President Obama said he planned to release a "package of ideas" next week to address the economy, the same day the latest jobs report showed the private sector added 67,000 jobs in August and unemployment rose to 9.6%.

Many say jobs will be the central issue in the upcoming midterm elections. The administration is considering tax breaks, including a permanent extension of the R&D tax, and a small business bill to promote economic growth and job creation.

But Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, said during an event on Thursday that President Obama had not "effectively communicated" his message about job creation.

Publicis CEO Maurice Levy is optimistic about the third quarter for the holding company, telling reporters on Friday that the company will exceed its annual organic growth target of 3.5%. Reuters spoke to Levy:

"We'd already increased our (organic growth target) once, and now I think we will actually be above it for the year," he said, declining to give a specific figure. "It's a bit early to say by how much. We will see how the autumn period develops and then decide whether we need to revise our guidance upwards. In any case it will be above 3.5%."

Allergan plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge and agreed to pay $600 million to settle civil and criminal allegations that the company illegally marketed Botox for off-label uses such as treating headaches and pain.

The Justice Department alleged Allergan held promotional events for doctors, where they were paid $1,500 to listen to off-label marketing presentations in 2005.

Allergan said, as part of the settlement, it would drop a lawsuit it filed in 2009 against the Food and Drug Administration that argued it had a First Amendment right to educate doctors about using Botox safely, including for off-label uses.

After the settlement was announced, a Justice Department official said the government would "aggressively pursue" pharmaceutical companies that illegally market drugs for off-label uses.

What's interesting about the timing of the settlement is that several off-label uses for Botox have since been approved and analysts reported in early August that the FDA would likely approve the drug as a treatment for migraines.

After President Obama's primetime address last night to the nation to officially declare the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the story was, not surprisingly, top news on all of the morning shows and in the newspapers. And certainly much of that coverage did a good job of looking back at the war in Iraq, what it truly accomplished, what's next for US involvement in the country, and a look at the war in Afghanistan. But, why were those same outlets obsessed with the Oval Office makeover? It just seems ludicrous. Maureen Dowd devoted an entire column to the topic, calling it Obama's "redecorated man cave." She added that the redecoration "was the latest tone-deaf move by a White House that was supposed to excel at connection and communication. Message: I care, but not enough to stop the fancy vacations and posh renovations"

Actually, as I learned this from the extensive segment on Today, most presidents redecorate soon after they are inaugurated, but Obama waited more than 18 months because he came into office during a time where the country was perhaps in the most dire straits it's been in over half a century. Certainly, this still isn't a great time for the country, but maybe Obama just wanted the chance to redecorate before his term, and maybe presidency, is over. Political leanings aside, cut the guy some slack. It's his office, not a yacht.

The most important question though is: who cares? We are still facing some serious issues as a country, including a war in Afghanistan that is claiming more military lives now than ever before, and one of the most prominent columnists from the paper of record is wasting valuable time, space, and eyeball strain (mine, not hers) on this?!  I can appreciate fluffy stories about Bo the First Dog, or Michelle and Sasha's highly-criticized trip to Spain, but allow me to pull a Jon Stewart for a second and address the news media directly (alas, I have no camera three): please, please, please do your job as journalists. To remind you, that is first and foremost to inform and educate your readers, listeners, and viewers. If I want entertainment, I'll turn on episode of Mad Men or Jersey Shore.

Apple product announcements are becoming predictable, but from a communications standpoint that is partly what makes them a masterful display of communications.

On Wednesday Apple CEO Steve Jobs, dressed in his humdrum black shirt and jeans, unveiled updates to the iPod, Apple TV box, and announced a social media-like feature to iTunes called Ping.

The message was controlled and clean. Apple live-streamed the event, but in order for it to be watched a viewer had to have Mac software. The whole San Francisco event was a PR clinic of simplicity and effectiveness.

But it's safe, and appeals mostly to the already established cult of Apple fanatics. Sure, the press will cover the event and it will land on the nightly news and on front pages across the nation. But from a communications standpoint these Apple announcements don't resonate beyond Apple's base of customers, they simply reinforce the existing ones.

Politicians know appealing to their base is wise, and so does Apple. I am not sold, but obviously many people are. And that's what's most important.

MTV is partnering with Foursquare to offer check-ins as part of its "GYT: Get Yourself Tested" campaign. Users can get badges by checking in to health clinics to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases.

The goal of the campaign, MTV has said, is to make STD testing as common as going to the dentist or getting a check-up. Users who unlock the GYT badge-it is Foursquare's first cause-related badge-will be eligible to win backstage passes and a trip to New York. 

MTV, Planned Parenthood, and the Kaiser Family Foundation launched the GYT campaign in 2009 to generate conversation and remove the stigma about getting tested for STDs.

Matthew Weiner is either an egomaniac or a psychic, but either way airing the episode "Waldorf Stories," which centered on Don Draper's win of the highly-coveted Clio, on the night that Mad Men picked up its third Emmy for Best Drama was brilliant timing. And if it wasn't planned, even better. (Total side note, you have to give the folks at AMC major props for inserting their congratulations ads to the cast and writers mere minutes after the  Emmy wins to get them into the 10 pm airing of the episode).

So, do industry awards really matter? It's a question we hear often at PRWeek, whether it's about our own awards or others, and it was one that permeated last night's episode as well. (Shameless plug: entries are open for the 2011 PRWeek Awards and the deadline is 10/8, so don't leave it until the last minute!)  Though the always-cool Don Draper tried to downplay the importance of them to Peggy and everyone else, once he won that little statuette for his Glo-Coat commercial there was no stopping his celebration, which, as we saw, had some serious consequences (bedding a waitress from the diner and telling her he was Dick Whitman? Yikes!). Even Roger's snide remark about the awards' meaning still couldn't rain on his parade—or anyone else's: "I know they give out 50 of these things, but for some reason, it still matters," the fellow ad guy said. And, as Roger said in the beginning of the episode, once Grey won their Clio, their revenue tripled. Or as Dr. Faye Miller, one of the few women to turn Don Draper down, told him, "Your face is now on a dartboard at Grey."

Certainly there has been a lot of debate in our industry about awards, and what value they really have. Some view them as self-serving and a waste of time. But those are the same people who think that talking about your agency is akin to bragging and not devoting yourself to clients. Certainly everyone knows that clients come first, but then again, your agency should be a client, too. Industry awards, whether the PRWeek Awards, Cannes Lions, or Silver Anvils are a marketing tool, pure and simple. I recently had a senior PR executive tell me that the reason why the industry was making such a big deal about the Cannes Lions PR category was that it's something that comes up among her CMO clients, as in, "Wow, these Cannes Lions are great, do you have them for PR?" Even Roger, who pretended to be nonchalant about the whole thing was in fact just jealous that Don hadn't thanked him for giving him the start.

That brings me to another big part of the episode: finally seeing how Don Draper came to work at Sterling Cooper. While putting his portfolio into the box with Joan's fur was probably not the best move career wise, we did see some of his Draper smoothness come through at the end, when he took Roger out for a liquid breakfast and then showed up the next day telling Roger that he had hired him, we saw that sneaky ad man. But are we to believe that Mr "the-cure-for-the-common" Danny is the next Don Draper or was it just to show Don that karma is a bitch? Discuss.

On Sunday, the Financial Times reported that Google is in talks with movie studios to offer pay-per-view movies on YouTube, the video-sharing site Google bought in 2006 for $1.65 billion.

The planned partnership will place Google in direct competition with other streaming video, rental and subscription services such as NetFlix and Apple, which markets an AppleTV digital device that connects televisions to the internet.

Reportedly, the streaming movies will cost up to $5 for newer titles.

Technology media site TechCrunch said Google is also moving into the lucrative social game industry by reportedly launching Google Games later this year. It was reported the Mountain View, CA-based tech giant invested heavily in social games maker Zynga. By moving into social games, Google is taking on other game makers such as Playdom and PlayFish, but it also nudges it into the social networking realm currently dominated by Facebook.

The coverage for Glenn Beck's weekend rally in Washington continues, with most major news outlets weighing in with additional stories today.

CBS News reported that an estimated 87,000 people traveled to the National Mall in Washington to attend the August 28 rally as the conservative commentator called for "a return to traditional American values."

The rally was considered controversial by some, in part because it was held on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech.

While President Obama had not watched the rally, he said he supported the right to rally. A number of Democrats spoke publicly against it and many Republicans had avoided mentioning it all together, according to The Washington Post.

The rally followed weeks of news coverage surrounding a poll that said one in five Americans believe President Obama is a Muslim.