CALIF. ABORTS CANCER PR RFP.

California has pulled the plug on a $500K a year PR and social marketing RFP for its cancer prevention programs.

The state’s Dept. of Health Services Cancer Detection Section said it was suspending the RFP “until further notice” due to funding limitations.

The lucrative contract, which included press relations, community outreach and sponsorships, was intended to support efforts to increase cervical and breast cancer screening, particularly early detection, in the state.

CLEARY, ‘BELTWAY BLOGFATHER,’ JOINS F-H.

Pat Cleary, senior VP-communications at National Assn. of Manufacturers and its “blogger-in-chief, has joined Fleishman-Hillard as director of digital PA.

The 10-year NAM veteran made his mark with the launch of “The Manufacturers’ Blog” in `04. The site, renamed ShopFloor.com, gets 1M readers a year.

He also unveiled a video blog aimed at kids called “CoolStuffBeingMade.com." Those videos have been downloaded 400K times on iPods, and viewed on the `Net 250K times.

The National Journal credits Cleary for being among early blog adopters in D.C. It dubs him the “Beltway blogfather,” and reports that Cleary’s influence extends far beyond NAM’s Pennsylvania Avenue headquarters.

In a farewell message, Cleary wrote that he will do on-line advocacy and corporate positioning work in the association and manufacturing sectors for the Omnicom unit.

NEW ORLEANS CONSIDERS FIVE.

New Orleans is considering five shops for a $100K PR outreach program to keep its displaced residents updated on the Crescent City’s comeback efforts.

Ceeon Quiett, of Mayor Ray Nagin’s office, is reviewing credentials of local shops Orgena Enterprises and EBONetworks, which picked up Louisiana’s “Road Home” program in January.

Washington, D.C.-based shops Walls Communications and The Clinton Group are in the running with New York’s UniWorld Group.

The winning firm is to reach out to people in the city’s five evacuation hubs in Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Mobile and Jackson, according to the Times-Picayune.

It will provide information about how to handle housing, education and utility issues that evacuees face in returning to the city.

O’DWYER MAGAZINE IS 20 IN AUGUST.

The 20th anniversary issue of O’Dwyer’s PR Report in August will feature a look at the changes in PR not only in the last 20 years but the past 39 years.

July 1 will mark the start of the 40th year of PR coverage by this newsletter.

The magazine will recall the practice of PR in the 1960s and 70s and compare it with today’s practice. Major events and milestones in PR will be addressed by contributors from the PR industry as well as by O’Dwyer editors.

Leading figures in corporate, agency and service industry PR are being contacted but the magazine is open to thoughtful analyses of trends by anyone in the industry.

FD HANDLES PALM’S REORG.

FD, the former Financial Dynamics, is repping Palm Inc. as the electronic hand-held device maker gets ready to rumble with Apple’s iPhone that is slated for a June 29 launch, the June 4 New York Times gushed over the iPhone as the "God machine."

Palm received a $940M cash infusion from private equity firm Elevation Partners. Former Apple CFO Fred Anderson, a partner at EP, joins Palm's board.

Palm has hired Jon Rubenstein as executive chairman. He was head of the iPod division at Apple, and will now lead Palm's product development efforts.

EP, which uses Sard Verbinnen for PR, has nearly $2B in assets under management, and counts Bono, the lead U2 singer as a partner. Last August, EP became an investor in Forbes.

FD’s Ellen Barry works the financial media for Palm. That supplements the efforts of Christine Nakamoto (Palm's IR contact) and Marlene Somsak (trade and mainstream media contact).

SV's Paul Kranhold and Ron Low rep EP.

PRSA AUDIT ‘LOW-BALLS’ CONFERENCE.

PRSA’s 2006 audit, obtained by this NL despite a new PRSA policy of refusing to give it to the press, reports staff “salaries and fringes” on the national conference as $189,052.

Past presidents and treasurers have said the real staff costs are close to $2 million because of months of preparations that are involved such as inviting more than 150 speakers, publishing a four-color program of nearly 100 pages, handling arrangements for the 300-member Assembly and managing an exhibit hall with about 50 exhibits.

(continued on page 7)

FRATELLI REPS JAPAN ON ‘COMFORT WOMEN.’

The Fratelli Group is working with the Japanese Embassy regarding the Congressional resolution calling for Japan to "acknowledge, apologize and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner" its WWII practice of sexual slavery, the abduction of 200K "comfort women" for the then-occupying Imperial Army.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in March, said there is no hard evidence that women were coerced by the military into sexual slavery. During his visit with President Bush on April 28, he offered an apology to comfort women, but did not take any responsibility toward them.

Rep. Mike Honda's House Resolution 121 covers Japan's colonial and wartime occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands during the `30s and through the end of WWII.

Introduced on Jan. 31, it calls Japan's comfort women system of forced military prostitution unprecedented in its cruelty and magnitude.

The system included "gang rape, forced abortions, humiliation and sexual violence resulting in mutilation, death or eventual suicide in one of the largest cases of human trafficking in the 20th century."

Japanese-American Honda, a Democrat who represents Silicon Valley, spent his childhood in an internment camp in Colorado during WWII. His measure has 130 co-sponsors and the support of the 121 Coalition of nearly 200 civic groups.

TFG has an oral agreement to rep Japan and is paid $50K a-month from Hogan and Hartson, the country's law firm.

The firm founded by Francis O'Brien, who was former Congresswoman and VP candidate Geraldine Ferraro’s press secretary, is to communicate with editorial boards and reporters, monitor clips and consult on paid media.

The open-ended agreement is subject to termination on a 15-day notice basis. O'Brien has not been reached.

OCWEN HUNTS FOR PR FIRM.

Ocwen Financial Corp., a Florida-based mortgage services company with major operations in India, has issued an RFP to bring in an outside PR firm to improve its image and raise its profile.

A PR budget has not yet been set but the company wants to raise awareness of "its success, advocacy programs and accomplishments with shareholders, customers and prospective customers, lenders, rating agencies and the media," according to a copy of the RFP.

Ocwen services mortgage loans and handles real estate appraisals and research. It got out of the lending business after shutting down its struggling subprime mortgage loan operation earlier this year and is starting a new unit, Ocwen Structured Capital, focused on mortgage services rights and mortgage-backed securities.

The company wants to hear from firms that have been in business for at least five years. Proposals are due July 20.

Opal Comfort, senior manager of community relations is handling the RFP. Contact info: [email protected] and (561) 682-7671.

ALASKA NIXES ‘BRIDGE TO NOWHERE’ PR.

The Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority has dropped a plan to spend up to $500K to promote construction of a $600M bridge to link Anchorage and Point MacKenzie, a largely abandoned deepwater port that is home to 230 people.

The move follows the Authority's decision to shift its executive director, Henry Springer, to a new post.

Springer was a proponent of PR for the Knik Arm Bridge, which was dubbed one of Alaska's two "bridges to nowhere" during the `05 Senate debate over pork barrel projects.

George Wuerch, the Authority's chairman and former Anchorage mayor, told the May 26 Anchorage Daily News that plans to hire a PR firm have been dropped.

A day earlier, ADN editorialized that spending up to a half-million dollars for the Knik Arm Bridge was "worse than putting lipstick on a pig," or the equivalent of "putting an earring on the Elephant Man."

The paper believes "no amount of PR is going to make this project fly." Any money spent would only "fatten the wallets at some PR firm."

EDELMAN PROMOTES BIPARTISANSHIP.

Edelman is counseling the Bipartisan Policy Center, a group formed to reverse the "decline in political discourse" and prove that non-political "solutions can be developed to address critical national challenges."

BPC is headed by four former Senate Majority Leaders. Democrats Tom Daschle and George Mitchell are joined by Republicans Howard Baker and Bob Dole.

The organization has a $7M budget from philanthropic foundations and 20 staffers. Its initial areas of focus include agricultural, energy and national security categories.

BPC released a study on May 30 calling for more cash to farmers for alternative energy production, while reducing the amount paid as income subsidies.

ELVIS, ALI RIGHTS OWNER TAPS KLORES.

CKX Inc., operator of Graceland and the rights and images of Elvis Presley and Muhammad Ali, is mulling a $1.3B buyout offer from its management team led by CEO Bob Sillerman.

Dan Klores Communications president Sean Cassidy and senior VP Ed Tagliaferri are handling the transaction.

Sillerman is a "buyer and seller of media and entertainment assets who has a loyal following among investors," according to the Wall Street Journal. He sold radio stations to Hicks Muse for $2.1B and SFX Entertainment to Clear Channel Communications for $3B.

CKX is returning Elvis to Las Vegas in `09 via a deal cut with Cirque du Soleil. The plan calls for a permanent Elvis Presley show at the CityCenter hotel/casino, which is currently under construction.

The partners also plan "Elvis Experiences" shows to tour in Europe and Asia beginning next year. "The King" died in `77.

CKX also owns rights to the IDOL television show format, which airs in more than 100 countries.

KEKST SPEAKS FOR BANCROFT FAMILY.

Kekst & Co. is handling communications for the Bancroft Family, owners of Dow Jones & Co., which is being pursued by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

The family said last week, via Kekst, that they “have reached consensus that the mission of Dow Jones may be better accomplished in combination or collaboration with another organization, which may include News Corp.” The family had previously spurned Murdoch’s offer to meet in early May.

The Bancrofts, who own 52 percent of DJ, met with News Corp. on June 4 about its $5 billion bid for DJ and its crown jewel, the Wall Street Journal.

Kekst partners Jim Fingeroth and Roy Winnick are handling the Bancroft account.

Sard Verbinnen represents Dow Jones.

TRIBUNE'S DEAL WITH GANNETT COLLAPSES.

Tribune Co.'s $73M deal to sell two Connecticut papers – The Advocate (Stamford) and Greenwich Time – to Gannett has fallen apart because of union opposition. An arbitrator ruled that Gannett's decision not to honor an existing contract with workers represented by the United Auto Workers union nullified the proposed sale of the papers.

Tribune has returned the papers to the auction block.

APPLE TEAMS WITH YOUTUBE.

Apple will carry clips from YouTube beginning next month on its recently launched TV device that transmits computer programming to a widescreen set via a wireless hookup.

Apple TV works with the company's Macintosh computers and personal computers. YouTube videos will be streamed directly from the Internet rather than stored in the Apple device, which has room for 200 hours of video.

Google bought YouTube for $1.7B in `06. The site counts more than 160M users. Google CEO Eric Schmidt sits on Apple's board.

BARNES EXITS WSJ FOR NYT.

Brooks Barnes, who covered the TV beat for the Wall Street Journal, is joining the New York Times' Los Angeles office to cover the entertainment scene. He replaces Laura Holson, who is returning to New York to report on media/technology/entertainment convergence.

Barnes began his writing career at the Philadelphia Inquirer.

ROSENTHAL DEPARTS S.F. CHRON.

Robert Rosenthal, managing editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, left the troubled paper June 1.

He joined the Hearst paper in `02 following more than two decades at the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Rosenthal says his departure will enable editor Phil Bronstein to adopt a "more hands-on approach" to running the Chronicle, which is in the midst of a restructuring program focused on cutting staff by 25 percent.

At the Inky, Rosenthal reported from Kenya, Lebanon and Israel. He began his journalism career at the New York Times.

SILVERMAN STARS AT NBCU.

Ben Silverman, whose production company has supplied NBC Universal with TV programming for the past three years, has been named co-chairman of that General Electric unit’s entertainment division and TV studio. He shares chairman responsibility with Marc Graboff, who was upped from the presidency of NBCUTV.

Silverman, 36, is credited with putting reality shows such as "Survivor," and "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" on the air. He will serve as creative chief, while Graboff tackles administrative and business issues.

Kevin Reilly, who was president of the entertainment unit has departed. He signed a three-year deal three months ago.

TIME INC UNVEILS RECIPES PORTAL.

Time Inc's Southern Progress unit has launched MyRecipes.com to showcase more than 25K professionally and kitchen-tested recipes.

The material comes from the archives of Cooking Light, Southern Living, Sunset, Cottage Living and Coastal Living magazines.

The site features step-by-step instructions, how-to videos and health tips.

Weber Grill, Hewlett Packard and GlaxoSmithKline are charter advertisers on the site.

ORGANIZE MAG DEBUTS.

Organize Magazine, which promises to help readers put their lives, home, work and leisure in order, debuts as a bi-monthly on June 26.

The magazine launches with 40K copies and hopes to have revved up to 150K by its third issue.

Founder and editor-in-chief Joyce Dorny says the "organizing industry" is an $8B business. The mother of six wants her title to offer "one-stop shopping" to those interested in cutting through the clutter and gaining control of their lives.

The target reader is the busy woman who wants a "sense of order and a feeling of control over the work desk or toy bin."

The kickoff issue features stories about garage sales, 10 clutter-busting tips and taking back a laundry room.

Regular departments of the mag are "Neat Things We Like," "Organizing on a Shoestring," "Buyers Guide," and "Confessions of a Closet Keeper."

Dorny is a member of the National Assn. of Professional Organizers, and the head of her own consulting firm.

Newman Communications handles PR for OM.

Reader’s Digest Association, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and Peace Arch Entertainment are collaborating to produce and distribute “Ace of Hearts.” The full-length motion picture based on a true story published by Reader’s Digest in 2000 about a law enforcement officer and his crime-fighting dog.

(Media news continued on next page)

WEAVER MOVES TO ATLANTA.

Teresa Weaver, the former book editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, becomes book editor of Atlanta magazine on July 1.

The move follows AJ-C's decision to cut the book editor slot. Weaver was supposed to take another job at the newspaper.

She worked at AJ-C for 18 years, serving as both op-ed and news editor. Weaver was book editor for the past nine years.

At the magazine, Weaver will pen "The Shelf," and will negotiate excerpt deals with publishers.

Rebecca Burns, editor-in-chief of Atlanta, said she called Weaver right away after news that the paper was eliminating her job. She is proud that Atlanta has "supported the southern literary tradition" throughout its 46-year history.

SPJ SMOKES OUT ‘SENATOR SECRECY.’

The Society of Professional Journalists says its members have “smoked out” Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) for putting an anonymous hold on a Senate bill known as the Open Government Act of 2007.

SPJ members asked every U.S. senator whether he or she placed a hold on the bill and the results were posted online. Kyl then admitted he was the one holding the bill. His press secretary said Kyl has “concerns” about the bill and wanted to allow for more negotiations between him, co-sponsor Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and the Justice Dept.

“The irony of secretly blocking a vote on a bill that would make government more transparent is supreme,” said Christine Tatum, SPJ president and assistant features editor at the Denver Post. SPJ has labeled Kyl “Senator Secrecy.”

The group notes Kyl is backing a bill to criminalize the leaking and publishing of classified information.

CBS SPENDS $280M FOR LAST.FM.

CBS Corp. is spending $280M for Last.fm, a social networking music site that has 15M users in more than 200 countries.

CEO Les Moonves, in a statement, called Last.fm "one of the most well established, fastest growing online community networks out there."

Its younger demographics are especially attractive to CBS, which has the most senior TV viewing audience.

Last.fm founders Felix Miller, Martin Stiksel and Richard Jones are staying onboard and will work with CBS units to help build Internet-based communities.

Quincy Smith, head of CBS Interactive, said Last.fm is "poised at an inflection point -- balancing fast growth, a sticky community and the opportunity for monetization that does not distract the user."

The audience for Last.fm is mainly in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Poland and Brazil.

The site builds comprehensive profiles for each user and connects them with people of similar tastes.

It also provides customized radio streams and recommends more than 200K festivals and events each year throughout the world.

VIACOM SELLS SONGS TO SONY.

Viacom is selling Famous Music publishing to Sony/ATV Music, which is 50 percent owned by Michael Jackson, in a deal pegged in the $375M range.

FM was founded in 1928 to publish music from "talking pictures." Its 125K titles include classics like "Moon River," "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)," "Silver Bells," and "That's Amore" and more contemporary hits as "Hips Don't Lie" (Shakira) and "The Real Slim Shady" (Eminem). The company owns the music to "Braveheart," The Godfather" and "Forrest Gump."

Viacom, which operates cable networks and Paramount Pictures, did not view the song business as a strategic fit.

Jackson, in a statement called the FM acquisition a "milestone event."

People _______________________

Antique experts Leigh and Leslie Keno have joined Traditional Home magazine as editors-at-large to pen a column, “The Keno Eye.” The twin brothers continue as appraisers for the PBS series “Antiques Roadshow.”

Todd Wasserman, news editor for Brandweek, has been named editor of the publication and its online site.

He takes over for Karen Benezra, who joined sister company NielsenConnect as VP and executive director of NielsenTrend.

Wasserman joined Brandweek in 1999 as a reporter after reporting and editing gigs at the Register Citizen (Torrington, Conn.), North Jersey Herald and News, and Computer Retail Week.

Briefs ___________________________

USA Today has signed licenses with six book publishers to brand books under the USAT name feature graphics and content from the paper.

Nancy Bailey & Associates, a corporate brand licensing agency, was retained by USAT to develop new products. The deals are part of USAT’s 25th anniversary.

Washington, D.C.-based IPD Group, which runs the news aggregation company EIN News, has launched Military Industry Today, a news aggregator of military industry news.

The site, military.einnews.com, is a subscription site indexing articles from 35,000 sources.

Online magazine Shades, shadeszine.com, launched June 1 targeting young artists and activists “who are making waves in their communities.” The debut covered J Records singer Emily King, comedian David Arnold, who has cut the “n word” from his act, and Fortune writer Cora Daniels, who wrote “Ghettonation.”

BusinessWeek’s China edition has reached out to sister company J.D. Power and Associates for a monthly auto column for the magazine called “Auto.” The monthly column is set to look at the “changing competitive dynamics of the auto market.”

Despite PRSA’s best efforts to stop us, including refusal by all of the board’s 17 members to help us, we obtained the 2006 audit (page one).

This stonewalling is a new low for PRSA which up until this year had at least supplied the audit to add to our collection of more than 15 of them.

As usual, PRSA is counting as cash a couple of million dollars that should be a liability (because PRSA owes an average of six month of service on dues), and is also low-balling, by about $1.5M, the cost of staff time on the annual conference.

Former COO Catherine Bolton got $300,000 in severance pay, the audit has revealed. She was also getting $28,000 or so yearly in pension benefits.

Bolton was hired as of Sept. 5, 2000 to handle PR, succeeding Richard George, who quit in September, 1999 just before the annual conference. PRSA had left the PR post vacant for a year. Her career was meteoric at PRSA. She became COO in December after PRSA president Ray Gaulke suddenly shifted to the PRSA Foundation. He was in the first year of a new five-year contract given him by the 1999 board. However, the 2001 board, led by Kathy Lewton, cut a deal with Gaulke that had him leave PRSA. He was reportedly paid $250K of the $1M owed on the remaining four years of his contract.

Lewton in 2001 took over the title of president. PRSA had decided against making another search for an outsider since the lengthy search for the previous COO had turned up only two viable candidates–Gaulke and Mitch Kozikowski.

A member from “the Southwest” asked on the PRSA leadership teleconference May 22 what Bolton’s severance was and was told that this would appear on IRS Form 990 that would be filed in June.

Telling the member he had to wait until June was a bald lie in our opinion because the $300K figure was already in the audit. Were PRSA “transparent,” the full audit would have been on the PRSA website months ago.

We lay this poor financial reporting at the feet of the audit committee. Their names are not on the PRSA website (only chair Gabriel Werba, Farmington, Mich., counselor) is listed). They have not done the job of protecting members’ interests. They are:

Timothy Brown, corporate communications director., Connectiv, Newark, Dela.

Todd Bulot, director of communications, McKinley Capital Mgmt., Anchorage, Alaska

Daniel Curran, director of PR, New York Assn. of Homes and Services for the Aging, Albany.

James Finkle, associate, Booz Allen Hamilton, McLean, Va.

Rita Holmes-Bobo, senior manager, CC, Outsourcing Solutions, Chesterfield, Mo.

Jared Meade, PR coordinator, Concordia University, Ann Arbor, Mich.

Diane Salucci, specialist at Bear Wagner, N.Y.

Barbara Wellnitz, Ryan, Wellnitz & Assocs., Foxboro, Mass.

Here’s who should be on this committee:

Stuart Goldstein, CC head at Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., New York, a critic of PRSA.

Michael McDermott, Riverside, Conn., who missed election as treasurer in 2000 by one vote.

Gershon Kekst, CEO of the New York firm who is in the Financial Communications section of PRSA.

Steven Blinn, N.Y. counselor and member of the section.

Sherwood Lee Wallace, Des Plaines, Ill., financial PR counselor and a financial section member.

PRSA, if it is to get independent financial oversight as demanded by Sarbanes-Oxley (which many associations follow), needs an audit committee with expertise, clout, and whose members visit h.q. frequently to see first hand how the money is spent. It needs a financial expert who is not a member of PRSA. Almost all the members should be in New York. How much oversight can Brown provide from Alaska? Geographical balance is what is sought but it shouldn’t apply here.

Starbucks says it will replace whole milk with 2% milk for its espresso drinks. Customers will think, “Wow, I’m really cutting down on fat content.” Most will not realize that regular milk has 3% fat content. We’re not against milk being labeled “1%” or “2%” as long as regular milk is labeled “3%.” Tricking consumers in any manner is unethical...daily newspaper circulation has dropped 30% since 1985 from 62 million to 43 million in spite of the rise in population, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Bloomberg estimates the New York Times will show a 14% decline in revenues this year. Chicago Tribune, second-largest publisher, will probably be down 5% and Gannett, largest newspaper publisher, will be off 1%, based on average estimates of 11 analysts...but economist Robert Samuelson, writing in the May 28 Newsweek, says Bloomberg itself has added 300 business editorial jobs to 2,300 since early 2006 and the news business is far from collapsing. The reporting skills that are rewarded now, he says, are shifting from “diligent, curious and clear,” to “tech-savvy, quick and edgy.” Respect for facts and an effort to be fair still characterize news-gathering, he says, although editorial independence is being “eroded” as media increasingly “tailor content to appeal to advertisers.” A good example is Newsweek itself which is mostly a medical journal in service of healthcare advertisers...PR pros do not have “enough clout,” Mark Bulgutch, senior TV producer of The Canadian Broadcasting Corp., told PR pro Jana Schilder at a seminar in May sponsored by the Centre for the Study of Democracy at Queen’s Univ., Toronto. He says they should be part of the team making decisions rather than just delivering messages to audiences. Keynote Aaron Brown, now at Arizona State Univ. while waiting out a clause in his CNN contract, said reporters must be careful not to include their opinions when covering news.

--Jack O'Dwyer