U.K. TRAVEL PR ACCOUNTS OUT FOR BID.

Florida and Missouri are collecting proposals for travel PR accounts targeting the important U.K. market.

The Show Me State issued an RFP on June 28 to review its six-figure account that is currently handled by the London PR firm Cellet Travel Services. The Missouri Tourism Commission runs a website specifically aimed to attract U.K. travelers–visitmo.co.uk–and sees the country as a crucial source of tourism. The account includes press release and newsletter production, press trips and trade show efforts.

The Missouri Commission expects an annual budget of about $350K.

Florida’s St. Petersburg/Clearwater Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, meanwhile, has its eye on the U.K., Ireland and Scandinavia.

The U.K. is the Gulf Coast region’s No. 1 overseas market for tourism. St. Pete wants a firm to work with its staff to develop an annual PR plan of target media, proposed press trips, and other activities.

Proposals are due by Aug. 7. Development Counsellors International handles U.S. PR for the region.

SPRING O’BRIEN LANDS HONG KONG

Spring O’Brien & Co. has won a competitive review for the Hong Kong Tourism Board’s PR account.

The New York-based firm replaces Middleton & Gendron and defeated a handful of other firms for the work.

Chris Spring, president of the firm, told O’Dwyer’s that VP David Kleinman will be heading the account. The Tourism Board is eying U.S. baby boomers, luxury cruise travelers, and seniors.

Spring said his firm’s work will highlight the territory’s “cultural kaleidoscope” of hotels, cuisine, shopping, and outdoor entertainment as a crossroads of East and West.

Charles Hood, a 23-year veteran of Georgia-Pacific, has moved on to timber giant Rayonier as VP of corporate affairs. He heads government affairs, corporate communications, community and media relations, as well as the company's foundation.

Hood, 56, takes the reins from Jay Frederickson, who is retiring at 62 after 30 years with the Jacksonville, Fla.-based company.

Hood had recently served as VP of government affairs for Georgia-Pacific.

Rayonier posted sales just under $1.3 billion for 2006 across its timber, real estate, and performance fibers units.

B-M’S PENN VS. EX-PARTNERS.

Burson-Marsteller CEO Mark Penn, who is Hillary Clinton’s pollster, could square off in a Presidential contest with former Penn, Schoen & Berland polling firm partners Doug Schoen and Mark Berland in the event that New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg throws his hat in the ring.

A lawsuit will sort that scenario out.

Billionaire Bloomberg, who is mulling an independent run, could spend from $500M to $1B to finance his race.

The New York Observer reported that Bloomberg paid PS&B $17M to poll New Yorkers in `05 for his mayor run.

“The prospect of a Bloomberg Presidential campaign represents a potential once-in-a-lifetime windfall for Mr. Berland and for Doug Schoen,” according to the NYO.

That’s because any Bloomberg pollster “would stand to earn many times” over what the now-Independent candidate spent for the NYC contest while running as a Republican.

PSB, last month, sued Berland’s new firm, Global Insights and Strategies, charging it with poaching clients. The suit also contends that Berland has a non-compete clause with PSB that could eliminate him from any Bloomberg work.

If PSB is successful, Penn could argue that Berland, as well as Schoen, should be barred from doing any work for Bloomberg or any other presidential candidate.

CLEEVE MOVES TO VONAGE.

Karen Cleeve, a Burson-Marsteller pro, has joined troubled Internet phone company Vonage as VP-PR communications.

At B-M, Cleeve worked on the SAP account, serving as team leader for its products and industries unit and director for the Americas’ CEO communications program.

Previously, she spent six years at software maker Intuit, overseeing its Quicken brand. She also had jobs at Peppercom, Brouillard Communications and Rubenstein Assocs.

Arnold Huberman Assocs. placed Cleeve at Vonage.

CEO Jeffrey Citron reported a $72M first-quarter loss despite Vonage’s 64 percent surge in revenues to $196M.

The company has been fighting a messy patent infringement suit against Verizon.

Reputation Partners and Weber Shandwick rep Vonage.

KETCHUM PICKS UP CRACKER BARREL.

CBRL Group, the parent company of the 559 Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores in the U.S., has tapped Ketchum as its agency of record.

There was not a formal review for the account, which was previously held by Manning Selvage & Lee.

Ketchum’s Atlanta-based brand marketing group will lead the work to highlight Cracker Barrel’s “fresh country cooking” and “unique retail products.”

CBRL is based in Lebanon, Tenn. 2006 revenue topped $2 billion.

Diana Wynne, senior VP of corporate affairs, cited Ketchum’s food industry experience and its global network as factors in the move.

BRAYBOY TO GLOVER PARK.

Glover Park Group has named Joyce Brayboy, former chief of staff to Rep. Mel Watt, as senior VP in its legislative affairs group.

She handles work for Paris-based food services provider Sodexho, the official food supplier to the U.S. Marine Corps. Sodexho has two contracts with the Marines worth $300M.

With GPB partners Susan Brophy, a former senior VP global policy director at Time Warner and advisor to CEO Dick Parsons, and Joel Johnson, a top aide to former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Brayboy is trying to scoop up more federal business for Sodexho.

Brayboy worked a dozen years for Watt, immediate past chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

In `02, she was elected President of the House Chief of Staff Assn., the first African-American and second woman to hold that spot.

WEBER SHANDWICK TAKES GOLD.

Weber Shandwick is celebrating the International Olympic Committee’s selection of the Russian city of Sochi as the site of the 2014 Olympics and Paralympic Games.

As PR firm for “Sochi 2014,” WS aced Austria’s Salzburg and South Korea’s PyeongChang for hosting honors.

The IOC selection caps an 18-month PR campaign that included input from the Interpublic unit’s team in nearly 30 countries, according to the firm’s release.

“There is no sporting event like the Olympic Games,” said Jack Leslie, WS chairman. “Media from all around the world have followed the progress of the ’14 Olympic Games bidding campaign.”

He added that WS is proud to “add another triumphant campaign to our long list of successful Olympic bids.”

WS handled Beijing’s winning bid for the `08 Games, and Paris’ losing bid for the `12 Games.

SWITCHBACK LANDS RENO-SPARKS PACT.

Switchback PR + Marketing has won a competitive review for the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority’s PR account.

The $90K, year-long pact started on July 1 and includes four option years.

The Authority plans to play up outdoor activities like golf and skiing in the northern Nevada region, tagged as “America’s Adventure Place,” to offset the more well-known gambling and entertainment attractions.

More than five million people visit the area, which includes the popular resort region Lake Tahoe, annually.

Brinn Wellise, president of Switchback, and Jenny Franklin, A/S, will lead the account.

Switchback, based in Truckee, Calif., has worked for Ski Lake Tahoe, Cal-Neva Resort Spa & Casino, and Ruby Mountain Helicopter Skiing.

The Authority issued an RFP in the spring.

RF PROMOTES SWEET DREAMS.

Ruder Finn is handling the roll-out of Dreamerz Foods, which markets all-natural low-fat drinks that are said to promote healthy sleep and relaxation.

Its San Francisco office is in charge of that effort as Dreamerz is launched there and in key markets such as Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle and Portland, Ore. Lisa Novak heads the PR push.

Dreamerz calls its line a “milk-based functional sleep beverage.” The various flavors (vanilla van winkle, chocolate s’nores and crème de la rem) contain a low-dose of melatonin to regulate sleep. They are pitched as alternatives to sleeping pills.

The company was founded by Brand New Brands, a food and beverage incubator that is headed by William Rosenzweig, co-founder of the Republic of Tea.

Nestle USA veteran Amanda Steele heads DF.

LIDDLE CHECKS IN AT CUBIC.

Cubic Corp., a leading player in public transit fare collection systems, has named David Liddle its corporate communications director.

He had been running DWL Public & Government Affairs, and played a key role in the creation of the U.S. Transit Suppliers Coalition.

That group was formed to bolster the “Buy America” statute when it comes to federally funded transit products. Cubic belongs to the nearly 30-member corporate organization.

Earlier, Liddle served as communications and media relations chief for the Financial Services Roundtable and senior advisor at Dezenhall Resources.

San Diego-based Cubic had $820M in `06 revenues. The firm also is a major defense contractor. In June, the U.S. Army Joint Readiness Training Center renewed a $468M pact for mission support at Fort Polk in Louisiana. The contract has nine renewable option years.

MANCHESTER UNITED TALKS TO CONGLOMS.

Manchester United, one of the world’s most valuable sports brands, is talking with WPP Group, Publicis and Omnicom about a five-year program to bolster its digital presence, according to a report in the Guardian.

“We are a football club, and a global brand, a media phenomenon, but at the moment we are not doing enough for our fans,” Lee Daley, MU’s commercial director, told the British paper’s website.

The soccer team wants to raise its digital fan base from 4M to 50M. It also wants to hike its awareness in the business community.

BLACK CONVICTED OF FRAUD.

Conrad Black, former CEO of newspaper conglomerate Hollinger International, and three co-defendants were found guilty in federal court July 13 on three fraud charges and obstruction of justice.

The 62-year-old executive was brought down by charges he and others conspired to steal $60M from the company.

VP Peter Atkinson, former chief financial officer John Boultbee, and ex-general counsel Mark Kipnis, were found guilty.

Black was forced to resign in 2003 as CEO. The execs face up to 20 years in prison.

ULANOFF UPPED TO VP AT PC MAG.

PC Magazine’s reviews editor Lance Ulanoff has been promoted to VP/content and editor-in-chief of the PC Magazine Network, which includes its digital properties.

He replaces Jim Louderback who is leaving the company.

Ulanoff, who hosts the weekly podcast, PCMag Radio, joined PC Mag in 2000 and oversaw PCMag.com’s relaunch in 2001. He was previously with the magazine from 1991-96 and earlier was at HomePC and Windows Magazine.

FOX BIZ EYES OCT; NC BUYS BRONX PAPERS.

News Corp. has penciled in Oct. 15 as the date for the much anticipated launch of the Fox Business Network cable channel that will initially be available in 30M homes.

FBN, which News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch hopes to staff with Wall Street Journal reporters, will take aim at CNBC and Bloomberg TV.

New York-based FBN slates bureaus in Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and London.

Kevin Magee, executive VP at Fox News, will be in charge of day-to-day operations. Neil Cavuto, a FN program host, will be responsible for news coverage.

Makes Bronx move

News Corp has purchased The Bronx Times and Bronx Times Reporter, papers with a combined circulation of 40K.

The plan is to sell combined ad buys with News Corp’s Gotham City flagship, New York Post.

In ’06, News Corp added The TimesLedger Group of papers in Queens and The Courier Life Group in Brooklyn. That is a collection of 28 weekly papers.

JANE IS GONE.

Conde Nast is shutting Jane, the magazine targeted at women in their 20’s, after a 10-year run. August is the last issue.

The magazine was launched by Fairchild Publications, and edited by Jane Pratt for its first eight years.

CN’s Advanced Publications purchased Fairchild from Walt Disney Co. in ’99.
Jane peaked with a circulation of 740K and ad revenues of $46M in `04. Ad revenues were in the $40M range for ’06.

SILVERSTEIN RAPS MEDIA.

Ken Silverstein, the Harper’s editor who went undercover for a piece to outline the work of APCO Assocs. and Cassidy & Assocs., is disappointed by media reports claiming that he acted unethically.

“In a fabulous bit of irony, my article about the unethical behavior of lobbying firms has become, for some in the media, a story about my ethics in reporting the story,” he wrote in a June 30 Los Angeles Times op-ed piece.

He expected strong reactions from APCO and Cassidy, but was surprised by criticisms from columnists such as the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz, “who was apparently far less concerned by the lobbyists’ ability to manipulate public and political opinion than by my use of undercover journalism.”

Kurtz scolded Silverstein by writing: “No matter how good the story, lying to get it raises as many questions about journalists as their subjects.”

Silverstein notes that undercover journalism has a proud tradition in the media, though few outlets use it anymore. The deception, to Silverstein, is to be used only when a story is deemed in the public interest and “could not be obtained through conventional means.”

In his op-ed piece, Silverstein cites “sting operations” such as Nellie Bly pretending to be insane to gain entry to the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island in New York so she could report on the atrocious conditions there, and the Chicago Sun-Times buying a tavern to expose corruption of city officials.

Silverstein believes he only was able to “gain an inside glimpse into a secretive culture of professional spinners only by lying myself.”

He clearly reported that deception in the Harper’s article and if “readers feel uncomfortable with my methods, they’re free to dismiss my findings.”

Silverstein feels the current of undercover and investigative reporting is due to “the increasing conservatism and cautiousness of the media, especially the smug, high-end Washington press corps.”

He believes as reporters have grown more socially prominent, they’ve become part of the very power structure that they’re supposed to be tracking and scrutinizing.

Since the Harper’s piece, Silverstein has received a stream of positive emails, which shows that the “general public is decidedly more supportive of undercover reporting than the Washington media establishment.”

WSJ’S POLLOCK TO BW

Ellen Pollock has exited her Wall Street Journal career of 18 years for the executive editor post at BusinessWeek.

The former editor of Manhattan Lawyer and writer for American Lawyer joined the WSJ as a legal affairs editor, and most recently was deputy editor of Page 1.

She joined BW on July 16 replacing John Byrne, who was named exec editor/editor-in-chief of Businessweek.com last month.

Pollock has penned two books on Wall Street.

(Media news continued on next page)

INCISIVE BUYS ALM FOR $630M.

London’s Incisive Media is buying ALM, publisher of American Lawyer and 33 other titles, for $630M.

ALM’s properties include The New York Law Journal, Corporate Counsel, National Law Journal and Real Estate Forum. It also produces trade shows and conferences.

Tim Weller, founder of IM, says the deal advances his goal of “creating a leading global business-to-business media company.”

The addition of $200M (revenues) ALM doubles IM’s size. IM owns Investment Week, Search Engine Strategies, Risk, Post Magazine, Legal Week and Accountancy Age.

Bruce Wasserstein, chairman of Lazard, is owner of ALM. Leading a group of investors, Wasserstein purchased American Lawyer for $63M and National Law Publishing in ’97 to form ALM.

Private equity firm Apax Partners bought IM for $550M last year. It has $20B in invested assets including $6B in the media and communications sector (VNU World Directories, Thomson Learning and Trader Media Group).

GEMSTAR-TV GUIDE ON AUCTION BLOCK.

Gemstar-TV Guide's board is looking for a buyer for the company that publishes the venerable TV Guide, develops electronic programming guides and runs a bevy of websites.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, which is bidding $5B for Dow Jones, is 41 percent owner of G-TVG. NC took a $6B write-off on that investment in '02.

Los Angeles-based G-TVG has a market cap of $2.2B. Its stock, which once traded over $100 per-share, now sells for $6 a-share.

Anthea Disney, chairman of G-TVG, says the board is pleased with the strategic direction of CEO Richard Battista. She wants to explore the "range of available strategic alternatives for continuing to build shareholder value," according to her July 9 statement.

G-TVG earned $34.4M on $156M in first-quarter revenues.

REILLY TOPS FOX ENTERTAINMENT.

Kevin Reilly, who was dropped from the NBC Entertainment chief post in May, has reemerged as president of rival Fox’s entertainment unit. He was replaced by Ben Silverman at the General Electric network.

Reilly was credited with introducing shows such as “My Name is Earl” and “The Office” to NBC. He rejoins Peter Liguori, who was upped to Fox chairman. The two worked together at Fox’s FX cable channel.

Fox has been the No. 1 rated network for the past three years boosted by “American Idol.”

GOOGLE ACQUIRES GRANDCENTRAL.

Google has acquired GrandCentral Communications, a startup that gives users a single number to manage phones and voice mailboxes over the web.

The GCC premise is to give people “one number for life,” according to a statement posted by founders Craig Walker and Vincent Paquet.

They are veterans of Dialpad Communications, which was acquired by Yahoo! in ’05.

Briefs ________________________

United Press International has cut its lone White House correspondent Richard Tomkins and 10 other positions from its Washington, D.C., bureau, reports Editor & Publisher.

Design New England magazine has added a focus on environmental developments in furnishings, landscape and architecture.

The Boston Globe Media title has added Meaghan O’Neill as a contributing editor to head the “Green” department. She is a freelancer who helped launch TreeHugger.com and is writing a book on living green.

DNE has also added Molly Quinn as an associate editor, and signed on two other contributing editors: Estelle Buralnick (style & interiors) and Bruce Irving (renovation & architecture).

Mainstream Data, Salt Lake City, has acquired news photo and graphics company Newscom from Tribune Media Services and The McClatchy Company.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Newscom distributes content for Agence France Press, BBC, Deutsche Presse Agentur, Dorling Kindersley, Getty Images, Jupiterimages, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services, Reuters and Splash News.

Channel One, the middle school and high school public affairs and news network, has aligned with NBC News, beginning in the fall 2007.

People ________________________

Harrison Wise, former VP at Rubenstein PR, has moved on to BrightSpot Media as VP of corporate communications.

BrightSpot has developed an online video advertising and content platform, BrightSpot.tv, which pays viewers to watch ads and respond to questions.

Wise was previously an account director at TrylonSMR.

Tom Sims, editor of the International Herald Tribune’s “Marketplace” section, has been named Asia business editor based in Hong Kong. He has been with the paper since 2005 after reporting for the Wall Street Journal.

Jim Harrold, executive editor of Wood Magazine, has moved over to Woodcraft Magazine as EIC.

Former New York Times reporter Edwin McDowell died July 10 from complications of Alzheimer’s disease. He was 72, the Times reported.

McDowell reported for the paper for 26 years and wrote three novels – “Three Cheers and a Tiger” (1966), “To Keep Our Honor Clean” (1980) and “The Lost World” (1988) – as well as a biography on Barry Goldwater.

The current reasoning of the board of the PR Society, which gets across to us by one means or another although directors, officers and staff are forbidden to talk to us, is that there is no great outcry from the membership for any changes so there is no need to make any changes.

The leaders don’t realize that silence is one of the most used methods of communications these days.

It means disapproval. PRS doesn’t hear from corporate PR leaders, heads of big PR firms or financial PR leaders because they have either given up on PRS or quit it.

The silence is “deafening” but the PRS leaders don’t “hear” it. Most PRS members are in nonprofit, association, government, healthcare and academic jobs or in small PR firms. Academics and solo PR people are increasingly dominant in PRS because they have more free time than corporate and agency execs.

PRS is not representative of the industry nor the all-APR board of the membership, which is 80% non-APR. Only nine people showed up for seven national offices this year, a giant snub to PRS. But the leaders didn’t hear it.

Decades of inbreeding and undemocratic practices at the Society have resulted in three candidates for two top offices who have no business serving in those offices.

Anthony D’Angelo, an employee of United Technologies Corp., cannot take the position of chair-elect that he is seeking and still keep his job at UTC.

The company, a blue-chip with $49 billion in sales, has an elaborate ethics code, top-grade financial reporting, and a commitment to openness and public service.

PRS, if the past is any guide, will be involved in one flap after another that will reflect badly on the employers of leaders. With 11 counselors and three academics expected on the 2008 board, D’Angelo would have only one corporate ally—Christopher Veronda of Eastman Kodak.

Since 1986 UTC has had a confidential program that invites employee criticism. Sarbanes-Oxley requires all companies and associations are to have such a device.

But PRS COO Catherine Bolton in 2004, using PRS funds, took legal action to unmask the sender of an e-mail to the board that was critical of her so the sender could be sued for defamation. The action, not approved by the board or even the executive committee, cost PRS upwards of $60,000 and reams of bad publicity. It became a page one story in the New York Law Journal.

UTC is hyper about its image as noted in the July 9 BusinessWeek. It analyzed thousands of clips to find out the impact of stories on its stock.

Also, UTC’s ad campaign, judged the best corporate campaign June 20 by IR Magazine, has the theme: “You can see everything from here,” promising transparency and openness.

Michael Cherenson is not qualified for chair-elect nor Rosanna Fiske for treasurer.

He told the nomcom he is employed by Success Communications Group/Cherenson when there is no such entity. Cherenson Group was sold to Success in early 2006. The nomcom was told: “In 2007, The Cherenson Group expanded from a regional communications firm to a nationwide company.” It sounds like Cherenson was expanding instead of selling out. The statement adds that there is a new name, “The Success Communications Group” and the new “umbrella company” combines Cherenson and Success. In the section that asks, “What is your employment?” he puts “PR Agency” when it should be “PR division of an ad agency.” Success is mostly an ad agency billing $60M.

Fiske, who wants to be treasurer without first serving as secretary, would return to the board when for its first 53 years no PRS director ever returned. This is a “hole” that a new bylaw should plug up.

She sold her interest in Communique Group/Rise Strategies to be a full-time associate professor at Florida International University. This raises the question: how successful was she in business? Do people walk away from highly successful PR firms?

At one time, PRS was led by the heads of the biggest PR firms in the U.S., George Hammond of Carl Byoir & Assocs., and Kal Druck of Harshe-Rotman & Druck. The heads of large corporate PR depts. also headed PRS—Kerryn King of Texaco, Don McCammond of American Can, Frank Wylie of Chrysler, Joe Awad of Reynolds Metals, and Jon Riffel of Pacific Gas & Electric.

What will rile UTC executives should D’Angelo actually take chair-elect and serve as chair, will be the sheer lack of logic and reason from PRS leaders.

In 1995, when PRS was caught red-handed with having sold hundreds of thousands of copies of authors’ works without their permission, including entire chapters of copyrighted books, 1995 president John Beardsley of Padilla Speer Beardsley (who is on the 2007 nomcom) said: “The PR Society has operated within the privileges of fair use and has not infringed on anyone’s copyright.”

We had an $80,000+ lesson in “fair use” in 1994 when we were sued (unsuccessfully) on the ground of violating a speaker’s copyright at the 1993 PRS conference. Fair use does not have anything to do with the systematic copying and sale of entire articles (volume was 3,800 packets in one year with dozens of copied articles in each packet).

Fair use allows quoting exact passages for criticism or satire or when what is said is newsworthy. The copying is not supposed to interfere with sale of the original materials. PRS went far beyond mere copying and sale—it was creating new works or “anthologies” by combining articles from many sources.

The Authors Guild branded PRS’s defense “absurd.

--Jack O'Dwyer