CALIF. GROWERS REVIEW $500K+ ACCOUNT.

A joint venture between California’s agriculture industry and the state that runs a marketing program encouraging the purchase of Golden State-grown products is reviewing its $550K PR account.

The campaign, called “Buy California,” began in 2001 with $5M in seed money from Gov. Gray Davis. Agricultural organizations in the state, along with the California Dept. of Food and Agriculture, oversee the campaign under the Buy California Marketing Agreement.

The PR component [its ad account is separately being reviewed] is currently handled by Fleishman-Hillard and the firm has submitted a proposal to defend the account.

The BCMA said it has a PR budget of up to $550K for a PR contract through June 2007. The group said the initial focus is on California’s 30 million people, but it is possible that a national or international component could be added.

California’s agriculture industry is a $30B business, representing the cultivation of 350 crop and livestock commodities.

A firm could be selected by the end of August.

BARR DEPARTS ATARI FOR H&K.

Ryan Barr, VP of corporate communications for Atari, has left the video game maker for a SVP post with Hill & Knowlton to head the firm’s New York financial relations specialty group. Barr also takes the title of director of IR and financial comms.

At Atari, he headed all internal and external communications, including investor relations. He also led funding activity to secure capital for the company.

Earlier, Barr was director of corporate development and communications for Medialink Worldwide, handling IR, PR, corporate marketing and advertising. He was previously a VP for Brainerd Comms. in New York.

Atari has not yet named a replacement.

GRAY TO OGILVY.

Andrew Gray, communications director for the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, has joined the public affairs practice of Ogilvy PR Worldwide in Washington, D.C.

He handled media duties for key legislation such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Terrorism Risk Insurance Program and Sarbanes-Oxley.

Previously, he served as deputy press secretary for Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), who chairs the Senate banking panel.

GAO URGES CUT IN ANTI-DRUG CAMPAIGN.

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy’s well-funded media campaign aimed to reduce youth drug use has not been effective and Congress should consider limiting its funding, according to a 77-page report from the Government Accountability Office.

The campaign, which burned through $1.2 billion between 1998 and 2004, uses Foote Cone & Belding for advertising and Fleishman-Hillard for PR. Both firms have reaped tens of millions of dollars working on the effort.

The latest report is the second of two GAO studies on the ONDCP campaign. The first, released in March, was conducted after the Senate Appropriations Committee expressed concerns that contractors were collecting a large portion of a budget intended to pay for media time.

The GAO found then that 72 percent of the $520M spent on contractors from ‘04-06 went to buying media time and space. Contractors took in $147M for their services during that time. [F-H collected $27M between 2002-04, the GAO reported.]

Responding to the GAO’s finding, John Walters, director of ONDCP, criticized the GAO’s recommendation for Congress to limit funding because it “offers insufficient detail to demonstrate satisfactory evidence of progress.”

He also said there could be far-reaching and unfavorable consequences to cutting the ONDCP budget, similar to recent results that found curbs to anti-smoking programs have coincided with upswings in youth smoking rates.

PARISI SHOOTS FOR THE STARS.

Veteran PR counselor Frank Parisi has been named interim executive director for the Minnesota Planetarium and Space Discovery Center that is looking to open in the fall of `09. Minneapolis is funding Parisi’s post for at least a year.

Parisi, the one-time head of F-H’s Minneapolis office, recently exited the Omnicom unit. He left as senior counselor.

Earlier, Parisi was chief communications officer for Cowles Media and Star Tribune Co. He also held PR posts at Cray Research, United Technologies, Getty Oil and Trans World Airlines.

The Minnesota legislature okayed $22M in bonds to pay for the planetarium, but there is a need for an additional $22M in private contributions to complete funding for the facility that will be housed in the Central Library in Minneapolis.

WAL-MART MOVES FROM ‘HEZBOCRAT’ FLAP.

Wal-Mart Stores is distancing itself from Herman Cain, a member of the steering committee of the Working Families for Wal-Mart front group that is bankrolled by the Bentonville, Ark., behemoth. (Andrew Young resigned as chief of the WFWM group this month after making racial remarks about Jews, Arabs and Koreans.)

Cain penned an Aug. 22 column on Townhall.com in which he attacked Democratic presidential hopefuls (and Wal-Mart critics) as “Hezbocrats, a roaming band of militant guerrillas.”

Cain is perturbed that Sens. Joe Biden (Del.) and Evan Bayh (Ind.) along with New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson attended a Des Moines rally to demand that Wal-Mart pay workers a “living wage.” Bayh said Wal-Mart is “emblematic of the anxiety around the country, and the middle-class squeeze.”

Cain dismissed those charges as “spurious,” pointing out that the average full-time Wal-Mart worker earns $10.11 an-hour. He also noted that qualified workers may get heath coverage starting at $11 per-month.

Cain is particularly angry with New York Senator and former Wal-Mart director Hillary Clinton, who returned a $5,000 campaign check from the retailer. He called her the “Hezbocrat militia’s leading candidate for the 2008 nomination.”

Cain wrote that “Hezbocrats, armed with nothing more than Katyusha-grade class warfare rhetoric” are “determined to take down Wal-Mart, a company they consider the nation’s largest capitalistic oppressor of the proletariat.”

Wal-Mart, on its website, notes that Cain is not a corporate spokesperson and that his views are his own.

Edelman handles Wal-Mart’s PR. Its former vice chairman Leslie Dach joined Wal-Mart as communications chief. He worked on the Presidential campaigns of Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy and Michael Dukakis.

NORTHWEST HIT FOR MONEY-SAVING TIPS.

Northwest Airlines says it’s sorry for handing out a booklet called “101 Ways to Save Money” to employees cut from the payroll as the nation’s No. 5 carrier restructures operations under Chapter 11.

The booklet recommends money-saving tips such as buying jewelry in pawnshops, auto parts from junkyards and giving children “hand-me-down” clothes as gifts.

“Don’t be shy about pulling something you like out of the trash,’’ states the booklet that was created by NEAS, an employee assistance outfit based in Wisconsin.

Robert Roach, VP at the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, told Bloomberg News the 165-page booklet is “degrading.”

The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA issued a statement saying “the geniuses that run Northwest Airlines are insulting not only our intelligence, but our dignity as well.’’

NWA has stopped handing out the booklet. ``We sincerely apologize to our employees for any offense this list caused them,’’ said Crystal Knotek, senior VP-ground operations.

KATZ PICKS UP CALIF. DMV BIZ.

San Diego-based Katz & Associates beat five firms for a six-figure PR contract with the California Dept. of Motor Vehicles.

The pact makes K&A the on-call firm for the DMV to handle PR, intergovernmental relations, production, public education and market research, among other tasks for up to three years.

Ogilvy PR Worldwide, One World Communications, Weber Shandwick, Crocker/Flanagan, and Runyon, Saltzman & Einhorn submitted proposals for the RFP, which was issued in mid-May.

The first year of the contract is estimated at $500K. It maxes out at $1.5M if two option years are exercised over three total years, according to the RFP.

K&A – a 20-year old PR and PA shop headed by Sara Katz, a former aide to Gov. Pete Wilson and San Diego Mayor Susan Golding – has an office in Sacramento, where the DMV is headquartered.

The motor vehicle institution notes that it touches the lives of more Californians than any other state agency. Following a two-year overhaul and efforts to improve its service, specific areas of interest for the DMV’s upcoming communications plans include gauging how it is identified by key audiences, deciding the best ways to communicate with its stakeholders, and improving its overall reputation.

ES&S COUNTS ON F-H.

Fleishman-Hillard is handling PR for Election Systems and Software, which ironed out a $750M agreement with Indiana last week to settle complaints about the performance of its electronic voting machines in the May primary.

John Groh, senior VP at ESS, which is battling Diebold in the electronic voting game, said at an Aug. 22 Indianapolis news conference that the company has put together a “bible” of lessons learned from the Indiana fiasco. The company vowed to hike its support staff in the 46 states in which it operates.

ES&S recently got a vote of confidence from F-H’s hometown of St. Louis. County officials reported few glitches in the Aug. 8 primary.

St. Louis County spent $9.6M in federal money to install ES&S machines to comply with the 2002 Help America Vote Act.

SPIVAK TO CCA.

Creative guru Helayne Spivak is joining healthcare PR firm Chandler Chicco Agency next month.

She will take the creative reins at the firm’s CCA Advertising unit. Spivak also will counsel the parent firm which was founded in `95 by Robert Chandler and Gianfranco Chicco.

Spivak has been worldwide creative director at JWT and chief creative officer at Young & Rubicam. Credits include campaigns for Sears, MCI, FedEx, General Motors, Eastman Kodak, and AT&T.

Chandler says he looks forward to using Spivak’s “experience and perspective to create new avenues to reach consumers.”

She joins CCA on Sept. 12.

DOW JONES PUTS SIX PUBS ON THE BLOCK.

Dow Jones & Co. is looking for “value-creating alternatives” for six papers in its Ottoway Community Newspapers unit, according to a statement from the media combine.

It plans to either sell or swap properties in Danbury, CT; Oneonta and Plattsburg, NY; Sunbury, PA; Traverse City, MI, and Santa Cruz, CA.

Those papers generate about $25M in annual profit. DJ says any proceeds from a sale would be used to pay debt.

A transaction also would allow the company to use $155M in capital loss tax carry-forwards that expires at the end of the year.

OFFICE PIRATES WALK THE PLANK.

Time Inc. has shut down its Office Pirates humor website that was largely aimed at the men in cubicles market.

On the site, OP, thanks “everyone who wasted a bit of time on the corporate dime with us.” It claims 11.5 million page views over the month of August.

Time says OP faces a “longer road” than anticipated before it was going to be a big business. The site was launched six months ago.

NYT CO. PAYS $35M FOR MOVIE SITE.

The New York Times Co. is paying $35M for Baseline StudioSystems, a site that provides data about the movie and TV businesses.

The subscription site will generate about $6M in `06 revenues. Janet Robinson, CEO at NYTO, is looking for subscription streams to add to its advertising stream.

Hollywood Media Corp. had owned Baseline, which has box-office revenue data, plot summaries, and archived articles from Variety and Hollywood Reporter.

Baseline is based in Santa Monica. It has about 50 employees.

MICROSOFT LINKS WITH FACEBOOK.

Microsoft has signed a deal to be the exclusive advertising supplier to Facebook, which trails MySpace in the social networking scene.

The three-year pact begins with banner ads and will ultimately wind up with ads linked to Microsoft's search service, which lags far behind Google. Facebook is big on college campuses with nine million registered users.

Microsoft’s Facebook hook-up follows News Corp.’s $900M tie with MySpace. Terms of the Microsoft deal have not been disclosed.

AKRON BEACON JOURNAL SLASHES STAFF.

The Akron Beacon Journal, a former Knight Ridder paper unloaded by McClatchy, is cutting 25 percent of its news staff to cope with dropping ad revenues.
The 40 layoffs by new owner Black Press are only the second time staffers were laid off in the paper's 167-year history.

The Beacon, which reported the cutbacks, quotes new publisher Ed Moss saying the cuts are “necessary to align costs with revenues.” He also called it a “very sad day.”

The paper, according to Moss, is working on a plan to hike revenues. He warned of more cutbacks if those promised increased revenues don't arrive.

SONY GOBBLES GROUPER.

Sony Pictures Entertainment has bought Grouper, a free user-generated video website, in a deal worth $65M.

Grouper, No. 2 behind YouTube, fits Sony’s “vision of making entertainment accessible to consumers whenever, wherever and however they want,” according to Michael Lynton, CEO of the Sony unit.

The company has no plans to change Grouper's management or marketing strategy because the entity “gives us a strong platform for growth,” added Lynton.

Sausalito, Calif.-based Grouper was founded in ’04 by Josh Felser and David Samuel. They were backed by $5M in seed money.

MTV, NICK GO HOLLYWOOD.

Viacom has made the MTV and Nickelodeon cable units full labels under its Paramount Motion Picture Group to better leverage their "talent and marketing capabilities," according to CEO Tom Freston.

They join Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks SKG, Paramount Vintage and Paramount Classics brands.

Scott Aversano has been named president of MTV Films and Nick Movies. He is in charge of film development, production and acquisitions. Aversano reports to Gail Berman, president of Paramount Pictures.

Van Toffler, group president-MTV Networks Music Group, and Cyma Zarghami, president-Nickelodeon and MTV Networks Kids and Family Group, are responsible for image and brand-related matters for the new movie labels.

MTV Films will produce comedies, documentaries, urban fare and horror flicks for teens and young adults, while Nick Movies will release animated and family films.

Nick Movies has recently released “Nacho Libre” and “Barnyard.” It is slated to release a live-action version of “Charlotte’s Web” in December.

Sherman’s Travel is being spun off from ShermansTravel.com, which received more than 1.5M unique visitors in July. The quarterly magazine is aimed at people interested in the "smart luxury value" market.

James Sherman, a former executive at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, started the website in `03 with funding from Gannett Co.

Sara Mathew, has been named president of Dun & Bradstreet’s U.S. operations. She succeeds 52-year-old Michael Pepe, who is exiting in October to do other things. Mathew, 51, retains CFO duties.

Hugh Panero, CEO of troubled XM Satellite Radio Holdings, has resigned from the board of beleaguered Vonage, the Internet phone company. He wants to focus his sights on crafting a survival plan for XM, which may wind up merging with rival Sirius Satellite Radio.

Vonage has no immediate plans to replace Panero.

(Media news continued on next page)

VNU GETS $100M MAN.

David Calhoun, vice chairman and 27-year veteran of General Electric, has been named CEO of VNU Group, the Dutch publishing/research giant.

He had been running the GE Infrastructure unit, which includes its aviation, energy, oil & gas, transportation and water units. That is a $47B enterprise with more than 85,000 workers.

VNU supervisory board issued a statement that said Calhoun's experience makes him "superbly qualified to take VNU to the next level of growth and performance."

The Wall Street Journal speculates that VNU, which was acquired last month by an investment group including Blackstone Group and Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts, is shelling out at least $100M to lure Calhoun from GE.

That amount includes $50M in compensation that he is leaving at GE and another $50M in potential equity. VNU has not disclosed terms of Calhoun's comp package.

VNU's revenues are in the $4B range. Its 41,000 employees work at places such as Nielsen Information Research, ACNielsen, AdWeek, Hollywood Reporter, Computing and Billboard.

TIMES NAMES FIRST FRAGRANCE CRITIC.

The New York Times has named magazine writer and author Chandler Burr as its first perfume columnist.

Burr, who penned “The Emperor of Scent: A True Story of Perfume and Obsession” (Random House, 2003), wrote his first column for the Times’ T: Women’s Fashion supplement on Aug. 27.

The Times said his column, Scent Strip, will appear frequently in the paper's style magazine. He will review and rate new and classic perfumes and products like scented candles based on a four-star system.

Burr has written for the Times, Food & Wine and The New Yorker. He is currently writing a book about the Hermes fragrance Un Jardin sur le Nil, based on a story he penned for the The New Yorker.

People _________________

Allison Arieff has resigned as editor-in-chief of home design magazine Dwell. Managing editor Ann Wilson Spradlin takes on responsibility for both the editorial and art teams.

Also, Andrew Wagner and Sam Graw have been promoted to executive editors.

The six-year-old title has branched out into conferences and lent its name to pre-fab housing.

Roger Neal, director of business development at eBay, has been named senior VP and GM of BusinessWeek Online.

Lou Helton, a radio host and trade reporter, plans to launch a new publication on the country radio and recording industries in Nashville.

Helton has been country editor and Nashville bureau chief for Radio & Records in a 23-year career there. He resigned this month after R&R owner VNU tapped him to be Nashville editor of Billboard to replace the fired Phyllis Stark.

Helton said he will serve as president and CEO of a new company to develop the publication. He has retained an agreement to publish the Mediabase country charts published by R&R.

Chuck Aly, R&R associate country editor, has joined Helton's venture as VP of editorial and operations.
VNY named Wade Jessen to Helton's post at R&R.

Briefs _____________________

VNU Business Media has launched Contract China, a monthly magazine focused on commercial interior design and architecture, and an offshoot of Contract in the U.S.

CC is VNU's first publication to launch in China.

The bi-monthly claims an initial circulation of 17,500. Edward Leung is editor.

VNU says there are 550K people working in China's interior design industry.

ValueRich, a business magazine for small-cap companies and investors, plans to increase its frequency from quartery to bi-monthly in 2007.

The two-year-old title, based in West Palm Beach, Fla., has brought in Liza Grant Smith has managing editor and plans to debut new features like CEO Q&A, guest columns, and social sections.

TheStreet.com has inked a deal to produce market-related videos and business reports at the NASDAQ market's Times Square studio.

TheStreet will produce two or three videos per week to include interviews with opening and closing bell guests, as well as financial market reports.

The web portal, which has been beefing up its video portfolio, will run the features as streaming video online.

Fox Broadcasting is the first national advertiser to purchase "blinks" (one or two second ads) on Clear Channel's radio network. The spots promote "Prison Break" and "The Simpsons."

Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard, says liberalism is “endemic” in today’s mainstream media. He notes that while he was Washington correspondent for the then-liberal New Republic, good young writers of that pub were snatched up by the New York Times, Time and Newsweek.

No mainstream outlet is interested in the young conservative writers at the WS, Barnes told a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar. He called the NYT hiring of David Brooks an exception. Brooks though was “the least conservative person” at the WS, according to Barnes.

CNN will commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks by replaying on the `Net the coverage of that terrible day.

Viewers can tune in at 8:30 a.m. – just prior to the first report of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center – and watch in real time until midnight the news of the terror attacks.

“Sales is not a dirty word,” PR author Tom Harris has told us in commenting on the Harris Interactive/ PRSA survey described here last week that found that four of five Americans feel PR is just “another sales tool” of companies.

“It’s O.K. that the public sees PR as part of selling,” he told us.

PR plays an important role in helping sales and our capitalist system is about the buying and selling of goods and services in a free marketplace, he notes. “It’s as good a raison d’etre as I know for what we do,” he adds.

We agree with that but PR also has the higher duty of answering questions of the press and public.

Part of the American system is “vigorous” public debate. That is how truths are arrived at. Americans have confidence in the marketplace because they see products, services, issues and public figures being batted around in the media.

The view of some Europeans, expressed many years ago, is that PR in the U.S. has “lost its soul” by becoming too commercial and too identified with institutions rather than serving as a bridge between institutions and the press.

Richard Edelman had an interesting weekend Aug. 12-13 that included dinner with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and breakfast with financier George Soros, who bankrolls many a candidate and cause of the Democratic party. Peres, who had just celebrated his 82nd birthday, told Edelman that Israel was surprised by the tenacity of the Hezbollah in Lebanon and expressed the hope that the Government of Lebanon could reconstitute itself without Hezbollah. Soros has just completed a book, The Age of Fallibility; Consequences of the War on Terror. Edelman (writing in his blog), said he was pleased by his friend Ned Lamont’s victory over Senator Joseph Lieberman in the recent Democratic primary in Connecticut. Edelman held a fund-raiser for Lamont...Jana Schilder, who has a PR firm in Toronto, commented on the Harris/PRSA study, saying, “The ultimate irony is that the profession that seeks to build understanding and awareness for others has a bad reputation itself.” She feels that advocacy for PR (PR for PR) is the “single most important thing” that PR associations such as the Canadian PR Society, IABC and PRSA can do...but Brian Kilgore, who operates the website briankilgore.com in Canada, says there is little PR for PR in Canada. CPRS told him it is setting up a speakers’ bureau for that purpose. Kilgore said the last major PR for PR effort in Canada was nearly 20 years ago when CPRS president John Francis talked to boards of trade throughout Canada...Roger Bolton, president, Arthur W. Page Society, said the Society doesn’t pretend to speak for the entire industry but it works to ensure that its members and their employers and clients live by the Page principles. “These include telling the truth and listening and being responsive to the needs of diverse constituents—principles that are at odds with the negative portrayals of PR,” he said...September is “Ethics Month” at PRSA and, as part of it, four members of the Board of Ethics and Professional Standards will conduct nine teleseminars on Sept. 5, 12, and 26 (three different times each date). Cost is $190 for members and $290 for non-members. BEPS members speaking are chair Linda Cohen, James Lukaszewski, Robert Frause and Emmanuel Tchividjian. We wonder if this is open to the press. Our first question would be, “Is it ethical for the PRSA board to stop the Central Michigan chapter from putting its proposal to ‘democratize’ PRSA on the PRSA website?” The chapter has now had to send 110 individual e-mails to chapter presidents in a move to get a discussion going. Whether any president will put this on his or her own chapter website remains to be seen. PRSA/New York will not do this, proving the Central Michigan point that PRSA is marred by “top down” governance...since BEPS is also concerned with “professional standards,” we wonder if it’s “professional” for the PRSA PR staffers Janet Troy and Cedric Bess to refuse to help us on weekends when we are preparing copy for Monday and need answers. Media such as daily papers and radio/TV stations work 24/7 and we think that “professionalism” among PR pros would require them to be available on weekends...PRSA will celebrate its 60th anniversary over a two-year period—from June 2007 to June 2008. It was founded in the summer of 1947 (and PRSA directories for decades referred to PRSA’s founding in 1947). But it didn’t get its “charter” from New York State until the next February. PRSA had planned for years to celebrate 1997 as its 50th anniversary (including seeking a stamp with the years 1947-1997 on it). But Debra Miller was elected president for 1997 and she had her enemies at h.q. and on the board. The nomcom had tried to kick her off the board but she ran from the floor of the Assembly and defeated Janice Newman of Newman, Newman & Jones. So the board/h.q. suddenly switched the observation to 1998 when Mary Cusick was president. The two-year observance is illogical and will make it hard for PRSA to get anniversary stories which may be a motive for this. Googling PRSA O’Dwyer brings up 16,700 entries. PRSA may want to stay out of the limelight...“Scoop,” the new Woody Allen movie, depicts a female college reporter as a temptress, luring story subjects to bed so she can rifle their belongings (8/16 NL). She also lies as much as necessary. “Thank You for Smoking” had similar behavior by a female reporter and Lois Lane, Superman’s love interest, not only beds a source but has his baby. Reporters often come across as “money-grubbing, selfish, arrogant scoundrels” in the movies and on TV, according to the Image of the Journalist in Media project at USC. New York Times columnist David Carr, writing about this 8/14, says a more positive view of journalists is in the new Bravo series called “Tabloid Wars.” It captures journalists in the pursuit of stories and notes that they don’t get discouraged even though most of the people they call “hang up” as if they were “telemarketers.”

--Jack O'Dwyer