WASHINGTON: APCO Worldwide is providing media relations support for a coalition of drug companies hoping to persuade the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to permit distribution of peer-reviewed articles on "off-label" use of drugs to doctors.

SANTA CLARA, CA: McAfee selected Red Consultancy as its consumer AOR. The six-figure contract adds consumer duties to the firm's existing corporate and enterprise responsibilities. The selection followed a competitive bid by six agencies.

SAN FRANCISCO: EA Sports launched a new global sub-brand to strengthen its appeal among casual video-game users.

CHICAGO: Encyclopedia Britannica is promoting its online information as a free service to Web publishers, and has hired Holtz Communication & Technology (HC&T) to focus PR efforts on bloggers.

The battle for Newsday continues, but Rupert Murdoch appears confident that News Corporation will win the bid for the Long Island newspaper, despite Cablevision's recent $650 million bid.

NEW YORK: The Reader's Digest Association (RDA) selected DKC as AOR for its Reader's Digest title and corresponding Web site, focusing immediately on brand revitalization, media outreach, and content distribution.

PALO ALTO, CA: Facebook hired Elliot Schrage, former VP of global communications and public affairs at Google, as its new VP of communications and public policy.

I recently spent time with a Boston University (BU) PR class of 20 or so students to discuss the profession they are likely to enter.

n a recent Corporate Profile on Fiji Water, PRWeek's Kimberly Maul wrote about a number of plans the company recently put in action to spread the message that bottled water can be good for the environment.

Annual conferences, particularly those bearing the stuffy "leadership" title, don't usually make journalists gush, but gush they did over the recent Four A's conference held in Southern California