EDELMAN LANDS NEW MEXICO ACCOUNT.
Edelman and M&C Saatchi have been tapped for a $3M, three-year marketing communications campaign to create a uniform brand for the State of New Mexico.

Edelman won two-thirds of the account and is charged with guiding PR and online marketing for the initiative. The independent firm beat six other finalists for the PR portion in the five-month review, including Ruder Finn, Ketchum, Financial Dynamics, BVK, Myriad Travel Marketing and R&R Partners. Eighteen firms submitted PR proposals.

Ketchum and R&R were finalists for the advertising portion and Edelman, Myriad and R&R were on the short list for the interactive assignment.

In all, 32 agencies submitted proposals for the work. Nine finalists gave presentations.

Gov. Bill Richardson sees the campaign as “one of the defining accomplishments” of his tenure. The governor tapped native New Mexican adman Johnny Montoya to oversee the campaign.

SOUTH KOREA TO HIRE PR FIRM.
The Government of South Korea plans to hire its first U.S. PR firm next year in order to bolster its image as a strong and reliable American ally. The PR message also will promote a greater role on the global stage for South Korea, which has the world’s No. 12 economy. The PR budget will be at least $1M.

The effort will come amid rising anti-Americanism in Korea stemming from squabbles over self-defense and ties with North Korea, a member of the Bush Administration’s “axis of evil.” South Korea is pushing for more economic ties with the north
South Korea President Roh Moo-hyun, who took office in `03, ran on a platform calling for a more equal footing in U.S./Korean relations. The South Korean Embassy did not return a call for comment.

WPP GOES TO MOVIES.
WPP Group has invested an estimated $25 million in Weinstein Co., the movie company launched by Miramax founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein. The Weinsteins, who split from Walt Disney Co., have raised $500 million to fund the studio. They plan to put out 20 movies a year, and turn a profit by ’07.

The WPP investment provides Hill & Knowlton, Burson-Marsteller, Ogilvy PR Worldwide and Cohn & Wolfe placement opportunities for clients in WC’s films.

WC releases “Derailed,” a thriller with Jennifer Aniston, this month, and “The Matador,” a comedy featuring Pierce Brosnan in December.

KWITTKEN TO EXIT EURO RSCG MAGNET.
Aaron Kwittken, the 35-year-old wunderkind who rose to the top of Euro RSCG Magnet, is seeking a “lifestyle change,” and will exit the firm.

In an e-mail conversation, Kwittken told O’Dwyer’s that he wants to start a new venture of his own. He is “still with the company and in the process of working out transition plans.” Kwittken informed his superiors at the Havas-owned shop last month of his desire to exit.

Beginning at Barksdale Ballard & Co, Kwittken moved to Capitoline/Manning, Selvage & Lee, Ketchum, Fleishman-Hillard and GCI Group before landing at Middleberg. He was president of Middleberg when Havas folded it into Magnet last year, and then assumed the co-presidency with Paul Jensen. Kwittken succeeded Euro RSCG CEO David Kratz on Oct. 18, ’04. Jensen split for Weber Shandwick on March 15.

GOOGLE NAMES GLOBAL PR EXEC.
Elliot Schrage, a senior fellow for business and foreign policy for the Council on Foreign Relations, has joined Google as VP of global communications and public affairs. The 45-year-old Schrage reports to CEO Eric Schmidt at the tech giant.

At the Council, Schrage, a lawyer, advised global companies on corporate social responsibility and labor issues. He earlier was director of global affairs for retailer Gap Inc., again handling CSR issues, and was managing director of Clark & Weinstock’s New York office.

Earlier this year, Google said former Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman Dan Senor was to join the company in the VP/global communications role. But that appointment never materialized.

BALKY WEBSITE FRUSTRATES PRSA’S PR.
PRSA’s “old-fashioned” website is hard to update and is frustrating efforts to keep members informed about developments related to the cancellation of the 2005 conference, an Assembly delegate teleconference was told Nov. 4.

Delegates said PRSA’s website was far behind the news about Hurricane Wilma and the conference.

President Judith Phair said she was “very aware” of web technical problems and blamed them on “long-delayed maintenance”of the website.

COO Catherine Bolton said PRSA’s website is “old-fashioned” and “not like the normal website where you just type something and put it up immediately.”

“Every time you make one small change, such as a comma or a period, you have to do it through coding

(continued on page 7)

R BATTLE MOUNTS OVER WAL-MART FLICK.
Ken Sunshine Consultants is guiding PR for Robert Greenwald’s critical Wal-Mart documentary, which debuted selectively on Nov. 4 and will roll out throughout December across the U.S.

The PR firm’s president Ken Sunshine and staffer Jesse Derris, a former Kerry-Edwards ’05 spokesman, are promoting the film. Derris confirmed the firm is working for the film but declined further comment.

KSC also guided much of the PR strategy for Michael Moore’s hit documentary “Fahrenheit 911.”

Edelman is working to rebut Wal-Mart critics and its political campaign-like efforts were the subject of a front-page New York Times story earlier this month.

An incident arose on Nov. 1 as the film, “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices,” was screened in New York. According to news reports, a Wal-Mart staffer (five were invited to the screening) was accused of attempting to record the film with a cellphone. Greenwald confronted and tossed out the Wal-Mart reps. The director renewed an offer to screen the film at the company’s Bentonville, Ark., headquarters.

“After weeks of relentless attacks, Wal-Mart company officials and their media operatives from Edelman have still not seen [the film],” read a statement from Sunshine. “Despite this, they continue to issue press releases and hold press conferences vilifying not only the movie, but Greenwald himself. This is an open offer to change that.”

The film is trying to cultivate grassroots support and has earned the backing of the media savvy WakeUpWalMart campaign.

Trippi Multimedia, the ad shop set up by former Howard Dean strategist Joe Trippi, has produced a 30-second spot previewing the documentary. The film itself will be shown at 7,000 grassroots screenings, including 1,000 churches, according to Greenwald.

ABRAHAM OPENS FOR BUSINESS.
Former Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has opened The Abraham Group in Washington, D.C., to advise U.S. companies on international energy opportunities. He is joined by Joe McMonigle, Abraham’s chief of staff at the DOE, and Majide Mourad, who worked on overseas issues at the DOE.

TAG plans to establish a link with an investment bank and law firm.

Abraham, who is a Fox News analyst and contributor to Rupert Murdoch’s The Weekly Standard, remains a board member at Occidental Petroleum. He joined Oxy’s board in February, a month after stepping down from the DOE.

Oxy made news in late September with word that it began shipping oil to the U.S. from Libya. That marked the first shipment of Libyan crude to these shores in 20 years.

The company called that shipment a “significant development” for the U.S. domestic market that was hit by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

A former Abraham deputy, Randa Fahmy Hudome, is Libya’s energy lobbyist. Her firm, Fahmy Hudome International, has a $750K pact with the government of Muammar Qaddifi.

MISUSE OF BW DATA CHARGED.
The Securities & Exchange Commission has charged an Estonian financial services firm and two of its employees with making improper use of information gained from Business Wire’s secure client site to make $7.8 million in illegal profits.

It said the defendants violated Section 10(b) of securities laws. The U.S. District Court in New York, acting on an SEC request for “emergency action,” has issued a temporary restraining order to freeze the assets of the defendants and to order the return of funds taken out of the U.S.

The investment bank Lohmus Haavel & Viisemann, says the SEC complaint, became a client of BW to gain access to its secure client site and then used a “spider” to find out information about other BW clients contained in press releases before public distribution.

“Electronic theft” of information involving 360 press releases issued by more than 200 public companies took place since January 2005, says the SEC complaint.

It does not allege that entire press releases were accessed but portions of information such as the headline or key words connected with a press release and the planned timing of the distribution, said Daniel Hawke of the SEC’s Philadelphia office.

Lokey Denies Prior Access

Lorry Lokey, BW chairman and CEO, said, “No one gained access to our news release file prior to distribution to the media and investment community. Some of the SEC statements in its complaint have been misinterpreted.”

Certain people had access to a screen shot of limited background information, BW said, but this information did not include the content of news releases.

The SEC said the defendants saw files they were not entitled to see and the pieces of information obtained, while not entire press releases, enabled them to make trades based on this illegally obtained information.

Cathy Tamraz, BW president, said: “Virtually any computer system can be broken into, from the government to large corporations to universities. BW is keenly sensitive to its important role in the global financial markets and we place the highest priority on security.”

DCI GETS $375K VERMONT PACT.
Vermont has hired Development Counsellors International to promote the state as a good place to do business. The two-year pact is worth $375K.

Republican Gov. Jim Douglas announced an “employer recruitment campaign” on Nov. 2 that will pitch the state’s educated, skilled and motivated work force. He said “earned media” can multiply the impact of Vermont’s advertising, and is an “effective means of getting a message out to decision makers.”

The DCI hiring caused quite a stir among the state’s Democrats as an Associated Press item mistakenly referred to the firm as DCI Group, a lobbying outfit with close ties to the Bush White House and former Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

Jon Copans, executive director of Vermont’s Democratic Party, issued a press release with the headline, “Douglas Imports Culture of Corruption.” Copans retracted his statement on Nov. 2 and apologized.

GOWERS QUITS FT EDITOR POST.
Andrew Gowers, editor of the Financial Times since Sept. ’01, has stepped down from his post. The 22-year FT veteran cited “strategic differences” with Pearson, publisher of the London-based paper.

FT has lost money since Gowers moved into the top spot because of weakness in the technology and financial ad markets. The paper is on track to break even this year.

Lionel Barber, U.S. managing editor, has replaced Gowers. The FT has mounted a big expansion drive in the U.S. and Asia to offset a steep decline in circulation on the home front.

CNN DUMPS BROWN FOR COOPER.
CNN has installed Anderson Cooper in the 10 p.m. time slot held by Aaron Brown, who is leaving the network.

“Anderson Cooper 360,” a live news program, will air for two hours nightly beginning Nov. 7 from 10 p.m. to midnight. It previously ran for one hour in the 7 p.m. time slot.

Cooper, who is 38, began co-anchoring the 56-year-old Brown’s show “NewsNight” during coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. CNN said the program grew by 27 percent, measured by total viewers, in that time frame.

Cooper is a former ABC correspondent and joined CNN in September 2001. Brown had signed a new contract with CNN this year, but the network said there isn't room for him in its schedule.

In other changes at CNN, Wolf Blitzer's hour-long “Situation Room” program will air in the 7 p.m. time slot previously held by Cooper, in addition to its two-hour time slot from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Kyra Phillips’ “Live From” has been extended for an hour and now runs from 1 to 4 p.m.

HERALD FAULTS GLOBE FOR EPSTEIN LOSS.
The Boston Herald blames “cozy ownership” ties between the Boston Globe and the Boston Red Sox for the loss of the ball club’s general manager Theo Epstein.

The architect of Sox’ first World Series win in 86 years, turned down a $1.5M a-year contract extension after a Globe story credited the Sox's success to CEO Larry Lucchino.

The Herald noted that the Globe’s owner, New York Times Co., controls a 17 percent stake in New England Sports Ventures, which owns the Sox, Fenway Park and 80 percent of the New England Sports Network. Richard Gilman, Globe publisher, sits on the NESV board.

The Herald noted that Gilman and other executives were given World Series rings.

Epstein’s exit, according to the Herald, raises the question of whether Globe’s close ties with the Sox may have backfired and cost the team a talented GM.

YAHOO! ADDS CONTENT.
Yahoo!, in its drive to be perceived as more than a portal and search engine, has inked a deal with Dennis Publishing’s “The Week” magazine to provide a daily dose of business news that will run on Yahoo's finance page.

The deal follows Yahoo’s much ballyhooed recruitment of freelance war correspondent Kevin Site to write stories from the world's hot spots.
TW was launched in '01, and has a circulation in the 350,000 range.

SUSQUEHANNA SELLS RADIO UNIT.
Susquehanna Media Co., the country's No. 1 privately owned radio station operator, is selling its 33 stations to Cumulus Media for $1.2B.

SMC's stations are in markets such as San Francisco, Houston, Dallas, Indianapolis, Kansas City and Atlanta. SMC broke into the radio business in 1942 with the launch of WSBA-AM in York, Pa.

CM owns more than 300 stations. The deal is partly financed by Thomas H. Lee Partners, Blackstone Group and Bain Capital.

SMC sold its cable TV operations (230,000 east coast subscribers) to Comcast.

CASE CLOSED AT TIME WARNER.
Steve Case, who engineered America Online’s $180B stock takeover of Time Warner in 2000, resigned on Oct. 31 from the TW board. He stepped down from the chairman slot in ’03, following continued shareholder wrath over the dot-com era merger.

TW CEO Dick Parsons issued a statement to thank Case for his service and he looks forward to his “wise counsel” as a major stockholder of the media combine.

TW, which used to be called AOL Time Warner, agreed to pay more than $500M to settle suits and regulatory charges against its AOL unit.

AOL recently has shifted into a comeback mode as Yahoo! and Google are among suitors attracted to the growth in online advertising.

Case alluded to that growth is his statement of resignation. He strongly believes that AOL “once the leading Internet company in the world, can return to its past greatness.”

Case resigned to spend more time at Revolution, his healthcare and media investment company.

WOLF WANTS MTV POST.
Michael Wolf, a management consultant steeped in media experience, has been named president of MTV Networks.

The McKinsey & Co. consultant has close ties with Sumner Redstone, CEO of Viacom and MTV’s parent. Prior to McKinsey, Wolf was at Booz Allen Hamilton, where he headed its media and entertainment group.

Wolf will lead MTV’s sales, marketing, business strategy, information systems, finance and production operations. He is charged with leading the company's “multiplatform strategy” designed to serve audiences of all ages. Those platforms include MTV: Music Television, VH1, Spike, Nick at Nite, Comedy Central and TV Land. Wolf reports to Judy McGrath, CEO of MTV Networks. She lauded Wolf’s “incredible operational, digital media and marketing expertise.”

Wolf was McKinsey’s first-ever outside senior partner hire.

(Media news continued on next page)

People_________

Michael Miller, editor-in-chief of PC Magazine since 1991, has been promoted to executive VP and chief content officer for parent company Ziff Davis in New York. Jim Louderback takes over the EIC slot at PC and has been upped to SVP and editorial director for ZD's consumer tech group.

That group includes ExtremeTech.com, DigitalLife TV, Gearlog.com, Technoride.com and What’s New Now.

Louderback had been editorial director of ZD's consolidated Internet business and earlier spent five years building up its TV unit.

Mike Lafavore, founding editor-in-chief of Men’s Health, has been named to the new post of editorial director for Meredith Magazines. He oversees new product development and handles strategies for newstand covers for Meredith pubs, which include Better Homes and Gardens, Parents and American Baby.

Lafavore, who has consulted for the company for the last few years, will also manage editorial strategy for Fitness.

John Dodge, editor-in-chief of Reed Business Information’s EDN, to editor-in-chief of Electronic Business. Maury Right returns to the helm of EDN, a magazine targeting electronic engineers published 26 times a year.

RBI has moved to integrate content across Electronic Business, Electronic News and EDN as part of a “strategic realignment.”

John Schurmer has been promoted to group publisher of three publications, heading sales and marketing.

Briefs_________

Knight Ridder has made two acquisitions in the job recruitment publishing sector and purchased a group of weekly auto shopper magazines in Texas.

The company has bought San Francisco-based Jobs and Careers, Dallas-Ft. Worth-based DFW Job Connection and DFW Auto Connection.

Monica Garcia Pleiman, chairman and CEO of Optimum Management Services, a Denver-based technology and outsourcing company, plans to launch Latino Suave Magazine on Dec. 1.

The bi-monthly publication celebrates the "vibrant and colorful Hispanic culture and traditions" and will include lifestyle, creative pieces and profiles of Hispanic leaders, according to Pleiman.

The Alzheimer's Foundation of America, a New York-based non-profit, has revamped its quarterly magazine and tweaked its title from Vantage to ADvantage. The free magazine, available by subscription and in doctors' offices, marks its one-year anniversary this month.

New York magazine has unveiled a 30-page real estate “magazine-within-a-magazine,” Vu, covering the city’s housing market. Vu debuted with New York’s Nov. 7 edition.

Wired Magazine said it will open a “pop-up” retail store in New York for the holiday season from Nov. 18-Dec. 24. The SoHo store will include samples of consumer electronics through partnerships with companies Motorola, Napster, Sony and Klipsch.

The Los Angeles Times has launched an entertainment industry website, www.TheEnvelope.com, to cover Hollywood's awards shows and other celebrity news.

Billed as an “insider’s resource,” the site includes news, photos, videos, podcasts and other content, along with access to the Times’ 80 years of coverage.

NBC Universal rolls out “Sleuth,” a channel dedicated 24/7 to crime and mystery shows, to five million Time Warner cable viewers on Jan. 1.

The plan is to recycle programs from the library created from the ’04 merger of NBC and Vivendi Universal. The channel is targeted at viewers 25 to 54.

La Voz, a daily newspaper which claims to be Arizona's largest Spanish-language publication, plans to launch a free, weekend edition on Nov. 12.

La Voz Fin de Semana is slated to be home delivered on Saturdays to 60,000 in metro Phoenix targeting areas with an 85 percent Hispanic household penetration, according to the publisher.

Arizona is the fastest growing Hispanic market in the U.S. and Phoenix has the eighth largest Hispanic population in the U.S.

La Voz is published by Phoenix Newspapers Inc., part of Gannett which publishes the Arizona Republic.

Placement tips_________

Variety V Life Weekend accepts PR material (no photos), music/movie reviews, and industry/financial news.

“Over the last four months we’ve noticed that our stories are shorter averaging 450 words,” said Rachel Dowd, assistant editor in Los Angeles. "There is no room for that colossal story. We do love the trendy stories and we have an array of topics to cover for our readers, who average $400K in annual salary. I do look for exclusives and luxurious stories that deal with the high-end angle.

“We love short teasers. I also love it when a publicist makes a concept for me, not just pitching their client’s product, but helping me develop story ideas.”

Dowd said she prefers e-mail pitches at [email protected].

“Understanding the different vehicles the Orange County Register has” is important to getting in the paper, said Cathy Lawhon, features editor. “Our website needs more visual stuff – streaming vide, photos and audio snippets, which is a huge plus if you can e-mail it.”

The paper also puts out New Squeeze OC, targeted to a higher income and younger audience. “We need quick, short stories here – how to spice up your marriage or angles that are kind of edgy.”

Lawhon, editor for family, aging, religion and health, also edits the three-day-a-week section Life. She supervises eight reporters and prefers e-mail pitches at [email protected].

Edelman PR Worldwide’s work for Wal-Mart during this period of stress because of organized opposition to Wal-Mart policies was described on page one of the Nov. 1 New York Times.

Wal-Mart, faced with a negative documentary recalling Michael Moore’s “Roger & Me” General Motors blast a decade ago, is meeting criticism head-on with help from Edelman.

The documentary, “The High Cost of Low Price,” debuted last week. Organized criticism has also apparently had an impact on the stock price, which is down 27% since 2000.

Edelman, the biggest independent PR firm by a large margin, is noted for its media-orientation.

The NYT described an Edelman team headed by experienced political operatives such as Michael Deaver, who advised President Reagan; Leslie Dach, a media consultant for President Clinton; Jonathan Adashek, who headed national delegate strategy for John Kerry, and Terry Nelson, national political director of the 2004 campaign for President Bush.

Edelman’s “war room” follows all media mentions of the controversy and does intellectual battle with the opposing groups.

Wal-Mart executives said they needed a good public response to deal with what they feel is the most expensive campaign ever waged against a corporation.

One Wal-Mart aim is to “neutralize” criticism before it even hits media–get “ahead” of the news cycle.

This involves distributing materials showing how Wal-Mart helps reduce prices for consumers, thus offsetting the impact on local stores.

What’s good for PR is that Wal-Mart and Edelman are battling media on media’s turf rather than retreating behind a bunker and trying to discredit reporters and anyone writing for media.

Many decades ago the most media-oriented PR firm of all time, Carl Byoir & Assocs., did this for the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., which similarly was accused of hurting local businesses and paying low wages.

Byoir, once the second biggest firm after Hill & Knowlton, was acquired by H&K in 1987 and within three years had virtually ceased to exist. Its many media-friendly departments were closed. Fewer than a half dozen employees were left out of 280.

The policy of engaging reporters rather than ducking them has fallen out of favor lately. PR firms and corporate PR depts. have been concentrating on strategy and marketing goals. But Edelman’s success (fees up 12% in 2004 to $230 million), might help to restore the importance of working with the press.

PRSA’s Judith Phair and Catherine Bolton are saying that PRSA’s hard-to-use website is blocking the Society from communicating quickly and fully with its members (page one).

It’s the association culture of PRSA that is doing this. Missing from the website is news that is even bigger than the Wilma/national conference problem because it affects all 20,000 members–the possible ditching of the 972-page Source Book.

Such a move would be especially hurtful to PRSA’s many middle-aged and older members who are not as web-oriented as younger members.

The site is used mostly to sell things to members. It could easily be used to poll members on the Source Book question but this has been ruled out.

Not only is the website under-used by PRSA, but all sorts of other modern gadgets such as the telephone also are. A teleconference of Assembly delegates would be far easier to arrange than scheduling a meeting Dec. 3 in Chicago. This meeting of what will only be a small fraction of the normal 260 delegates should not be held since many voices won’t be present. There’s no pressing legal need to hold the meeting, as parliamentarian Schilansky has pointed out.

Many proxies will be needed to get the 100 votes needed for a quorum. A major point here is that PRSA misinformed its delegates for many years about proxies, saying they were not permitted when New York law says they are. Twenty-four chapters that could have voted in the 2002 Assembly were denied this because of the false information.

Killing the Source Book is another way of cutting down on interaction between members, a senior PRSA member told us. In many instances, it will just be too much trouble to log on, provide user name/password, and set criteria. About 5,000 names will be lost each year since PRSA’s renewal rate is around 75% (it was 70.2% in 2002, the last year PRSA provided it). Said the senior member: “As the combative Leo Durocher used to say, `Where I see three guys talking, it’s time for a trade. Two’s O.K.’”...delegates on the Nov. 4 call complained not only about the lack of news and information on the PRSA website, but about failure to receive e-mails about the Dec. 3 Assembly and other topics.

Complaints came from San Francisco, Toledo, Ft. Worth, Albany, and Kansas City.

President-elect Cheryl Procter-Rogers of Chicago said neither she nor many others she knew got the e-mail and said there was an obvious “glitch” in the system. COO Bolton said notices were sent by fax and that the system would be checked and e-mails sent again.

PRSA leaders continue to claim that the course of Hurricane Wilma was unpredictable as of Thursday, Oct. 20, but the graphic used on TV days earlier showed Wilma hitting Cancun, Mexico, and then turning sharply to the right towards Miami, pushed there by the Jet Stream.

The only doubt was which day it would hit – Saturday, Sunday or Monday.

It had been described as the “worst” hurricane in history based on size, wind strength and low barometric pressure and was accurately predicted to gain power back once it passed through Cancun and headed for the open Gulf of Mexico.

– Jack O'Dwyer