HOUSTON REGION ISSUES CLEAN AIR RFP.
The Houston-Galveston Area Council, armed with $450K in federal money, has issued an RFP for a PR firm to guide its clean air initiatives.

The Council, which oversees 13 counties and 5.4 million people in the region, wants a firm to develop a “strategic and aggressive PR campaign” to promote its Clean Cities/Clean Vehicles Program and other clean air efforts. The work targets the public, businesses, industries and governmental entities.

Under the 1990 Clean Air Act, the region has until 2009 to reduce certain ozone-harming emissions or it will face losing $1 billion in federal transportation subsidies. It has five programs in place to meet federal standards.

A second key element of the campaign is to develop a PSA and marketing campaign to promote the region’s Commute Solutions Program, promoting carpooling and telecommuting for businesses and consumers. Events, seminars and press conference planning are part of that assignment.

First year budget is $562K ($450K from federal coffers, $112K local).

Fifteen of the 100 potential points in the firm evaluation go toward having a local presence in the Houston-Galveston area.

A copy of the RFP has been posted on the Council’s website. A separate RFP has been issued for advertising. Proposals are due Jan. 31.

MATTIA HEADS COKE PR.
Tom Mattia, VP of global communications for EDS, plans to pop over to The Coca-Cola Co. as director of worldwide public affairs and communications.

Mattia, who starts work on February 1 and will be based in Coke’s home of Atlanta, is slated to be recommended by CEO Neville Isdell for senior VP status at the company’s February board meeting.

Clyde Tuggle, who held the director post as a senior VP and a 16-year veteran of the company, was named president of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus for Coca-Cola.

Mattia had been with EDS since 2000 and earlier held top PA posts at Ford Motor Company and various posts in ten years at IBM. His agency experience includes GCI Jennings (chief operating officer) and Hill & Knowlton (head of Asian operations).

Following Mattia’s departure, EDS has promoted Jeff Baum to VP of global communications, effective immediately. Baum, 43, joined EDS in 2000 after serving as director of financial media relations for Lucent Technologies.

ASG SHUTS DOWN.
Alexander Strategy Group, one of Washington’s top lobbying and public affairs firms, will shut down because of the negative press about its connections to Jack Abramoff and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who has been indicted.

Ed Buckham, who was DeLay’s chief of staff, told the Washington Post that the firm was “fatally damaged by publicity” from the federal probe of Abramoff.

The lobbying firm was hurt by DeLay’s decision to not try to regain his leadership post. ASG and Buckham were known to be “gatekeepers” to Delay for clients.

ASG had $8M in ’05 revenues, according to the National Journal. It represented 70 companies and organizations such as Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Microsoft and Fannie Mae.

ARMY RECRUITS MS&L.
The U.S. Army has hired Manning Selvage & Lee to do outreach to pro-military bloggers, Jud Branam, managing director of Haas MS&L, told O’Dwyer’s.
Branam said he could not go into any detail about the work. He would only confirm that the Detroit office was recently hired by the military.

A Haas MS&L e-mail sent to bloggers says the Army is interested in testing a “new outlet for public information.” The Army promises “exclusive editorial content” on selected issues.

The blogs are viewed as a way to distribute “good news” about Iraq stories.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld believes stories about progress in Iraq are largely missing from the mainstream press.

FIERCE BATTLE LOOMS OVER PRSA COO.
A fierce political battle is shaping up at PRSA centered around the search for a COO to replace Catherine Bolton, who is leaving Dec. 31, 2006.

The PRSA board, wasting no time after Bolton announced her resignation last month, named seven members to a search committee.

A key issue is whether a PR or association professional will be sought. This was debated when the last COO search took place in 1993.

An issue that has resurfaced is whether students from any college can join PRSA.

Currently only those from 270 colleges “approved” by PRSA can join the PRSSA student unit. Backers of the 2002 at-large student proposal want it brought up again.

(continued on page 7)

GE SPENT $122M+ TO FIGHT CLEAN-UP.
General Electric spent more than $122M for PR, lobbying and lawyer fees from `90 to `05 in its effort to fight demands that it clean up three contaminated polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) sites.

The company released that information “in response to a shareholder request,” and in an apparent effort to sidestep a messy showdown with environmental activists at its annual meeting.

The Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment had planned to sponsor a shareholder resolution asking for the PR numbers at that meeting. The group on Jan. 10 agreed to drop the measure. The resolution last year received support from 27.4 percent of GE’s outstanding shares.

A confrontation with the Coalition over PCBs would have been a dicey situation for GE CEO Jeff Immelt, who is positioning the conglomerate as a leader in environmental health and safety.

Patricia Daly, executive director of the group, said GE “deserves credit for finally coming clean about the costs of its stalling tactics on PCB contamination.”

Cathy Rowan, corporate responsibility coordinator at the Maryknoll Sisters, called GE’s disclosure of expenditures “an important step towards greater transparency and accountability on the part of GE to all its stakeholders.”

The GE sites include a 200-mile stretch of the Hudson River (the nation’s biggest Superfund site), Housatonic River (Pittsfield, MA) and a transformer facility (Rome, GA). The company spent $86.6M for legal fees, $33.4M for PR and $2.1M for gov’t relations.

GE’s total outlays at the sites, including site investigation & remediation, government fees, staff overhead and scientific research, clocked in at $799.3M.

Daly said that cash trove “would have gone a long, long way in cleaning up the problem if so much of that money had not been wasted on PR, lobbying and courtroom delaying tactics.”

FITZGERALD EXITS AS CONTRACT EXPIRES.
Maura FitzGerald, 56, is exiting her Boston-based firm to pursue “personal interests” and the shop is being folded into Fleishman-Hillard. She sold the Boston-based high-tech firm to Omnicom in ‘02.

Richard Kline, F-H’s regional president, is coordinating the integration of the FitzGerald “brand” with its other high-tech units such as Lois Paul & Partners and High Road Communications. “There are no plans to make any changes at FitzGerald,” Kline told O’Dwyer’s. There’s also no plan to replace FitzGerald, as Kline will oversee the shop.

FitzGerald founded the firm a dozen years ago. Her contract expired, and she decided not to re-up, according to Candace Quackenbos, a FC spokesperson. She said the FC name will continue.

The shop had $21.4M in fees and 180 staffers in 2000, the last year that it provided financial data to O’Dwyer’s. Kline declined to give the current number of staffers or fee income because of Sarbanes-Oxley restrictions.

SIX FLAGS OPENS IN NEW YORK.
Six Flags, the Oklahoma City-based theme park operator that was taken over by Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder in November, has opened an entertainment and marketing unit in New York.

The office is responsible for in-park entertainment, PR, advertising, licensing and promotions.

Mike Antinoro, an ESPN veteran, leads the operation as executive VP. He is credited with developing the “World Series of Poker” franchise.

Antinoro is joined by Angelina Vieira and Wendy Goldberg. Vieira was president of Bugaboo, and launched the Bugaboo Frog stroller in the U.S. She also worked at Wieden & Kennedy, handling Nike, Microsoft, ESPN and Krispy Kreme.

Goldberg takes the senior VP-communications post. She is a veteran of America Online.

Snyder is the former owner of Arnold Communications, which he sold to France’s Havas.

He installed ESPN executive VP Mark Shapiro as Six Flags president in December replacing Kieran Burke.

Snyder supporters former Congressman Jack Kemp, filmmaker Harvey Weinstein and brand consultant Michael Kassan were elected to Six Flags’ board.

Joele Frank, Wilkinson, Brimmer Katcher is the company’s PR firm. The company has put its ad account under review. Doner is the incumbent.

SC GUIDES BAIN THROUGH TI BUYOUT.
Stanton Crenshaw represented Bain Capital in the private equity fund’s $3 billion purchase of Texas Instruments’ sensors and controls division.

Alex Stanton, president of New York-based SC, noted the deal is one of the first large leveraged buyout deals of 2006 and drew a lot of attention globally as a major technology industry buyout.

The deal was announced on Jan. 9 for the TI unit, which engineers sensors and controls for markets from appliances to aircraft. Revenue exceeds $1B/year and the division staffs about 5,400.

The buyout is expected to be completed in the first half of 2006, contingent on regulatory approval.

KWITTKEN HANGS SHINGLE.
Aaron Kwittken, who exited the CEO slot at Euro RSCG Magnet for “lifestyle reasons” in November, has resurfaced.

The 35-year-old PR wunderkind is offering corporate reputation management, “buzz marketing” and executive communications training at Kwittken & Co. on Lexington Ave. in New York. He is joined by Jason Schlossberg, a seven-year Magnet employee who has counseled Yahoo!, Weight Watchers, Towers Perrin and Mercedes Benz.

Schlossberg, president at K&C, publicized Euro RSCG’s research on the emergence of “metrosexuals.”

Kwittken, a veteran of Capitoline/Manning, Selvage & Lee, Ketchum, Fleishman-Hillard, GCI Group and Middleberg, can be reached at 212/551-7914.

Kwittken told O’Dwyer’s he has 10 staffers and a handful of clients.

TIME DROPS PAY MODEL FOR BIZ PUBS.
Time Inc. has dropped a pay model for its business magazines' websites and combined with sister unit CNN to merge content into a business news portal under the umbrella of CNNmoney.com.

With the move, Time Inc. has dropped the pay model for the websites of Fortune, Fortune Small Business, Business 2.0 and Money.

CNNmoney.com had previously included only CNN and Money magazine content. The portal was re-launched on Jan. 9.

Time Inc. said the combined editorial resources, including CNN's newsrooms worldwide, CNN-branded video, and exclusive and print content from the magazines' writers, makes the site the "most comprehensive" business news site on the ’Net.

Time Inc. plans an online, print and TV ad campaign to drum up readers and advertisers.

Oversight for the portal falls to Vivek Shah, president of digital publishing, Chris Peacock, editor, Greg Schwartz, VP of sales, and Joelle Andersen, marketing director.

MSLO PLANS NEW WOMEN'S LIFESTYLE PUB.
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia plans to launch a two-issue test of a new lifestyle magazine for women in May and August.

Blueprint: Design Your Life is aimed at “modern, multitasking” females ages 25-45. Initial rate base is 250K.

MLSO describes its content as “how-to-do, how-to-choose, and how-to-buy.” It wants to get women who are establishing careers, setting up homes, getting married and having children, and generally “upgrading their lives.”

Development editor is Tom Prince and Rebecca Thuss, former style director for Martha Stewart Weddings, is editor. Debra Bishop, who designed MSLO’s Kids magazine, heads the design team.

MSLO anticipates publishing six issues of Blueprint in 2007.

PATTIZ IS OUT AT BBG.
Norm Pattiz, the founder of Westwood One radio network, has resigned as chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

The Clinton appointee was responsible for the U.S. effort to create Arabic language radio and TV outlets as part of public diplomacy efforts in the Arab world.

He was instrumental in the launch of Radio Sawa and Alhurra Television. Sawa reaches more than 40M people in Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan and Morocco. Key countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt have refused Sawa a license.

Pattiz started Westwood One as a small radio syndication business in Los Angeles in 1979.

The Bush Administration failed to re-appoint Pattiz to his post when his term was up in ’04. There is speculation that Bush officials did not appreciate that Pattiz appeared in a presidential campaign ad for John Kerry. Pattiz denies that his exit has anything to do with his politics.

KOPPEL INKS DEALS WITH TIMES, NPR.
Veteran newsman Ted Koppel has added NPR and the New York Times to his post-Nightline employment.

The Times has inked a deal with Koppel to contribute a column to the paper’s op-ed page, as well as other journalism work.

Koppel, also last week, agreed to a one-year deal to contribute to NPR with about 50 commentaries on its various programs.

Times editorial page editor Gail Collins called the deal a “new type of relationship” for the paper. She said Koppel will also use his “fabled interviewing skills” for conversations with the paper’s columnists and other features via the Times’ premium web service TimesSelect.

Koppel, a 42-year veteran of ABC, earlier this month announced a deal to produce content for Discovery Channel.

His Times column will appear “periodically,” said the paper. At NPR, Koppel will also be an analyst during breaking news and special events, and will contribute to its web content.

EISNER GETS TALK SHOW.
Former Walt Disney CEO Michael Eisner will host a bimonthly talk show on CNBC, which is owned by General Electric’s NBC Universal unit.

“Conversations with Michael Eisner” will focus on innovation and creativity in business, politics and entertainment.

Eisner served more than 20 years at the helm of Disney, but faced a nasty corporate spat with Roy Disney, nephew of Walt. He left on his own terms in October. Bob Iger is Disney’s CEO.

Eisner will use the studio at NBCU’s headquarters at Rockefeller Center in New York for the program. He once worked there as a page.

CMO MAGAZINE PULLS THE PLUG.
CMO magazine has suspended publication after a 16-month run. January 2006 is its last issue.

“The extraordinary feedback and support from the CMO community has not been enough to sustain and grow our advertising-supported business in what has become a severely challenged publishing environment,” said Rob O’Regan, editor-in-chief, in an e-mail to subscribers.

Regan said the publication has “hit the pause button” and will consider alternative business plans.

Publisher is CXO Media in Framingham, Mass.

COPLEY TO SYNDICATE POKER COLUMN.
Poker Pro Magazine said it has made a deal with. Copley News Service to syndicate its “Pro’s Corner” column, which has leading poker players answer questions about beginning and intermediate level play.

The magazine also said it has increased its frequency to monthly because of a “huge demand” and response.

The syndicated column will appear in Copley-subscribing newspapers as “Poker Pro’s Corner.”

Copley’s subscription base is 1,500 newspapers, newsletters and websites in the U.S.

(Media news continued on next page)

N.Y. TIMES PROMOTES EDITORS.
New York Times obituaries editor Charles Strum has been named associate managing editor for the night side, effective on announcement of his replacement.

Paul Winfield, deputy news editor, has been named news editor.

Executive editor Bill Keller noted that the paper has moved from being a “daily event to being a continuous flow of news,” in turn making the night side more important.

Strum has held the obit post for five years, earlier overseeing the “Public Lives” column and serving as New Jersey bureau chief, among other roles on the Metro desk.

Winfield has been a deputy news editor since 1994 after 19 years in the paper’s sports section.

People ___________

Christopher Hosford, executive editor of MeetingNews, has moved over to sister publication Sales & Marketing Management as editor-in-chief. Both titles are owned by VNU Business Media.

Hosford replaces Jennifer Rooney, who left last fall. He was previously editor-in-chief of Corporate & Incentive Travel and Insurance Meeting Management magazines.

Earlier, he was editorial director of Life Extension and co-authored a book on AIDS.

Sarah Rudolph, associate editor, Securities Week, to SFO magazine, as executive editor.

SFO, launched in 2001, is billed as the official journal for “personal investing in stocks, futures and options.”

Rudolph was recently managing editor of Securities Week and earlier was a financial writer for Lexington Corporate Properties Trust in New York.

PBS president Pat Mitchell becomes the head of the Museum of Television & Radio on March 15. Her goal is to position the Museum as the leader in the study of how technology is changing TV and radio. Mitchell headed PBS for six years.

David Givens, director of the Argus Competitive Fuels Service in Washington, D.C., has been named newsletter group publisher for Houston-based Hart Energy Publishing, a post covering nine titles like World Fuels Today, Diesel Fuel News and Oil and Gas Investor.

Givens, who is based in McLean, Va., previously worked at Pasha Publications’ Gas Daily and Megawatt Daily, later becoming editor of its successor company, Financial Times Energy.

Jessica Michault, fashion reporter for the International Herald Tribune, has signed on as contributing editor for Elite Traveler and will write a bi-monthly column.

ET is distributed aboard private jets and so-called mega-yachts, professional sports locker rooms and country clubs, and claims readership of 400K. Average household income is $5.3M.

David Rosenbaum, longtime editor and reporter for the New York Times in Washington, D.C., died after a robbery and assault in D.C. on Jan. 6.

The 63-year-old journalist retired in December but continued to contribute to the paper, which he joined in 1968. The Washington Post said Rosenbaum went out for a walk in northwest Washington and was later found by a neighbor at 9:30 p.m. He later died at Howard Univ. Hospital, where he was treated for head wounds.

He is survived by his wife, two children and two grandchildren.

Briefs __________

The National Geographic Society and custom publisher The Magazine Group have formed a joint venture, GeoGroup Media, to offer "socially responsible communications" for companies and other clients in the U.S.

GGM will publish corporate social responsibility products for clients and try to cut into the estimated $35.5B custom publishing market.

BusinessWeek Online has unveiled a downloadable desktop application which delivers breaking news. The feature, BW Online Alerts, is free and customizable.

The online portal has also launched a new podcast, “Innovation of the Week.”

The PGA Tour has added cable’s Golf Channel to its CBS and NBC broadcasting line-up. The Comcast unit signed a 15-year deal that has it carrying the early rounds of 48 tournaments. CBS and NBC inked six-year deals.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has launched the monthly Economic Letter, which includes commentary and articles by Dallas Fed economists. The January '06 issue is at dallasfed.org.

The Los Angeles Times plans to launch its new Sunday Magazine, West, on Feb. 5, replacing the weekly Los Angeles Times Magazine.

The new title was used by the Times for its weekly mag in the 1960s and ’70s.

Amy Tan, a prolific author of books like “The Joy Luck Club,” has signed on as literary editor and will solicit pieces for “California Story,” a fiction work set in California.

The publication claims six new departments and retains its popular crossword and “800 Words” column.

CMP Media has launched a website covering global technology and business services sourcing at GlobalServicesMedia.com.

The pub, which comes ahead of the planned Feb. 2 launch of the monthly magazine Global Services, is aimed at professionals involved with business process outsourcing, IT outsourcing, custom service and management of global business operations.

A weblog, Executive Editor Online, is penned by Shyamanuja Das. Columnists include Michael Corbett, president of the Int'l Association of Outsourcing Professionals, and professional outsourcing consultants.

PRSA’s search for a new COO (page one) is something that should concern all PR pros.

PRSA, which says it sets standards for the entire PR field and constantly lectures all PR pros on how to behave, deserves praise for putting a non-member on the committee– Hill & Knowlton’s Ellen Shedlarz. At least two chapter presidents are also needed.

Non-members as well as members have been hurt by decades of politics at PRSA and by h.q. staffs that have had virtually no PR pros.

For instance, PRSA’s annual conference exhibit hall was closed for five years starting in 1995 when Ray Gaulke was COO. He said he was looking for one overall sponsor such as IBM or Apple. No such sponsor was ever obtained.

Not only were service firms blocked from showing their products, but PRSA lost a lot of revenues. No doubt this contributed to the loss of $1,105,781 posted in 1999-2000. PRSA couldn’t afford to print its directory in 2000 and now has cancelled the printed directory permanently because of cost.

During the 1990s, PRSA killed its monthly magazine PR Journal in its 50th anniversary year and switched to a monthly tabloid and quarterly magazine that cost millions to start up. Instead of one publication that did not meet expenses, now it has two.

Another loss of revenue, caused by politics by its Educators Academy, past presidents and PR Student Society of America, is the refusal to allow students from 3,600 colleges to join PRSA directly. Only students at the 270 colleges “approved” by PRSA can join. This is a bald anti-competitive policy.

Students from any college should be able to put on their resumes, “Student Member, PRSA,” if that’s what they want. It might help in the job market.

A big revenue loss is caused by PRSA leaders and staff turning their backs on the New York PR community as evidenced by the move of h.q. downtown, a hour roundtrip that few New Yorkers have the time to take. New York could be the richest source of new members but the chapter has shrunk from 1,200 to about 600 because national h.q. is not a resource for it although it once was.

During the late 1980s and up to 1992, when Betsy Kovacs was COO, the Silver Anvil scandal broke. It was revealed that hundreds of entries had been discarded for minor reasons such as a binder being a half-inch too thick. Entry fees were kept and the applicants, many of them non-members of PRSA, were not told the reasons for the rejections. A group of caring PR pros at h.q. would never have so easily tossed back entries, each of them representing hundreds of hours of work.

The copying scandal of the mid-90s involved PRSA selling at least 10,000 “information” packets that included copies of hundreds of articles and entire chapters of books without the authors’ permission. Gross profit was at least $200,000. PR pros would not have allowed this practice.

A dozen authors hired a lawyer and sought payment but PRSA said its library had the right to “lend” such copies to members and non-members. The authors, faced with hundreds of thousands in legal bills to pursue the case and defend against a countersuit, threw in the towel after three years of battling. PRSA apologized but never paid them anything. PRSA’s legal bill was $70,000+.

We don’t think the copying scandal, closing of the exhibit hall, trashing of hundreds of Anvil entries for slight reasons, the flight downtown, the “John Doe” legal action of 2005, and many other missteps would have happened if PRSA h.q. had a “brain trust” of top PR people.

Why is PRSA so hostile to its own professionals? Regional politics is the answer. Up until the late 1970s, members from New York took most of the top elective posts. Led by Patrick Jackson of New Hampshire, chapters outside of New York ousted the “Old Guard” and installed Jackson as president in 1980 and Jim Little of Findlay, Ohio, as president in 1981.

Little had one other pro working with him.

Jackson wouldn’t say how many staffers he had nor identify any of his clients, saying it would be “unprofessional” to do so.

The Jackson/Little philosophy was to rid h.q. of all PR pros who might push their own view of PR. Wanted were association people who would take orders.

First staffer to go was COO Rea Smith, who had her own PR firm before joining PRSA in 1957. She headed staff from 1975 until 1979. She was exiled to the PRSA Foundation at an office on Madison ave. New COO Betsy Kovacs, a career association executive, served from 1980-1992. Gaulke, a career advertising and publishing executive, succeeded her in 1993. Gaulke was succeeded in 2001 by Bolton, who was initially hired as chief PR officer. Bolton got the COO post without a search being made.

Before Gaulke was hired, a debate took place over whether a PR or association pro should head the staff. Dave Drobis, CEO of Ketchum, and other agency executives urged PRSA to hire a PR pro, copying the American Assn. of Adv. Agencies and the major professional associations (doctors, lawyers and CPAs).

Currently the 4As is headed by ad veteran Burtch Drake. There are 17 career ad people on a staff of 87.

Little argued that the COO should be a “professional administrator.”

In our view, those demanding an “association pro” and a non-PR staff have political control as their goal, not what is best for PRSA or the PR industry.

Drobis, 65, who retired from Ketchum three years ago, would be good for the COO spot. Having headed the Arthur W. Page Society and Council of PR Firms, he has the stature and leadership abilities PRSA needs if it is to rise above internal politics.

--Jack O'Dwyer