MEDICARE ISSUES SECOND RFP.
The government agency that oversees Medicare and Medicaid – after splitting its sweeping PR and marketing communications account into two parts in October – has issued an RFP for the second half of the work, including multimedia, education efforts, media relations and grassroots outreach campaigns.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in October tapped a quintet of PR and consulting firms, including Weber Shandwick and Deloitte, for the first half of the work – a robust contract worth up to $32M over four years for research and communications initiatives.

The new solicitation is also for multiple firms – from two to four – and is an indefinite quantity/indefinite delivery offering, meaning the government selects from the group of winning firms as needed.

The work includes consumer communications campaigns, health and program-related messages and materials, TV and radio spots and educational videos, VNRs, earned media and press conference support, and grassroots coalition building, among several tasks.

Incumbents for the work before it was split were Ketchum, GCI Group, Ogilvy PR Worldwide and Academy for Educational Development.

Jaime Galvez (jaime.gal[email protected] ) is contracting officer.

GOODE EXITS KELLOGG FOR VISTEON.
Kimberly Goode, who joined Kellogg Co. in ‘04 in the new role of VP of worldwide communications, has resigned for a VP post at struggling auto industry supplier Visteon.

Goode, who is VP of corporate communications for Visteon, will head internal and external communications, a role similar to her Kellogg post.

Both companies are based in Michigan and Goode is a Detroit native. She relocated from New Jersey last year, leaving Prudential Financial for the top PR post at Kellogg.

Visteon, which was spun off from Ford in 2000, has been hit by an earnings restatement and cost crunches from high steel prices and labor costs. Ford, with its own problems, bailed out the company in October by taking over 24 of its plants.

Visteon lost $1.54 billion in 2004.

Goode was formerly director of communications for American Express and headed global corporate relations for United Airlines’ Galileo International unit.

She reports to chairman/CEO Mike Johnston at Visteon.

GOODYEAR TAPS COYNE AFTER REVIEW.
Goodyear Tire & Rubber has tapped Coyne PR as its primary firm, following a review.

Goodyear had worked with GolinHarris on projects in the past.Weber Shandwick’s Chicago office and Manning Selvage & Lee/New York were finalists for Akron, Ohio-based Goodyear.

Coyne is based in Parsippany, N.J.

“They have the best across-the-board package for us,” Ed Markey, VP of PR and communications for Goodyear, told O’Dwyer’s. “At the end of the process, we felt Coyne had the most to offer as far as strategy, tactics and idea generation.”

David Beals of Chicago-based search firm Jones Lundin Beals advised the company on the review.

Goodyear, the No. 3 tiremaker, is in the midst of a five-year restructuring plan. Sales topped $18B last year.

TW’S BROPHY TO GLOVER PARK.
Susan Brophy has exited Time Warner to lead Glover Park Group’s legislative affairs division. She had been senior VP in the media conglomerates’s global public policy office in Washington, D.C.

Brophy served in the Clinton Administration as deputy director of legislative affairs for five years. Before joining the Clinton White House, she was chief-of-staff to former Colorado Sen. Tim Wirth and administrative assistant to then Rep. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota.

At Glover Park, Brophy is responsible for coalition management, corporate positioning, issue advocacy and legislative strategy.

Most Requested Stories of 2005.
Here are the top 15 stories of ’05 based on page views from odwyerpr.com:

1. N.Y. Times VNR Piece ‘Old, Politics-Ridden’ – March 15
2. Heads Should Roll in Ketchum-Williams Affair – Jan. 20
3. Edelman Hires Redstate Blogger – Sept. 21
4. VNR Firms Will Meet New Standards – March 17
5. USAT: Ketchum Touts Education Law – Jan. 7
6. Hughes Headed to State Dept. – March 14
7. PR Braces for Grubman Show – March 9
8. PR Firms Post Solid ’04 Results – March 7
9. Kotcher of Ketchum Avoids Press – Jan. 13
10. Industry Responds to Iraq PR Pay for Play – Dec. 12
11. PRSA Mishandled Conference Cancellation – Oct. 25
12. Sloane Withdraws from Council of PR Firms – Jan. 13
13. Katrina Ravages U.S. – Sept. 1
14. Kwikken to Exit Euro RSCG Magnet – Nov. 1
15. Corallo Reps Karl Rove – Oct. 28

MEXICO TAPS ALLYN TO BOOST IMAGE.
President Vicente Fox of Mexico has turned once again to Allyn & Co., the Dallas-based PR firm headed by Republican consultant and former Bush adviser Rob Allyn, as the country tries to stem the tide of what it sees as anti-immigration policies harmful to the country and its expatriate citizens.

Mexico’s foreign secretary, Luis Ernesto Derbez, said the U.S. is bowing to “xenophobic” extremists and called the legislation “stupid.”

Allyn, a top advisor for Mexican President Vicente Fox’s successful campaign to oust a 71-year ruling party in Mexico in 2001, has also guided other political issues in the Caribbean and Asia. He developed advertising for Bush’s campaigns for governor and the presidency.

Mexico is irate at a House measure, which passed last month, authorizing a 700-mile, $8 billion wall to be built between the U.S. and Mexico. “It’s hard to underestimate the ill-feeling the proposal has generated in Mexico,” wrote Mark Stevenson in an Associated Press dispatch from Mexico City. The House bill also drafts military and local law enforcement to stem the tide of illegal immigrants and requires companies to verify the legal status of their workers. The Senate is expected to take up the legislation in February.

Mexico said it has hired Allyn for a contract in the high six-figure range to improve its image and stem the immigration backlash.

Corporate clients of Allyn have included Wal-Mart and XM Satellite Radio. It has an office in the Mexican Federal District.

The New York Times (Dec. 28) reported that Allyn is in the “cross hairs of conservatives” for taking on Mexico. “I’ve had friends say on this latest one, should I congratulate you or extend condolences,” the 46-year-old Allyn told the Times.

A&C is part of Omnicom’s Fleishman-Hillard.

IHOP SERVES PR ACCOUNT TO CARRYON.
IHOP has served its PR account to Los Angeles-based CarryOn Communication. Cohn & Wolfe won the franchiser’s last review in 2004 after Hill & Knowlton stepped aside.

There was no formal review for the new assignment. IHOP was looking for a creative, mid-sized agency and CarryOn came highly recommended, according to the firm. Senior VP Claudia Bloom heads the account at CarryOn, which is focused on consumer marketing and media relations as agency of record for IHOP’s 1,200-plus restaurants.

IHOP’s chief marketing officer, Carolyn O’Keefe, had worked with Bloom when O’Keefe was at Baskin-Robbins and Pepsi.

Billings were not disclosed, but IHOP’s last account review was placed in the six-figure range.

In a statement, O’Keefe praised CarryOn’s media relations savvy, calling the firm a “natural fit for helping to grow the IHOP brand year-round.” A key upcoming promotion for the company is National Pancake Day on Feb. 28.

IHOP is based in Glendale, Calif. It is the No. 3 diner chain behind Denny’s and Waffle House, according to Hoover’s.

MILITARY STEPS UP PR WAR.
The U.S. military, under fire for some of its PR tactics in Iraq, has enlisted military bloggers and is paying for coverage and making donations to Iraqi TV stations, according to a report in the Dec. 27 Washington Post.

The Army has given an Iraqi TV station $35K in equipment, is building a new facility for $300K and pays $600 a week [an Iraqi producer told the Post the amount was $1,000] for a weekly TV show with a positive spin on U.S. efforts in Iraq, according to the Post, which said the names of the stations and cities are being withheld because of potential danger to those involved.

The Post highlights the military’s struggle in countering an increasingly media-savvy insurgency in Iraq.

The Army brought in software analyst Bill Roggio, author of the military blog “The Fourth Rail” (www.billroggio.com), which has been critical of media coverage of the war, to cover military action from Iraq’s tumultuous Anbar province.

The army is also distributing news releases to military bloggers and groups like veterans associations in an apparent effort to gain more favorable coverage.

Because he was not affiliated with a media organization, Roggio could not be credentialed as a reporter until the American Enterprise Institute stepped in to offer him an affiliation, the Post reported.

STATE DEPT. PUTS ‘HI’ ON HOLD.
U.S. propaganda czar Karen Hughes has suspended Hi magazine, which was supposed to put a positive spin on American life for Arab youth.

The latest issue of the Arabic language monthly featured Texas as the “state of the month” and had another article about multigenerational families.

Hughes put the two-year-old Hi on hold because she wants to evaluate whether the magazine’s annual $4.5M budget is money well spent.

About 55,000 copies of Hi, which was free, circulated monthly in the Arab World.
Hi’s website remains in operation.

FAUCHEUX JOINS LANDRIEU’S OFFICE.
Ron Faucheux, who handled government affairs at the American Institute of Architects, is joining Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office as chief of staff.

He succeeds Norma Jane Sabiston, who left for a slot at Marmillion & Co. (12/7 NL)

Faucheux, a former Louisiana state lawmaker, led AIA’s presentation at the Louisiana Recovery and Rebuilding Conference in New Orleans in November.

He is a political consultant who managed more than 115 campaigns in 11 states, including former Louisiana Senator John Breaux’s first run for the House of Representatives in ’72.

Faucheux, who has known Landrieu for 25 years, served as publisher and editor at Campaigns & Elections for a decade.

He says he joined the Democrat’s office to answer a call to civic duty in the aftermath of the destruction from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Faucheux served in the Pelican State’s Congress with Landrieu, and later became Louisiana’s Secretary of Commerce.

GOODSTEIN DEFECTS TO POST.
Les Goodstein, president/COO of the New York Daily News, has defected to News Corp., publisher of the News’ archrival New York Post, as a senior VP.

The 28-year veteran of the Daily News heads business development at NC and advise the Post and other news divisions of the company. He reports to Paul Carlucci, chairman and CEO of News America Marketing and started work on Jan. 3. Goodstein joined the News in 1977 and moved up through its advertising ranks.

News Corp. claims the Post to be the fastest growing newspaper in America.

KOPPEL: PR PROS OUTNUMBER REPORTERS.
American democracy requires a vigilant press corps to get past the hordes of PR people pushing good news and concealing bad news, according to ABC veteran Ted Koppel, who appeared on a Christmas edition of “Meet the Press” with former “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Brokaw.

Koppel said he did research about 10 years ago that showed 3,000 accredited reporters in Washington, D.C., and about 10,000 PR people. The former “Nightline” anchor estimates between 4-5,000 reporters today and 20,000 PR professionals.

“The problem is that every organization, be it a governmental organization, or be it a commercial organization, or an entertainment organization, has got plenty of skilled men and women who will make sure the news gets out when the news is good,” he said. “The only kind of news that they try to conceal is the bad news, and that's where the American democracy really requires a vigilant press corps and people who will ask tough questions as you [Tim Russert] do every Sunday in this spot.”

Koppel lamented the absence of solid debate in political races because of polarization and mobilized PR machines on each side of the aisle.

“It just is impossible in this day and age for anybody to speak his mind plainly and not be ripped to shreds by some PR machine on the other side,” he said.

Brokaw noted “turbulent times for the press” in 2005, saying that one of the big stories of 2005 was coverage of the New York Times and Washington Post in the CIA leak story. He said the big “after story” was about the Times and its “internecine warfare within its own newspaper and its own family, which has not yet been resolved.” Bob Woodward becoming a principal late in the story brought scrutiny to the Post. “So these are turbulent times for the press,” Brokaw said.

Further discussing the CIA leak scandal and anonymous sources, Koppel pointed out that about 25 years ago the Post had instructed its State Dept. reporter to walk out of spokesman briefings that went “on background,” a kind of protest that lasted only a week when no other media followed. “That is not only the meat and potatoes of the media, it is also the meat and potatoes of the establishment in this town,” he said in defending anonymous sources.

Brokaw said the press has not done a good job of connecting itself to the public that it claims to serve.

NEW FITNESS MAG TO DEBUT.
Canusa Publishing Group, which created bodybuilding's flagship magazine MuscleMag International in 1975, launched Maximum Fitness on January 3 in an effort to provide a “no-nonsense guide” to fitness.

CPG noted many health and fitness titles are drifting into the lifestyle category. The bimonthly MF is aimed at offering current information on training, nutrition, health and sports performance.

Retail price is $4.99 and Comag Marketing Group will distribute the publication at outlets like Wal-Mart, Barnes & Noble and 7-Eleven. Initial run is 200K with advertisers including Muscle Marketing, Now Foods and Instone.

Matt Nichols, a veteran of Canadian Sports Fishing and The Hockey News, heads the new magazine’s editorial team. Bob Kennedy is publisher.

BEWKES NAMED PREZ AT TIME WARNER.
Jeffrey Bewkes, 53, has been named president of Time Warner, putting him to line to succeed CEO Dick Parsons when his contract is up in ’08.

He had been Parsons’ co-deputy with Don Logan, the magazine pro who is stepping down from day-to-day management.

The 61-year-old Logan will serve as a consultant and non-executive chairman of TW Cable.

Bewkes’ contract states that he is to be named No. 2 upon Logan’s retirement, or be free to pursue opportunities elsewhere.

He has been running TW’s network and entertainment groups including HBO, Warner Brothers and New Line Cinema.

WDC Spreads ‘Faith’ News to MSM.
WDC Media, the Stonyford, Cal.-based firm that offers “PR with a higher purpose,” has launched an online newswire to deliver press releases from churches and faith-based businesses to the mainstream media.

The newswire is intended to “impact the world for the kingdom of God through the medium of news and mass media communications,” said Susan Zahn, founder of WDC. She called news one of the “most untapped and misunderstood Christian mission fields in the world.”

WDC says its newswire is powered by Pims, CCN Matthews and US Distribute, and has more than 300,000 media contacts. List Logix manages the software and database. The newswire is fed to Google News.

New York PR counselor Mike Paul gave the religious newswire a big thumbs-up via a Dec. 27 Internet piece in The Christian Post. He called the newswire an "extremely powerful tool for Christ. And if we don't use it, then our faith is not strong."

WDC is the firm for Trinity Broadcast Network, which bills itself as “America’s most watched faith channel.” WDC stands for White Dove Communications.

Zahn also is drumming up publicity for the Ten Commandments Commission, which will observe the first Ten Commandments Day on Feb. 6.

(Media news continued on next page)

HERSHEY, PUBLISHER REACH DEAL.
The Hershey Company and Simon & Schuster have settled a dust-up over the publication of a book about Milton Hershey which bears the image of a Hershey bar on its cover.

S&S has agreed to add a statement to the book's cover expressing that it is not authorized by The Hershey Co. A similar disclaimer has been added by online retailers selling the book, "Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire and Utopian Dreams."

The Hershey Co. filed a civil suit on Dec. 16 alleging unauthorized use of the Hershey trademark.

E&P RAPS YOUTH JOURNALISM CUTS.
Editor & Publisher says the newspaper industry has adopted W.C. Fields (“Go Away Kid, You Bother Me”) as its model by killing programs designed to lure young people into journalism.

The January magazine singled out the Los Angeles Times for axing its “Student Journalism Program” aimed at high school and college students and Knight Ridder for chopping its “2006 Minority Scholars Program” for high schoolers.

Young reporters, meanwhile, have been laid off in droves by newspapers throughout the country.

E&P says it’s hard enough to attract people to a field noted for “dreadful salaries and hit-or-miss career training that recalls Middle Ages apprenticeships” and certain unemployment if newspapers don’t hit the margins demanded by their corporate masters.

“It appears that newspapers are willing to shut down their pipelines for their future employees,” says E&P.

The magazine also takes the industry to task for failing to mount an aggressive outreach effort to young people. Only 39 percent of people aged 18 to 24 read a newspaper daily. That is down from 73 percent in 1971.

Other than the launch of Redeye in Chicago and Quick in Dallas, E&P says “about the only thing papers have done in recent times to attract young people is to add Sudoku to their funny pages.”

People_________

Wendell Rawls, Jr., former editor for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and southern bureau chief for the New York Times, has been named managing director of The Center for Public Integrity, the Washington, D.C., non-profit which researches political campaigns and finances.

Rawls has headed the Center’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists since August 2005. He heads all editorial and publishing operations in the new post.

Rawls won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism in 1977 while reporting for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Thirty-three editorial staffers have taken a buyout offer from the Boston Globe, including influential political columnist Tom Oliphant, business columnist Charles Stein and longtime obit writer Tom Long.

Ron Wilson, semiconductor editor and former executive editor for EE Times, has been named executive editor of EDN magazine, a Reed Business Information publication which targets design engineers and engineering managers.

He was formerly editorial director and publisher of CMP’s ISD Magazine and earlier was a senior editor of Computer Design magazine.

Patrick Mannion was promoted to editor of EE Times, which is published by CMP. Mannion was executive editor. He was previously communications editor at Electronic Design and is an Irish-trained electronic engineer.

Briefs__________

The Chicago Sun-Times reported a 21 percent drop in average paid circulation to 382,796 for the six-month period ended March.

The audited report is the first for the paper since it acknowledged inflating its figures during the summer of ’04.

The Sun-Times is owned by scandal-plagued Hollinger Inc. The company’s PR firm, Kekst & Co., handled media inquiries about the new circulation figures.

A course on pranks and social activism at St. Mary's College in California distributed a bogus news release to the Associated Press and several newspapers touting the opening a fictional bar.

A Contra Costa Times reporter spent several hours researching the non-existent bar, said the paper, which ran an item on the hoax. No news entities covered the fictional event.

The course’s teacher Ray Beldner told the Times he wanted to teach students how to bring issues to the public eye using creative methods and called the endeavors “serious-minded pranks” and not "goofing around."

TechCentralStation.com, an online magazine, has re-launched with a new address, www.TCSDaily.comm, to reflect its coverage of technology, commerce and society. TCS reports about 500K unique visitors/month.

A court has ruled that Sylvester Stallone can continue to produce his fitness magazine Sly, despite a $1M legal suit from an Internet shoe fetish magazine of the same name. Stallone’s mag, published by American Media, is evaluating its future after four issues, according to the Associated Press.

Washingtonpost.com has extended free use of its digital archives to include the past 60 days of content, up from its previous policy of two weeks.

“The great majority of requests for archives is for content that has appeared in the last 30-60 days,” said CEO/publisher Caroline Little in a statement. “Part of the impact of blogs and other sites that link to us is that information stays current and part of the national conversation for a longer time. People should be able to access that information easily and without charge.”

The site’s policy for paid archives, which date back to 1877, remains unchanged.

One of the benefits of the Internet is that polls are not needed to find out what readers are interested in. Every “click” on a story is counted.

Ketchum/Armstrong Williams was by far the most accessed story on the O'Dwyer website in 2005, taking four of the top five places.

Getting the most hits was a page one New York Times article on the Bush Administration’s use of VNRs in the Iraq war; Ketchum's work for the Dept. of Education ($240K contract with Williams), and Ketchum's VNRs for Medicare (in which the word "reporting" was used by its commentators).

No. 2 was a web editorial headlined: “Heads Should Roll in Ketchum/Williams Affair.” (They didn’t).

No. 3 was “VNR Firms Will Meet New Standards,” meaning the PR and VNR industries want a solution to the issue of on-air identification of VNR sources.

Lizzie Grubman, the PR ex-con who got her own TV show, was the seventh most popular subject.

An editorial titled “PRSA Mishandled Miami Conference Cancellation,” was No. 11. A crisis quickly reveals PR skills (or lack of them).

The No. 1 accessed story in December was on the Pentagon's “pay for play” activities in Iraq. The story, titled “Pentagon Pay for Play – PR Pros Sound Off,” drew 10,000+ words of comment by a dozen concerned PR pros.

No. 2 in interest was Catherine Bolton announcing she would leave her $300K+ COO post at PRSA as of Dec. 31, 2006. Why was she giving notice of her resignation 13 months in advance?!

No. 3 in December was Fraser Seitel’s column on 2005 “PR Winners and Sinners.” Winners included Martha Stewart and Beth Holloway-Twitty (whose daughter disappeared in Aruba) while losers were Presidential PR advisor Karen Hughes, Michael Scanlon (PR person for Tom DeLay), Ketchum, and TV “talk show titans” Bill O’Reilly and Pat O’Brien.

Secrecy has surrounded the PR firms involved in the Pentagon’s “pay-for-play” activities, but those walls are starting to crumble.

James Bamford wrote an exhaustive piece on John Rendon for the Nov. 17, 2005 Rolling Stone, becoming the first reporter to interview him in years.

Rendon, 56, was initially a Democrat. He has had assignments in 91 countries since 1980, being involved in every war except Somalia.

Born in New Jersey, he was an opponent of the Vietnam War, campaigning for Senator George McGovern. He rose to executive director of the Democratic National Committee and managed Jimmy Carter's supporters at the 1980 national convention.

When Carter lost, Rendon opened a firm with his brother, Rick, that helped elect John Kerry to the Senate in 1984. The firm switched to the Republicans in 1989 after the election of President George H.W. Bush. First job was building opposition to General Manuel Noriega in Panama. Rendon told Bamford he is usually up at 3 a.m. digesting news from the web, newspapers and other sources. Bamford says Rendon has a high level of clearance to read government documents, but Rendon said it's no better than that given to thousands of other contractors for the Dept. of Defense. His hourly rate is $311.26, say CIA/Pentagon contracts.

Christian Bailey, a 30-year-old U.K. native whose Lincoln Group has a $100M Pentagon contract, was skewered by the Dec. 19 Independent of the U.K. which claims Bailey “has no PR experience.” The “Lincoln” title comes from Lincoln College of Oxford, from which Bailey (formerly “Yusefovich” says the Independent) graduated in 1997 with an MA in economics and management. He seems to have spent most of his time working at hedge funds, says the paper, which interviewed former classmates.

Armed with astute business and social skills, Bailey became co-chair of the New York chapter of Lead21, a group of young Republicans. He moved to D.C. where he hosted parties for congressional staffers and reporters.

A partner is Paige Craig, 31, former U.S. Marine who served in Iraq. Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, whose phone calls to Lincoln were ignored, called Bailey "a fop" who helped run the 2004 Republican convention and who "put a bunch of Bush campaign hacks on the gravy train, finagled security clearances, then assigned them to corrupt the Iraqi media."

A popular story on the O’Dwyer website in December told of Michael Wolff’s article in Vanity Fair in which he claimed the military practiced “obstructionist” PR in Iraq. In the same vein is a lament by Ted Koppel that too many PR people are blocking the news flow in Washington, D.C.

What has happened is that many former PR pros have morphed into lobbyists, operating mainly behind the scenes. The Jack Abramoff scandal will “out” many of these activities in the coming year.

What is the common, day-in and day-out of experience of reporters with PR pros?

U.K. journalist Brett Arends, who joined the Boston Herald this year, wrote July 10 that he was shocked that U.S. PR pros take four days to return calls and are often unable to confirm basic facts. They “actually seem affronted if they ever have to talk to the press,” he wrote. Some companies employ whole teams of “apparent mutes,” he added, who could easily be replaced with a “Radio Shack answering machine.” Many U.S. PR pros, he said, are “simply incapable of co-operating with any story they didn't originate ... call them with an original question and they go to pieces.”

To combat such “blockage” and “secrecy” charges, we propose that CEOs in 2006 institute an “Open Mike” one afternoon each week in which reporters can make unscreened calls to them, presenting questions and making observations. CEOs could give immediate responses or make formal replies later.

--Jack O'Dwyer