RENDON ADDS $6.4M PENTAGON JOB.
The Pentagon’s Joint Contracting Command– Iraq/Afghanistan awarded The Rendon Group a $6.4 million one-year contract effective Sept. 25. The “strategic communications operation support” work is to be conducted in Baghdad. The Command solicited seven bids for the work, and received two.

John Rendon’s firm was retained by the Pentagon in the aftermath of 9/11. The firm staged the pomp surrounding the liberation of Kuwait City during the Persian Gulf War, and forged the Iraqi National Congress as political opposition to Saddam Hussein.

TRG is the incumbent on an $8M contract to analyze foreign media coverage of the so-called “Global War on Terror” for the Defense Department. Over 50 firms have lined up to compete for that account. The review is slated to begin this month.

TANAKA TOASTS WITH SPANISH WINE.
Patrice Tanaka & Company has landed the nearly $5M, four-year assignment to develop an integrated marketing campaign for the wines of Spain’s Rioja region.

The firm picked up the business in a pitch against global firms (Ketchum), as well as boutique shops. Patrice Tanaka told O’Dwyer’s the Rioja region is the “oldest and most prestigious wine-growing area in Spain, but it has been losing ground to other producer sections.”

The Rioja region is home to more than 1,400 wineries, and nearly 20,000 grape growers.

PT&C will reach Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y audiences for PR via Internet marketing, advertising, on/off-premise promotion, special events and “product seeding” among influencers.

YOUNG OUT OF BAXTER.
Sally Benjamin Young (47) plans to step down from her VP-communications post at Baxter Healthcare by the end of the year.

CEO Robert Parkinson is deciding whether to use an executive search firm to find a replacement, Young told O’Dwyer’s.

Tom Kline, VP external communications, is the No. 2 PR executive at the Deerfield, Ill.-based company. He was recruited from Whirlpool.

Young joined Baxter from G.D. Searle, where she was VP- corporate communications. She also had jobs at Caremark International, Boots Pharmaceuticals, Porter Novelli and Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Baxter had $9.5B in `04 revenues. It employs more than 48,000 people.

WILLIAMS PACT VIOLATED PROPAGANDA BAN.
Ketchum’s controversial pact with commentator Armstrong Williams for the Dept. of Education, which lead to widespread criticism of the PR industry, violated the government’s ban on covert propaganda, according to the Government Accountability Office.

A deal between the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services and syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher to promote a marriage program did not violate the ban because it was not partisan or covert, the GAO also reported on Sept. 30.

The Congressional oversight agency said Ketchum’s $240K pact with Williams and the U.S. Dept. of Education violated propaganda rules because the government’s role was not clearly disclosed. The deal had Williams creating ads and discussing the No Child Left Behind Act on his syndicated talk show to cultivate minority support for the law.

Ketchum’s other work with the Education Dept. was also investigated. An article distributed by North American Precis Syndicate was also flagged for not disclosing its source, and a video news release was said not to be properly sourced, the GAO found.

The GAO probe came at the request of Sens. Ten Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.).

IPG POSTS $139M LOSS, RESTATES $514M.
Interpublic posted a $139.4 million first-half loss compared to a $182 million deficit in the `04 period. The performance follows a restatement of $514 million in earnings from `00 through the third-quarter of last year.

CEO Michael Roth says IPG has reached a “new level of transparency” in terms of disclosure and the way it does business.

IPG’s first-half revenue was up 1.5 percent to $3B. Roth said the firm is clearly not where it wants to be either on the revenue or the expense side.

The ad/PR conglom reduced retained earnings by $56M as a result of its anti-fraud probe.

MIAMI CHAPTER BLASTS PRSA LEADERS.
The Miami chapter of PRSA, backed by six other chapters in the Sunshine district, has criticized national leadership on a number of fronts including “operating in a climate of secrecy.”

The chapter says that a new bylaw letting the executive committee “serve as an efficient and flexible extension of the full board” would turn the rest of the board into “eunuchs.”

Mark Schilansky, foot doctor and parliamentarian,

(continued on page 7)

SITRICK COUNSELS WRITERS GUILD.
The Writers Guild of America, west is receiving PR support from Sitrick and Co. in New York as the union kicks off a drive against the rise of product placements in TV programs to coincide with an annual advertising industry bash.

Singling out reality TV programs, which have cut into paying gigs for Guild members, WGAw president Patric Verrone said that product integration is blurring the line between advertising and content. “It is time for the advertising industry and the networks to recognize that unbridled product integration is a disservice to the American audience,” he said. “What’s next, the 30-second sitcom?”

Sitrick managing director Allan Mayer told O’Dwyer’s the firm was asked to handle press for the Guild’s New York demonstration against product placements. He said the Los Angeles-based group normally handles its own press relations, but it doesn’t have a Big Apple PR presence. He noted Sitrick has counseled the WGAw since March 2004.

WGAw is particularly irked that writers do not have a presence at Advertising Age’s Madison and Vine conference Sept. 29 on branded entertainment and product placements. Guild members protested outside of the M&V event to note that writers are usually the professionals tapped to actually place products into a script.

OLSON LEADS COMMS. FOR CARLSON.
Kim Olson, director of brand PR for General Mills, has resigned that post and is slated to move on to hotelier, restaurateur and travel services specialist Carlson Companies in the new role of VP/chief comms. officer.

Olson is slated to join Carlson’s executive committee and report directly to CEO Marilyn Carlson Nelson. Nelson said the creation of the new post is part of the company’s effort to transform into “a more integrated operating company.”

Olson resigned the General Mills post in August and transition plans have not yet been announced by the company.

She told O’Dwyer’s that she’s “very excited” about the new position and praised her time with GM.

Olson remains at GM and will join Carlson in November.

Carlson brands include Regent International Hotels, Radisson Hotels & Resorts, TGI Friday’s Restaurants and SeaMaster Cruises, among several others. Company owned units posted sales of $8.4 billion in 2004.

GRUBMAN PR LAUNCHES RANGE ROVER SUV.
Land Rover used Lizzie Grubman PR to promote an event that launched its Range Rover Sport SUV, which starts at $56,750, at the swank Hamilton Horse Farm in New Jersey last week.

CEO publicist Lizzie Grubman, who famously plowed her Mercedes SUV into16 people standing outside the Conscience Point night club in the Hamptons on July 7, ’01, wasn’t at the event. She was charged with 26 counts and served 60 days in jail.

LGPR staffer Sabrina Levine handles the LR account. A LR official told O’Dwyer’s that a marketing person would call with details. He didn’t.

ATTENDANTS BOYCOTT ‘FLIGHTPLAN.’
The nation’s flight attendants are calling for a boycott of Jodie Foster’s “Flightplan” for its portrayal of a flight attendant and an air marshal as terrorists. The Assn. of Flight Attendants, Assn. of Professional Flight Attendants and Transport Workers Union, which represents Southwest Airlines’ attendants, issued a Sept. 27 call for their combined 80,000 members at 23 airlines to boycott the Touchstone Pictures’ flick.

Patricia Friend, AFA president, called her members the “first line of defense on an aircraft who put their lives on the line day after day for the safety of passengers.”

She says the movie undermines the image of attendants as “first responders.”

APFA president Tommie Hutto-Blake warned in the event of another 9/11 hijacking, “it would be critical for the cabin crew to have the support of their passengers, not the distrust that this movie may engender.”

The film also shows the attendants rude to Foster and unhelpful in the character’s search for her missing child in the aircraft.

Touchstone is a Disney unit. A Disney spokesperson said Flightplan is an “action thriller,” not meant to be a slap against the image of flight attendants.

Flightplan debuted as a No. 1 box office hit.

KEMP QUARTERBACKS IVORY COAST’S PR.
Kemp Partners, the firm headed by former Buffalo Bills star quarterback, New York Congressman and former Vice Presidential candidate Jack Kemp, has a four-month contact worth $450K with the Ivory Coast.

The pact went into effect June 21 shortly after a peace treaty was signed to end a civil war in the world’s largest cocoa producer. KP’s job was to improve the western Africa nation’s “interaction with officials from the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Executive Branch.”

The agreement is to run up until Oct. 30, the date that Presidential elections are to be held in the Ivory Coast. Those elections, according to a Sept. 24 Reuters report, are now up in the air.

Kemp’s son, Jim, also works on the account. He played eight seasons in the Canadian Football League, retiring as quarterback for the Toronto Argonauts.

Jack Kemp was co-founder of Empower America, a group dedicated to spreading freedom and democratic capitalism throughout the world.

NOONAN RUSSO HIRES PERRY.
Diane Perry, who once headed Hill & Knowlton’s New York corporate/financial practice and served as interim general manager of the office, has joined Noonan Russo as managing director.

Reporting to CEO Tony Russo, Perry is in charge of investor relations and new business development at the Euro RSCG Life PR unit.

Perry has held executive VP posts at Weber Shandwick and Edelman. She was at Gavin Anderson and joins NR from Kodora Communications.

During her more than 20-year career, Perry advised U.S. Surgical, Kodak Health Imaging, Embrex, Cole Water and Hyal Pharmaceuticals.

She began as a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch.

WRITERS TEST DRIVE ‘GREEN’ CARS.
The Green Car Journal, which covers viewpoints from auto and environmental leaders, sponsored "Mediadrive" at the conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists last week in Austin.

Journalists got an opportunity to drive a wide array of vehicles ranging from near-zero emission gasoline, hybrid electric, and advanced diesel to those running on natural gas, biodiesel and hydrogen.

Ron Cogan, editor and publisher of GCJ, said those are the “very journalists who will be writing about autos, energy, and the environment in the year to come.”

More than 20 vehicles from Ford, General Motors, Honda, Toyota, the Diesel Technology Forum, and the National Biodiesel Board were on hand.

The magazine’s Fall issue has articles on the new Honda Civic Hybrid, Chevy's ethanol E85 Avalanche, and Ford's near-zero emission gasoline Fusion PZEV.

N.Y. POST CHANGES RESTAURANT REVIEWS.
The New York Post is changing the way it covers restaurants.

Steve Cuozzo, the Post's restaurant reviewer, is starting a new column called “Free Range,” in which he will provide “more useful – and interesting – information than you'll glean from reviews that read like cooking courses and turn stale overnight.”

“Instead of trolling through one eatery each week, we'll tell you what's happening at more than one place, in the kitchen or on the floor,” he told readers of the paper.

Cuozzo said with 5,000 new seats coming this fall, the dining millions are entitled to the truth. And truth is no longer best conveyed by the antique practice of eating one's way through a new place every week.

Cuozzo said younger diners are no longer listening to critics anymore. “Critics lost clout to the Zagat Survey, televised ‘rock star’ chefs and the instantaneous omniscience of the web,” he said.

Cuozzo said another reason for abandoning conventional reviews is “you can't trust the critics.”

Cuozzo said the mystique of old-fashion reviews was built on the “myth of ‘anonymous’ visits. But all the New York critics are spotted the moment they walk in... No reviewer today has one-eighth the influence that Mimi Sheraton had 25 years ago,” he said.

He also blamed publicists who “constantly nag critics to review their joint because it has a new chef." In fact, it’s the best reason not to bother – because if there’s a new chef today, there will likely be one tomorrow.”

He said the chef at the last restaurant he reviewed was reported leaving for a new steakhouse downtown on the same day that the review appeared.“Of all the reviews I filed since the start of last year, I'd take back a third of them,” he said.

Briefs________

The Boston Globe and National Geographic Adventure magazine were top winners in the 21st annual Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition, which is run by the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation and judged by the faculty at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Tom Haines of the Boston Globe won the Travel Journalist of the Year award for his accounts from Cambodia, Russia, Venezuela and the Sudan.

Glam.com, a new fashion website which started Sept. 13, got more than 100,000 unique women visitors in its first week.

The website, which has offices in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York, covers fashion, beauty and celebrities coupled with embedded e-commerce, enabling women to view merchandise from the selection of premium and luxury retailers and brands.

Users said Glam.com had the look and feel of a glossy fashion magazine like Lucky or Vogue along with the added benefit of being able to click on any of the site's more than 10,000 products, which are linked directly to retailer's websites.

Lonely Planet founders, Tony and Maureen Wheeler, who publish the travel guidebooks, are winners of the first Eric Friedheim Lifetime Achievement Award for Travel Journalism, given by American University’s School of Communication and the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation.

The award is named for the editor-in-chief and chairman of Travel Agent magazine.

Lisa Davis has taken over as deputy executive editor for Prevention magazine after an 18-year tenure at Health magazine, where she was deputy editor.

Rosemary Ellis, editorial director, said Davis will oversee the “News & Trends,” “Alternatives,” and “Family” departments, as well as assigning and editing feature packages.

Davis is based in New York.

Media numbers________

59%—Almost three-fifths (59%) of the more than 200 directors at publicly traded companies, who responded to a survey by Directorship magazine, say they have a formal system in place for monitoring executive performance.

When asked how reputation is actually measured, board members revealed an ad hoc approach to oversight: 37% say that “informal feedback from stakeholders” is the most important factor employed in CEO evaluation; 13% say that formal research is important; and only two percent cite media coverage as being most important.

10—The "Splendid Table," public radio's only national food program, will celebrate its 10th season on Oct. 7.

The one-hour program is hosted by Lynne Rossetto Kasper, who talks with anyone who has anything to do with what we eat – chefs and writers, farmers and filmmakers, scientists and historians, anthropologists and artisans, and call-in listeners.

(Media news continued on next page)

FINANCIAL TIMES EXPANDS COLUMN, STAFF.
The Financial Times in London has doubled the size of its “Lex” column, hired an additional writer in New York, and expanded the number of features on FT.com.

Dan Bolger, who oversees the influential column, has nine staffers including three in N.Y., five in London and one in Tokyo working on Lex.

“Breaking Views” a rival online source of business comments, directed by former Lex editor Hugo Dixon, has hired four more reporters for its N.Y. office. Breaking Views also supplies information to the Wall Street Journal Europe and the Journal’s new Weekend edition.

FT editor Andrew Gowers said the new Lex features on FT.com will “serve as everyday business tools for our readers around the world.”

FINANCIAL NEWS STARTS ONLINE SERVICE.
Financial News, a weekly business newspaper that circulates in Europe, is starting a dedicated U.S. online news service on Oct. 4.

“We aim to become a major competitor on Wall Street,” said William Wright, editor of the London-based paper, which he pointed out has increased its audited readership for the past five years as established financial media titles have struggled in both the U.K. and the U.S.

Financial News Online US or FNO.US will provide coverage of domestic financial issues for U.S. readers as well as insight in the European securities and investment banking industry.

FNO, which held a launch event at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York on Oct. 4, has opened its office in the heart of midtown with a team of specialist financial reporters.

Dan Simon and Deborah Eisenberg of Cognito PR, who are handling PR for FNO, can be reached at 646/495-5550.

NAT’L JOURNAL, ADVERTISERS APOLOGIZE.
National Journal magazine and two advertisers have apologized for a print advertisement showing U.S. soldiers attacking a mosque.

Boeing Co. and Bell Helicopter Textron ran an ad for their V-22 showing soldiers rapelling onto the roof of a building, which is labeled a mosque in Arabic.

All three parties apologized to the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The Journal said the two companies’ ad agency had told the magazine not to run the ad. The influential D.C. magazine said a “clerical error” resulted in the appearance of the ad.

Placement tips________

Forbes.com has a new content section aimed at startups and smaller established companies, called "Entrepreneurs" (www.forbes.com/Entrepreneurs).

Brett Nelson, a writer for Forbes magazine, was named section editor. In a recent piece, Nelson offered advice to small business owners looking to apply for loans offered by the Small Business Administration in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Other stories gave advice on building small-business websites, marketing on a tight budget, and heading off failure when starting a new enterprise.

Paul Maidment, editor of Forbes.com, believes the new section fills a void for online advice and information of practical use to small businesses.

According to ComScore Media Metrix, Forbes.com reaches more entrepreneurs than any other business news sites in several categories including those who have started a business in the last year or who plan to start one in the next 12 months.

Essence magazine’s landmark findings from the “How African-American Women Define Success” study show the need to target and service African-American women differently from their general market counterparts.

The study also highlights goals and accomplishments of African-American women, their consumer characteristics and media preferences, as well as how they define success.

Rhonda Evans or Sheila Harris, publicists for the magazine, will provide copies of the studies on request. They can be reached at 212/642-0676 and 642-0254, respectively.

Weather.com, the website of the Weather Channel, took top spot on Adweek magazine's first-ever “Website Hot List,” followed by Forbes.com, Myspace.com, Nick.com, BusinessWeek Online, MSNBC.com, Askivien.com, IMDb, AOLMusic and HGTV.com.

To make it into the top 50, sites had to show growth in unique audience as well as time spent per user and/or web pages per user. To determine the top 10 sites, Adweek queried a panel of online media executives about what sites they liked and thought to be good places to put advertisers’ dollars.

The section, which appears in the Sept. 15 issue, was put together by Patti Orsini, special reporter editor.

SUPERMODEL FINDS AN AUDIENCE.
Although household ratings for the new syndicated “Tyra Banks Show” have been discouraging, show executives are encouraged by the supermodel's nine share rating in the women 18-34 women demographic category.

The show’s viewership grew 78% from its debut to the middle of its second week in that target demo and was up 300% over year-ago time-period averages, according to Broadcasting & Cable.

Early episodes of the talk show were focused on subjects Banks is familiar with, but lately, the hour-long show has focused on topics, which included a discussion on whether Banks’ breasts are real and another segment on sex toys.

One tool that has helped Bank's show is a cross-promotion with the UPN program Banks hosts, “America’s Top Model.”

The tie-in began on Sept. 20, when Banks’ syndicated show was featured on UPN's “America’s Next Top Model: Return to the Runway” special. The next day Banks held a “Top Model” reunion on her show, which proved a hit with young women.

The Miami chapter of PRSA and indeed the entire Sunshine district of PRSA have performed an outstanding leadership service in calling for governance reforms that leadership won't provide (page one).

The chapter is incensed at the raw power grab that the executive committee is trying to make based on the advice of Mark Schilansky, who has graduated from merely being a parliamentarian at the Assembly to being an ongoing PRSA consultant. He was also ex-officio member of the 2005 nominating committee.

Admitting the 17-member PRSA board is unwieldly, the executive committee's solution is to consolidate power in the EC, whose members are the four top officers, the immediate past president, and the COO.

Past PRSA directors have told us that after 17 directors finish commenting on something via e-mail, the string may run to more than 100 pages, destroying nights and weekends of the directors.

This chaotic situation is the result of pure regional politics, which is the biggest burden PRSA shoulders.

"Everybody wants to get into the act," is the problem. All ten districts want someone on the board and there are five more seats for the EC and two at-large.

The solution is easy and it's not giving more power to the EC which has abused this power (one result being the "John Doe" case).

Cut the board to ten directors, each one representing a district and some of these also serving as officers.

Jerry Dalton, 1990 president, has long urged PRSA to do this but has been ignored.

He argues that once the PRSA board went over ten people the discussions did not improve and disorder and inaction set in. Officers started ignoring the board because so many opinions were being expressed.

Association staffs prefer large boards because they're weak. It's a form of bribery of districts and members because there are more political plums to hand out.

Becoming a national director or officer of an association is the dream of a certain type of individual. Not only is it a great ego trip at PRSA, but the top spots can be lucrative. About a half million a year is spent on PRSA travel, meals, hotels and incidentals by leaders and staff and a lot of this is spent by the president and board members. The president has carte blanche to travel anywhere in the U.S. and abroad (e.g., China, Italy, London, Croatia) and have all his or her bills paid by PRSA. A ten-member board would not only be less unwieldy but would save members a lot of money since each director costs upwards of $20,000.

Here's some other reforms the Assembly should seek Oct. 22 in Miami. It's too late for bylaws but the Assembly can pass resolutions. It needs its own parliamentarian, or better yet, a lawyer.

Parliamentarians can't order the chair to do anything and can't even walk out if ignored. They can leave and the end of a meeting and refuse future jobs.

For instance, PRSA's lawyer Arthur Abelman over-ruled the parliamentarian in 1999 when 123 delegates voted for Joann Killeen for treasurer and 122 voted for Michael McDermott.

The parliamentarian called for another vote, noting that 249 electronic voting devices were registered and 125 votes were needed for a majority.

Some delegates had apparently not used the devices properly (they were just introduced) or had momentarily stepped out of the room. In previous Assemblies, when there was a close vote, a standing vote would be called for or even a roll-call vote.

But Abelman over-ruled the parliamentarian and said a legal vote had been cast. PRSA got a treasurer who was based in Los Angeles and not one who would be based in nearby Riverside, Conn.

McDermott, who had an extensive financial background, had promised to be a very active treasurer, noting that the bylaws gave the treasurer no specific duties except “performing all duties incident to the office of treasurer...” He wanted these duties defined.

Killeen, working with 2000 president Steve Pisinski, was active in managing PRSA’s finances. Among other changes that took place during their tenure, COO Ray Gaulke left PRSA for the PRSA Foundation and CFO Joe Cussick left the Society altogether.

With the APR requirement removed, the 2005 Assembly can include the 55 or so non-APR chapter presidents who previously were barred. We hope they attend and get back powers the chapters have lost over the years. The presidents need to talk to each other before the day of the Assembly.

Here's some of the things the Assembly should do:

–Gain control of PRSA.org so it’s used to inform members and serve as a platform for debate. A chapter president or group can be editor or editorial board each month. Stories like “John Doe” should be on the site.

–Move the Assembly to Monday afternoon, ending the costly Saturday meetings; give delegates free conference registration like directors get.

–Let the Assembly meet by phone all year long just like the board.

–Take the muzzle off board members on issues like board size, APR-only board, "John Doe," whether PRSA is "public" or "private." Members deserve to know what their district directors think.

–Warn national leaders not to spring big news the day of the Assembly, such as the news that PRSA was signing a 13-year, $6M lease downtown (2003) and that COO Ray Gaulke was shifting to the Foundation after getting a five-year contract to ’04

–End all leader/staff trips abroad to destinations such as China, Italy, London and Croatia.

–Get a new law firm and stop relying so much on legal counsel; hire a local Miami parliamentarian.

–Demand that a CPA join the staff

–Demand coffee and food of some type for the “coffee break” at the Assembly. Make the recording of the Assembly available the next day to chapter presidents and the press.

– Jack O'Dwyer