B-M WINS REVIEW FOR NEW BILLS.

Burson-Marsteller has won a competitive review to guide PR for the U.S. Treasury’s introduction of new $5 and $100 notes.

The $36M pact is the firm’s latest in a line of assignments for the Treasury. It won a $55M contract in 2002 to unveil new $20 and $50 bills and its work stretches back to the last new $100 bill in 1996.

Competitors for the latest account were not immediately available from the Treasury Dept.

An RFP was issued in June after a feeler was put out at the end of 2005 to gauge interest in the work.

The Treasury Dept.’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing, along with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and U.S. Secret Service, work on introductions of new currency, which occur every 7-10 years to stay ahead of counterfeiting technology.

The $100 bill is to be introduced in 2007 while the new $5 bill is slated to follow in 2008.

FLORIDA TO GAUGE CITRUS MARKETING.

The Sunshine State, in order to keep federal marketing dollars flowing to support its overseas citrus PR, is looking for a contractor to review the performance of its current and past efforts.

Florida’s Dept. of Citrus has issued an RFP for a firm to gauge its performance touting grapefruit, grapefruit juice and orange juice among consumers in Canada, France, U.K., Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden and Japan. More than 80 percent of the department’s annual budget goes to advertising and PR.

Point of contact for the RFP is Mike Yetter, international marketing director – [email protected]. Proposals are due Jan. 23.

ILLINOIS MED CENTER ISSUES RFP.

The Univ. of Illinois is conducting a competitive review for a contract to support its Chicago-based medical center’s public affairs strategies for up to nine years.

The west-Chicago medical center grosses more than $500M a year and staffs 778 doctors. It is looking to solidify public support for its research and operations, and attract new patients via its public affairs operations.

The eventual contract is expected to include four base years with five single-year options. A firm must offer PR, marketing, in-house design, distribution and media contacts as an “all-in-one” operation, according to the RFP.
Impact Communications is the incumbent firm.

A pre-proposal conference is scheduled for Jan. 12 in Chicago. Proposals are due Feb. 1.

MURRAY NAMED PRSA COO.

William “Bill” Murray, former executive VP and co-COO of Hollywood’s main trade group who ran his own media and entertainment policy shop, has been named president and COO of PR Society of America. He takes the reins on Jan. 22.

Murray replaces Catherine Bolton after a year-long search by PRSA. Bolton had been making $300K/year, including salary and benefits, after six years with PRSA.

He joins PRSA after most recently serving as a senior fellow at the USC Center for the Digital Future. He is also president of William Murray & Associates, a media and entertainment policy consulting firm.

Murray developed the Motion Picture Association’s first strategic plan in a 20-year career there and worked on trade and film production issues with foreign governments for the group. He held posts covering international operations, strategic planning, market research and digital strategy at the MPA.

A seven-member search committee worked with the executive search firm Spencer Stuart on Murray’s appointment.

Cheryl Procter-Rogers, chair and CEO of PRSA, praised Murray’s blend of association management and communications experience, as well as his work with new digital communications.

He earned a B.A. from Albright College (Reading, Pa.), and an M.B.A. in international management from Thunderbird, the Garvin School of International Management in Glendale, Ariz.

Bolton joined PRSA as chief PR officer in September 2000 and was promoted to acting president and COO in December of that year to replace Ray Gaulke.

CCNMATTHEWS ACQUIRED BY EQUITY FIRM.

The equity arm of a large Canadian pension plan has acquired CCNMatthews, including its Market Wire news service, in an all-cash deal.

Terms of the deal are not being disclosed. A spokesman for Market Wire said there will be no negative impacts on either CCN or MW as CCN units are expected to continue operating independently under the new owners.

In addition to the acquisition, Canadian financial services company Manulife Capital will assume a minority stake in the newswire as a portfolio investment.
CCN, which staffs more than 100 employees across five Canadian offices and a European outpost, acquired MW in April in a $30M deal, one of several in the press release dissemination sector this year.

WAL-MART GOES ‘RED.’

Wal-Mart’s Chinese employees have established a Communist Party cell at its Shenzhen headquarters, reflecting a stepped-up effort by Wal-Mart to ingratiate itself with a country that it sees as increasingly vital to its growth, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Wal-Mart has operated in China for a decade without the existence of cells. The company has also established Party branches in five other Chinese cities including Tianjin. The Party Secretary of the Tianjin store doubles as the head of its PR department.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based discount retailer’s affiliation with Communism stands in sharp contrast to the “wrapping itself with the American flag” approach that Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton took with his famous “buy American” campaign during the `80s.

The WSJ reports that allowing Communist infiltration into foreign companies enables them to “better develop their business by raising the role of party members.” Wal-Mart, which is anti-union here, allows Chinese Government-sanctioned trade unions to operate in its 60-plus stores. That decision was made during the summer.

Wal-Mart, in October, announced the $1B acquisition of Trust-Mart, a China-based hypermarket. It is still waiting for approval by the government of the People’s Republic for that deal to close.

Edelman does PR for Wal-Mart.

AMTRAK REVAMPS PR.

Amtrak’s corporate communications unit remains “intact” following the restructuring of the passenger rail service that included the axing of six key executives by new CEO Alexander Kummant.

Bill Schulz, who headed the firm’s PR unit, is gone. Cliff Black, who was director of media relations head, is taking on Schultz’s responsibilities. “I am the acting chief communications officer,” he told O’Dwyer’s.

Black said PR used to report to marketing, but now reports to Amtrak’s government relations unit. Joe McHugh heads that shop. Barbara Richardson, VP-marketing & sales, was dropped by Kummant.

The moves, according to Black, are designed to improve efficiencies in a bid to cut losses at the government-subsidized rail operation. Uncle Sam pumps more than $1B into Amtrak each year.

Kummant became CEO in September.

F-H WINS NEWELL RUBBERMAID REVIEW.

Fleishman-Hillard has knocked off three other firms to land Newell Rubbermaid’s PR account.

The Atlanta-based company tallies annual sales of about $6 billion across brands like Graco, Sharpie, Lenox, and Rubbermaid.

F-H’s Atlanta office will lead the account with help from New York and other offices, including some overseas work. The firm was one of four responding to an RFP by the company earlier this year.

NR was created by the $5.8 billion acquisition of Rubbermaid by Newell in 1998, a somewhat rocky combine that analysts say may be finally hitting its stride.
F-H is the company’s first global AOR.

PUBLICIS ACQUIRES DIGITAS FOR $1.3B.

Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Levy has inked a $1.3 billion deal to acquire Digitas, the Boston-based interactive communications shop. The $13.50 per-share offer represents nearly a 30 percent premium over the average trading price of Digitas’ stock during the past three months.

Levy boasts that the addition of Digitas combined with Modem Media and Medical Broadcasting Co. makes Publicis the world’s leading digital shop.

Digitas CEO David Kenny will head Publicis’ interactive group, which will account for 15 percent of overall revenues, and sit on the French company’s executive committee. American Express, General Motors, Procter & Gamble, Pfizer, Time Warner, Kraft Foods, IBM, and Wells Fargo are among the blue-chips that have worked with Digitas and its more than 2,000 employees.

Stone Dies at 86.

Robert J. Stone, a 41-year veteran of the PR industry on the corporate and agency sides, died Dec. 27 in White Plains, N.Y. He was 86 and succumbed to a series of strokes that left him hospitalized for months, according to The Dilenschneider Group, the PR firm where he worked for the last 14 years.

Stone served as a principal for TDG in New York, joining the firm with a small group of former top executives of Hill & Knowlton, including Robert Dilenschneider, former president and CEO of H&K. He once told Dilenschneider that it would be a privilege to die at his desk.

“Bob Stone's contributions are legion,” said Dilenschneider, calling one of Stone's greatest accomplishments his helping young practitioners and interns. “This was an extraordinary man who knew the founders of the business and was as current with what was taking place as anyone practicing today.”

Stone, at H&K, rose to senior VP in Chicago and New York for the firm before departing with Dilenschneider in 1992. He was previously director of comms. for McGraw-Edison Co., and VP of corporate comms. and PA for Worthington Compressors. He served as president of Business Organizations, Inc., a predecessor to Carl Byoir & Assocs., and was director of corporate communications for Singer from 1973-77.

He began his PR career at Edelman in 1965, serving as director of eastern operations and later as president of Edelman Investor Relations.

QORVIS PROMOTES BANDAR’S BOOK.

Qorvis Communications helped Prince Bandar, who was Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to the U.S. for more than 20 years, promote his biography, “The Prince: The Secret Story of the World’s Most Intriguing Royal, Prince Bandar bin Sultan.”

Bandar’s book is published by Regan Books, the imprint of News Corp.’s Harper Collins. Judith Regan, who wanted to publish O.J. Simpson’s “If I Did It” book,” has been ousted and plans to sue News Corp.

Qorvis has received millions from the Kingdom under Bandar’s watch. It was hired to promote Saudi Arabia as a key U.S. ally in the aftermath of 9/11.

BUCKLEY LOGS OFF AT AOL.

John Buckley, executive VP-corporate communications, has exited AOL as Time Warner continues to streamline its online operation.

He is joined by James Bankoff, executive VP-programming; Jim Redling, AOL international/mobile chief, and Randy Boe, executive VP-consumer privacy.
Ed Adler, chief spokesperson at TW, denies reports that the departures and chopping staff by more than 25 percent (5,000 jobs) is a move to clean up the unit before its sale to a deep pockets entity like Microsoft.

AVISTA BUYS STAR TRIB.

Private equity firm Avista Capital Partners has inked a deal to acquire The Star Tribune Co. from The McClatchy Co. for $530M. The deal includes the flagship Star Tribune newspaper covering Minneapolis/St. Paul, its Internet arm, and other print properties.

Kekst & Co. is handling PR for the deal for Avista.

The Star Trib is the No. 10 Sunday newspaper (600K circulation) in the U.S. and 14th largest daily (360K).

Avista said Star Tribune Co. senior management will remain in place. Chris Harte, a member of Avista's advisory board and former publisher of the Akron Beacon Journal, will serve as chairman.

McClatchy bought the Star Trib for $1.2B in 1998.

In December, Star Tribune editor and SVP for news, Anders Gyllenhaal, said he was leaving to become executive editor of the Miami Herald, effective in February.

CEOS CAN GET 'FAIR SHAKE' IN MEDIA.

Corporate chieftains can get a "fair shake" in the media if they show up to explain their side of a story, says Maria Bartiromo in a piece penned for NYSE Magazine. It’s important for CEOs to meet the press because the “public is savvy today when it comes to business information.”

Bartiromo recommends that CEOs spend time with the reporter before the story to "educate" him about the business.

Take time before hand "explaining how you see things and what investors are missing about your company." That doesn't mean that the reporter is only going to interview the CEO about the story, she adds.

A CEO, according to the managing editor of “The Wall Street Journal Report with Maria Bartiromo” and anchor of “CNBC’s Closing Bell with Maria Bartiromo,” suggests that CEOs avoid the company’s PR department.

“You’ll score points with the reporter, by the way, if you make the call yourself, rather than have your PR person handle it. It makes the reporter feel like he or she has a direct relationship with you.”

Bartiromo believes there is nothing wrong with a CEO using the media to get a message out. She understands that a CEO comes on her show "because he or she wants to get a particular message out. There is nothing wrong with that, but understand that I have an agenda too," she wrote.

Bartiromo doesn't view herself as an "adversarial journalist." Her job is to “work for shareholders who want answers to their questions."

VNU RESTRUCTURES UNDER NEW TEAM.

VNU CEO David Calhoun plans a restructuring plan at the privately held information services/communications combine that will create a "unified, global client service organization that will present 'one face' to clients worldwide."

The firm's business media unit (Adweek, Billboard, Hollywood Reporter) are being revamped into six marked-focused groups under Robert Krakoff. They include marketing, retail, film, music, marketing services and travel.

VNU has agreed to sell 70 titles of its European business media unit to 3i, a private equity fund. Those magazines include Computing, Accountancy Age and Management Team.

Calhoun also has targeted a 10 percent cut in VNU's overhead. That will lead to the loss of 4,000 jobs over the course of next year.

HUFFINGTON POST ADDS SMITH.

The Huffington Post, the online political/cultural journal, has added James Smith to its ranks as chief revenue officer.

Smith is chief of publishing services at advertising.com, AOL's group of business partnerships.

His job is to generate new revenue streams in video, mobile, commerce as well as content distribution.

At AOL, Smith forged partnerships with Sony, JP Morgan Chase and Nintendo.

PURDUE NAMED INTERIM EIC FOR WORTH.

Worth Magazine executive editor Matthew Purdue has been named interim editor-in-chief to replace Dwight Cass, who is leaving this month.

Cass announced his resignation in December to become capital markets edtior for breakingviews.com.

Purdue is overseeing the CurtCo Media title until a successor for Cass is found.

Worth covers wealth management, preservation and transference among families with “substantial” wealth.

DISNEY.COM PLANS REVAMP.

Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger is planning a major revamp of the Disney.com site to offer social networking capability for young people.

He calls the move the No. 1 corporate priority for the entertainment/news combine. Disney has been losing viewers to "cool" sites such as MySpace and YouTube.

NET NEUTRALITY SUPPORTERS WIN ONE.

AT&T’s “cave in” to Democratic Federal Communications Commission commissioners to provide equal treatment to all comers on its Internet service is a major victory for supporters of "net neutrality."

The pact expires in two years, but the FCC's Jonathan Adelstein warns that any telcom that violates the net neutrality provision will run into a "political buzz-saw."

Ma Bell made the concessions to win approval for its $86B acquisition of BellSouth.

(Media news continued on next page)

BLOGS ROSE FROM HUMBLE ORIGINS.

It may be the wave of the future, but the rise of blogs can be credited to humble beginnings, said a panel of digital editorial staff at the International Cinematographers Guild in New York.

"Our publication was built literally by word of mouth," said Andrew Phillips, events editor at Popmatters.com. "The founders started it by sending emails to their friends. We didn't even have a marketing budget until very recently. It just wasn't something we thought about."

Though competition – and sometimes resentment – has grown between the conventional press and their cyber-counterparts, the blogging community's grassroots approach has proven invaluable as a source for news. Simply by virtue of the medium, blogs can break the story faster. On the other hand, most blogs aren't held to the same level of journalistic accountability as the traditional press, so an air of skepticism traditionally accompanies their viral nature.

In an attempt to keep up with the competition, many mainstream publications have turned to the web as a means of delivering late-breaking news, as well as hosting multimedia features that you wouldn't otherwise find in print. Almost every publication imaginable now has a sister online edition. The panel, hosted by the Entertainment Publicists Professional Society, featured a few such key players, who said the conversion to digital has taken the news and entertainment industry to new heights.

"People used to ask us, 'How do we get in the magazine?' Now people ask, 'How do we get on your website?'" said Gene Newman, editor for Maximonline.com.

Regardless of Maxim's popularity, Newman said his magazine's online addition had meager beginnings.

"We started off small – sending stuff to our friends and getting moved around, until people took notice. That's pretty much how it all started," he said.

Steve Bryant, columnist for the Hollywood Reporter's "Reel Pop" blog and eWeek's "Google Watch," said one of the reasons blogs continue to grow as a trusted news source is because they focus their attention on specific forms of media more so than most mainstream publications.

"When you have blogs, you have someone who specializes in a very narrow topic. They have a real knowledge of what they write about."

A prime example of this is Theatermania.com. The Website, founded in 1999, solely devotes its news coverage to theater, featuring listings, news, reviews, interviews, video content and online ticket information for Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway shows nationwide.

Brian Scott Lipton, editor for Theatermania.com, said the industry-specific angle offered by his website gives him an advantage that is lacking in most traditional news outlets. On the other hand, Lipton noted that when given the choice for an exclusive feature, many publicists will still push their clients to speak with publications like the New York Times, simply because of its name. Lipton said this is disappointing, but added that the public's perception of web-based news is rapidly changing.

"With us, there are three or four sites in the world that cover theater exclusively. The theater section in the New York Times is just fine, but because theater is our focus of interest, we offer a lot more visibility," he said.

And the possibilities for Web-based news seem to be endless. Newman said Maximonline.com now has its own video department, and has been able to host exclusive video trailers for new movie releases. Jeralyn Gerba, editor for popular entertainment blog Dailycandy.com, said the site is considering the integration of a text-messaging option that sends news directly to subscribers' mobile phones.

On the other hand, digital media still has a long way to go in terms of disseminating the truth about what they do and how they handle the news. Lipton said many publicists still have a hard time differentiating blogs from web news sites, and this can often make it harder to gain their trust.

"Blogs go by different rules than we do. We won't publish something without a confirmed source," he said. "We all read the blogs, but when I find out about something from a blog, I get on the phone and call the publicist."

Phillips said he often hears misinformation in the industry regarding blogs, including rumors that websites such as his will even give positive music reviews to albums for money, which is simply untrue.

"There are a lot of ethical things that we really have to feel out, like giving a web link to a CD for money. It can tread dangerously close to something else, because it looks like we're being paid to give good reviews, and we don't do that. On some level, sometimes I think the only way to solve that problem is just to link everything," he said.

Briefs _____________________________

The Wall Street Journal ran a correction on Dec. 19, setting the record straight that the name of O.J. Simpson’s dropped book is “If I Did It,” and not “Why I Did It” as the paper reported yesterday.

People ________________________________

Carla Anne Robbins and David Shipley were named deputy editorial page editors at the New York Times. Robbins will work under newly minted editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal and oversee the paper’s letters to the editor and production staffs. Shipley will boost the online activities of the editorial pages.

Adam Cohen, an assitant ed page editor, has expanded his responsibilities to focus on New York regional coverage and national politics.

All appointments are effective Jan. 7.

Nicola Bridges, VP of editorial programming for iVillage, an online community for women, has been named editorial director of Prevention.com, the website for Prevention magazine.

The portal counts 1.6M unique visitors per month.

One of the biggest threats ever to the PR industry gathered steam in 2006 as usage of VNRs came under increasing fire. The FCC wants to ensure that broadcasters will identify the sources of VNRs but has not yet made rules.

The threat is that the “baby will be thrown out with the bathwater” (VNRs will be saddled with disclaimers that will preclude usage). VNR producers say the law already calls for identification of sources of political or controversial matters and such decisions should be made by the broadcasters.

High executive pay was a continuous topic of the New York Times and New York Post with the year capped off by reports of Goldman Sachs paying $16.5 billion to its 26,000 employees including billions in Holiday bonuses ($623,41 total pay per employee but some getting as much as $100 million). It seems almost criminal,” huffed NYT columnist Andrew Sorkin. The paper wrote about a new “super duper” class of the rich.

Goldman Sachs office cleaners in London, hit by cutbacks, threatened a strike, the NYT reported. A trader who made $98M was stalked by paparazzi and an extravagant GS party was ridiculed.

The Trouble with Diversity, a new book, says the much-touted goal of diversity is really a diversion, a red herring designed to throw the non-rich off the real problem—the accelerating transfer of wealth to the wealthier while most of us tread water.

One of the highest paid CEOs in the “Forbes 500” was Omnicom’s John Wren, who came in at 102nd with 2004 pay of $13.4M (2005 was not yet available). Forbes found he was not too “efficient” (giving value for pay received). He ranked 89 out of 189 CEOs on this scale since the six-year “annual total return” of OMC was -2%.

OMC is still about $5 below its Dec. 17, 1999 high of $107 despite pulling 17M shares off the market (nearly $1B of borrowed funds helped to do this).
Yahoo!Finance reported Wren owns 366,690 shares worth $37M. He also has numerous options. Lauren Fine of Merrill Lynch, usually upbeat about the stock, said in 2002 that the amount of options OMC executives gave to themselves was “staggering.”

Wren’s options on 2M shares at $79.50 would have been worth $160M had OMC reached the target of $165 set in the $850M zero-bond offerings via Merrill Lynch in 2002.

Fine expressed “surprise” at the cost of the drawn-out class action lawsuit vs. OMC dating from 2002 charges of accounting fraud. Many new details surfaced, implicating Wren and CFO Randall Weisenburger, after a ruling by a federal judge.

OMC has turned its uncommunicative back not only on the press and public but on Wall Street, which is a big reason for the seven-year stock stall. The NYT remained silent on the suit while the NYP and WSJ have run major stories on it.

A lot of corporate attention has shifted from “PR” to lobbying with the number of lobbyists in D.C. doubling to 30,000 in five years.

Industry and labor groups spent $2.14B on this in 2004, up 34% since 2001. Instead of the “People’s House,” Congress has become “the Auction House,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.).

New York State’s 212 lawmakers are outnumbered 18-1 by lobbyists, the highest ratio in the U.S. Second is Florida (13-1).

Lobbyists are unflagging in their service of legislators, available 24/7 and eager to provide endless documentation of their points of view. They have no doubts about the importance of their audience. The friction that accompanies much PR/press relations is absent.

CNBC financial broadcaster Marie Bartiromo, facing turn-downs from shy CEOs, urged them (in an article in the NYSE Magazine) to avoid their PR depts. and call her directly. She said she and other reporters will give CEOs “a fair shake.”

PRSA announced on Dec. 27 (were they trying to bury this story?) the appointment of William Murray as president/COO.

A 20-year veteran of catching international copyright violators for the Motion Picture Assn., he might be interested in PRSA’s 1993-96 battle with a dozen authors who claimed PRSA violated their copyrights.

Author Al Ries knocked the big ad agencies for almost eliminating their corporate ads and instead focusing on winning awards and publicizing them in the belief that “publicity generates clients.”

Ex-NYT reporter Alex Jones, now at Harvard, said too many media are avoiding complexity to cater to the “perceived wants of their audiences.”

While the gap between PR/press seems to be increasing, we ran into a number of PR firms that describe themselves as “100% media-oriented.”

They study reporters’ stories and backgrounds; bone up for months on subject matter, and make client CEOs available for interviews.

The O’Dwyer Co., which had never given out awards, started to do so for campaigns that seek to educate audiences about a subject in detail, provide executives for questioning, and/or take part in public debate, where truth is often hammered out.

2007 marks the 25th anniversary of the Tylenol murders, PR’s No. 1 crisis case. Johnson & Johnson’s “immediate,” “instant,” etc., pullback of the capsules will be examined. How immediate is seven days and who, by then, was selling Tylenol capsules, a flawed product easily tampered with?

--Jack O'Dwyer