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August 02, 1999 Issue of PRWeek

Gateway rumored to be ending Weber relationship

SAN DIEGO: Is the 18-month Gateway/Weber Group relationship about to end?

CNA hotly tipped to be in talks with top shops

CHICAGO: CNA Financial Corp., a dollars 17.1 billion insurance company, is interviewing public relations firms for a major corporate reputation management campaign.

Motorola on hunt for head honcho

SCHAUMBURG, IL: Motorola is searching for a vice president of public relations to pull together its many consumer PR efforts into a coordinated whole.

C&W, Torrenzano take first ally step

NEW YORK: Cohn & Wolfe has allied itself with financial pros The Torrenzano Group, an alliance that may well lead to an acquisition in the near future.

Watt steers state-safety seatbelt drive

CLEVELAND: Watt/Fleishman-Hillard is about to snare a major seatbelt PR campaign contract from the Ohio Department of Public Safety and the Rainbow Babies & Children Hospital.

Gore, at last, names his press secretary

WASHINGTON, DC: Al Gore took a big step toward solidifying his communications team with a series of key hires last week, including the long-awaited naming of a ...

Tech PR chief lured back to Lotus for Groove VP spot

BEVERLY, MA: Lotus Notes developer Ray Ozzie has lured former Lotus PR chief Richard Eckel away from Parametric Technologies in Waltham, MA to serve as VP of ...

US Tennis Association hires two

WHITE PLAINS, NY: The United States Tennis Association has added a pair of aces to its communications staff. Andrea Berken has been tabbed director of communications, while ...

Freelancer group launches its ninth branch in Atlanta

CHICAGO: Paladin, a Chicago-based company that helps marketing freelancers find contract work, moved into its ninth location this week with a new branch in Atlanta.

NY sports club on hunt for a director as pro moves out

NEW YORK: Lisa Mortman has traded in her athletic gear for the world of magazines, leaving a New York sports club chain scrambling to replace her.

Ketchum left hanging after director departs for smaller Stoorza

SAN DIEGO: Ending a seven-month search, Stoorza, Ziegaus & Metzger has snagged Ketchum partner David De Pinto for its newly created president and CEO slot.

E! Online taps vet for branding work

LOS ANGELES: E! Online, already one of the Web’s most- visited destinations, is set to launch a strong branding campaign, and has hired some fresh marketing talent ...

Still on the search for McDonald’s VP

SAN DIEGO: Fast-food giant McDonald’s continues to come up empty in its search for a VP of US communications.

Redskins face PR staff woes as new owner goes on firing spree

WASHINGTON, DC: The NFL’s Washington Redskins haven’t had much success on the field as of late. Now, the chaos has spread to the team’s PR operations.

PR still a weapon wielded by US in Kosovo aftermath

WASHINGTON, DC: The tanks have moved out of Kosovo, but the PR forces are still a long way from finishing their task.

Middleberg boosts hi-tech with West Coast opening

SAN FRANCISCO: Looking to bring its solid reputation in the hi-tech space westward, Middleberg & Associates has opened an office in San Francisco.

Burson acquires tech firm at dollars 1.5m

SAN FRANCISCO: Burson-Marsteller has acquired Hart Cooper Partners (HCP), a dollars 1.5 million firm focused on emerging technology companies.

Miller grabs dollars 2m in blue-chip firms

BOSTON: Miller/Shandwick has picked up dollars 2 million from a pair of blue-chip technology clients, giving it close to dollars 6 million in new business since the ...

Nakamichi taps JMPR for broader exposure

TORRANCE, CA: Mobile auto audio manufacturer Nakamichi USA has awakened from a long-dormant PR period.

Safeguard buoys its PR operations

WAYNE, PA: Safeguard Scientifics has fortified its PR operations, hiring Alexander Ogilvy as its first agency of record and former Ketchum hi-tech pro - and Army Reserve ...

CompUSA grabs Fleishman vet for new Web venture

MARLBOROUGH, MA: Former Fleishman-Hillard partner Ellen Barry has left the company’s London office to serve as director of public relations for CompUSANet.com.

AT&T open access debate keeps Bay Area pros busy

SAN FRANCISCO: The issue of open - or forced, depending on which side is speaking - access to AT&T/TCI’s cable TV lines has whipped the San Francisco ...

Hill & Knowlton still faces raft of personnel changes

WASHINGTON, DC: Hill & Knowlton is still playing catch-up following a summer of changes in personnel.

McGraw-Hill lures US Post Office pro

NEW YORK: The US Postal Service has lost another of its communication pros.

Crisis firm Sitrick snaps up lawyer

LOS ANGELES: Sitrick & Company, the crisis communications agency renowned for its handling of high-profile cases like the Food Lion lawsuit against ABC News and media-scarred celebrity ...

Total Entertainment tags Phase II for online gaming

SAN FRANCISCO: Armed with dollars 30 million in new funding and inching ever closer to an IPO, online family gaming company Total Entertainment Network (TEN) has hired ...

Web sites sign up BSMG’s SF branch

SAN FRANCISCO: Travelscape. com and Adam.com, both high-profile, consumer-oriented Net start-ups, have traded in their incumbent agencies to enlist the services of BSMG’s new San Francisco outpost.

NASA launches tourist drive with Bates

HOUSTON: NASA has sent Bates Churchill Public Relations on a mission to bring more tourists into one of its facilities.

FNS hypes nutrition in food stamp push

WASHINGTON, DC: The US Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) is enlisting PR in its effort to improve diets.

Text 100 garners $750k in income

SAN FRANCISCO: The West Coast outposts of Text 100 in San Franciscoand Seattle have landed three new clients worth more than dollars750,000 in overall annual ...

MS&L manager of London leaves for children’s charity

LONDON: Manning, Selvage & Lee’s loss is a charity’s gain.

Visa beams retail Internet conference into Latin America, for a first

MIAMI: Visa International last week conducted what the company claims was the first-ever pan-Latin American Internet press conference.

Playtex needs agency as rivals ready product push

LONDON: Playtex, the brains behind the Wonderbra, is putting its consumer PR account up for grabs after parting company with its agency of nine months, Ketchum Life.

Vet reporter hired as Ruder Finn VP

HONG KONG: Ruder Finn has attempted to flesh out its Asian operations by appointing veteran Asian journalist Peter Witton to head its Hong Kong office.

EDITORIAL: Paid experts add insult to JFK story

There is something obscene about media coverage over the loss of John F. Kennedy, Jr. Without doubt his death, and the new tragedy of America’s most famous ...

ANALYSIS: Financial PR - Teleconferencing: in or out for the media? Companies can benefit from sharing financials with media and single investors, but they remain wary of the practice. Kelly Holman reports

The rise of the corporate teleconference has transformed public companies’ ability to disseminate financial news. Since the early 1990s, the teleconference has been used as a medium ...

THINKPIECE: In the advertising vs. PR web-counsel debate, an expert offers key strategies for PR pros

The ongoing dispute between advertising and PR over who may be best suited to provide web counsel reminds me of how my sons always fight over a ...

BELTWAY: To cover Capitol Hill, PR pros need to know the lay of the land and the language behind it

Good PR people - like all good writers - must first learn to read between the lines, so as to understand what they were meant to understand.

THE POWER OF PR: ANALYSIS - Political PR - How healthcare won against reform, twice. Presidents Truman and Clinton fought for healthcare reform and in doing so, spurred intense PR counteracts. Steve Lilienthal reports

Over the past half century, PR has been the prescription to protect lobbies from comprehensive national healthcare. In the two instances when serious drives were mounted, the ...

WEEKLY WEB WATCH: WWW - The Y2K doomsayers better wind up with a catastrophe or they’re going to look stupid

’Los Angeles riots and burns to the ground. Digital power brakes lock up at 70 miles per hour. The lights are out. The phones are dead. The ...

PROFILE: Magrino - a PR woman in full. She had to use a credit card for her office phones. Today, this publicist represents everyone from Martha Stewart to Tom Wolfe. Claire Atkinson gets a great view of Magrino as well as Central Park

Back in 1992, when bankruptcy lawyers were the busiest people in town, a 30-year-old book publicist decided to set up her own agency. She coaxed a business ...

MEDIA PROFILE: Daily News: ’serious tabloid’ with local NY strength - The Daily News’ stormy history seems par for the course for the city that never sleeps. Claire Atkinson sits down with the editor for some solid newspaper pitchi

The torrid history of the New York Daily News has all the high drama of a front page news story. The tabloid, previously located in a building ...

MEDIA WATCH: Amid rivals, AOL’s freebie service fails to impress

For America Online, it seems that every silver cloud has a dark lining. While AOL recently reported solid quarterly earnings, CEO Steve Case also admitted there was ...

Stop slave labor charges - Sears, Wal-mart and The Gap are among the latest manufacturers to be accused of using slave labor. We ask how companies with Third World operations can avoid becoming the next victims. John Frank investigates

Any company selling products made by Asian laborers could be walking a tightrope. Just ask Sears, Wal-Mart and The Gap. In January, they were among 18 US ...

MARKET FOCUS: SPORTS PR - Corporates take the field. Sports offers huge potential for agencies, but only a handful have tapped the best of what leagues, teams and organizations have to offer

Sports PR is generally considered one of the true glamour areas within the PR industry. Why, then, can’t anybody give a quick and easy definition of exactly ...