PS WORKS WITH CLEMENS TEAM

Public Strategies is working with Rogers Clemens’ legal team as the former All-Star pitcher appeared Feb. 12 on Capitol Hill.

PS, a WPP unit, is well-connected in both Texas, where the firm is based, and D.C.

Joe Householder, former communications director for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton who is a managing director at PS, is working with Clemens’ legal team.

Clemens testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last week that he never used performance-enhancing drugs.

That runs counter to the testimony of Clemens’ former trainer, Brian McNamee, a key source for the Mitchell Report on performance enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball.

“It’s clear someone here isn’t telling the truth,” said committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.).

The four-hour-plus hearings were covered live by major cable outlets and ESPN.

Householder called McNamee a “troubled man who is obsessed with doing everything possible to destroy Roger Clemens.” On the hearings, he told reporters ahead of the event: “[Clemens] wanted to have that chance to look them in the eye. He just wants to sit down and say exactly what he said to you all and exactly what he said at the deposition, which is, ‘I never took steroids. I never took human growth hormone,’ and just answer questions.”

ARCADIS LOOKS FOR PR FIRM

Arcadis, a leading environmental and infrastructure engineering company, is looking to hire its first PR firm to “create top-of-mind” media awareness of its services.

The Highlands Ranch, Col.-based operation is the largest unit of its Dutch parent. It has 4,000 employees here and plans to add another 1,000 this year.

In the RFP, Arcadis says that despite rapid growth the company is “still relatively unknown and in need of support to push our reputation to a more widespread national audience.”

The PR firm will promote narratives, such as Arcadis’ role in water protection during hurricanes; develop “proactive opportunities to place guest columns/commentaries” for executives, and create a “Rolodex” online file for media access to Arcadis’ scientists and experts.

Deadline for RFP responses is Feb. 20. Work begins April 15. Andrew Hudson, VP-corporate communications (303/471-3436 and [email protected]) has details.

OMC’s NET RISES 13.2%

Omnicom reported a 13.2 percent rise in fourth-quarter earnings to $314M on a 12.7 percent revenues increase to $3.6B.

Its PR group led by Fleishman-Hillard, Ketchum and Porter Novelli registered 9.6 percent fourth-quarter growth to $340M. The unit was up 11.1 percent to $1.3B for the full-year.

CEO John Wren spent $378M for acquisitions in `07. Brandcom (Dubai) and Waters Widgren (Stockholm) were the major deals.

OMC earmarked $159M in `07 earn-outs. The ad/PR combine has $173M in earn-out obligations for the current year.

OMC’s full-year net rose 12.9 percent to $976M. Revenues were up 11.6 percent to $12.7B.

PN HIRES SALZMAN

Trend-spotter Marian Salzman, who takes credit for coining the term “metrosexual,” will join Porter Novelli next month in the newly created position of chief marketing officer.

Salzman is moving from JWT Worldwide, where she held the executive VP and CMO slots. Earlier, she was executive VP/chief strategy officer at Euro RSCG Worldwide and president of Young & Rubicam think tank, Intelligence Factory.

Salzman has written a series of books, tackling cultural shifts, current affairs and the youth market. They include “The Future of Men,” “Buzz,” and “Next: Trends for the Near Future.”

ESPOSITO TO WEISSCOMM

Tony Esposito, who was chief financial officer for more than ten years at both Ruder Finn and Manning Selvage & Lee, has joined WeissComm Partners, a major healthcare firm with offices in San Francisco, Chicago and New York, as CFO.

WeissComm, specializing in corporate and product communications for biotech, pharmaceutical, device and diagnostic companies, had revenues of $7.5 million in 2006, which would have made it the largest independent healthcare specialist.

[Revenues of PR firms for 2007 are being collected and results will be announced in March.]

WeissComm employs more than 65 people in its three principal offices and also has additional locations.

Jim Weiss, CEO of WeissComm, said Esposito is one of the most experienced CFOs in the PR agency business and will help in creating the firm’s infrastructure to support its growth.

SPIELBERG DROPS BOMB ON BEIJING GAMES

Political PR pro Andy Spahn is handling news that director Steven Spielberg has dropped his role as artistic advisor to the opening/closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics due to China’s economic, military and diplomatic backing of Sudan, which has been accused of genocide in Darfur.

Hill & Knowlton reps the Beijing Games.

Spielberg issued a blistering statement in which he said his conscience will not allow him to continue with business as usual.

Instead of preparing for the Olympics, Spielberg will do all that he can to “bring an end to the unspeakable crimes against humanity that continue to be committed in Darfur.”

Though Sudan bares the “bulk of the responsibility for these ongoing crimes,” the international community and “particularly China should be doing more to end the continuing human suffering” in Darfur, said Spielberg.

Actress Mia Farrow, who is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations, penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece last year in which she challenged Spielberg to cut ties to the “Genocide Olympics.”

Spahn, who is a political advisor to Hollywood activists, told the New York Times, that Spielberg wrote to Chinese officials and met with the country’s special envoy to Darfur.

China claims that Darfur is neither an internal issue nor one caused by China. The country believes it is “completely unreasonable, irresponsible and unfair” to link it with Darfur, which is part of the Sudan.

The Save Darfur Coalition and Dream for Darfur praised Spielberg’s “great moral principle” that caused him to withdraw from the Games. Spielberg’s decision “had to be difficult, but it is morally unassailable.”

M+R Strategic Services has worked for the Coalition since `05.

Spahn served a dozen years as corporate affairs and communications chief for DreamWorks SKG, where he also handled government and community relations for Spielberg and fellow DreamWorks founders David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg.

He launched Andy Spahn & Assocs. in `06.

APCO ADDS McCLELLAN

Scott McClellan, President Bush’s former press secretary, is the latest to join APCO Worldwide’s International Advisory Council.

That collection of luminaries includes ex-Congressman Mike Oxley (of Sarbanes-Oxley fame), Craig Fuller (ex-National Assn. of Chain Stores CEO and Philip Morris VP-corporate affairs), Stephen Solarz (former Brooklyn Congressman), Roger Bolton, (Arthur Page Society president and Aetna ex-senior VP-communications) Barie Carmichael (ex-Dow Corning and Visa PR chief) and Roger Hannaford (Ronald Reagan’s former aide and author of “The Quotable Calvin Coolidge”).

Margery Kraus, CEO of APCO, said McClellan knows all about the “nexus of media, politics and business.” McClellan retains his senior VP-corporate & government affairs post at HHB, a consulting and technology firm.

MURKOWSKI DOES TAIWAN’S BIDDING

Frank Murkowski, Alaska’s former senator and governor, is promoting Taiwan as a valuable strategic ally of the U.S. and pushing for its membership in the United Nations on behalf of Fairbanks-based Cedar Group.

CG’s contract is worth $16K a month and the “work plan” covers areas such as arms sales, free trade agreement, university relationship development and speeches for key members of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the U.S.

The pact forbids Cedar from working for any entity of the People's Republic of China, which considers Taiwan a renegade province.

Republican Murkowski served three-terms in the Senate, rising to chair the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Upon election to governor in `02, Murkowski appointed his daughter, Lisa, to succeed him.

Murkowski’s re-election bid went down of defeat in `06 after he lost the GOP primary to Sarah Palin.

KEKST WORKS MONEYGRAM DEAL

Kekst & Co. is backing a complex deal by Boston private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners and Goldman Sachs to recapitalize troubled MoneyGram International, the money transfer outfit that is reeling from losses from its mortgage investments.

THLP and Goldman are to pump up to $750M into MoneyGram for preferred stock initially worth a 19.9 percent stake in the company. That stake will ultimately grow to an equity interest of 63 percent.

There is a “go shop” provision that allows MoneyGram to seek a better deal, including one from Euronet, which made an offer in December.

MoneyGram, through Feb. 11, has sold $1.8B of its investment portfolio, resulting in a loss of $380M.

Kekst’s Jeffrey Taufield and Kimberly Kriger represent THLP in the MoneyGram deal.

MoneyGram, meanwhile, renewed its deal with Wal-Mart Stores through `13. The Minneapolis-based company provides money transfer, bill payment and money orders in more than 3,500 Wal-Mart Stores.

SLOANE TUNES IN TO CURRENT MEDIA

Sloane & Co. is counseling Current Media as the parent company for Al Gore’s Internet and cable video network plans its May initial public offering.

San Francisco-based CM filed for the IPO on Jan. 28 in an effort to pay down debt and finance expansion and acquisitions. Proceeds could reach up to $100M.

Elliot Sloane told O’Dwyer’s that his firm got the assignment because he had previously worked with Current VP of marketing Joshua Katz.

Katz was chief marketing officer at digital video recording device company TiVo, a Sloane client, before signing on at Current early last year.

Current airs both user-generated and professionally produced video content.

Gore started the network with entrepreneur Joel Hyatt in 2002 and expanded to cable in 2005.

Ogilvy’s BWR and Bender/Helper Impact have worked for Current TV.

TRIBUNE CO. SLATES MORE CUTS

The Tribune Co. plans to cut up to 500 members (or two percent) of its workforce in its latest effort to deal with the print advertising slump.

CEO and real estate mogul Sam Zell told staffers via a memo that the cuts are needed to reflect the “reality of our significant debt levels and financial covenant obligations.”

Most of the cuts at the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Baltimore Sun and Newsday are expected to be in support areas such as technology, finance and human resources.

Zell took the Tribune private last year in a transaction worth $8.2B. He wrote to staffers that he cannot “turn this ship from its course of the past 10 years within a few months.” He can’t promise a ban on future cuts if the company continues on its “current rate of cash-flow decline.”

NYT SLICES 100 FROM NEWSROOM

The New York Times plans to cut 100 newsroom jobs from its 1,330-member staff, according to Bill Keller, executive editor of the paper.

The cuts will be made via buyouts, not filling open posts and a small number of layoffs, he said.

Keller wants fast action on the cutbacks so the paper doesn’t have to spend “a year bleeding slowly.”

The Times has the nation’s biggest news staff, topping the Los Angeles Times (870) and Wall Street Journal (750).

Gets digital boost

The New York Times Co., under pressure from activist shareholders to boost its digital offerings, has nominated Dawn Lepore, 53, to its board of directors.

She is CEO of drugstore.com, which sells more than 30,000 health/beauty and wellness products.

Lepore also was vice chairman for technology/operations and administration at Charles Schwab Corp. and currently sits on eBay’s board.

NYTC chairman “Pinch” Sulzberger said Lepore is “highly respected with deep experience in the digital sphere and strong relationships in both Silicon Valley and the Seattle technology community.”

The company also selected Robert Denham, 62, former CEO of Salomon Inc. and currently partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson law firm, for another director slot. They replace ex-Gillette CEO James Kilts and Sara Lee CEO Brenda Barnes.

LAT GETS ANOTHER EDITOR

Russ Stanton, who has been credited with revamping the Los Angeles Times’ website, is the new editor of the paper. He replaces Jim O’Shea who exited last month due to resistance to further cutbacks.

Stanton is the fourth editor of the LAT during the last three years.

“One person cannot reverse years of market-changing trends,” he told the newsroom. “I need your help and your support. Beginning right now, we need to close our ranks and move forward together.

The LAT also named Jack Klunder, who handled circulation, president for business operations.

GLOBAL NEWS SITE IN THE WORKS

Philip Balboni, who built the New England Cable News network, is thinking globally. He departs NECN next month to launch Global News Enterprises to supply the U.S. with woefully needed foreign news.

Balboni has raised $7M from financial backers to fund the undertaking. Partners include Amos Hostetter, co-founder of Continental Cablevison and chair of ATT Broadband; Benjamin Taylor, ex-publisher of the Boston Globe, and Paul Sagan, president of Akamai Technologies.

Balboni sees a future for GNE because the “world in every respect is globalizing, and we’re swept up in it with the economy, our lives, our leisure times and our children’s education,” according to a report in the Globe.

GNE plans correspondents in 70 countries. The free site expects to be largely ad-supported, though a fee is expected for premium content. Its reporters will not be full-timers, rather they will receive ownership shares to get them more invested in the future of the venture.

Balboni founded NECN in 1992. It reaches 3.7M viewers in the region. He began his journalism career at the Richmond Times-Dispatch and then moved to United Press International.

DOW JONES INVESTS IN TRIBUTES

Dow Jones & Co. has made an investment in Tributes.com, the obituary site that has been spun off from Eons.com, the social networking site for Baby Boomers. Jeff Taylor, CEO of Eons, said obituary classifieds are the “laggard classified section that has yet to make a meaningful transition from print to online.”

Tributes combines obits with user-generated content to enable users to “celebrate loved one’s lives.” It also has a database of obits back to the early 1900s, searchable to people interested in genealogy.

Tucker plans to partner with funeral homes to establish Tributes as a “bridge between funeral homes and consumers” seeking death-related services.

Tucker’s management team includes John Heald, VP-business development & sales. He is a fourth-generation licensed funeral director and former sales consultant to Batesville Casket Co.

NEWS CORP. TO DEVELOP WEB VENTURES

News Corporation has launched a web property developer headed by former MySpace executives called Slingshot Labs.

Based in Santa Monica, Calif., the shop plans to develop four or five ventures per year from stand-alone websites to social media applications. Colin Digiaro, a founding exec of MySpace who served as SVP of sales, is a co-president of the venture. He said Slingshot “will function like an Internet start-up” by moving quickly to develop projects around trends in the marketplace.

“We’re committed to building disruptive Internet businesses that operate autonomously—we’re actively recruiting to incorporate the industry’s top talent in this exciting new venture,” said Josh Berman, co-founder and former COO of MySpace who heads Slingshot with Digiaro.

(Media news continued on next page)

BOSTON HERALD'S EDITOR TO SUFFOLK U.

Greg Gatlin, business editor at the Boston Herald, has left to head up the PA shop at Suffolk University in Boston. He spent a decade at the Herald at was at the Patriot Ledger (Quincy) and MetroWest Daily News (Framingham) prior to that.

At the college, Gatlin is in charge of its media relations push. He reports to John Nucci, VP-government and community affairs.

BURNS IS OUT AT FOX NEWS WATCH

Eric Burns, moderator of Fox News Watch, which reports on the national news media, is being let go as FNW searches for a new direction.

Dana Klinghoffer, a Fox spokesperson, says the show is going to report “more on evolving new media.” She told the New York Times that the "current talent" wasn't capable of doing that.

Burns is "startled by his sudden dismissal." The Times reported that Burns served as a "ringmaster for a relatively even-handed roundtable discussion about the media." He started moderating FNW in `98.

Neal Gabler, the liberal panelist on the show, said Fox offered to renew his contract but never made an offer. FNW runs on Saturday evenings, and drew more than one million viewers on Feb. 2.

NORMAN EXITS MTV

Christina Norman, president of MTV Network, is leaving the Viacom unit at the end of the month, capping a 17-year career there.

Van Toffler, president of MTV Networks Music and Logo Group, is assuming Norman's duties.

An MTV spokesperson said Norman’s split was made on an "amicable" basis, but news reports have her angling for a key slot at Oprah Winfrey's new cable start-up, OWN, the joint-venture with Discovery Communications.

YAHOO BUYS ONLINE VIDEO AD PLATFORM

Yahoo has acquired online video platform Maven Networks for $160M to boost its consumer video and advertising capabilities on Yahoo.com.

Yahoo claims the largest library of professionally produced video content and video advertising relationships with more than 75% of the top TV advertisers. Maven’s platform manages content for companies and outlets like Fox News, Sony BMG, CBS Sports, Hearst, Gannett, Scripps Networks, and the Financial Times.

With the deal, Yahoo has established a Cambridge, Mass., presence. Maven operates as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yahoo.

Forrester estimates that U.S. online video advertising will grow to more than $4 billion in 2011.

People ________________________

Washingtonpost.com and Newsweek have started two new blogs as part of the publications’ “On Faith” section on the convergence of religion and news.

Timothy Shriver, a writer, movie producer and chairman of the Special Olympics, pens “Religion from the Heart” looking at the ways faith and spirituality help to drive public action.

Claire Hoffman, a contributing editor for Portfolio magazine, writes "Under God" on the actions that nations and individuals take in the name of religion. Hoffman plans to focus on the way religious beliefs influence things like campaigns, legislation, armed conflicts, trials over textbooks, blockbuster movies and the latest deals on Wall Street. Link: newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/.

David Merrefield, VP and editorial director of Penton Media’s Supermarket News, is retiring, one of a handful of changes at the magazine. Jerry Rymont, group publisher of Penton’s Baking Group, was promoted to publisher of SN and Chris Warne was upped to associate publisher to take Rymont’s slot at the Baking Group.

Macworld has added Roman Loyola as senior editor. He was reviews editor for Mac|Life and earlier a web producer for the TechTV cable network show "The Screen Savers." Loyola focuses on online reviews for the monthly Macworld and contributes to Mac Gems blog.

Julianne Shepherd, a 30-year-old online editor and staff writer at Vibe Magazine, has been named senior editor of New York-based music magazine The FADER.

She has written on hip hop, R&B, dance, feminism and culture for the New York Times, SPIN, Jane, Scratch, MTV, and NPR.

Cristina Cuomo has been named editorial director of the Niche Media's Gotham and Hamptons magazines. She will also work on the recently acquired Philadelphia Style and Michigan Avenue in Chicago, launching in September. Cuomo was previously a vice chairman of the company 2001 and served as editor of Hamptons for three years.

Briefs ________________________

New York Daily News said it will become the first major market daily newspaper in the United States to be produced in 100 percent color. The News said new press equipment to be operating by next year will produce all copies of all editions of the paper in color, a benefit to both readers and advertisers.

The first of the new presses are expected to come on line in the middle of 2009, with the entire facility completed by the end of the fourth quarter of 2009, the paper said.

The Los Angeles Times Media Group launched a free weekly print edition of its online Metromix L.A. events, culture and nightlife website, losangeles.metromix.com, which was launched last summer. Initial circulation is pegged at 100K copies by LATMG. The pub will be distributed every Wednesday on college campuses and in grocery stores in the L.A. area.

Sun-Times Media Group has hired Lazard to assist the company in its evaluation of "strategic alternatives" like the sale of the company, assets or joint ventures.

News item: BurrellesLuce agrees to become copying fee collector for major publishers like Time Warner and New York Times (page 6).

This story is rich in irony. PR firms place features in publications which then claim copyright and want to charge the PR firm for any copies made.

In many instances, there would be no story without the input from the PR firms. Perhaps the PR firms could ask for copying permission before an article runs. That might be a stretch but PR firms don’t have to be complete doormats to the publications they serve, either.

An expected average fee of $20 a month is to be added to BurrellesLuce invoices to PR firms, no doubt to be passed on to clients. We wonder why publishers don’t do their own collecting. Hundreds and even thousands of copies of clips are made all the time, both physically and electronically via e-mail delivery.

We often get e-mail copies of stories sent around by proud PR firms. They don’t need any clipping service to obtain clips from major newspapers, magazines and trade books. The publishers are being quite lazy in this scheme. They could make direct contact with whomever originated a story and work out some deal.

This is some caper. PR firms are being asked to buy back their own materials.

The board of the group headed by Jeff Julin held a meeting in New York Jan. 24-26 that received no notice whatever on the group’s website, either before or after the meeting. Such secrecy contradicts the group’s name and ethics code.

But there is a legal way a member can gain access to the minutes of this meeting—Section 621 of New York Non-for-Profit Corporation Law. It provides that a member of six-months’ standing can examine “in person or by agent” the minutes of such a meeting during the “usual business hours” and make “extracts therefrom.”

This law was used in 1987 by a member of the Publicity Club of New York to gain access to the books after members complained of inadequate financial reporting and other abuses.

The “smoking gun” for many members was the fact that a close friend of the Club president won the grand prize at the 1983 Holiday party (an all-expense-paid week in Barbados for two) and she went on the trip. Four directors won major prizes including two who won Unicall 1000 answering machines and another who won a Genesis Telesystem by AT&T. Another director got a Tiffany pen. Only Three of the grand prizes went to non-directors.

Incensed members noted that instead of numbered raffle tickets, names on pieces of paper were used and these were placed in a cardboard box rather than a glass bowl. One PCNY member gave power of attorney to a lawyer and CPA who made an appointment to visit the Club’s h.q. They found numerous abuses including lack of substantiation for $13,500 in disbursed checks; no documentation that a $7,000 bond cashed in 1983 was used for Club expenses, and the fact that an officer became “Club administrator” at $300 a month for 15 months when state law says, “In no case shall (incidental profits) be divided in any manner whatsoever among the members, directors or officers.”

About 50 cashed checks ranging from $15-$100 were found without a payee being filled in. Many check stubs were not filled in and the checkbook was not formally reconciled. The top two officers of the Club were ousted although they denied any improprieties. A settlement was made privately but the abuses put a severe dent in Club membership. It plummeted from 800+ to below 100. One problem was that more than 50 members had “lifetime free dues” as a reward for having served as president or made some other contribution.

Rampant cronyism and lack of strict financial controls proved almost fatal to PCNY.

As for “smoking guns,” the Julin group has its share. Barring 80%+ of members from running for national office for 30+ years is a smoking canon as is the failure of 2007 CEO Rhoda Weiss to appear before memberships of any of the five biggest chapters for questioning last year. Her speaking schedule was not published and the same holds true for Julin so far. This is blatant dodging of both the press and members. Julin’s monopolizing of the last 35 minutes of the 2007 Assembly to recite 300 suggestions for the Strategic Plan will not soon be forgotten. He refuses to publish this list so it can be studied nor will the board release either an audiotape nor transcript of the 2007 Assembly.

What is needed is a public-spirited member who will either make the trek to the office on Maiden Lane or who will give power of attorney to a lawyer and/or CPA to make demands for the minutes not only of the Jan. 24-26 meeting but of board meetings for the past three years and the transcripts of the last three Assemblies.

We’re not accusing the Julin group of the kind of financial irregularities that went on at PCNY.

Refusal to deal with almost any question has put the Julin group in an almost catatonic state. We fear for its sanity. It exhibits inconsistent behavior that defies logical explanation. For instance, it revers accredited members but when it hires a PR staffer it does not pick someone who is either a member or APR (Janet Troy and Joe DeRupo). Troy told the Bergen Record she was “clueless” about the group. It hired Bill Murray as “president” last year when he was not even a member or a PR professional, much less APR.

Although more than 50 staffers are paid $5.2M in salaries and fringes, not one is deemed qualified to write op-eds, speeches, and releases for its “advocacy” program so it has put out an RFP for a consultant to do this. Although supposedly the citadel of PR, this group has been unable to obtain any ink for its 60th anniversary which, oddly, is being observed in both 2007 and 2008. PR staffers at the group often quit abruptly, without waiting for any successor to be named (Richard George, Steve Erickson, Cedric Bess).

--Jack O'Dwyer