners than any other business news program on TV or radio.

JJ Yore is executive producer of Marketplace, which is produced in Los Angeles and has five domestic bureaus plus bureaus in London and Tokyo.

Renita Coleman and Lee Wilkins, journalism professors who studied the “ethical reasoning” of ad people and found there was not much of it (4/27 NL), have won a $10,000 grant from the Arthur W. Page Center to perform the same test on PR pros.

The Center is at Penn State and is not related to the Arthur W. Page Society, New York.

PR pros will be given the “Issues Defining Test,” which 30,000+ professionals have taken over the past 30 years.

They will be asked to choose between two “goods” or two “evils,” such as whether they would take a multi-million dollar beer account even though they feel alcoholism is a big problem, or urge a client to use a minority in a campaign knowing the client was opposed to that particular minority group.

Ad people didn’t hesitate in taking on the beer account despite personal beliefs against promoting alcoholic drinks.

They ranked at the bottom in “ethical reasoning” along with auditors, prison inmates and junior high school students.

At the top were seminarians, medical students, doctors, journalists and nurses.

Coleman is at the University of Texas/Austin while Wilkins is at the Missouri School of Journalism.

We sent the ad-related pages of The Moral Media for comment to Ron Berger, chair of the American Assn. of Adv. Agencies and CEO of Euro RSCG; Burtch Drake, 4As president, and Kipp Cheng, 4As VP-PA. They haven’t spoken to us since.

The combining of the PRSA regular and Foundation boards created a legal mess that a new law firm is trying to clear up (page 7). This is far more than a legal problem but a problem of the mixed-up priorities of PRSA staff and leaders.

PRSA grossed $10.9 million in 2004 but the Foundation only had a measly $174,131 in revenues in 2003 (latest year available).

PRSA leaders and staff this year have budgeted $688,542 for travel, hotels, meals and related expenses. Already spent as of June 30 was $306,000.

The $688K would rival the record $717K spent in 2001 when the board went to London.

“Leaders” spent $243,431 on travel, etc. in 2004; sections, $41,083; national conference, $42,255; APR program, $13,302, and Global Initiative, $14,591.

We’re not told the district expenses since these were removed as a separate item in 1992. KPMG had urged that year that the districts be abolished as a waste of about $40K a year.

Peer groups IABC and NIRI spend nowhere near this percentage of revenues on travel, meals, etc. NIRI, with $5.8M in income, spent $63K on travel in 2003 while IABC ($4M) spent $58K.

Their volunteers pay their own way. Their staffs don’t travel like PRSA’s. There’s no need for 25 or more PRSA staffers at the national conference when 4-5 used to go (local volunteers were used).

Was there a need this year for COO Catherine Bolton and three PRSA leaders to go to China for ten days; three leaders to go to Italy for a conference and Phair to go to London to the Chartered Institute for PR?

If PRSA leaders and staff are not going to fund the Foundation by less travel, meals, etc., why should anyone else?

The $100K weekend-in-New York for chapter presidents-elect would be a nice gift.

While neglecting the Foundation, PRSA has splurged $3,074,871 since 1987 on its increasingly less popular APR program.

This is a costly benefit for a handful of members. Since only 149 new PRSA APRs were created in 2003-04 and the net loss at PRSA on this was $246,161 for those two years, the average cost of a new PRSA APR was $1,652 (after the $300 personally paid by each candidate).

Had funds for this program that benefits the few been put into the Foundation, millions of dollars would have been available to benefit the many.

The APRs who control PRSA have made APR so expensive ($275 plus $25 application fee), time-consuming (Readiness Review, computer-test) and possibly irrelevant (5% of questions are on “media relations”) that we think they like the low turnout.

If almost all members were APR, that would make the designation almost meaningless and there no longer would be a small ruling class of APRs.

The Universal Accreditation Board’s July 25 press release on the completion of the first two years of the new APR process illustrates the need for reform in press relations at the UAB and PRSA.

The release left out a key piece of information, that one of the ten groups, the Society for Healthcare Strategy & Market Development, had dropped out.

The Puerto Rico PR Assn. is mentioned four times, twice each in Spanish and English.

Only results of the second quarter of 2005 were given, forcing us to chase after UAB volunteers, who don’t hesitate to say they’re busy with their personal and business lives. Repeated e-mails were needed to get basic facts.

Meanwhile, Kathy Mulvihill, the PRSA staffer who works fulltime on APR at PRSA at an indicated salary/benefits of $73,223, was not allowed to help.

This system seems calculated to create a lot of extra work for reporters covering PRSA.

It’s obvious the eight other UAB organizations did not get to see the July 25 release or they would have corrected it.

Given this poor handiwork of the UAB itself, we don’t see how APRs can claim to be superior to non-APRs. The second quarter UAB results have yet to be posted on praccreditation.org.

– Jack O'Dwyer