DEFENSE TAPS PR FIRMS FOR IRAQ

The Defense Department has awarded a sweeping contract for PR operations in Iraq topped at $300M to four firms with experience handling strategic communications and media work for the government.

Rounding out the roster are Lincoln Group, Leonie Industries of Pacific Palisades, Calif., SOSI International of New York and MPRI of Alexandria, Va.

The U.S.-led force in Iraq, known as Multi-National Force-Iraq, issued an RFP in August to find firms to assist with information and psychological operations, “influence campaigns” and other PR work in Iraq and potentially Afghanistan. The contracts could stretch to three years and $300M, although projects assigned to the four firms will range from $125K to $100M, according to documents outlining the work.

The PR efforts are seen by the military as a means toward “reconciliation” of the country and a way to foster support for Iraqi Security Forces from Iraqi civilians, among other goals.

Leonie Industries has handled Internet and marketing work for the Army and produced events around the world. SOSI in June won a contract to provide media relations and translation services to the U.S. Army Public Affairs Office at the Novo-Selo Training Area in Bulgaria.  MPRI, a unit of L-3 Communications, has worked with the Pentagon in the U.S. and abroad in the past including setting up a “strategic communications cell” in the Office of Army Public Affairs.

The Lincoln Group’s work in Iraq has been well-documented and drew criticism at points for some of its PR tactics in the country. A public affairs official told O’Dwyer’s last month that between 20 and 30 LG staffers were assisting with military PA operations in the Green Zone in Baghdad.

C&W’S HUNT RETURNS TO ROOTS

Jeff Hunt, who merged GCI Group into Cohn & Wolfe last July, is returning to his Texas roots, but will remain a consultant to the WPP Group unit.

Hunt, the former CEO of GCI, was president of the combined entity and chief of its global practices.

He is leaving as part of C&W’s “planned management transition” and envisions an entrepreneurial pursuit in the Lone Star State, where his “home and heart” reside.

C&W is not filling the presidency post. Geoff Beattie, head of C&W’s energy practice, assumes Hunt’s global responsibilities. Donna Imperato, CEO of C&W, says the time is right for Hunt to slide into a counseling role now that the merger is complete.

COKE GRABS GLOVER PARK

Coca-Cola has retained the Glover Park Group for communications work regarding climate change, trade and assorted industry issues.

The Atlanta-based soft drinks marketer is in the process of restructuring its communications function with the departure of Tom Mattia, Coca-Cola’s senior VP-worldwide PA & communications. The 60-year-old Mattia, plans to retire in February.
Coke has been a juicy target for activist groups which are upset with its sustainability policies and labor practices in Colombia.

GPG has close ties with Democrats in D.C. Its Coke team is led by Joel Johnson (ex-executive director of the House Democratic Study Group).

QORVIS URGES BUDGET RESTRAINT

Qorvis Communications has picked up the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a bi-partisan group promoting fiscal responsibility in government amid the economic crisis.

The group has launched USBudgetWatch.org to educate voters about the presidential candidates’ views on key issues. Kate McGann, an associate for Qorvis on the CRFB account, told O’Dwyer’s her firm is assisting with the Budget Watch project.

The Committee on Sept. 23 used the White House’s $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan to push for a greater commitment to fiscal temperance.

“I don’t see how you can charge $700 billion to the credit card when you already have $500 billion in unpaid bills and a $10 trillion mortgage,” said CRFB president Maya MacGuineas in a statement distributed by Qorvis. MacGuineas was an economic advisor to John McCain in 2000 and has worked at the Brookings Institution, Concord Coalition and on Wall Street.

OPPOSING VIEWS KEY FOR PR PROS-PROF

PR pros, in order to live up to the high ethics of their profession, "must allow and seek opposing views for the good of the public," writes Prof. Timothy Penning in the September issue of Tactics of the PR Society. PRS celebrated September as "Ethics Month."

"Critics of PR should not condemn it but recognize a profession that enables voices to speak in open democratic dialogue," writes Penning, who is associate professor of communications at Grand Valley State University, Allendale, Mich. It has 23,000 students.

The article has 11 separate references to PR as a function that encourages public discussion of issues and uses the words "democracy" and "democratic" 11 times.

(continued on page 7)

WALL STREET MELTDOWN RATTLES PR

Financial, real estate, automotive, high-end retail, travel/tourism, restaurant and non-profit sectors are going to be hammered by the chaos on Wall Street, according to PR pros contacted by this website.

Qorvis Communications CEO Michael Petruzzello says his Washington-based firm is having its “best year yet,” but things really picked up with news of the Wall Street turmoil.

“A crisis means more business,” he explained. “The financial crisis has created a flood of calls for assistance and RFPs from a wide range of clients.” Those prospects want to deal with the “perception of jeopardy.”

Michael Kempner, CEO of MWW Group, calls the news from Wall Street “stunning” and believes “lightning speed” is required from PR people.

Whether a company has good news or bad, companies need to be in touch with their stakeholders to differentiate strategy, to give faith in management and to clearly articulate corporate assets, wrote Kempner on his MWW blog.

Manning Selvage & Lee CEO Mark Hass is convinced the “financial crisis will lead many companies to re-examine their own core values and further align those values with their business practices.”  

In times of great trouble, “great brands and companies fall back on the values that defined them and made them great,” added the Publicis Groupe unit chief.

 That means CEOs and chief communication officers will be spending more time talking about those values in a transparent way. “The economic crisis, in other words, will accelerate the positive trend we’ve been seeing among companies to be more authentic, and that’s a good thing,” said Hass.

Michael Robinson, who handles corporate duties at Levick Strategic Communications, says PR people are going to spend much time advising clients on fine-tuning their messaging.  That effort will come once the initial political uproar over the Bush Administration’s move to bail-out Wall Street subsides.

“Many people are currently playing the ‘blame game’ due to the political campaign season,” said Robinson. They want to “extract a pound of flesh or more precisely, $700B worth of flesh.”

More ‘shock & awe’

The Wall Street meltdown is “the latest in the new ‘shock and awe’ environment of mounting distressing events,” said Dave Senay, CEO of Fleishman-Hillard.

He told O’Dwyer’s: “Those who predicted an era of ‘fear’ are unfortunately being proved correct, and in an everyday sense, fear is expressed in terms of uncertainty and hesitation. While our new-business-winning pace has equaled last year’s record so far, real spending behind those wins is lagging.”

Smart companies, according to the F-H CEO, “know this is a transitory period and are using it to develop or extend a competitive advantage.”

His Omnicom unit is “spending a lot of time, helping clients seize the opportunity for greater separation. This is an era that rewards initiative. Rewards fall to the bold.”
Senay quoted Browning: “For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, The black minute’s at end.”

LILLY WILL DISCLOSE DOCTOR PAYMENTS

Eli Lilly said it will become the first pharmaceutical company to disclose some payments to physicians in the U.S. starting in 2009.

Legislation is currently moving through Congress to establish a national registry of payments to doctors by medical device and drug companies, but Lilly said it was moving ahead before eventual passage of that bill, which is supported by major drug companies. Drug makers often pay doctors for speeches, consulting advice and events, and subsidize entertainment, meals and gifts to physicians.

John Lechleiter, president and CEO of Indianapolis-based Lilly, announced the disclosure plan at an Economic Club of Indiana speech saying it was part of a move to improve transparency across the drug industry. He said that while Lilly supports the current legislation – the Physician Payments Sunshine Act – he said moving independently “is an important step to building trust and confidence.”

Lilly, which says physician payments help advance the science related to medicines, said its online database will include payments over $500 for speaking and advising and be available by the second half of 2009. It will not initially include payments before 2009 or for other services and gifts.

GOOGLE, CUTLINE UNVEILED ANDROID

Google is working with San Francisco firm Cutline Communications on the launch of its anticipated Android mobile phone platform, which was unveiled last week on a T-Mobile device to widespread news coverage.

Google’s relationship with Cutline became so close over the last year and a half of planning that staffers from the firm are seen as Google employees, said Brian O’Shaughnessy. “They’re more or less Googlers as far as I’m concerned,” he told O’Dwyer’s. “They’re in house with us; eat lunch next to me in the cafeteria.”
Erin Fors, partner at Cutline and an agency veteran of Merritt Group, A&R Partners and Porter Novelli, heads the Google account for Cutline and is the main press contact for the initial launch of Android.

T-Mobile’s new phone, called the G1, employs the Android software and will be initially available in 21 metropolitan areas when it goes on sale Oct. 22. It costs about $20 less than Apple’s iPhone, which it was compared to in most coverage of the G1 launch. The new phone was unveiled in New York on Sept. 23 by Google’s co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who wore rollerblades for the occasion. The device is tightly integrated with Google services like Gmail, YouTube and Google Maps.

O’Shaughnessy said the company is very pleased with coverage of the launch so far, but stressed the T-Mobile phone is the first of what Google anticipates will be thousands of devices running the Android software.

“We anticipated a lot of the coverage we’ve gotten regarding design and iPhone comparisons,” he said. “I don’t think I could be more pleased or that we could have done anything better.”

T-Mobile worked with AOR Waggener Edstrom on the G1 launch.

PROVIDENCE JOURNAL CUTS 30

The Providence Journal, which is owned by Dallas-based Belo, is trimming 30 staffers effective Oct. 10. That list includes all part-timers in the newsroom plus five full-time positions.

According to a notice from the Providence Newspaper Guild, Belo has assured it that no security guards will be on hand to escort the cut workers from the premises. Computers will not be disabled.

It says the union has tried to work closely with management to make the best out of a bad situation.

LIFE RETURNS FROM THE DEAD

Life magazine, which has been killed three times by Time Inc., is rising from the dead and will be online next year. The venture is a deal that TI cooked up with Getty Images.

The partnership called “See Your World” will feature free downloadable photos from Life and Getty, which will contribute 3,000 photos.

Life was launched in 1936 and was last shutdown as a newspaper supplement in '07. Getty was recently acquired by Hellman & Friedman, private equity firm.

WILSON EXITS USAT FOR NPR

USA Today executive editor Kinsey Wilson is leaving the paper to become senior VP and general manager of digital media for NPR.

In a memo to staff posted at Poynter.org, USAT editor Ken Paulson said Kinsey “has been a driving force and advocate for change throughout his years here, in both his initial role as editor-in-chief of USATODAY.com and in his current position as executive editor of all of our news operations.”

A replacement has not yet been named.

Wilson previously worked in news and new media at Congressional Quarterly. He was elevated to the executive editor post in December 2005 when USAT combined its newspaper and online operations.

BOSTON GLOBE LAUNCHES SPORTS WEEKLY

The Boston Globe has launched a weekly newsstand sports publication, OT – Our Town. Our Teams, to cover major sports as well as fantasy football. OT will be published Thursdays and will carry a $0.50 retail price.

BG and Boston.com writers Tony Massarotti, Charlie Pierce and Chad Finn are among contributors.

Boston Globe Media Group, which is owned by the New York Times Company, said OT will carry articles, local stats and new features “on the lighter side,” including “The Dirt,” where gossip and sports collide; reader feedback; comical photo/quote of the week, and “Tidbits,” described as “the stuff you don’t know about your favorite sports personalities.”

Jay Fogarty, VP of strategic planning for the Globe, said the publication is targeting both younger sports fans who prefer a “bold and hard-hitting presentation of their sports,” as well as fans who want more perspective on local action.

Info: boston.com/OT.

OT is the Boston Globe’s fourth niche publication in the last two years including BoMoms, a web portal for mothers, and women’s lifestyle magazine Lola.

BONNIER GRABS WORKING MOTHER

Bonnier Corp. has acquired Working Mother Media Inc. from MCG Capital and CEO/founder Carol Evans. The deal is Bonnier’s first acquisition since it was formed by the combination of Sweden’s Bonnier Group and 18 Time Inc. titles.

WMM is the parent company to eight-times-a-year Working Mother magazine, a conferences and events division, and the research program listing the “100 Best Companies” for working mothers.

Bonnier already owns titles in the niche like Parenting and Babytalk. WM will remain in New York with offices in Washington, D.C.

AdMedia partners brokered the deal.

USN&WR EXPANDS OPINION

U.S. News Media Group, parent to U.S. News & World Report, is expanding its online offerings in news analysis and “service journalism.” A new opinion section launched last week at www.usnews.com/opinion with new blogs, daily op-ed columns, and interactive features.

The Thomas Jefferson Street blog, which has six staff contributors, is seen as the anchor for the online opinion section. New regular op-ed features include “Two Takes,” which presents opposing viewpoints on a topic, and “Past & Present,” a weekly column putting current events in an historical context.

U.S. News said it will soon unveil a new board of contributors comprised of leaders in news, politics, national security, business, education, and other fields, who will regularly contribute views to the site.

Robert Schlesinger, U.S. News deputy editor for opinion, who oversees all online and print editorial content for the section, led the expansion.

Briefs

Google said Bloomberg TV will make national cable advertising time in the U.S. available via the Google TV Ads platform.

The TV Ads platform reports second-by-second data from millions of set-top boxes, allowing advertisers to measure ad views.

Trevor Fellows, head of ad sales for Bloomberg, called the Bloomberg TV audience “the wealthiest and most powerful” in cable TV and said they are extremely difficult to quantify using traditional methods.

Google TV uses an auction-based pricing system in which advertisers only pay for impressions delivered to their ads. NBC Universal and DISH Network are other partners.

Rich Battista, ex-CEO of Gemstar-TV Guide International, is back at News Corp.  as president of Fox’s cable networks. He ran Gemstar, which was sold to Macrovision Solutions, this year, from '04.

Earlier, he was with Fox Entertainment Group as chief of business development and executive VP at Fox TV.

(Media news continued on next page)

CBS OPENS BIDDING FOR RADIO STATIONS

CBS has opened bidding for its 50 mid-size market radio stations, but is not willing to conduct a fire sale to generate cash, according to CEO Les Moonves.

Outlets in Baltimore and Cleveland are among those with “for sale” signs.

Radio generated $780M revenues during the first-half of `08. That was down nine percent from the year earlier period. Operating profit fell 21 percent to $266M.

POLITICO BEEFS UP COVERAGE

Politico, the Capitol Hill publication, announced plans to expand coverage of the new Administration.

Publisher Robert Allbritton will “unleash the best reporters in the country on the most important story: how the new Congress and president govern in this historic period.”

The paper will increase publication to four days when Congress is in session, and add 15 staffers to its 85-member organization.

Minute-by-minute White House coverage is promised starting Nov. 5, the day after the election.

Politico managing editor Bill Nichols, who covered the White House for USA Today, oversees the White House team. Editor John Harris and executive editor Jim VandeHei will contribute pieces.

Print circulation will jump 5K to 32K. Politico’s website ranked among the Top Ten sites in August.

NYT PICKS UP WSJ ‘REJECT’

The New York Times has picked up the Breakingviews.com business column that was dropped by the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ dropped the column to concentrate on its own “Heard on the Street” piece.

Breakingviews currently provides commentary to the Daily Telegraph, Le Monde and Business Times in Singapore.

Larry Ingrassia, business editor of the NYT, called the new addition a “complement” to its leading news coverage of finance and its roster of columnists.

Times revists Coach PR flap

The Coach-sponsored PR class at Hunter College in 2006 that resulted in students creating a fake website to help search for a “stolen” Coach bag was given a full-page write-up in the Sept. 21 New York Times magazine.

The article, headlined “School of Hard Knockoffs,” asked if the corporate-sponsored course was “a real academic service or a fake one?”

Hunter faculty blasted the course, offered by the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition, a client of Paul Werth Assocs., Columbus, Ohio.

TRIBUNE TAPS HUNTER FOR PUB POST

Tony Hunter has been named publisher, president and CEO of the Chicago Tribune, where he has worked since `94. He is upped from the senior VP/circulation and operations job.

Randy Michaels, Tribune COO, called Hunter a “creative leader who is eager to move the paper in a new direction so it can compete for more readers and advertisers.”
Hunter, 47, succeeds Robert Gremillion, senior vice president/Tribune Publishing, who took the job on an interim basis during the summer. He worked for the Audit Bureau of Circulations from 1984 to 1994.

NIKOLOPOULOS NAMED PBMB ED DIRECTOR

Daphne Nikolopoulos, editor of Palm Beach Illustrated since `06, is the new editorial director of Palm Beach Media Group. That expands her responsibilities to include Tampa Bay Illustrated, Naples Illustrated and the Charity Register editions.

Nikolopoulos joined the company in `03 as managing editor of PBI.

She has been a freelance contributor and editor at publications such as Gourmet, InStyle, National Geographic Traveler and Frommer’s travel guides.

Nikolopoulos wrote the cookbook, The Storm Gourmet: A Guide to Creating Extraordinary Meals Without Electricity.

MEDIA, TECH GROUPS FIGHT WEB PIRACY

Viacom International, NBC Universal, ATT, Cisco, Microsoft and the Songwriters Guild of America launched the Arts+Labs advocacy group Sept. 24 to combat what they call 'Net pollution.

They define 'Net pollution as illegal file sharing, malware, spam, viruses and hack attacks.

A+L says its goal is to “inform and educate consumers about the availability and vast array of legal, safe and affordable material on the Internet.”

Mike McCurry, President Clinton’s former press secretary, and Mark McKinnon, media advisor to President Bush, co-chair the A+L, which wants to ensure that content creators and innovators can “safely share their works through online distribution channels with confidence that their right to earn fair compensation for their creativity is respected.”

HARRISON: ‘CORPORATE GREENING 2.0’

E. Bruce Harrison’s latest book, “Corporate Greening 2.0: Create and Communicate Your Company’s Climate Change and Sustainability Strategies,” has just been released by Publishing Works (Exeter, N.H.).

The environmental pro outlines the climate change and sustainability positions of more then 40 companies and business groups.

Harrison believes climate change and the resulting war on carbon has “altered the green equation.” The time is now ripe for executives to “determine how to bring financial, social and political factors into alignment for competitive advantage.”

Harrison ran his own PR firm in Washington, D.C. He began his career as a newspaper reporter and entered the PA world in 1962 at the Chemical Manufacturers Assn.  That was the year that Rachel Carson published her groundbreaking “Silent Spring” attack on the chemical industry.

PR Professor Tim Penning’s view (page one) that PR is “dialogue,” stated 11 different ways in an article in Tactics of the PR Society, is a wake-up call to the industry.
Truth has nothing to fear in “grappling” with falsehood, says Penning in quoting philosopher John Milton.

Presidential candidates and other public officials are going through the cauldron of public debate now and the business world could certainly benefit from the same.
PRS CEO Jeff Julin told the Denver Post April 12 that “a two-way dialogue…is ultimately the goal of effective PR programs.”

There’s certainly a lot of lip service being paid to PR as dialogue but we don’t see much follow-through.

PRS hardly even talks to its own members. Dialogue is needed to attack such issues as the right of all members to run for national office; elimination of proxy voting at the Assembly; whether or not there should be a printed members’ directory; moving the charter to Delaware to allow more meetings of the Assembly; releasing Assembly transcripts; reinstituting an enforceable code; showing PRS financials several ways, etc.

“There’s an absence of nationally recognized PR leaders,” concludes a “PR Leadership Study” by Heyman Assocs. and the Dept. of Advertising and PR, University of Alabama.

A majority of the respondents said there were either no outstanding leaders or skipped the question, Heyman Assocs. said.

Prof. Bruce Berger, chairman of the University’s Ad/PR Dept., said the absence comes “at a time when the profession needs excellent leaders to strengthen its image and create ethical role models.”

He would like the leadership issue “put on the agendas of professional associations,” implying that the PR trade organizations are falling down in this regard.

The PR leadership study was conducted via an online national survey of more than 200 “experienced PR professionals in various fields and company types and sizes, and a series of in-depth interviews of 20 diverse, young and highly successful emerging leaders.”

Leadership in PR has to be conducted by PR execs speaking out and debating with various experts including those in the press. It is especially needed now as the nation tries to understand the Wall St. meltdown. Lack of public confidence could cause a ruinous run on banks.

The one PR person we can think of with a national reputation who appears often on TV interview shows in behalf of the industry is Fraser Seitel, author of the college text, “The Practice of PR,” former editor of PRS’ Strategist quarterly and who has written a twice-monthly column for odwyerpr.com for five years.

He is the PR “expert” TV hosts have turned to more than 100 times (including three times on Fox News last week). He is invited because he writes knowledgeably about current crises. He has also authored more than 50 essays on the basics of PR for odwyerpr.com.

How PR people can assert leadership without appearing in public is beyond us.
But the Heyman study gives short shrift to media relations, barely mentioning it: “PR leaders must be able to create a vision for how communications strategically connects an organization to its publics, and understand media technologies in order to successfully deliver messages.”

Media don’t want “messages” delivered to them. They want dialogue.

PR leadership is needed now when secrecy and refusal to submit to government regulation (or the government’s lax regulation) has led to a financial collapse.

O’Dwyer staffers called numerous PR execs for their views on this mess and got answers from some of them (page two). These are by definition the leaders of the industry. Leadership in PR requires quick thinking because, as the saying goes, “media are traveling at blinding speed.” They have to in order to keep up with the events. There’s no such thing as PR leaders working behind the scenes. Eloquence, charisma and goodwill need to be publicly expressed and a dialogue set up with the relevant experts. Knowledge of subject matter and being on top of the latest news are key ingredients of PR leadership.

Among those commenting on the current crisis were IR veteran Ted Pincus; Rich Torrenzano, former VP-PR, NYSE; Dave Senay, CEO, Fleishman-Hillard; Mark Hass, CEO, Manning, Selvage & Lee; Michael Kempner, CEO, MWW Group; Michael Petruzzello, CEO of Qorvis Comms., and Richard Goldstein, O’Dwyer financial columnist.

The Heyman study says that “ethical orientation” is a key ingredient of PR leadership and we agree.

A big ethical bone of contention in PR is whether a PR firm or PR counselor should identify clients.

This issue broke the back of the old code of the PR Society in 1999 when the Ethics Board declared the code unenforceable.  The code only said members had to be “prepared” to disclose the origin of a release but stopped short of mandating this. A possible case with nationwide ramifications had to be dropped and PRS opted for a new code that would not be enforced.

MGA Communications, Denver, whose president, Jeff Julin, is chair of PRS, has on its current website a list of 11 “past and present clients” including “Americans for Balanced Energy Choice,” which changed its name in April to “American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.”

When we said on odwyerpr.com that ABEC is a client of MGA we were corrected—told that MGA has not worked for what is now ACCCE since 2004.

We were further told that MGA does not release a current client list so we have to guess who is or who is not a client.

MGA listed 46 clients in the 1997 O’Dwyer’s Directory of PR Firms, 22 in 1998, ten in 1999, and seven in 2001. It didn’t give any information at all for the 2008 Directory. What made it change its policy is a question we put to the firm.

Our ethical view is that all clients of PR firms should be on the record in order to live up to the “public” in PR and so prospective clients can see if there are any conflicts. Reporters also look for help from PR firms on stories.

In recent years, there has been a trend for some firms, especially those owned by the five ad conglomerates, to avoid listing any clients.

But the 204 firms in the 2007 O’Dwyer rankings all provided account lists which are required for a ranking and had no problem doing so.

Leadership in PR would be fighting the tendency to retreat behind the scenes. “Transparency” is one of the supreme values of the industry.

--Jack O'Dwyer