VIRGINIA TECH CALLS IN BURSON.

Virginia Tech issued an emergency solicitation to hire Burson-Marsteller last month, nearly two months after the shooting rampage that left 32 people dead.

B-M was brought in to handle media relations and communications related to the April 16 tragedy on VTech’s main campus in Blacksburg, according to a procurement document obtained by O’Dwyer’s. The PR contract was awarded on June 13.

Twenty-seven students and five faculty members were gunned down by Seung-Hui Choi, a mentally disturbed English major at the school.

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine has created a panel to review the incident as family members of victims have been publicly critical of the school’s failure to prevent the shootings, its response, and the process to dole out more than $7M in donations.

A failure to communicate has been a frequent criticism of the school’s initial response.

B-M wouldn’t comment on the work. Larry Hincker, associate VP of university relations at VTech, didn’t answer an e-mail.

DWORKIN CONNECTS WITH JAMBA.

Philippa Dworkin, VP of corporate communications for Constellation Brands, has departed for a VP/global communications role with the News Corporation-VeriSign mobile company Jamster.

Dworkin handled corporate comms. and investor relations at Constellation, the alcoholic beverage producer and marketer with annual sales of more than $4 billion.

She has held PR posts with Dr. Pepper/Seven Up, Tenneco Packaging, and Sante Fe Corp.

Jamster, which is known as Jamba outside of the U.S., is a top player in the ringtone and wallpaper space for mobile phones.

The company says it reaches 1 in 6 consumers around the world, but has been sued and taken heat for advertising free ringtones without noting hidden costs. News Corp bought a controlling interest for $188M in September from VeriSign.

Jamster CEO Lucy Hood said Dworkin has joined the company at a critical time as it integrates the “assets” of the News Corp. venture.

Qorvis Communications is handling the Action Sports Environmental Coalition, a group of top skateboarders, bikers, snowboarders and equipment/apparel makers, that wants to spread the word about the dangers of global warming.

GLOVER TAPPED BY KKR FOR TAX WORK.

Glover Park Group is repping secretive Kohlberg Kravis Roberts Co., which is fending off moves by Congressional Democrats to end tax breaks for private equity fund managers.

The New York Times, July 13, cited KKR, which plans to go public, as among the biggest beneficiaries on the tax loophole.

Under the current set-up, private equity firm owners pay a capital gains tax rate of 15 percent of partnership income vs. 35 percent rate they would pay on ordinary income.

John Edwards has been the leading voice in opposing the unfair tax breaks for hedge fund billionaires.

He has now been joined by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Clinton has vowed to get rid of this “glaring inequality” of the tax code.

GPP has Susan Brophy handling the KKR matter. She worked in the Clinton White House as Deputy Director of Legislative Affairs.

The Washington-based PA firm is working on the tax issue as subcontractor to KKR’s lobbyist, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.

Ken Mehlman, former Republican National Committee chairman and Akin Gump partner, heads that KKR work.

‘PARADISE COAST’ SEEKS PR FIRM.

Collier County, the southwestern Florida region along the Gulf of Mexico that has cultivated the moniker “Paradise Coast,” is looking to bolster its two-person PR team with an outside firm.

The Naples, Marco Island, Everglades Convention and Visitors Bureau, part of the Collier County government, issued an RFP on July 10 for a firm to foster editorial coverage and “extend the message reach of the CVB.” It expects to select a firm by October or November on a one-year contract with two option years.

The CVB has a full-time PR manager and part-time assistant who are toiling with information requests and other tasks with little time to enact a strategic or proactive communications strategy.

The region spent the last four years “re-branding” as “Paradise Coast” and “Florida’s Last Paradise.”

Tourism was down slightly in 2006 at 1.4M visitors, although the estimated economic impact of tourism climbed 4.3 percent to $1.1 billion.

Proposals are due on Aug. 10. The RFP can be obtained from the county’s procurement portal, colliergov.net/bid.

CARAVAN ROLLS TO SUPPORT ‘SURGE.’

A group formed to support President Bush’s Iraqi war policy is slated to kick off a nationwide caravan on Sept. 3 to rally in favor of continued involvement in Iraq.

Move America Forward will begin its two-dozen city trek from Carson City, and end in Washington on Sept. 15 as General David Petraeus reports to Congress on whether the Administration’s “surge” strategy is working.

Robert Dixon, executive director of MAF, says the caravan will feature pro-troop rallies that will be attended by “thousands upon thousands of patriotic Americans.”

Those people, in his view, “believe that our leaders cannot be allowed to undercut our troops who are bravely serving on the frontlines of the war against Islamic jihadism,” according to a statement from Dixon.

MAF has close ties to Republican PA firm Russo Marsh & Rogers.

Sal Russo is chief strategist at MFA. He was special assistant to Ronald Reagan and campaign advisor to Republicans such as former New York Senator Al D’Amato and Governor George Pataki.

The MFA caravan stops in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, El Paso, Waco, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Wichita, Kansas City, Des Moines, Chicago, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh.

There also will be a stop in Crawford, Tex., where the President has his ranch.

ARLINGTON STICKS WITH SPEAKERBOX.

Virginia’s Arlington Convention & Visitors Service has awarded its PR account to the incumbent, albeit with a different name, following a review.

Speakerbox Communications, formerly known as SheaHedges Group, was the incumbent for the work, which could reach five years with four options on the year-long base contract.

The account calls for economic development and tourism PR work.

Media relations, creation of a speaking program and other tasks are covered. A review was required under county procurement rules.

The C&VS wants to play up Arlington’s ties to Washington, D.C.’s history as it lies across the Potomac from the nation’s capital and includes Arlington National Cemetery and the former home of Robert E. Lee.

The new pact went into effect on July 11.

BURRELL PASSES.

Wendy Burrell, founder of The Burrell Group in New York, died July 10. She founded the specialty food shop in `85.

Earlier, Burrell worked at Creamer Dickson Basford (`78-`84) and on the PR staffs of Schieffelin & Co. and Charles of the Ritz.

She also did freelance work for Revlon and Taylor Wines.

A memorial was held July 20 at Riverside Chapels in Manhattan.

EDELMAN, OGILVY GIVE CHINA SAFETY TIPS.

Edelman and Ogilvy PR Worldwide are advising China about how to build trust in its products following a spate of big headlines about contaminated foods and tainted toys exported to the U.S.

The gist behind the “Made in China” campaign, according to the July 14 Washington Post, is to point out that less than one percent of Chinese imports are rejected by American inspectors.

China’s government also is making the case that it is not the only country with product safety issues.

China, on July 13, announced a temporary ban on poultry from Tyson Foods, pig ears from Van Luin Foods and chicken feet from Sanderson Farms for alleged contamination.

Scott Kronick, head of Ogilvy’s China practice, told the Post that his client feels that it has gotten “pretty beaten up.”

He counseled China to be upfront about any product deficiencies in order to restore confidence in its products.

China uses Patton Boggs in the U.S. to keep tabs of any Congressional fallout about the food/product safety issue. It pays the lobbying firm $22K a-month.

B-M BEEFS UP HEALTH UNIT.

Burson-Marsteller has named Beth Rowan and Gail Switsky directors in its global healthcare practice.

Rowan, 59, was a senior VP at Ruder Finn, working on Novartis’ Femara, an aromatase inhibitor for women with advanced breast cancer. She also served as national media director for the March of Dimes, and freelanced for the New York Times and Newsweek.

Switsky, 38, worked at Interpublic’s DeVries PR unit on Procter & Gamble and McNeil Pediatrics brands.

Ame Wadler chairs B-M’s health practice. WPP Group is B-M’s parent.

SV HELPS IHOP DIGEST APPLEBEE’S.

Sard Verbinnen is helping IHOP digest its $2.1B cash takeover bid for Applebee’s International, owner of 508 sit-down restaurants.

Julia Stewart, CEO of the pancake house chain, plans to sell the bulk of company-owned Applebee’s to franchisees. That’s the program that re-energized the 50-year old International House of Pancakes brand. More than 99 percent of IHOPs are run by franchisees.

IHOP earned $45M on $350M `06 revenues.

Applebee’s put itself on the auction block following a demand for board seats by Breeden Partners, the investment firm of former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Richard Breeden.

BP, which owned a 5.2 percent Applebee’s stake, contended that chain suffered “severe performance problems,” and that its shares should be trading at more than $50 vs. the $23.82 price at the time of Breeden’s announcement in December.

Breeden joined the board in April when Applebee’s stock hit $28. Kekst & Co. advised BP. IHOP is offering $25.50 a share.

Applebee’s says the IHOP offer will “drive significant value creation.”

SCRIPPS KILLS CINCY POST.

E.W. Scripps Co. is killing the Cincinnati Post and Kentucky Post with the expiration of a joint operating agreement with Gannett Co.'s Cincinnati Enquirer.

The last Post will be dated Dec. 31, capping a 126-year run.

Gannett told Scripps three years ago that it was not going to renew the 30-year JOA for the two afternoon dailies. Cincinnati-based Scripps claims that it explored options for the Posts. Those included turning them into free-distribution papers or Internet-only operations.

Since Scripps has neither a printing facility nor marketing staff for the papers, it decided that shutting them made the most economic sense.

The papers employ 52 staffers. They have a combined 27,000 Monday-through-Friday circulation.

That compares to 188,000 when the JOA was established.

The CP was first published in 1881 as the Penny Paper and acquired by James Scripps that same year. His brother, E.W. Scripps, assumed control of the newspaper in 1883 and changed the name to the Penny Post. In 1890, the newspaper was renamed CP and the KP was launched.

Scripps, which is largely a broadcaster and cable network operation, runs WCPO-TV in Cincinnati.

Its key remaining newspapers are the Rocky Mountain News (Denver), Commercial Appeal (Memphis) and Knoxville News Sentinel.

DIRECTOR RESIGNS OVER MURDOCH DEAL.

Dieter von Holtzbrinck, a German publishing mogul who sat on the board of Dow Jones & Co. since `01, has resigned because he objects to the anticipated takeover by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

Though convinced that the "News Corp. offer is very generous in financial terms, I'm worried that Dow Jones’ unique journalistic values will long-term strongly suffer after the proposed sale,” he wrote in his resignation letter.

He also doubts that a "special committee" formed to protect the Wall Street Journal's editorial integrity will not "prevent Murdoch from doing what he wants to do."

DJ&C chairman Peter McPherson wrote a letter to von Holtzbrinck thanking him for his service.

SHARPTON PAVES WAY FOR IMUS’ RETURN.

Rev. Al Sharpton, who led the campaign to get radio jock Don Imus off the air, now says he wouldn't object if the former WFAN-AM and MSNBC cable TV personality returns to the airways.

He told the Associated Press that Imus has a "right to earn a living." Sharpton said he doesn't have a problem with Imus as long as he refrains from race or gender-based insults.

Imus was pulled from the air in April following his reference to Rutgers University's women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos."

He later met with the team to apologize and also appeared on Sharpton's radio program, which turned out to be a series of heated exchanges.

Imus admitted to Sharpton that he had gone “too far,” but told of his good works to help blacks and children with cancer. Sharpton responded that it didn't matter because "what you said was racist."

BEE OUTSOURCES AD JOBS TO INDIA.

The Fresno Bee, which is scaling back its ad department, is outsourcing some work to Express KCS.

Publisher Ray Steele said the Bee will continue to do creative work for both print and web. Some production work will be shifted to India. Seven jobs will be cut in Fresno.

Steele said the move will help serve advertisers more "effectively, efficiently and economically."

HM UNVEILS $4B BOOK DEAL.

Houghlin Mifflin is acquiring the Harcourt operations of Reed Elsevier in a deal worth $3.7B in cash and $300M in stock.

The venerable Boston publisher is picking up the Harcourt Education, Harcourt Trade and Greenwood-Heinemann units.

The deal broadens HM's position in the educational publishing market, especially in the areas of math, science, language, social studies and English.

Irish software firm, Riverdeep Holdings, acquired HM in November for $1.8B plus the assumption of $1.6B in debt. HM, which was the publishing home of Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and J.R.R. Tolkien, is the No. 4 publisher in the educational market.

CASTELLLI ROLLS TO GOOGLE.

Tim Castelli, publisher of Rolling Stone, is joining Google as its New York sales director. He assumed the RS spot in April ’06 following the exit of Steve DeLuca.

Castelli was associate publisher of Maxim before joining RS, which is put out by Wenner Media.

Google, meanwhile, has introduced "Custom Business Search Engine, a service aimed at small business owners that allows visitors to search their website.

The service is priced at $100 a-year for sites with up to 500 pages.

SCHWARTZ PROFILED IN CBR.

Gil Schwartz, CBS executive VP-communications who skewers companies and executives under the name Stanley Bing, complained to the Conference Board Review about how hard it is to maintain his cover.

In the old days, nobody would know where to find me, says Schwartz in the July/August issue. "USA Today just did a little squib on my book, and it said 'Stanley Bing, pseudonym of Gil Schwartz.''

Bing feels it is unfair that George Orwell is never referred to by his real name, Eric Blair. And Mark Twain is never called Samuel Clemens.

"Bing has a little right to privacy," said Schwartz.

Chicagotribune.com relaunched on July 20 to include more prominent video placement to complement content and tools for sharing photos, videos, opinions and stories. A campaign via DDB Chicago is supporting the new site.

(Media news continued on next page)

BLOOMBERG EXEC TO ANSWERSMEDIA.

Frank Traynor, who was head of global media sales & syndication at Bloomberg News, has moved to AnswersMedia, producer of HD content on subjects from health to food.

At Bloomberg, Traynor was in charge of production and distribution of newswire, TV, cable, video on demand, radio and Internet products.

Traynor called AnswersMedia a "truly unique value proposition for both the web and television." The firm is headquartered in Chicago.

People ___________________________

The Associated Press has named veteran investigative reporter and editor Richard Pienciak to the new post of national investigative editor.

Pienciak, 56, has been assistant managing editor for investigations at the New York Daily News, overseeing the "9/11 Money Trough" series among other projects. He had been with the AP in New Jersey and N.Y.

Carol Wilson has been promoted to editor-in-chief of Telephony magazine and its telephonyonline.com portal. She replaces Dan O'Shea, who is leaving the Penton Media title. Telephony is published 20 times a year.

Bill McCandless, senior producer at CNBC, has joined TheStreet.com as executive editor of multimedia, a new post. He oversees development of new programs and shows as well as the company's overall multimedia strategy.

McCandless had recently been a developer and senior producer of "On The Money" on CNBC. Earlier, he produced programs for CNBC daytime as well as the "Early Today" show for the NBC network. He was also a senior broadcast producer for MSNBC, where he was responsible for all breaking news and daily coverage.

Justin Sayfie, an attorney and government relations consultant in Florida who publishes the popular five-year-old Florida political blog SayfieReview.com, has unveiled a national political news blog SayfieNews.com. Sayfie, who says the new site is nonpartisan, is a former spokesman and policy advisor to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

Jim Driscoll was tapped for the news director spot at WWOR-TV/My 9 in New York. He had been assistant news director at WNYW/Fox 5, where he managed more than 200 staffers. Both stations are owned by Fox TV, a unit of News Corp.

Briefs _________________________

Tricom Media said it is aiming to break up the Hispanic daily "monopoly" of Hoy and El Diario (both owned by Inpremedia) with the launch of the free paper and website 24 Horas.

Tricom says it is targeting the "New Latino… educated and hard working individual with limited time to read the news."

24 Horas and 24horasweb.com are available in the New York area.

Virgin Comics, which is part of Richard Branson's Virgin Enterprises, and MySpace have launched an online comic book platform to allow users to develop comics with leading creators. Coalition Comix, myspace.com/coalitioncomix, has users providing the artistic direction for a comic by voting on plot twists.

The first comic planned will be guided by author Mike Carey (Voodoo Child, X-Men).

NFL ADDS MEDIA POLICIES.

The National Football League will limit audio and video footage of league and team personnel and require news photographers to wear red vests with Canon and Reebok logos during the upcoming season, according to two reports last week.

The vests drew the ire of the National Press Photographers Assn. "In Seattle and at Super Bowl XL in Detroit, we wore bibs that blended into the background," NPPA president Tony Overman told News Photographer magazine. "Making the vests red seems to go against previous practice, now making the vests highly visible (and therefore distracting) to everyone from players, officials, and ticket holders to television viewers."

"It totally goes against our Code of Ethics to force photographers to advertise as if they were some sort of NASCAR vehicle," John Long, the chair of NPPA's ethics & standards committee," told NP reporter Donald Winslow.

The NFL is also cracking down on web content. The league said it will be limiting media outlets to 45 seconds of online audio or video footage with league or team personnel per day on NFL property. Further, the league requires media websites to remove such footage after 24 hours and always include links to the websites of pertinent teams and nfl.com.

The Wall Street Journal noted "having made $170 million in online revenue in the fiscal year ended March 31 -- up over 17% from the previous fiscal year -- and with a young cable network to nurture, the league has plenty of incentive to limit the newspapers, TV and radio stations that cover it."

ELDR TARGETS 60-PLUS CROWD.

ELDR, a quarterly magazine that targets the 13,000 baby boomers who turn 60-years old every day, has been launched by David Bunnell, who started PC Magazine and MacWorld.

Bunnell told the San Francisco Chronicle that ELDR is "not for people sitting in their rocking chairs."

The magazine's name comes from the Middle English noun "Eld," a term for one who comes into power, and "R" for revolution. Its mandate is to "celebrate the joys, navigate the challenges and discover the meaning of aging." ELDR expects to take on difficult issues such as cancer, dementia and incontinence.

It is zeroing in on the high end of the market– the $5M people who earn $100K a-year or have investments of more than $1M other than their home. The magazine launches with a circulation of 75K, 65 percent of that free to people living in upper-income ZIP codes.

Which one will have the greatest influence on bloggers (now totaling 70 million), PR or advertising?

A 15-pager from the Council of PR Firms considers the current "Wild West communications landscape" and comes down firmly in the middle. It doesn't know.

The study concludes by asking, "Will [PR] agencies embrace social media…or will they allow outsiders to furnish those services? It promises to be a very interesting period ahead."

Oddly the study keeps referring to PR "agencies" when it was written for the Council of PR Firms. "Firms" is the term the industry likes (as in law "firms").

Authors are Paul Rand of Zocalo Group, Chicago, part of Ketchum which is part of Omnicom, and Giovanni Rodriguez of Hubbub PR, Santa Clara, Calif.

Such doubts are expressed about PR's capabilities and mission that it make us wonder whose side the Council is on-PR or advertising? CPRF is about 80% funded by PR units of the ad giants who control the CPRF board.

How about this sentence: "Clients must find and engage the best partners with the best ideas, regardless of whether they are PR agencies or not." With friends like this, who needs enemies?!

Ad agencies are moving into PR's turf and PR pros must do a "much better job at defining their role and value," says the paper, adding: "Questions remain: should PR agencies do 'everything?' Should they serve more as an integrator across disciplines? Should PR opt to encompass anything used to drive conversations?"

The CPRF should be saying that blogging was made for PR firms and not for one-way messaging ad agencies that are only going to get their noses bloodied in blogland.

As for PR's mysterious "role," it's convincing editors, a much tougher job than advertising's, which is convincing consumers. "Third party endorsement" is the guts of PR because what others say about you, particularly experts, is more important than what you say about yourself.

PR, while more distant from reporters and editors than we have ever seen it, is still better suited to answering questions and supplying details to bloggers. Influential bloggers must be dealt with.

PR pros, after decades of giving low priority to lunches with reporters, where spirited discussions might take place, need to build knowledge of the accounts they're working on and sharpen debating and conversational skills. PR employees of the ad conglomerates have been ducking the press because the financiers who are their bosses are so hyper about leakage of material information that might affect the stocks. Both the financial and advertising worlds are security conscious in the extreme, which mitigates against press or blogger interaction. In fact, the culture frowns on any interaction outside the company. PR association life in New York is a fraction of what it once was and even the year-end combined holiday party has been abolished because of the withdrawal of financial support by the big PR firms. Top execs (not the rank-and-file) turn out mostly for one thing-award banquets.

The independent PR firms, which have remained more open to the press, would seem to have an edge in dealing with bloggers. Press-avoiding Omnicom CEO John Wren has set the standard for PR pros at the Big Five PR units.

The Washington Post's Gene Weingarten, foiled in attempts to find out more info than was in several releases, said his experience with PR people is that they are "pathetic, desperate dillweeds." Someone should get in touch with Weingarten but no one has to our knowledge.

Blogville is a tough world. One of the leading bloggers, Dave Taylor (intuitive.com/blog) told a Blog Business Summit in 2005 that "PR is dead." He then had some discussions with PR pros and reiterated: "I believe that I'll stick with my original statement: 'PR is still dead.'"

Taylor, author of “Insider’s Guide to Blogging,” believes businesses should set up themselves as the “experts, the authority, in your marketplace.” But they must have “something interesting to say,” he warns.

United Technologies PR people (VP-communications Nancy Lintner, director of worldwide PR Peter Murphy and press contact John Moran are stonewalling us so far on the Anthony D'Angelo/PR Society situation. If D'Angelo becomes chair-elect, how can UTC's elaborate ethics code and ad campaign promising openness fit in with PRS's decades of anti-democratic governance, ethical lapses like the massive copying and sale of authors' works without their permission, and misleading financial reporting?...the "stealth" PRS board met this past weekend in Los Angeles where CEO Rhoda Weiss lives but there was no mention on the Society's website. Weiss has yet to appear before a single PRS chapter…the closing until at least 2012 of Antioch College, where Weiss is getting a Ph.D. in "Change and Leadership in the Professions," inspired a George Will column 7/15 in the New York Post that ran under the headline: "A College Collapses: Sad Tale of Liberal Loopiness." Antioch, which is still keeping some "distance" Ph.D. and other programs, was famous for dropping grades and allowing students to learn while taking off-campus jobs. One student was assaulted for wearing Nike shoes, regarded as a "symbol of globalization." Will was "heartened" by the closing…in spite of rules of the NYS Education Dept. that unregistered CPAs are not to use that designation in public, a release on the PRS website says that new CFO Phil Bonaventura is licensed as a CPA and that the license is "valid" for life. But it's not supposed to be mentioned in public unless the holder pays a yearly $245 fee and takes 25 to 45 hours of courses each year. It's like the APR designation of PRS. Unless a PR person pays $225 yearly and $40 every three years to PRS, the PR person is not to refer to him or herself as "APR." There is no indication Bonaventura will take courses again and pay his fee to re-register as a CPA.

--Jack O'Dwyer