December 2009
Expect another round of great gift items, plus the return of Euphonium
Pandemonium — Christmas tunes with a little brass — and, reprising his role as the world’s greatest emcee this side of Rodeo Drive, Bob Ray Sanders!
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MEETINGS
Fa-la-la-la-la and Hedrick, Too
Greater Fort Worth PRSA will celebrate the season and George Hedrick and the last meal at the Petroleum Club before it closes for renovations — arrivedessertci, pie bar — at the long-anticipated (since last year) holiday luncheon Dec. 9.
Hedrick, a 44-year career veteran of Texas Electric Co. (now TXU Corp.), will
receive the Team Spirit Award in recognition of his support of the chapter and
its activities. He retired as TXU public information manager in 1992 and
remains an active member of the chapter and Fort Worth SPJ.
Time & date: 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 9
Place: Petroleum Club, Jacobs/Carter-Burgess Plaza, 777 Main St.
Cost: $25 members, $35 nonmembers, students $20
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That Santa kid at the top of the page is calling your name.
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STRAIGHT STUFF
Dec. 15 is applications deadline for the 2010 Korea-U.S. Journalists Exchange
Program, sponsored by the East-West Center. More at the web site or e-mail journalismfellowship@eastwestcenter.org.
IABC local update: CEOs often find themselves in the role of company spokesperson, when they lack
both the background and training to be effective. The real media relations
person at the company can do several things to prepare the executive suite for the microphones and notepads. ... Media training that emphasizes bridging to messages does little to help spokespeople mitigate risk during interviews. In fact, by
encouraging more talk in an environment in which it’s already difficult to stop, the bridging tactic increases the risk of being
misquoted. ... Most explanations of human behavior in the business world assume
that people are best persuaded by reason. Thus senior managers strive to
address the public and the press with “just the right words.” But what if that view is flawed?
IABC local update II: Several area nonprofits will join IABC Dallas for lunch Tuesday, Dec. 8, at
Popolos. Each nonprofit guest will bring a communications project to discuss
with her tablemates. Register here.
PRSA local update: The 2010 Texas Public Relations Association Silver Spur/Best of Texas Awards
competition, co-sponsored by the Austin, Central Texas, Dallas, Greater Fort
Worth, Houston and San Antonio PRSA chapters, is now open for entries. Info here. Enter early, enter often, but don’t wait for the Call for Entries brochure to hit your mailbox, as the organizers
are going green this year and not mailing one out. Deadline is 5 p.m. Jan. 14,
then late entries will be accepted (with an additional $50) through Jan. 21.
More from TPRA contest manager Julie Fix, APR, at awards@tpra.com.
PRSA local update II: Students will meet with professionals and receive career advice as well as résumé and portfolio critiques and possible job leads at a speed networking session
from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 3, in the Concho Room of the UT Arlington
University Center. Info here or from UTA PRSSA president Kathelin Buxton, kathelin.buxton@gmail.com.
PRSA local update III: Another shout out to the judges for the Totem Awards: round 2 who got ’er done Nov. 5, including coordinator Lauren Burkett and Kay Barkin, APR; Andra Bennett, APR; Carroll Burney; Diane Rhodes Bergman, APR; Mary Dulle, APR, Fellow; Richie Escovedo; Joan Hunter; Linda Jacobson, APR; Dan Keeney, APR; Cathy Mueller, APR; Margaret Ritsch; Kim Speairs, APR; Jahnae Stout; Paul Sturiale, APR; Laura Van Hoosier, APR; and Cindy Vasquez.
PRSA local update IV: A graphic designer is needed to help the chapter complete its Kids Who Care pro
bono publication. Organizers tout the project as a great opportunity for
students or up-and-coming PR pros. E- Cindy Vasquez, cindydvasquez@yahoo.com. ... Through December, PRSA national is offering a professional interest
sections promotion. Current members get $20 off if they add a section during
December, and new members receive a section membership. More at prsa.org.
PRSA local update V: Dallas PRSA will deck the halls at its holiday social Wednesday, Dec. 9,
5:30-7:30 p.m. at Sambuca Uptown. It’s free for members and one guest if registered in advance, or $10 at the door.
Participants are encouraged to bring a new, unwrapped toy for the Dallas Area
Rapid Transit Police Santa Cops program. Info here.
PRSA local update VI: Standing reminder. The DFW Communicators Job Bank lists full-time, part-time and internship positions in PR, media affairs,
advertising/sales, event planning, graphic design, marketing, and corporate and
employee communications throughout North Texas. Employers who are members of
the participating organizations may post a job listing for $50; the cost for
nonmembers is $75. Nonprofits get a 50 percent discount. Each posting runs
three weeks. Greater Fort Worth PRSA receives a portion of the proceeds when a
member marks his or her membership status on the submission form. More from
Jerrod Resweber at jresweber@webershandwick.com.
Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas update: In Texas if the majority of a governing body conduct official business in
private they risk criminal conviction and six months in jail. No more back-room
deals. That’s been Texas law for 42 years, but now the Texas Municipal League wants more
than 1,100 Texas cities to sign on to a federal lawsuit that would find those
penalties a violation of the constitutional right to free speech. The FOIFT,
Texas Daily Newspaper Association, Texas Press Association and Texas
Association of Broadcasters oppose tampering with the Texas Open Meetings Act,
and former Lt. Gov.
Bill Hobby is none too pleased, either. More here and here and here and here. The FOIFT advances the rights and responsibilities of citizens to access their government.
Texas Watchdog update: Texas state senators, Democrats and Republicans alike, have used taxpayer money
to attend a conference in Maui, stay overnight at a Ritz-Carlton in New York
and fly on charter or private planes. That’s according to a Texas Watchdog review of expense reports and travel logs covering a year and a half (Nov. 5). ... Houston mayoral candidate Annise Parker has made public the personal federal income tax returns for herself and her
longtime domestic partner, responding to a request of both Parker and her opponent, attorney Gene Locke (Nov. 13). Texas Watchdog is a Houston-based news web site and training center that scrutinizes the
actions of government agencies, bureaucracies and politicians in Texas.
SPJ national update: The White House, media representatives and key senators reached a compromise on
legislation to protect reporters from being forced to disclose their sources in
federal court. Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and a
member of the media team involved in the negotiations, called the bill “a compromise we can live with, and it seems to be a compromise the White House
can live with.” Here’s the text of the bill. More here and here and here and here. ... Newspaper circulation may be worse than it looks. ... Newspapers aren’t doing as badly as you think. ... New study points to healthy newspaper readership.
SPJ national update II: If Harry Cabluck’s not safe, no one at the AP is. ... USA Today tests free e-editions at colleges. ... No puff piece here. The Obama administration will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as
long as they conform to state laws. Fourteen states allow marijuana for medical
purposes; Texas does not. More here and here. And when the Denver alt paper Westword posted an ad for a reviewer of the
state’s marijuana dispensaries, it quickly received more than 120 applicants, many
offering to work for free. More here. ... Worried about pointless tweets, Australia’s Griffith University made Twitter education part of the mandatory journalism
course load. Reasoned a senior lecturer: “Some students’ tweets are not as in-depth as you might like.” More here. ... Why journalists are uneasy talking about Twitter as journalism.
SPJ national update III: YouTube launches citizen journalism channel. ... ”Canada is becoming a safe haven for the world’s exiled journalists.” ... Cook County prosecutors said Nov. 10 that Northwestern University
j-students paid two witnesses in order to make their case that an innocent man
was wrongly convicted of murder. The students’ professor, David Protess, said the state’s court filing “is so filled with factual errors that if my students had done this kind of
reporting and investigating, I would give them an F.” Anthony McKinney is serving a life sentence for the 1978 murder of a security guard, but the
students have presented evidence, including interviews with witnesses,
suggesting that several other men committed the crime. More here and here and here. ... The major business press underplayed s story that the FDIC’s troubled-banks list soared to more than 550 in the third quarter. The FDIC now
considers 7 percent of all banks in the U.S. “troubled,” and the number’s growing — up 33 percent from the second quarter. More here.
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PEOPLE & PLACES
Tonie Auer is the reporter for the Fort Worth-Dallas issue of Bisnow.com. Send commercial
real estate news to her at tonie@bisnow.com. ...
SPJ member and tireless community entrepreneur Tammy Jones is looking for a few good angels. For a dozen years her site singlerose.com (“The Premier Online Resource for Single Moms”) has matched donors with single mothers and their children who could use a
little help. More than 100 families are in the program this year, and some, she
says, are in serious need. All Your Heart Ministries in Kennedale got the
spirit last month and held a toy run benefiting Single Rose (and the Kennedale Fire Department Angel Tree). Want to
help? Here’s how. ...
GCG Marketing received a top honor at the 2009 Medical Marketing & Media Awards for an awareness campaign for the Children’s Neuroblastoma Cancer Foundation. Earlier this year, the campaign, punctuated
with photos by Fort Worth’s Geno Loro Jr., received a Manny award from Med Ad News and a district ADDY from the American
Advertising Federation. Medical Marketing & Media magazine recognized GCG as one of the nation’s best 75 health care marketing agencies. ...
The TCU Daily Skiff, the dailyskiff.com web site and Image magazine received
four national awards in design and multimedia storytelling from the Associated
Collegiate Press and College Media Advisers, meeting Oct. 28-Nov. 1 in Austin.
CMA’s Best of Collegiate Design 17 named Ronald Villegas, a 2009 graduate, its first-place headline winner, all publications. Rose Baca, Travis Brown and Chance Welch helped propel the dailyskiff.com to second place in ACP multimedia best of
show. Villegas received an honorable mention in the ACP 2009 Design of the Year
magazine competition, and Max Landman, a 2009 graduate, took fifth place in informational graphic, all categories, in
the CMA Best of Collegiate Design. ...
The Westlake Academy newspaper, The Black Cow, turned up in the October Quill,
SPJ’s magazine, and in the September Editor & Publisher. Volunteer adviser Dave Lieber, never shy, sent the award-winning book compilation to 200 government and
education VIPs, and the accolades poured in, many of them making the bulletin
board at twitter.com/blackcownews. Meanwhile, Lieber’s “Watchdog Nation: Bite Back When Businesses and Scammers Do You Wrong” has won its second national book award for social change.
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GET A JOB
From the Ole Miss j-school site, sent in by Angie Summers. The News Herald in Panama City, Fla., has an opening for a crime beat reporter
with at least some experience, though not necessarily in covering cops. Metro
editor Will Glover notes that the beach is nearby, “so we get a few submissions, usually from people in their 20s and 30s, who make
up most of our staff.” E- Glover at wglover@pcnh.com.
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PRESIDENT’S COLUMN
Andra Bennett House, APR, Greater Fort Worth PRSA
“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together
is success.” Henry Ford said that, and it certainly applies to all the GFW PRSA board members and
committee chairs who worked together for success during a very unusual year.
The chapter persevered through the Great Recession with outstanding luncheon and
professional development programming, good attendance and enthusiastic
participation. We’re down about 10 percent in membership, but we expected that due to the economy.
We revised the budget, renegotiated contracts and protected our assets, like
everyone else in these difficult times.
We also co-hosted the Southwest District Conference, honored Dr. Doug Newsom, APR, Fellow, and gained a new APR — Diane Rhodes Bergman. We helped Komen for the Cure and Kids Who Care. We judged competitions for two
other PRSA chapters and awarded three college PR students with scholarships.
Many thanks to the board members and committee chairs for their selfless
contributions and tireless dedication: VP membership Tom Burke, APR; VP programs Carol Murray, APR; treasurer Allyson Cross; treasurer-elect Marc Flake; treasurer-elect and then secretary Linda Jacobson, APR; secretary Terry Morawski; directors Joan Hunter, Richie Escovedo and Lauren Kwedar; assembly delegates Laura Van Hoosier, APR, and Dan Keeney, APR; accreditation committee, Lisa Starnes, APR; awards/scholarships, Lauren Burkett; bylaws, Daryl Wagoner; community service, Cindy Vasquez; diversity, Glenda Thompson; ethics and Southwest District Conference, Margaret Ritsch; hospitality, Lara Kohl (with Joan Hunter); job bank, Jerrod Resweber; newsletter/public relations, Donna McLallen, APR; nominating, Laura Van Hoosier, APR; professional development, Lauren Kwedar; Education SIG, Holly Ellman; Health Care SIG, Christy Jones; Independent Practitioners SIG, Paul Sturiale, APR; Masters SIG, Andrea Helms; Nonprofit SIG, Diane Rhodes Bergman, APR; NuPros SIG, Lacey Douglas; Online SIG, Richie Escovedo; President’s Council, Kim Speairs, APR; Social Media SIG, Richie Escovedo and Lauren Fernandez; and student liaisons, Jahnae Stout, Carroll Burney, Mary Dulle, APR, and Dave Hogan, APR.
Finally, thanks to the membership for continuing to value the chapter and offer
feedback. Be sure to join us at our December networking luncheon to catch up
with your peers and share in the holiday spirit. Speaking of spirit, we will
honor longtime member George Hedrick with our Team Spirit Award. See you there!
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OVER & OUT
John Dycus, Fort Worth SPJ
Welcome, new eChaser contributors Texas Watchdog and the Freedom of Information
Foundation of Texas. Each month Laura Lee Prather and Keith Elkins at the FOIFT and Trent Seibert and his merry band of intrepids at Texas Watchdog will share the latest, which
will run after the PRSA local updates. It’s a vital service these organizations provide. Bad behavior never sleeps. We’re happy to shine a spotlight their way. ...
You say you figure you’ll be too busy or too tired or too deficient in holiday cheer to do the
Christmas party/JPS book benefit at Coors this Wednesday (Dec. 2)? What, are
you crazy? RSVP already. ...
Al Armendariz, an SMU professor who wrote a controversial study of air pollution caused by
Barnett Shale drilling, is the new regional administrator for the EPA’s Dallas office. “Dr. Armendariz is exactly the kind of person you’d want to have this job but seemingly never gets it,” said Jim Schermbeck of the clean-air group Downwinders at Risk. When he’s not muddying his positions to woo Republicans who will always hate him and
mock him for his trouble, President Obama can occasionally nail it. He did so with this appointment. ...
The Associated Press fact-checks Sarah Palin’s new book and finds it full of “familiar claims from the 2008 presidential campaign that haven’t become any truer over time.” She criticizes President Obama for pushing through a bailout package that actually was achieved by his
Republican predecessor — a package she seemed to support at the time. There’s more, much more.
Closing words: “A little nonsense now and then is cherished by the wisest men.” — Roald Dahl, author of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” ... “Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald ... “The Lord made Adam, the Lord made Eve, he made ’em both a little bit naive.” — lyricist Yip Harburg ... “I don’t make deals, I don’t party and drink with sources, and I don’t play a game of leaks. I read, I listen, I squirrel information. It’s fun.” — investigative journalist Seymour Hersh