CA DANGLES $1.5M ANTI-CANCER PACT.

California is dangling a lucrative PR contract to support its efforts to increase cervical and breast cancer screening among women in the state.

The Golden State’s Dept. of Health Services wants a firm to provide PR and social marketing help for its “Every Woman Counts” initiative, which provides free cancer screening to poor and ethnic segments of the population. The effort, led by the DHS’ Cancer Detection Section, has placed an emphasis on African American, Asian/Pacific, Native American and rural low-income women, as well as women over the age of 50. The cervical cancer outreach is a new element of its PR efforts.

The state foresees a three-year contract worth $500K a year, subject to state legislature appropriations and federal funds from the Centers for Disease Control.

California has seen a 28 percent decrease in mortality from breast cancer since 1988. But it projects nearly 20,000 women will be diagnosed in 2007 and more than 4,000 will die from it. Early detection significantly cuts down on breast and cervical cancer fatalities.

Proposals are due by May 4.

DUNBAR JOINS DOW JONES.

Linda Dunbar has joined Dow Jones & Co. as VP-corporate communications. She left Ford Motor, where she held the executive director for comms. strategy post.

Dunbar is to play a big part in the DJ’s transformation to a “more diversified content and information services company,” said a statement from Rich Zannino, CEO of the media combine.

Earlier, Dunbar was PR director at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and handled external and financial comms. for Philip Morris Int’l.

FINANCIAL DYNAMICS SIMPLIFIES BRAND.

Financial Dynamics has changed its name to FD to represent its evolution from a financial communications specialist.

CEO Charles Watson says the FTI Consulting unit is now offering PA, crisis/issues management, brand strategy and business consulting services.

The FD moniker is going to show the diversity of its business and simplify the brand, according to Watson, who also notes that many of the firm’s clients and friends had been calling Financial Dynamics “FD” for quite some time.

The firm's latest win, Dublin-based Setanta Sports, signifies the wider scope of FD. FD will guide North American expansion efforts for the pay-for-view European soccer and rugby broadcaster.

MWW AIDS PET FOOD MAKER.

MWW Group has been called in to provide crisis communications assistance to Nutro Products, the California pet food maker embroiled in the high-profile Menu Foods recall.

Nutro was a public affairs client of MWW’s Los Angeles office in the past, but the firm was called in to help reassure customers and guide media relations, said David Herbst, senior VP for MWW on the West Coast.

Nutro has been sued over the widespread recall of wet pet foods, but the company is now working to tell consumers that its dry foods – 90 percent of its products – are safe and not being recalled. A statement put out by MWW for Nutro quotes CEO Dave Kravis saying he and other company executives continue to feed their pets Nutro products. Those claims come as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is urging a recall of dry pet foods also, a call which the FDA says is not necessary.

National PR of Toronto is helping Menu Foods with the recall, now in its second week, which has resulted in the removal of 100 pet food brands from shelves. A veterinarian information service told the Associated Press last week that more than 100 pets have died and hundreds are sick from apparently contaminated food.

SCHMIDT JOINS MERCURY.

Steve Schmidt, who was campaign manager for California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and White House communications strategist, is opening a Sacramento office for Mercury Public Affairs.

Mercury is part of Fleishman-Hillard. Schmidt assumes overall PA duties for that Omnicom unit in the Golden State.

In the White House, Schmidt played a role in prepping now Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito for confirmation hearings. He also was summoned to Baghdad by then-Ambassador Zalmay Khalizad for an assessment of U.S. media strategy in the war zone.

OBSERVER GROUP IS NOW CISION.

Observer Group, which has operated under ten different names worldwide, has adopted the common name of Cision for its brands.

“The change reinforces the distinct but related strength of the organization across all regions by projecting a global leadership position and a commitment to serving clients seamlessly,” said Niklas Flyborg, president and CEO of Cision, which is listed on the Nordic Exchange.

Sales were $270M in 2006. Employment is 2,700.

DoD AWARDS NO-BID HEALTH PACT.

The Pentagon has moved to award a $100K, no-bid PR contract to a Bethesda, Md., firm charged with providing “strategic communications” to the presidential commission set up in the wake of the Walter Reed veterans’ care scandal.

The firm, LMW Strategies, is a boutique shop run by Lorraine McHugh-Wytkind, former communications director for Sen. Hillary Clinton who held PA posts during the Clinton Administration in the White House and later at the Food and Drug Administration under Secretary Donna Shalala.

Shalala, with ex-Sen. Bob Dole, is chairing President Bush’s President’s Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors, which he set up under an executive order on March 6 to review healthcare provided to wounded soldiers.

The Pentagon’s Washington Headquarters Services division has moved to sign the PR contract without soliciting competitive bids. The contract will last the duration of the $100K budget, according to contracting officer Michael Murtha.

The Pentagon was looking for extensive knowledge of “strategic communications, health affairs, and the ability to interface with high level government officials.”

FEMALE NFL SEEKS SPONSORS.

The National Women’s Football Assn., tackle football for women 18 and up, is looking for sponsors for the upcoming season that kicks off April 14.

President/CEO Catherine Masters, who founded NWFA in `00, believes the league is now “mature enough” to attract national sponsors. She is a 25-year veteran of the sports marketing scene, counting experience with the Virginia Slims tennis tournament and the Lipton Tennis Challenge.

The NWFA has 34 teams including Dallas Rage, Maine Freeze, and Kentucky Karma. Six teams are on the `08 expansion list.

The Assn. says 49 percent of typical fans live in households with income ranging from $31K to $61K. Nineteen percent of fans come from households that earn $61K-$100K.

Masters can be contacted via the website, www.womensfootballcentral.com.

SORRELL SETTLES SUIT.

WPP Group CEO Martin Sorrell has agreed to accept a payment of nearly $240K to settle a libel case lodged against former executives at the ad/PR combine’s FullSix Italian operations.

Sorrell contended that Marco Benatti and Marco Tinelli were personally responsible for scurrilous blogs aimed at him. He alleged the duo was involved in a smear campaign after they were dropped by WPP.

The two denied such personal responsibility for the offending blogs, but agreed to pay the settlement due to evidence that FullSix was behind the effort.

In the settlement, Sorrell acknowledges that neither Benatti nor Tinelli were responsible for the blogs and promised not to pursue further legal action against them.

CLIMATE CHANGE GROUP SEEKS PR HELP.

The Presidential Climate Action Project, a non-partisan group looking to make climate change an immediate priority for the next president of the U.S., is looking for PR help to gets its strategic plan moving.

The project’s main backers include the University of Colorado at Denver and the Wisconsin-based think tank Johnson Foundation. It is chaired by former Sen. Gary Hart and includes members from the World Resources Institute and Alliance to Save Energy. Its goal is to gather policies and proposals to compile into a Presidential Climate Action Plan to provide the 44th president with options for his or her first 100 days in office and first Congressional budget.

The project has allocated $50K for a firm to guide its communications activities through the completion of its strategic plan to the termination of the project on October 31, 2008. That includes making the Project an important part of public dialog during the ’08 presidential and Congressional campaigns.

The Univ. of Colorado is taking PR proposals through April 13 for the group. David Turner ([email protected]) is point of contact.

GWU HAS MASTER’S IN STRATEGIC PR.

Citing U.S. Dept. of Labor forecasts of growth in PR jobs, George Washington University has unveiled its first master’s degree program in strategic PR.

Don Bates, managing director of MDS in New York the past ten years, and Rick Sullivan, former head of international relations for Fleishman-Hillard, are academic director and executive director, respectively, of the program.

Christopher Arterton, dean of the Graduate School of Political Management, said GW is launching the program because “research has found there is a significant need for a new approach to PR education not only in D.C. where there are hundreds of firms and corporate and not-for-profit PR departments, but throughout the country as well.”

Program Starts in Fall

Available to candidates starting this fall are a six-course, 18-credit-hour graduate certificate in core PR skills or a 33-credit-hour Master of Professional Studies in strategic PR.

Addressed will be the growing convergence of PR and other communications functions such as advertising, marketing, lobbying and government affairs.

The program is designed to meet the needs of both new and experienced PR pros.

Bates, who is retiring from MDS, has taught undergraduate and graduate PR and marketing courses at the New School for Social Research, the New York Institute of Technology, and in Columbia University’s master’s degree program in strategic communications.

“Most people don’t write well because they don’t think well,” he said.
Sullivan, until his retirement in 2001, was president of international operations for Fleishman-Hillard.

Further information on the Graduate School of Political Management is at www.gspm.gwu.edu.

TIME KILLS LIFE.

Time Inc. has killed Life magazine one more time.

Anne Moore, CEO of TI, said Life, which was launched in 1936 as a weekly, “was a truly innovative publishing venture.”

She blames the decline of the newspaper business for pulling the plug on Life.

Time first axed Life in ’72 and later resurrected it in ’78 as a monthly.

That lasted until 2000, when Time once again put Life out to pasture.

Life reappeared as a newspaper supplement in ’04. It was carried weekly by 103 papers with a combined circulation of 13M.

Moore says the outlook for advertising growth in the supplement business isn't too rosy so the decision was made to make Life a website-only proposition. She called the move to kill the printed Life a “tough call.”

Life is in the process of archiving each of its 10 million piece picture collection.
Only three percent of those images have ever been made public.

NYT ‘SNOBBERY’ HIT BY WAL-MART.

Retail giant Wal-Mart Stores clarified a top story in the March 28 New York Times business section that it has given up plans to open a retail outlet in the nation’s biggest city.

“Wal-Mart Chief Writes Off New York” read the headline in the NYT.

That stemmed from a meeting CEO Lee Scott had with editors and reporters at the paper.

Scott blamed heated labor union opposition to the retailer's struggle to crack the NYC market. “I don't care if we open here,” he is quoted as telling the editors.

Times reporters Michael Barbaro and Steven Greenhouse gloated that New York City has “long loomed as a tantalizing prize – the home of more than eight million consumers and attention-grabbing stores from just about every major retailer in the country.”

They contrasted Wal-Mart, a “cost-minded retailer known for its dowdy merchandise,” and New York, a city of excesses known for cutting-edge style.” Both have had an “uneasy relationship.”

The Times did slip a paragraph into the story about Mona Williams, Wal-Mart's chief spokesperson, later calling the reporters to inform them that Scott was only referring to Manhattan, which has a quarter of NYC's population.

Wal-Mart still considers the six million other New York City residents living in Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx and Staten Island as ripe for Wal-Mart’s “everyday low prices.”

Wal-Mart, in fact, has never tried to set up a store in space-starved Manhattan because it just doesn't make economic sense, according to a posting on its website. “We would like to be in other boroughs if we can find the right arrangement, because we know we could serve those communities very well.”

Taking a jibe at "snobbish elites," Scott told the Times reporters: “You have people who are just better than us and don't want a Wal-Mart in their community.”

EDELMAN HITS NEW YORKER PIECE.

Mona Williams, chief spokesperson for Wal-Mart, keeps a framed cover of an ’03 BusinessWeek that had a tough story about the Bentonville, Ark.-based giant to remind her “never to trust reporters.” That is among the nuggets from an “annals of spin” story in the April 2 New Yorker called “Selling Wal-Mart.”

Goldberg largely deals with Wal-Mart hiring Edelman to improve its image on issues like “low wages, miserly benefits, sex discrimination and union busting.”

Richard Edelman assailed the Goldberg story as “biased and hopelessly one-sided.”

The job of the 20 Edelman staffers is to “help Wal-Mart scrub its muddied image,” according to writer Jeffrey Goldberg. The staffers are divided into “promote,” “response” and “pressure” teams.

Goldberg found a “great mistrust of the press at Wal-Mart’s headquarters.” Staffers appear highly scripted. Goldberg was told three times “not to write down” something that he saw.

The headquarters reminded Goldberg of the headquarters of the National Security Agency: “both contain a large number of windowless rooms and both are staffed by people who are preoccupied with the movement of strangers in their midst.”

Goldberg received a tour of “Action Alley,” a “dark threadbare room” with walls painted battleship grey where Edelman staffers sit at six desks in the center of the room. He talked with Leslie Dach, the former Edelman vice chairman who is now executive VP for corporate affairs and government relations at Wal-Mart.

The former aide to Ted Kennedy and former presidential candidate Mike Dukakis said friends were surprised when he took the Wal-Mart post, but he believes in the retailer's effort to help people save money so they can live better.

One his blog, Edelman said Goldberg’s characterization of Dach was “fundamentally flawed.” Edelman called Dach a “gifted PR man, with a genuine commitment to the environment and social equality.” Edelman said Goldberg “depicts our profession as based on spin, hardball tactics and messages, an Orwellian world of mind control.”

The Edelman CEO said PR is “premised on truth and that is why Wal-Mart’s leadership on environment, prescription drug prices and affordable products is getting favorable coverage.”

MEREDITH PUTS CHILD TO BED.

Meredith Corp. is closing Child magazine with the June/July issue, but will keep it alive in cyberspace. The move results in the loss of 30 jobs, and a $7M write-off mainly for deferred acquisition costs.

Des Moines-based Meredith acquired Child from Gruner + Jahr in ’05. Its circulation has declined from one million to 850K since then. The Internet Child will join other Meredith parenthood properties such as American Baby and Family Circle.

Meredith is laying off an additional 30 staffers in a corporate restructuring.

(Media news continued on next page)

ZELL WINS TRIBUNE AUCTION.

Chicago real estate investor Sam Zell has won the backing of the Tribune Co. board of directors for his $13B plan to take the media combine private.

Zell’s offer edged a joint bid from California billionaires Eli Broad and Ron Burkle. They originally had their eye on acquiring the Trib’s Los Angeles Times.

Zell called the Tribune a “world-class publishing and broadcasting enterprise.” He will join the board of directors.

CEO Dennis FitzSimons believes Tribune as a private company will have “greater flexibility to transform our publishing/interactive and broadcasting businesses with an eye toward long-term growth.”

He says the mission to provide “great journalism and programming to readers, viewers and listeners will not change.”

As part of the deal, Tribune will sell the Chicago Cubs baseball team and its 25 percent stake in Comcast SportsNet Chicago, which will broadcast 72 Cubs games in ’07.

KLORES ESCORTS EISNER.

Dan Klores Communications is promoting former Walt Disney Co. CEO Michael Eisner's “Prom Queen” partnership with MySpace that debuted April 1.

Eisner's Vuguru production company is to provide 80 episodes of PQ. Each runs about 90 seconds.

The PQ series focuses on the last two months of school leading up to the big event. A new “webisode” debuts every day, and will run exclusively on MySpace for 24 hours before it appears elsewhere on the Internet.

Each PQ character will have his or her profile on MySpace to encourage interaction with MySpace's 160M users.

Chris DeWolfe, CEO of MySpace, says PQ holds the potential of being a “break out hit” on his site.

He expects exclusive content deals, such as the one ironed out with Eisner, to attract "more and more eyeballs to MySpace," which only trails YouTube in the online video.

MySpace is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., while YouTube is a property of Google.

Robert Zimmerman handles Vuguru at Klores.

PRIMEDIA DITCHES BIG APPLE.

Primedia plans to move its headquarters from New York to Atlanta following the sale of its "enthusiast media group," Eric Leeds, IR chief, told an investment conference last week.

Leeds said Primedia expects to complete a deal for the $525M unit (Arabian Horse World, Motor Trend, Surfer, Slam and Mustang Monthly are among the titles of the 70 magazine collection) during the second quarter.

Georgia's capital is the home of Primedia's consumer guides, which generated $325M in `06 revenues from publications like Auto Guide and Apartment Guide.
Robert Metz, 54, heads the consumer group. He will succeed Dean Nelson as Primedia CEO once the enthusiast deal is consummated. Nelson will stay on as chairman.

THOMSON PLANS GLOBAL NEWS SERVICE.

Thomson Financial plans an international news service to compete with Reuters and Bloomberg.

The network will be built upon AFX, the European news operation that TF purchased for $20M in `06, according to a report in the Financial Times.

TF has been on a hiring spree, doubling the amount of reporters on staff to about 500 over the past year. It has opened news bureaus in Vienna, Lisbon, Budapest and Warsaw.

Sharon Rowlands, CEO of TF, told the paper that developments in technology have dramatically dropped the cost of building an online news operation.

The new service expects to file about 10,000 reports a day. Those financial stories will be supplemented by content from the Associated Press.

FT credits Thomson as being among the first media companies to recognize the diminished growth prospects for print news.

That was evidenced by its sale of the respected Times of London to Rupert Murdoch's media empire a number of years ago.

KELLY REPLACES DUFFY AT USN&WR.

Brian Duffy is leaving U.S. News & World Report after 16 years to focus on writing a book about espionage during the American Revolutionary War. He is being replaced by Brian Kelly, executive editor.

Duffy spent the last six years editing the No. 3 weekly. He joined Mort Zuckerman's magazine in '86, but left a decade later for an investigative editor spot at the Wall Street Journal. Duffy rejoined USN&WR in `98 as executive editor. He was named editor in `01.

DISCOVERY BUYS OUT COX.

Discovery Communications is buying out one of its three owners, Cox Communications, in a deal worth $1.3B.

DC also will transfer ownership of the Travel Channel, which reaches nearly 90M households, to CC and Antenna Audio, provider of headsets for museum goers. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of May.

DC is now owned by Advance/Newhouse Communications and John Malone's Discovery Holding Corp. David Zaslav, who was with NBC Universal, became DC's CEO in November. He reportedly is considering a round of job cuts.

Advanstar Communications, a publishing and trade show company serving the life science, fashion and powersports categories, has been acquired by an investment group headed by Veronis Suhler Stevenson in a $1.1B cash deal.

The New York-based company publishes titles such as Geriatrics, Managed Healthcare Executive, Hot Auto Products and DIRTsports. It produces MAGIC Marketplace, a leading fashion show.

VSS is joined by Citigroup Private Equity and New York Life Capital Partners in purchasing Advanstar from Credit Suisse's DLJ Merchant Banking Partners unit.

After hearing PR employers complain for years about poor writing skills in college grads, we went to the convention of the National Council of English Teachers March 21-24 (page 7).

PR employers hire not only PR grads but those who majored in English, the liberal arts, and science. In fact, some firms prefer such grads rather than majors in communications, PR, journalism, etc.

We asked some of the profs what kind of jobs the English and writing majors expect to get. The common reply was that many would continue their education and get master’s and Ph.D.’s in English/writing and become teachers. There was a reaction against the term “PR” and its suggestion of writing for commercial purposes. “Writers are artists,” said a graduate student.

There were heavy political overtones to the meeting, keynote speaker Akua Duku Anokye urging the teachers to be social activists with particular attention to diversity. This would put them on the same page with America’s blue chip companies. But social activists also want increased wages, unions, health insurance, etc.

Our message to the teachers was that PR needs grads who not only have writing skills but knowledge of particular areas such as healthcare, technology, beauty/fashion, finance, food, etc. Students should major in science, math, finance, liberal arts, etc., and read about journalism or PR on their own time (given the high cost of “education”; New York Univ. costs $49,996 for tuition, room and board). We were surprised at the low level of skills being taught in the hundreds of textbooks offered to the teachers at the conference. Writing cannot be divorced from a subject area. Students might as well major in walking. There would be books on shoes to wear, how fast to walk, clothing, walking partners, etc.

Would this really be helpful in later life? Is it worth $50K a year?

Accounting has many of the same problems as PR such as high profile scandals. A group of members of the American Institute of CPAs (page 7) felt the AICPA was not doing enough “PR” for the profession and also lacked democratic practices, failed to consult members on major decisions and suppressed member criticism. The dissidents organized cpas4reform.com. Technology has given disgruntled association members a cheap and effective way to press for reforms, says consultant Susan Waters. Common complaints are overpaid staffers, excessive secrecy, poor financial reporting, “out-of-touch” elected leaders and self-dealing.

The Council of PR Firms, whose name should be the “Conglomerates’ Council of PR Firms,” is suspending ads after having spent nearly $300,000 in U.K.-owned PR Week/U.S. over the past eight years and almost nothing in ads elsewhere. The O’Dwyer magazine got one ad worth $700 although its cost-per-thousand is nearly half that of PRW’s. This favoritism to a U.K.-owned publication has unfairly short-changed the U.S. PR press and helped cause the demise of at least three U.S. publications, including the 50-year-old PR Reporter and the crippling of others (PR Quarterly has one ad per issue and circulation of less than 1,000). The Council, founded in 1998 (same year as PRW) is a group highly sensistive to conglomerate interests. Its executive committee is comprised of three conglomerate reps and two “independents.”

There are 12 independents on the 18-person board but they have no power that we can see, certainly none over the biased ad spending. Currently exec. comm. members are Marcia Silverman of Ogilvy (WPP); Ray Kotcher of Ketchum (Omnicom); Helen Ostrowski, Porter Novelli (OMC); Joel Curran, CKPR, and Abigail Carr, Bliss, Gouverneur. The two biggest independents, Edelman and Ruder Finn, quit CPRF years ago. Membership is 102 vs. a high of about 120.

U.K. firms do not have a good record in the U.S. in PR. Shandwick, headed by Peter Gummer, purchased 33 PR firms in the 1980s, promising that their names, leaders and cultures would be kept. All except a couple were merged or folded and Shandwick, still owing $75 million to the banks, was sold to Interpublic in 1998. Corporate Communications of the U.K. bought Georgeson of New York for an initial $12M in cash but never paid another $7.5M. CC was closed by the banks in 1992, leaving $50M in debt. Stock, once valued at $20M, was worthless. Valin Pollen of London bought the Carter Group of New York for $115M in 1987 but went into receivership in 1992. Owner Don Carter went to prison in 1991 on charges of grand larceny and income tax evasion...one U.K. executive much in the news these days is WPP’s Martin Sorrel, “Jeers for WPP’s ‘Sorrell’ state” said a New York Post headline 3/29. Sorrell, who had an affair with a staffer in Italy that resulted in a divorce and a $50 million settlement to his wife, sued former colleagues Marco Benatti and Marco Tinelli for libel. He has also charged Benatti with breach of contract while Benatti has charged WPP with wrongful-dismissal. The NYP said Sorrell, who has a “hard-charging and litigious nature,” brought unnecessary publicity to himself with the libel suit, which he promptly settled for $236,000. Stockholders are said to be angry because WPP has said it may have to pay some of the $3M costs of the current trial. WPP and the Council of PR Firms use the same law firm, Davis & Gilbert...we don’t want to seem biased against the British (or anyone) but, coincidentally, there is an article in the April Vanity Fair headlined “Brits Behaving Badly.” It’s venomous and insulting (just the kind of writing the British like) but should be taken with a grain of salt. The Brits, having “colonized” the West Village in New York, are portrayed as clannish, ill-clothed, cheap, and snobbish without having any good reason for this. “The most reprehensible and disgusting of all human beings” is said to be the “self-made, knowing English eccentric,” eccentricity being the “last resort of the expat,” the excuse for “rudeness, hopelessness, self-obsession, failure and never, ever picking up the check.”

--Jack O'Dwyer