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Advanced Mobility Systems
July 2006
MEETINGS
Next at IABC/Fort Worth ...
Let's Have a Hand for the Brand
Lynn Handley, for more than 20 years a communications professional and a decision maker behind the new logo and rebranding at UT Arlington, will discuss branding, visibility, identity and public perception at the IABC meeting July 25.
Now with Market Builders Principle, Handley specializes in strategic planning, brand development and positioning, product development, customer acquisition and retention, internet commerce, communications programming, and employee and media relations. A former Bronze Quill winner and Dallas Volunteer of the Year, she holds bachelor's and master's degrees from UNT and has been an adjunct professor of public relations at TCU.
Time & date: 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Tuesday, July 25
Place: Petroleum Club, Carter-Burgess Plaza, 777 Main St., 39th floor
Parking: $2.50 in parking garage at Seventh and Commerce streets
Cost: $20 members, $25 nonmembers, $18 students
RSVP by noon July 21: julie.trowbridge@c-b.com or iabcfortworth.com/paypal.htm
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Next at Greater Fort Worth PRSA ...
Making That Special Event Special
What traditional marketing tool is becoming a staple in most PR plans? And what allows your organization to connect directly to your target audience?
Special events.
Event marketer extraordinaire Cynthia Ham, a principal at one of the largest marketing firms in the Southeast, archer>malmo, is traveling to Fort Worth specifically to discuss event marketing -- sponsorship activation, integrating a client's brand into an event, pitfalls to avoid -- with GFW PRSA at the July 12 meeting.
Ham has 30 years of experience in public relations and event marketing. At archer>malmo, she oversees PR and event marketing for a range of national clients, including Terminix, Cellular South, Merry Maids and Kraft Food Ingredients. In addition to chairing many of Memphis' milestone events, she has collaborated with Sir Michael Parker, special events producer for Queen Elizabeth II, on several projects.
Time & date: 11:45 a.m.-1 p.m. Wednesday, July 12
Place: Petroleum Club, Carter-Burgess Plaza, 777 Main St., 39th floor
Parking: free valet in parking garage at Seventh and Commerce streets
Cost: $25 members, $30 nonmembers, $20 students
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Next at Fort Worth SPJ ...
Fajitas, Frolic and a Bit of Bounding Main
Some things are so good, you have to do them again.
For the July meeting, SPJ will reprise last year's family-friendly aqua-soirée at the Fort Worth Boat Club on Eagle Mountain Lake. In a drought, embrace the water. There'll be plenty to swim in (tree-shaded pool by the boat club patio), fish in (off the dock) or breeze around in on Amon Carter's still-sleek 38-foot cabin cruiser. Jeff Prince will serenade you as you dine.
Rides on the legendary publisher's legendary Chris-Craft, arguably the highlight of last year's party, will happen from 7 to 10 p.m. Put on the memory shades and the time-warp 'phones, feel that lake spray in your face and pretend you're Somebody. You owe it to yourself.
If you missed this deal before, remember, life doesn't always give you a second chance.
Time & date: 5:30 p.m. 'til sometime later, Saturday, July 22; eat at 6:30
Place: Fort Worth Boat Club on Eagle Mountain Lake
Cost: $20; $10-$15 for kids under 13, depending on how big the little rascal is and how much he eats (all plates of boat club food cost the chapter the same, regardless of the consumer's age or appetite)
What to do: fish off the dock, enjoy the pool, get a ride on Amon Carter's boat, go sailing with Paul King and Gayle Reaves-King (wear non-skid shoes), relax at Carolyn Poirot and Jack Strickland's cabana, etc.; sign-in starts at 5:30 on the covered patio at the quizzically titled "doagie bar," the one-story building adjacent to the parking lot (down the hill east of the clubhouse); if you're swimming, feel free to show up earlier, say 4 o'clock
Dinner: fajita buffet, soft drinks and tea, and outgoing president Reaves-King's palate-pleasing brownies for dessert, all on the upper patio between the pool and clubhouse dining room
Drinking rules: cash bar at the clubhouse, SPJ-provided beer at the cabana, and never the two shall meet; TABC statutes mandate that alcoholic beverages may not be brought on clubhouse grounds, which includes the lawn, so ... beer/wine/mixed drink with dinner, buy it at the clubhouse bar ... beer before and after, free at the cabana, to be consumed there
RSVP by 5 p.m. July 20: Kay Pirtle at mkpirtle@yahoo.com
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STRAIGHT STUFF
Last call for the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference of the Southwest, July 14-16 at the Hilton DFW Lakes in Grapevine.
IABC local update: Craig Vanbebber, senior manager, media relations at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control in Dallas, will discuss "Prioritizing Media Relations: Tips, Tools and Tactics to Help Your Organization Excel" at the Dallas/IABC luncheon Tuesday, July 11. Learn more and register here.
PRSA local update: Greater Fort Worth PRSA is offering two teleseminars this month. At 2 p.m. Tuesday, July 18, learn how to measure blogs and wikis. New forms of communication require new methods of measuring effectiveness. Katie Delahaye Paine, founder of KDPaine & Partners LLC and publisher of The Measurement Standard and The One-Minute Benchmarking Bulletin, will outline the forms of new media measurement and detail the tools and techniques needed to put a measurement program in place. Register by July 14. At 2 p.m. Thursday, July 27, see how a crisis can quickly evolve into a disaster if errors are made in the initial response. Prolific and oft-quoted James Lukaszewski, ABC, APR, Fellow PRSA, will show how planning for crisis communication can aid executive decision-making and how to set up testing procedures to ensure those plans work. Register by July 24. If enough members commit to attend a teleseminar, the chapter will pay for it and find a place to hold it. Contact Marc Flake at mflake@tarrantcounty.com by the registration deadline.
SPJ national update: Incompetence or lying, take your pick; and White House request to kill story rejected. The U.S. government said it could not find the men Guantanamo detainee Abdullah Mujahid believes could help set him free. The British publication The Guardian found them in three days. One was working for Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai. Another was teaching at a leading American college. Another was living in Kabul. More here. ... The same team that produced the Pulitzer Prize-winning National Security Agency "domestic spying" story, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, put together The New York Times' piece on government surveillance of private banking records. The White House asked the paper not to run it, which happened with the NSA story as well, and the Times complied for a year. "We have listened closely to the administration's arguments for withholding this information, and given them the most serious and respectful consideration," said Bill Keller, the newspaper's executive editor. "We remain convinced that the administration's extraordinary access to this vast repository of international financial data, however carefully targeted use of it may be, is a matter of public interest." More here and here and here and here and here and here..
SPJ national update II: Is AT&T helping the NSA spy on U.S. internet traffic?; and were secrets disclosed to expelled reporters at Guantanamo Bay? In a network operations center in metropolitan St. Louis, AT&T has maintained a secret, highly secured room since 2002 where government work is being conducted, according to two former AT&T workers once employed at the center. The former AT&T workers say that only government officials or AT&T employees with top-secret clearance are admitted to the room. The former workers say company supervisors told them that employees inside the room were "monitoring network traffic" and that the room was being used by "a government agency." The details bear the earmarks of an operation run by the National Security Agency, according to two intelligence experts with extensive knowledge of the NSA and its operations. More here. ... Military officials at Guantanamo Bay have launched an investigation to find out if officers at the prison there revealed "classified or sensitive material" to reporters, according to the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer. The Observer is one of three newspapers whose journalists were expelled from the prison base June 14 after spending five days at the site covering the aftermath of three prisoner suicides. In a June 17 story the Observer reported that the "investigation was ordered the same day that an Observer story from Guantanamo ... caused controversy within the Defense Department. The story reported on the details of an officers' staff meeting at the prison in the wake of three detainee suicides." More here and here and here and here.
SPJ national update III: It's only wrong if you're caught, and then only if someone can make you pay. Over a 5.5-year period ending in 2005, members of Congress, their families and aides took at least 23,000 trips -- valued at almost $50 million -- financed by private sponsors, many of them with business on Capitol Hill. A nine-month analysis done by the Center for Public Integrity, American Public Media and Northwestern University's Medill News Service revealed at least 200 trips to Paris, 150 to Hawaii and 140 to Italy. Some trips seem to have been little more than pricey vacations -- often taken in the company of spouses or other relatives -- wrapped around speeches or seminars. Congressional ethics rules permit lawmakers and aides to take privately sponsored travel in connection with their official duties but the trips shouldn't be "substantially recreational in nature." The analysis found many apparent violations of ethics rules. Disclosure forms show, for example, that at least 90 trips, valued at about $145,000, were sponsored or co-sponsored by firms registered to lobby the federal government. Ethics rules do not allow lobbyists to pay for congressional travel. More here.
SPJ national update IV: TV reporters decry drop in Iraq coverage; 7 of 10 journalists surveyed accused of bias in past year; and photos show a war beyond investigations. News of the bombing that felled a CBS news crew washed over Baghdad's tight-knit press corps like a tempest, evoking waves of anxiety, sadness, resolve and dismay. American television journalists covering Iraq confronted the reality that it took the deaths of a cameraman and soundman and critical injuries to correspondent Kimberly Dozier to help push Iraq back to the forefront of the nightly news. By the end of April, the time devoted to Iraq on the weeknight newscasts of the three major networks had dropped nearly 60 percent from 2003, according to the independent Tyndall Report tracking service. Even before the June 5 attack in a relatively placid section of Baghdad, some network correspondents had concluded that, even as they were risking their lives, audiences and producers in America had grown weary of the coverage. More here. ... More than half of newspaper journalists in a recent survey believe an unethical or unprofessional incident occurred in their newsroom within the past five years, while seven out of 10 said they had been accused of bias in the past 12 months, according to a study by the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. But at least 70 percent of those polled more often pointed to "factors beyond their control" as the cause of such poor ethical perceptions, rather than their own newspapers' actions. More here. ... Again and again throughout the Iraq war, amateur photographs have exposed the flaws of the military's carefully constructed image of discipline. Pictures made Abu Ghraib a symbol of shame throughout the world. And photographs and video images are again undermining the military's cherished reputation for calm under fire and heroic self-restraint. More here.
SPJ national update V: Perhaps a different set of Republican family values for each family?; online privacy again at issue; and British news orgs tout objectivity to Americans. Republican Jim Galley, who is running for Congress as a "pro-traditional family" candidate, was married to two women at the same time, defaulted on his child support payments and has been accused of abuse by one of his ex-wives. The San Diego Union-Tribune discovered the personal history in making public-records checks on Galley. The checks are part of the paper's election reporting process. More here. ... Big internet and telephone companies are girding to fight an unprecedented call by the Bush administration for them to keep detailed records of customers' online activities for two years. The request follows disclosure this year that the Justice Department had solicited potentially billions of online search queries from some of the same companies and that the National Security Agency had requested calling records of virtually all U.S. customers. Internet companies typically keep customer histories for only a few days or weeks. More here. ... Two British news organizations believe America is so hungry for unbiased coverage that they launched similar ad campaigns touting their objectivity within days of each other. Reuters and BBC World News both tried the "you decide" approach to the news with ads that ask readers for their perspective on major issues. The campaigns feature images of controversial topics such as bird flu, the war in Iraq and immigration, accompanied by two choices that seek to capture both sides of the debate. More here.
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PEOPLE & PLACES
The Balcom Agency won eight awards at this year's All Industry Marketing competition -- two gold, five silver and a bronze -- for work developed for Justin Boots, Tony Lama Boots and Nocona Boots. The Justin America campaign won gold in multimedia national campaign greater than $50,000. An ad for Nocona Legacy boots also won a gold award. The ad featured the headline "Some things never get old" and a photograph of a couple in the back of an old convertible. Balcom earned silver awards for the Justin Vintage Collection campaign for new product introduction; Tony Lama TLX Performance radio spots; the TLX Performance billboard; the Tony Lama 2005 catalog; and the Justin Brands Christmas card. A bronze award was received for the Justin George Strait Cowboy Collection campaign. The AIM awards are sponsored by the Western and English Trade Association. ...
News from Decatur, the county seat of Wise. Texas Tech grad Jeremy Martin and Christina Lane from TCU have joined the Wise County Messenger staff. ... Messenger photographer Cody Duty, an '06 Decatur High School graduate and former editor of the student paper, received a $1,500 scholarship from the North & East Texas Press Association and will attend Western Kentucky University, majoring in photojournalism and Spanish. ... The Messenger, along with the Graham Leader and Hood County News, recently hosted a traveling bus tour of publishers from the National Newspaper Association. Messenger publisher Roy Eaton is a former NNA president. ...
Star-Telegram staffers won 13 first places and took home Photojournalist and Print Journalist of the Year honors at the 2006 Lone Star Awards in Houston given by the Houston Press Club. Leila Fadel, who has been dispatched to Iraq several times as a Knight Ridder correspondent, earned Print Journalist of the Year. Khampha Bouaphanh, now with the AP, won Photojournalist of the Year. The first-place prizes went to UTA Shorthorn exes Michael Currie, layout; Tom Pennington, both news and feature photo; and Linda P. Campbell, editorial writing; Deanna Boyd and Melody McDonald, a tie for first in spot news with Fadel; Amie Streater, Maria Recio and former S-T reporter Jennifer Autrey, investigative reporting; Autrey again, public service; Scott Streater and Mark Horvit, politics and government reporting; Austin bureau chief Jay Root, general commentary; Jim Reeves, sports commentary; Jan Hubbard, sports writing; Ralph Lauer, sports photo; and Jen Friedberg, internet-only feature.
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GET A JOB
The Battalion, Texas A&M's 112-year-old, 22,000-circulation daily student newspaper, seeks a news adviser. Must have a B.A. in journalism or related field and 3-5 years of professional news media or advising experience. Master's degree in journalism or related field and experience working with a daily newspaper preferred. More here. ...
A Mid-Cities company is looking for a proofreader and desktop publisher to work in department that facilitates large-bid proposal documents. Salary in low to mid-$30s with benefits. Contact Amy Cox at amy.cox@ajilonoffice.com or 817-870-1800, ext. 215. ...
Reminder: The South Florida Sun-Sentinel is accepting applications through July 30 for a minority editorial training program. After successfully completing six months at the Sun-Sentinel in the fall, the trainee will begin 18 months as an entry-level reporter, with the goal of being offered a staff position. Applicants should be beginning journalists, preferably with a college degree, capable of conducting interviews in Spanish or Creole. The trainee will receive a salary and benefits. Send a cover letter, résumé, one-page personal essay, 8-10 clips and three references to recruitment editor Kathy Pellegrino, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 200 E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, Fla. 33301.
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NEW MEMBERS
PRSA ... Kimberly Eloe, JPS Health Network
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COMINGS & GOINGS
Shiftings ... at the S-T: Leila Fadel to the Arlington newsroom, covering higher education ... Patrick McGee to Northeast, covering immigration ... Ben Tinsley and Mark Agee switching newsrooms, Agee joining the public safety team in Northeast and Tinsley covering cops in Arlington
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PRESIDENT'S CORNER
Holly Ellman, Greater Fort Worth PRSA
OK, it's July and it's hot. So let's focus a few months out on an event that will happen in cooler October. Greater Fort Worth PRSA will participate in Cowtown Brush Up on Saturday, Oct. 7, and you should be there.
This year's community service project -- sprucing the exteriors of homes owned by low-income individuals, particularly the elderly and people with disabilities -- will let us step away from our traditional role of PR advisers and communications planners and work with other volunteers in the city. The chapter is forming a team, and we need you. No special talents are required to join the fun -- just a good heart and an energetic spirit.
Approximately 2,500 volunteers will paint homes, plant trees and remove graffiti. Over the past 15 years, Cowtown Brush Up has proven to be more than an annual house painting in the central city. It has come to symbolize the heart of Fort Worth: neighbor helping neighbor.
E-mail Richie Escovedo, 2006 community service chair, at rescovedo@mansfieldisd.org. Tell him you have a pair of old paint-splattered paints perfect for the job, and you'll bring them out of retirement for the occasion.
Another event to anticipate in October is the chapter's 20th anniversary celebration. Contact Laura Squires, APR, at laura@witherspoon.com to help. She also seeks photos, artifacts and memories from the "good ol' days."
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PRESIDENT'S COLUMN
Ken Roberts, Fort Worth IABC
Entries in Fort Worth IABC's 2006 Bronze Quill Awards were judged by three IABC chapters across the nation, and the comments we received just reaffirmed that communicators in North Texas are doing outstanding work. From more than 60 entries, 14 earned the Award of Merit.
Two or three times a year we're asked to judge other chapters' BQ competitions. When those chances arise, I hope you'll volunteer. It only takes a couple of hours, and you get to see, touch and feel strong material from other professional communicators. It's a great way to kick-start your creative brain.
Speaking of awards, look at this lineup: PR Week Award for Crisis Management, Dallas Volunteer of the Year Award, Telly Award, The Dalton Pen Communications Award, IABC Bronze Quill, 3M Telecom Systems Division "Best of 3M MAP" Award, and multiple American Graphic Design and Premier Print awards. Lynn Handley of Market Builders Principle received those honors, and she will speak at our July 25 meeting.
Lynn was a key participant in UT Arlington's recent rebranding. Drawing on this and other experiences from more than 20 years as a communications professional, she will share valuable lessons about branding, visibility, identity and public perception. I look forward to the professional development that Lynn will provide, and I look forward to seeing you there. Member or guest, all are welcome.
Fort Worth IABC's year began July 1, and new directors were installed. Next month I will introduce you to the 2006-07 board.
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OVER & OUT
John Dycus, Fort Worth SPJ
Thanks, Wes Turner, for letting us tool about in Amon Carter's boat again at the SPJ come one, come all lake party July 22. You know you're invited. So is everyone else at the Star-Telegram, PRSA, IABC, FW Weekly, FW Business Press, Wise County Messenger -- you get the idea. Out there at The Keller Citizen, you folks doing anything that night? ...
SPJ.org has undergone a massive redesign. The idea was to produce a more informative and entertaining site that is simple to navigate, and the html'ers succeeded handsomely. The previous version was a little of some of that. Also, find plenty of materials aimed at helping chapter leaders and SPJ members promote the organization. ...
Your dues at work. SPJ has awarded a $1,000 Legal Defense Fund grant to the Deseret (Utah) Morning News to defray legal costs associated with filing a brief to be reviewed by that state's supreme court. The case involves the paper's right to obtain government records. The paper seeks information tied to a sexual harassment case filed by a former county employee who alleges that a superior made unwanted advances and that other county officials knew about the situation but did nothing to stop it. ...
Maybe something will come of this. In early May, a group of U.S. senators and representatives formed a caucus to monitor press freedom violations worldwide and to lobby in defense of persecuted journalists. Co-chaired by Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Reps. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Mike Pence, R-Ind., the Congressional Caucus for the Freedom of the Press aims to draw attention to attacks on journalists and media censorship. The caucus has pledged to "provide guidance to Congress and federal agencies on policies and actions related to press freedom at home and abroad." ...
Do you know a journalist who has demonstrated courage, tenacity and integrity in rural journalism? Then nominate him or her for the Tom and Pat Gish Award, presented by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues. Nomination deadline is Sept. 1. Send nominations to Al Cross, the institute's director, at al.cross@uky.edu or 122 Grehan Journalism Building, University of Kentucky, Lexington 40506-0042. Tom and Pat Gish, who are in their 50th year of publishing The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Ky., have withstood advertiser boycotts, declining population, personal attacks and even the burning of their newspaper office to provide the citizens of Letcher County the kind of journalism pretty much lacking on the East Coast, West Coast, in your home town and in rural areas in between, especially those places dominated by extractive industries -- in this case, coal.
Closing words: "As an officer, I have the deepest respect for the president. But as an officer, it is also my duty to point out when an order is wrong. What protects our democracy is that we do not just follow orders blindly. ... There was often a real Alice in Wonderland quality to this case. They had already decided that the detainees were terrorists so didn't have normal rights, but then they wanted to hold a commission to determine that they were terrorists." -- Lt. Cdr. Charles Swift, court-appointed counsel for Osama bin Laden's driver, who launched a series of groundbreaking legal challenges that ended with the Supreme Court ruling that the military commissions backed by President Bush for international terrorism suspects were unlawful
Closing words II, G.W.B. & the Pharisees division: "I think -- tide turning -- see, as I remember, I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of, it's easy to see a tide turn -- did I say those words?" -- George W. Bush, asked if the tide was turning in Iraq
Closing words III, special Republicans must have it both ways, it's an entitlement entry: "A few days ago, Treasury Secretary John Snow said he was scandalized by our decision to report on the bank-monitoring program. But in September 2003 the same Secretary Snow invited a group of reporters from our papers, The Wall Street Journal and others to travel with him and his aides on a military aircraft for a six-day tour to show off the department's efforts to track terrorist financing. The secretary's team discussed many sensitive details of their monitoring efforts, hoping they would appear in print and demonstrate the administration's relentlessness against the terrorist threat." -- Dean Baquet and Bill Keller, editors of the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, respectively, in a joint op-ed piece July 2