B-M GETS SLICE OF WAL-MART

Burson-Marsteller’s Prime Policy Group lobbying and PA unit now represents Wal-Mart Stores as the Bentonville, Ark.-based giant positions to deal with the incoming Republican Congress.

PPG chairman Charlie Black spearheads a seven-member team. He is former advisor to the Reagan/Bush I White Houses and chief spokesperson for the RNC.

Black is assisted by Keith Smith, ex-aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell; Mark Disler, ex-staffer to Utah’s Orrin Hatch; Rich Meade, advisor to GOP House Budget Committee chair Jim Nussle and Gabe Rozsa, former staffer to Rep. Sherwood Boehlert.

PPG has an extensive brief that covers trade, banking, taxation, immigration, healthcare, food safety/labeling, and transportation. Wal-Mart’s PA staff is led by Leslie Dach, advisor in the Clinton White House and former vice chairman of Edelman, which represents Wal-Mart on PA and environmental issues.

The retailer also works with GolinHarris, Cohn & Wolfe and Porter Novelli.

EX-NIKE CRISIS CHIEF CHECKS IN AT APCO

Vada Manager, who handled global issues management at Nike, has taken a senior VP slot at APCO Worldwide.

During a dozen years at Nike, Manager navigated labor practices, global sourcing procedures, product recalls, crisis management for athletes and marketing communications. He served on the nike.com launch team and helped roll out the acquisition of Converse and Starter brands to the media. Manager was Nike’s senior issues strategist during the Olympics and World Cup.

Earlier, Manager served as senior manager-global communications for Levi Strauss and VP at Powell Tate.

RAYMOND JAMES LIKES DUKAS

Financial services company Raymond James has hired Dukas PR as agency of record, following an RFP.

The St. Petersburg, Fla.-based investment bank and asset manager claims assets of $235B. It did not previously work with an AOR. The account is believed to be in the six-figure range.

Richard Dukas, president of the New York-based financial PR firm, told O’Dwyer’s that his team is focused on key placements in financial and business media guiding corporate and institutional PR for the company. Media training and PR counsel are also part of its mandate.

HEALTH INSURERS SEARCH FOR D.C. FIRM

Top health insurers are combing Washington for a PR firm to influence implementation of the new healthcare bill, according to a report by Kaiser Health News.

APCO Worldwide, which worked with drug companies in the healthcare reform debate, and Public Strategies are said to be among firms that have talked to the group.

KHN said the insurers include Aetna, Cigna, Humana, UnitedHealthcare and Wellpoint, which typically lobby through the trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans.

The $871B healthcare law requires most Americans to have health insurance coverage and subsidizes low and middle-income people. Provisions of the law, mostly consumer protections, started taking effect in September while the bulk of the legislation will go into effect over the next two years.

The search for a firm comes in the wake of former Cigna PR exec Wendell Potter’s book “Deadly Spin,” which casts a negative light on healthcare and the PR industry’s role in supporting its communications.

FLORIDA WANTS TRANSPORT PITCHES

Florida’s Dept. of Transportation is calling for pitches to handle PR and public communications for design projects in Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties via an RFP open through early January.

A contract is expected to run from date of execution to March 2014. Tasks included in the pact are communications planning, PR and community involvement, website revamp and media communications, among other efforts on an as-needed basis.

The DoT awarded a six-figure PR pact for construction projects in the counties earlier this year to the Cunningham Group after an RFP process drew four pitches. Proposals are due Jan. 5. Details: odwyerpr.com/rfps.

OLSON ACQUIRES DIG

Minneapolis-based Olson said Dec. 6 it is acquiring six-year-old Dig Communications, a Chicago PR firm with five offices and 50 staffers across the U.S.

Olson, which said Dig is on pace for $7.5M in revenue this year, plans to absorb Dig into 12-person Olson PR making PR nearly 20 percent of the independent marketing communications agency’s revenue.

Dig founder Peter Marino becomes president of the combined PR division. Before founding the firm in 2004, he was at The Boston Consulting Group, Orbitz, Ketchum and Cramer-Krasselt.

IRAQ PR FIRM GETS ANOTHER EXTENSION

Fulcra Worldwide, the PR firm for the U.S.-led military force in Iraq, has received an extension of its work there after it filed three protests and a complaint when the pact was re-bid and awarded to competitor SOS International in June.

The extension brings Fulcra’s pact up to $5.3M providing media analysis, strategic communications and other PR tasks for the force based in Baghdad, now known officially as U.S. Forces-Iraq/Joint Fires and Effects Cell.

Fulcra’s multiple protests have drawn its pact, originally slated to expire in July, from $2.2M to the newly expanded level of $5.3M because the firm is entrenched and the work is deemed “critical” by the military.

Fulcra, the current incarnation of the former Lincoln Group and Iraqex, declined to comment as the situation is now before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. SOSI has not yet been reached.

SOSI won the assignment to take over the contract on June 10 with 45 days to put its team in place. But Fulcra protested the award to U.S. Central Command’s contracting unit and a stop order work was issued to SOSI. The protest was denied three days later but Fulcra then filed a protest to the GAO, which led to corrective action and the stop work order was rescinded on July 19. However, two days later Fulcra submitted a supplemental protest to the GAO leading to another stop order.

Fulcra then filed a complaint at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which has deemed at least one of its grounds of protest to be “non-frivolous.” Procurement officials said that while SOSI needs 30 days to put a team in place, lifting the stop work order could lead to a court injunction. A decision is expected in mid-December.

Fulcra declined to comment. SOSI couldn’t be reached.

EDELMAN GETS UAE RESEARCH PACT

Edelman’s StrategyOne unit has a pact to conduct market research interviews with policymakers and influencers to gauge perceptions of the United Arab Emirates.

Under a contract with The Harbour Group, UAE’s Washington representative, Strategy One’s core program includes running four exploratory focus groups, a quantitative Beltway Barometer survey and a national opinion elite survey for a fee of $130K.

For another $30K, StrategyOne would conduct 20 in-depth interviews. The agreement precludes any overt political activities.

The Harbour Group received $956K from the UAE for the six-month period ended Sept. 30.

SV GUIDES $3.3B TENET TAKEOVER BID

Sard Verbinnen & Co. is guiding Community Health Systems and its $3.3B acquisition bid for smaller hospital operator Tenet Healthcare Corp., a deal that would create the nation’s largest chain.

The combination would forge a giant with revenues of $22B and 176 hospitals in 30 states.

Tenet is relying on Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher for media work.

TEXAS COMPTROLLER CALLS FOR PITCHES

The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts has opened an RFP process to provide marketing, PR and advertising services on-request to the state division, which includes the state Department of Insurance, or TDI.

In addition to various outreach efforts, web work, PSAs and communications assignments that are expected to crop up during the contract, the work includes outreach and communications support for the Healthy Texas campaign.

Initial contract term will run through Aug. 31, 2012 with four year-long options. Proposals are due Jan. 7, 2011. RFP is at odwyerpr.com/rfps.

VICK GETS PR HELP

Michael Vick, the NFL star who served 18 months in prison on dogfighting charges, has turned to Raleigh-based French/West/Vaughan for PR counsel.

The southpaw quarterback has enjoyed a career resurgence in 2010 with the first-place Philadelphia Eagles and is leading in fan voting for the NFL’s Pro Bowl. His critics abound, however, inside and outside of the sports world, although groups like PETA have backed off as he speaks out against dogfighting to kids through a partnership with the Humane Society.

FWV is vetting speaking engagements and handling overall PR counsel for Vick.
CEO Rick French told the News-Observer recently: “There is still no ending to the Michael Vick story. I think in the end it will be a very positive story.”

French said he polled clients and even his daughter, a dog owner, about representing Vick before taking him on as a client.

CERRELL DIES AT 75

Joe Cerrell, the well-connected California political and PR consultant who built Los Angeles-based Cerrell Associates, died Dec. 3 following complications from pneumonia. He was 75.

“His legacy as a counselor, confidant, and close friend to thousands of people in politics, the business community, as well as in the public relations and non-profit arenas, especially the Italian-American community in Los Angeles, will not be forgotten,” said Hal Dash, chairman and CEO of Cerrell Associates.

The Democrat is credited with being among the first professional political operatives and was tapped at age 24 to run the California Democratic Party.

Queens-born Cerrell and his wife, Lee, marked their 47th wedding anniversary on Nov. 17. They met while working on former Gov. Pat Brown's gubernatorial campaign. The husband-and-wife team founded Cerrell Associates in 1967 working for clients like Pacific Southwest Airlines and Pacific Telephone, in addition to political clients. The firm branched out to D.C. in 1983 when Cerrell teamed with consultant Ben Palumbo to form Palumbo & Cerrell.

Cerrell’s political client list included California work for the presidential campaigns of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Lloyd Bentsen, John Glenn and Al Gore.

SEVENTEEN NET NEW MAGS IN 2010

Seventeen more magazines were created than folded in 2010, according to Oxbridge Communications’ publication database MediaFinder.com.

For the year, 193 new mags debuted, including 28 in the food category, while 176 closed up shop this year, a sharp drop off from the whopping 596 publications that ceased in 2009.

Oxbridge president Trish Hagood noted the debut of several iPad titles in 2010, which gave publishers another way of getting content to readers.

Twenty-eight print titles went online-only during the year, compared with 81 in 2009.

Behind new food titles like Northeast Flavor and ChopChop, regional magazines were the next largest category for new publications.

The home category continues to suffer the worst as 13 titles folded in 2010 -- Mountain Home and Home Miami, to name two - while lifestyle also took a hit with seven closures.

While B2B mags showed a surge of 34 new titles this year, 47 also folded and 15 went from print to online only.

FILKINS EXITS NYT FOR NEW YORKER

Dexter Filkins, the top Middle East war correspondent for the New York Times, is leaving for The New Yorker. He is author of “The Forever War,” which is based on his experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.

David Remnick, editor of TNY, called Filkins “one of the great war correspondents and foreign correspondents not only of his generation but ever.”

He “writes with real intelligence and grace but he also has the capacity to report deeply and break stories wherever he goes.”

Filkins is to span the globe for the Conde Nast property. He will report to Daniel Zalewski, features editor for The New Yorker.

VARADARAJAN JOINS NEWSWEEK

Tunku Varadarajan, a writer-at-large at the Daily Beast, is joining Newsweek as editor of its international editions.

The 48-year-old is a veteran of Forbes, Wall Street Journal and the Times of London.

Daily Beast chief Tina Brown assumed the editor slot of Newsweek last month.

DB, which is a part of IAC/Interactive, formed a joint venture to own Newsweek with stereo magnate Sidney Harman, who bought the magazine from Washington Post Co. for $1 and the assumption of liabilities.

SENATOR: NYT COULD FACE WIKI PROBE

Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman says the decision of the New York Times to publish the WikiLeaks trove of U.S. government documents could lead to prosecution of the media company.

The chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee told Fox News that the Times “has committed at least an act of, at best, bad citizenship, but whether they have committed a crime is a matter of discussion for the Justice Dept.”

Lieberman believes the U.S. should seek extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is currently in a British jail, and try him under the 1917 Espionage Act. He referred to the massive document dump as the “most serious violation of the Espionage Act in our history.”

The Times received its WikiLeaks documents from the U.K.’s Guardian. Assange also provided full documents to Germany’s Der Spiegel, Spain’s El Pais and France’s Le Monde.

Lieberman, an independent and former Democrat, joined Republicans Scott Brown (Mass.) and John Ensign (Nev.) on Dec. 2 to introduce the Shield (Securing Human Intelligence and Enforcing Lawful Dissemination) Act to make it illegal to publish the names of human intelligence informants to the U.S. military and intelligence community.

He called the WikiLeaks disclosures the “latest example of how our national security interests, the interests of our allies and the safety of government employees and countless other individuals are jeopardized by the illegal release of classified and sensitive information.” The Shield Act would amend the Espionage Act to extend the legal protections that already exist for communications intelligence and cryptography to human intelligence informants.

In a Nov. 29 editorial, the Times said: “The documents are valuable because they illuminate American policy in a way that Americans and others deserve to see.”

U.S. TO HOST WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY

The State Dept., which has been scrambling in the aftermath of the WikiLeaks disclosures, announced today that the U.S. will host UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day (May 1-3) in Washington, D.C.

A press statement from Philip Crowley, assistant secretary for State’s bureau of public affairs, says the theme will show how the U.S. places technology and innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts.

“New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals' right to freedom of expression,” according to Crowley.

Crowley says the State Dept. is “concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals and to restrict the free flow of information.”

Crowley told a D.C. press briefing that WikiLeaks committed a crime under U.S. law.

The Newseum is to host two-days of scheduled events and the National Press Club will be the site of the award of the UNESCO Guillermo Cano World Freedom Prize to one who has contributed to the defense/and or promotion of press freedom.

Cano was editor of Colombia’s El Espectador. A critic of Colombia’s drug barons, he was murdered in Bogota in 1986.

(Media news continued on next page)

TOP FOOD STORIES OF 2010

Hunter PR published its annual list of top food stories of 2010 on Dec. 7, leading with the seafood industry’s response to the BP oil spill and a massive egg recall that included 380M eggs exposed to salmonella bacteria.

Last year’s top story in Hunter’s survey -- food safety concerns -- was followed just this month by the Senate’s passage of the most significant law in food safety in 70 years.

This year’s tally included Michelle Obama’s child nutrition push, Similac's baby formula recall, and the re-branding of high fructose corn syrup as “corn sugar.”

Here’s the full 2010 list, which is compiled from a survey of 1,000 Americans:

1. Impact of BP oil spill on seafood industry
2. Massive nationwide egg recall
3. E. Coli fear leads to 35,000-pound beef recall
4. Calorie count on menus goes national
5. Michelle Obama helps pass Senate bill on child nutrition
6. Major food companies agree to cut sodium
7. Similac baby formula recall after beetle discovery
8. High fructose corn syrup rebranded as “corn sugar”
9. Jamie Oliver’s “Food Revolution”
10. Kraft acquires Cadbury.

ECONOMIST TEAMS WITH NEWSHOUR

The Economist slates a January launch of the “The Economist Film Project” with PBS’ “Newshour.”

The documentary will cover topics such as economics, business, healthcare, environment, media, technology, science, politics and government that typically run in the British magazine.

Segments also will run on the project’s website accompanied with related stories from the magazine. Visitors will be encouraged to provide their input.

Gideon Lichfield, deputy editor of The Economist online, oversees the Project.

He says the effort will “bring viewers new perspectives and insights in the form of films they might not otherwise see on the kinds of issues that The Economist itself covers.”

The Economist has a circulation of 1.4M, 800K of those readers are in North America. Its website gets four million unique visitors a month.

JUST SUCCEEDS FOER AT NEW REPUBLIC

Richard Just, executive editor of the New Republic, is taking over for Frank Foer, who will resume writing for the magazine after a nearly five-year edit stint.

Foer replaced Peter Beinart in 2006. NR moved to a bi-weekly schedule under his leadership.

Foer wrote a book on globalization, “How Soccer Explains the World.”

TIME WARNER INVESTS IN GETGLUE

Time Warner is spending $6M to joins backers of GetGlue, a social entertainment network site that enables users to check- in to see what music, TV shows, movies and books their friends are consuming.

GG boasts of 700K users and 10M unique ratings and check-ins.

The site has partnerships with Disney, 20th Century Fox, AMC, ABC Family, Discovery, ESPN, FOX, Food Network, Hachette, HBO, HGTV, MTV, MSNBC, Showtime, Penguin, PBS, Random House, Simon and Schuster, Syfy, Sony Pictures, Travel Channel, USA Network, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros.

ASHE LEAVES CBS INTERACTIVE POST

Neal Ashe, president of CBS Interactive, is leaving the company and a successor is expected to be in place next year.

Ashe guided the nearly $2B `08 acquisition of CNET and took over digital operations from Quincy Smith. Other interactive properties include CBS.com, TV.com and Urbanbaby.

A statement from CBS credits Ashe for making “CSBi a successful and profitable business.” It adds that “looking out into 2011, we are working on a relaxed timeframe to name a successor to his post.”

Ashe told the All Things Digital technology site that he is exiting “at the end of a successful transition and integration” of CNET into CBS. He felt that it is time for “a breath of fresh air.”

WAPO’S KAPLAN CUTS STAFF

Washington Post Co.’s Kaplan Higher Education unit is trimming 770 staffers (five percent of total work force) in a bid to deal with dropping enrollment.

A statement from Jeff Conlon, president/CEO of Kaplan, says: “Our enrollments have slowed recently, as they have at other proprietary schools.”

Kaplan has made a “strategic decision to become more selective in the students we enroll, focusing on students who are most likely to thrive in a rigorous academic environment and meet their financial obligations.”

That move requires a “shift in our personnel needs,” according to Conlon, if Kaplan “wants to maintain the same high quality education and support services our students expect.”

Kaplan says the cutbacks have nothing to do with any investigations and suits that are underway.

Congress, the U.S. Dept of Education and the Government Accountability Office have put Kaplan and other for-profit schools under heavy scrutiny.

COLUMBIA BACKS OFF WIKILEAKS WARNING

Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs backed off a warning to students that accessing WikiLeaks content could compromise future employment with the U.S. State Department.

The school's career services unit sent an email to students earlier this month that reportedly said reading or sharing links to WikiLeaks documents could hurt aspirations of government service.

Dean John Coastsworth dispatched a second email on Dec. 6 stressing that it’s the school's position that students “have a right to discuss and debate any information in the public arena that they deem relevant to their studies or to their roles as global citizens, and to do so without fear of adverse consequences.”

The impetus for the original email was a call from a former student employed by the State Dept.

KWITTKEN REACHES ACROSS THE POND

Kwittken & Company, which sold a majority stake to MDC Partners in September, has opened a London office, its first outside the U.S., to service domestic clients abroad and establish a foothold in Europe.

CEO Aaron Kwittken said the move has been a goal of the firm’s for several years, but he waited until “the most opportune conditions presented themselves.”

K&C has tapped Caleb Hulme-Moir, who was running his own London shop, Mana Communications, as managing director of the new office. He headed corporate communications and served as head of media for Cass Business School in six years at the City of London institution.

Kwittken said the European unit will be initially focused on financial services and healthcare work.

K&C, which has a Phoenix office along with its New York base, has been integrated into MDC’s kbs+p division, which Kwittken noted is supporting the expansion. K&C/London is at 22 Ebury Street in the Pimlico/Belgravia area of the city.

HAVAS GRABS HONG KONG FINANCIAL FIRM

French ad/PR conglomerate Havas has acquired a controlling stake in Hong Kong-based Porda International Finance PR.

“Hong Kong and China are the most exciting markets in financial communications today,” said Stéphane Fouks, founder of Havas’ AMO network of financial firms and executive co-chairman of Euro RSCG Worldwide.

The conglom said the deal provides a “preeminent position in the Chinese and Hong Kong IPO markets.” Porda will also join Havas’ AMO network of strategic and financial communications consultancies that includes Abernathy MacGregor Group in New York, Maitland in London and Euro RSCG C&O in Paris.

The acquisition is Havas' fourth deal in the past six months. James Chang is founder and chairman of Porda.

BRIEFS: Bethesda, Md.-based zcomm was among several firms that took home gold and platinum MarCom Awards for 2010 in the annual competition. The firm won a Platinum Award for its “Next Generation Diner” campaign and a Gold Award for its “Fresh and Local Goes Social” social media campaign, both for client Silver Diner, a restaurant chain. Complete list of winners is at marcomawards.com/list2010.php. ...The Brandon Agency, Myrtle Beach, S.C., has launched “Why We Buy,” a consumer research panel comprised of more than 4,300 consumer participants. The firm said it utilizes this panel to “gain a deeper insight into the minds of consumers, better understand their buying patterns and history and, in turn, generate more effective marketing initiatives for clients.” ...Robin Delgado, former marketing and PR director for Accident Law Offices of Philip DeBerard, has set up RDC Robin Delgado Consulting on Fort Pierce, Fla., along the state's Treasure Coast. She handles marketing, strategic thinking, brand consulting, advertising and PR. Info: http://www.linkedin.com/in/robindelgado.

NASDAQ GRABS IR WEBCAST FIRM

The NASDAQ OMX Group said it will acquire Stockholm-based Zoomvision Mamato, which provides live webcasting services, primarily for investor relations pros.

ZVM, which has 180 clients and is the leader in webcasting for Northern Europe, will become part of NASDAQ OMX’s Global Corporate Solutions division.

Marcus Walldén, CEO of Zoomvision Mamato, will continue to be based in Stockholm and report to Nasdaq senior VP.

CRITICAL MENTION INKS RIPLEY’S

Media monitoring service Critical Mention has signed Ripley Entertainment as a client to monitor media relations tied to its 85 attractions and 12 brands operating in 11 countries.

CM, a service of New York-based Critical Media, said Ripley Entertainment joins more tan 600 other customers.

Ripley Entertainment will track the Believe It or Not! brand and chatter surrounding its national and international attractions, which include museums, and a waterpark.

Vice president of communications Tim O'Brien noted the company is not constantly in the news and found the flexibility CM “accommodating to our needs.”

CHICAGO GROUP GIVES (PR) BACK

IABC/Chicago said six Chicago-area not-for-profit agencies received a gift of pro-bono advice and support for their two most pressing communication challenges as part of the chapter's Gift of Communication" program.

The chapter held an event Dec. 4 at DePaul to consult with the groups - Cambodian Association of Illinois; Chinese Mutual Aid Assn.; Organization of the North East; Corazon Community Services; El Hogar del Nino, and YMEN.

Two communications pros and a student from an IABC chapter at Loyal and DePaul University's formed teams to advise the groups.

Chapter president Tom Keefe said the program is an "opportunity for professional communicators to give back to their community using the skills and experience that they've developed over their careers."

BRIEFS: Vocus’ PRWeb service has added five distribution partners which will be provided with a custom feed based on topics or their choosing for publication on their own news networks.The new partners are RedOrbit.com (5M unique visitors per month); Allvoices.com (8.1M); Benzinga.com; Shareholders Foundation, and SaaS Newswire. FoleyFreisleben, a Los Angles-based investor relations services firm, said its annual report work will be part of an exhibition in Hong Kong and Hamburg, "Annual Reports of the World," opening in January 2011 at the H.K. Stock Exchange. The firm said its work is currently being showcased at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe (the Museum for Art and Culture) in Hamburg, Germany, in a show titled “Back to the Future-All is Newly Discovered.”

SLOANE REPS SHAPIROS IN MADOFF DEAL

Sloane & Company is representing philanthropist Carl Shapiro and his family, who on Tuesday agreed to a $625M settlement with federal officials and the trustee for victims of the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme.

The Shapiro family, which includes the patriarch and 18 others, on Dec. 7 said it would surrender returns from its Madoff dealings in a settlement with the U.S. Dept. of Justice and the trustee for the scheme’s victims.

“The settlement will allow substantial funds to be distributed to those hurt most by Madoff’s fraud,” the family said in a statement from Elliot Sloane, president of S&C.

Sloane told O’Dwyer’s he has worked for the Shapiros for the past two years.

Liquidation trustee Irving Picard said Shapiro, who is 97 and was an early investor with Madoff since the 1960s, maintained several accounts with Madoff over the years. His son-in-law, Robert Jaffe, is also a former VP of a feeder fund that shared offices with Madoff. The settlement includes $38M to cover the amount demanded of Jaffe, as well.

The family agreed to pay $550M to the trustee’s fund and $75M to the U.S. Dept. of Justice in exchange for being released from any claims or causes of action related to the Madoff scheme.

NRCC'S SPAIN TO PRIVATE EQUITY GROUP

Ken Spain, fresh from victory as communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, has been tapped as VP of public affairs for the Private Equity Growth Capital Council, the trade group for the PE sector.

The three-year-old PEGC was founded as the Private Equity Council to defend private equity firms from criticism and burnish the industry's image. Its name changed in September.

In a statement to O’Dwyer’s, PEGCC said: “Robert helped build an effective communications program for the PEGCC during some very tumultuous times and made important contributions in this area and others over his four year tenure.”

Spain has been at the NRCC since 2007, when he joined after communications director stints for Reps. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) and Mike Conaway (R-Tex.).
He was New Mexico comms. director for the Bush-Cheney re-elect in 2004.

BRUNSWICK ADDS MSL WEST COAST CHIEF

Joe Carberry, who headed the western region for MS&LGroup and previously led Visa public affairs, has moved to Brunswick Group’s three-year-old San Francisco office as a partner.

Carberry was head of global of PA at Visa through its landmark IPO. The company is also a client of Brunswick on the West Coast, in addition to Gap, Cisco and Intel, among others.

Carberry had been president of the western region for MS&L since May 2009. He previously worked at Fleishman-Hillard and was press secretary for San Diego Mayor Susan Golding.

PR ED GIFTS ARE COMPARATIVELY TINY

Market values of endowed funds for PR education now total about $15M but “donors are few” and “most gifts are modest in amount and non-strategic in purpose,” says a report by the Commission on PR Education of PR Society of America.

Kathleen Kelly, Ph.D., of the department of PR, College of Journalism, University of Florida, who authored the report, also said that “Education programs spend little time or effort on cultivating donors and soliciting gifts.”

She notes that the gift-giving for PR education is miniscule compared to gift-giving in general to colleges and universities.

Contributions to higher education totaled $27.8B in 2008-09, which was an 11.9% drop from the previous year. The Chronicle of Philanthropy lists 34 gifts so far this year ranging from $20M to $200M.

Kelly notes that Ed and Becky Meek gave $5.3 million to the University of Mississippi in 2003 to create the Edwin and Becky Meek School of Journalism and New Media. She also notes that Irwin and Joan Jacobs in 2003 pledged $110M to the School of Engineering at the University of California, San Diego.

Major PR Givers Listed

A $28 million gift to Marquette University in 2005 created the J. William and Mary Diederich College of Communication. William Diederich had majored in journalism at Marquette and became an executive at Landmark Communications.

The Arthur Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication at Penn State has an endowment of $3M, mostly from foundations.

Lead gift was made by Larry Foster, 1948 journalism alumnus who was corporate VP-PR, Johnson & Johnson. Foster and his wife, Ellen, have given “millions” to Penn State and its College of Communications including $500,000 to enhance the college’s home building, said Kelly.

Among gifts listed by Kelly is $2M to the Dept. of PR, College of Journalism and Communications, UFL, from a foundation established by Frank Karel, journalism alumnus and former communications VP, Robert Wood Johnson and Rockefeller Foundations.

Made in 2008, the $2M is to be matched by the Florida’s Trust Fund for Major Gifts.

The Harold Burson chair in PR at the Dept. of Mass Communication, Advertising and PR, College of Communication, Boston University, has a current value of $1.3 million. It is named after the founder of Burson-Marsteller.

School of Journalism and Communication, University of Oregon, has an endowed chair in PR with investments valued at $2.1M. Donor is anonymous.

Ellis N. Brandt Chair in PR, Michigan State University, has an endowment of $2.2M. Brandt was 1943 journalism graduate and former Dow Chemical PR VP.

Scott Widmeyer, chairman and CEO of Widmeyer Communications, Washington, D.C., led the effort to endow the Widmeyer Professorship in PR at West Virginia University in 2008 with contributions totaling $380,000, Kelly reports.

PR students and recent grads need practical job advice. But from what they tell us and what we read in PR textbooks, they're not getting it.

Rather, they're getting a lot of abstract bafflegab and flapdoodle that will ill equip them for the harsh realities of the marketplace.

Veteran writer and PR pro Jane Genova quotes an article on the “Education Bubble” that compares it to the real estate bubble-an over-priced, over-hyped commodity fueled by excessive credit mostly underwritten by the government.

She says PR is an intensely practical and personal activity and that time in the trenches trumps anything that comes out of a book or instructor.

“PR is like plumbing, sales and journalism,” she adds.

Genova tells fledgling PR pros to knock on doors – “cold call” all the merchants and businesspeople in town and offer what they can do to publicize and promote their businesses.

Do Anything They Want

We would go a step further. Do anything they need including sweeping the floor and washing the windows. Bring them news of new products or what the competition is doing. Show them how to create a website if they don't have one.

A local liquor store we know of markets an Australian wine nationally because the owner has bought a quantity of it and has the best price.

Many a PR person started out working for a restaurant for meals. Ask customers what they really think of the food. They’re not apt to tell the owner.

“Spy” on all the other restaurants in town and see how your restaurant stacks up.

Pitch parties and special events to the businesses and associations in town.

Sonnenberg Should Be Studied

Best “textbook” for a PR careerist is the bio of “America's Greatest Publicist” – Ben Sonnenberg. It’s “Always Live Better than Your Clients” by New York Timesman Isadore Barmash. Sonnenberg, who became rich enough to fill a 12-story townhouse with valuable art objects, was a fountainhead of ideas. He would give as many as 100 to a client.

His goal was to get as close as possible to clients – find out what was in their “heart of hearts.” For well-off businesspeople, it wasn’t more sales or profits. It might have been an offspring who couldn't get into college.

Help a client’s child and you’ll never lose the account, he advised.

For many years he did the humblest of PR chores but eventually worked for many blue chip CEOs. The title of his book was the “revenge” he got for all those years of humiliation.

We recently gave away O’Dwyer’s Directory of PR Firms to about 60 PR grads and undergrads in return for them telling us about their job-hunting experiences and whether their educations suited them for that.

None ever heard of Sonnenberg nor did any teacher ever tell them to knock on doors and talk to proprietors. What they got was a lot of theory, process and methodology. They read how national PR crises were handled although such stories were readily available in the press.

Employers were interested in how many internships they had served, not what they majored in. Only a small percentage of PR grads are going to get “real” jobs these days. The rest are going to have to fend for themselves. What's ironic about this essay is that almost no PR professors will allow their students to see it.

Rosanna Fiske, 2011 chair of PR Society of America, gave her first interview last week, jumping the gun even before becoming chair.

Her remarks portend what her tenure will be like-delusionary and ducking.

She will pick whom she lets interview her rather than facing the entire PR press at once. Like her predecessors, she will probably speak to a half dozen or fewer of the 110 chapters and this schedule will be tightly guarded. Odds of her addressing New York are about zero.

Fiske's interview with PR Newser on Dec. 7 had her proclaiming the Society’s interest in ethics and diversity, two areas it should be ashamed of.

It’s unethical for PRSA to espouse democracy in its Code and then block rank-and-file members from seeing the national list of delegates, knowing what they said, or how they voted. Impeding press coverage of the Assembly while espousing “the free flow of accurate information” is also unethical.

While professing to follow Robert’s Rules, PRSA breaks at least five of them including the rule that if there is an assembly like PRS has, it must “sit over” the board. Proxies were again used in 2010 although this mocks Robert’s. “Ethics” or “Ethical” appears 11 times on the first page of the Code. The word “politics” – meaning what faction has the most votes in the Assembly – should be substituted for each of these.

Diversity Record Is Almost Nil

Only two African-Americans have made it to the PRS board in 63 years. Ron Owens joined in 2006 for three years but quit after five months.

Rejected this year was African-American Regina Lewis, PR head of the Potter’s House mega-church of Dallas and a 25-year member. The at-large seat went instead to Susan Walton, a PR prof at Brigham Young and a member only since 2005. Lewis has a much bigger job.

Ofield Dukes, 2001 Gold Anvil winner, was rejected for the at-large seat in 2009.

PRSA last December closed the Multicultural Section after 26 years. Director Lynn Appelbaum said a survey of members found diversity was “a very low priority” with them. She noted the section only had 73 members, far below the 200 required.

Section members posted more than 20 complaints on Twitter. VP-PR Arthur Yann said remarks by one of the complainants were “ignorant” and “irresponsible.”

Members said the decision was made without consulting them and just before Christmas when h.q. closed completely for an 11-day break. They found no one to talk to or take their e-mails.

Chair Gary McCormick promised a Strategic Planning Committee in 2009 that would have blacks and journalists on it. The board squashed this.

Fiske should listen to 2011 board member Marisa Vallbona who said as a candidate that she could “count on two hands the number of Hispanic members I've met in the past 20 years.”

— Jack O'Dwyer