eChaser: January 2004


	Society of Professional Journalists, Fort Worth Professional Chapter Public Relations Society of America, Greater Fort Worth Chapter International Association of Business Communicators, Fort Worth Chapter eChaser archive [graphics format] January 2004 Tireless advocate for health care reform: GENE MITCHELL, 1920-2003 Journalist and consumer health care advocate Gene Mitchell died Dec. 10. A 1950 journalism graduate of SMU, in his later years he became an advocate for health care reform in the state and lobbied in Austin for numerous consumer-oriented initiatives. To this end he ran in 1998 and 2000 as the Democratic candidate for state representative, District 98. Mr. Mitchell was the editor of several community newspapers and magazines and contributed stories to newspapers local and statewide. He was a longtime member of the national journalism fraternity, Sigma Delta Chi (now the Society of Professional Journalists), and performed for years in the annual Gridiron Show. He served as executive secretary of the Fort Worth Home Builders Association, 1955-63, where he was the editor of Home Builder magazine and also produced and directed the annual Fort Worth Parade of Homes. ================================================= MEETINGS Next at IABC/Fort Worth ... Chute, What a Deal Think funnel cake and Ferris wheel, cutting horses and barrel racing, long-stride cowboys and cowgirls in flying fringe. Think chuckwagon races and trick riders, rodeo clowns and the glittering pageantry of the grand entry. Think fat, floppy-eared rabbits, pigs with personality, blue-ribbon poultry and sheep primed for sheering. Think midway barkers and whoop-it-up crowds and spending 20 bucks to win a $5 stuffed giraffe for your best gal. Think grand-prize steers and enough ag demos to make you believe you've died and awakened in Bryan. Think stock show weather. OK, don't do that. W.R. "Bob" Watt Jr., whose job it is to make you think these things about the Southwestern Exposition Livestock Show and Rodeo, like you need any coaxing, will tell how the stock show keeps people coming back for more, year after year after bronc-busting year, at the first IABC/Fort Worth meeting of 2004. * Time & date: 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 6 * Place: Petroleum Club, Carter-Burgess Plaza, 777 Main St., 39th floor * Parking: $2.50 in parking garage at Seventh and Commerce streets (get ticket validated) * Cost: $17 members, $22 nonmembers, $12 students * RSVP: Julie Trowbridge at trowbridgeja@c-b.com ----- Next at Greater Fort Worth PRSA ... Keeping Your Balance on the PIO High Wire Serve the city that hired you, or the public that is served by the city? Lt. Kent Worley, public information officer for Fort Worth Fire & Rescue; Dot Kent, public education specialist in environmental management with the city of Fort Worth; and Senior Cpl. Chris Gilliam, PIO of the Dallas Police Department, know all about life in the public sector and how it differs from the corporate world -- what it's like to have television cameras trained on you as your department responds to an emergency -- and they'll share their insights at the January meeting. Worley has been with Fort Worth Fire & Rescue for 26 years, the last 14 as PIO; he spent much of his career in front of the cameras as a journalist, most recently at KTVT/Channel 11, before switching to public relations. Kent worked 20 years as a reporter, producer and anchor at radio and TV stations throughout Texas. Most recently, she was executive producer at KTVT. * Time & date: 11:45 a.m.-1 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 14 * Place: Petroleum Club, Carter-Burgess Plaza, 777 Main St., 39th floor * Parking: free valet in parking garage at Seventh and Commerce streets (get ticket validated) * Cost: $20 members, $23 nonmembers, $18 students * RSVP by noon Jan. 12: rsvp@fortworthprsa.org ----- Next at Fort Worth SPJ ... Short for Web Log Remember Salam Pax? The irreverent, 29-year-old Iraqi architect reported from the rooftops of Baghdad on the bombing of his country and in the process elevated blogging to an Internet art form of grass-roots journalism. His Web diary, or "blog," riveted readers. So are blogs the purest form of coverage, where information is unfiltered and unspun? Or are they a bog of misinformation that's being manipulated by unqualified writers? Practitioners and critics will argue all sides of the issue at the January meeting. Plus there will be practical information on how to start blogging and pointers to places where the phenomenon can be observed. * Time & date: 1-3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 24 * Place: Giovanni's Italian Restaurant, 2140 Ridgmar Blvd. * Cost: $13 members, $18 nonmembers, $5 students; just to hear the program -- free * Menu: choice of chicken alla panna (chicken breast sauteed with mushrooms and shallots in a sherry wine cream sauce) or lasagna; garlic bread, salad and tea; complimentary glass of wine * RSVP: Kay Pirtle at mkpirtle@yahoo.com ================================================= STRAIGHT STUFF PR pros Steve Cody, managing partner and co-founder, PepperCom; Wendy Lane, president, Lane Marketing Communications; and Kenneth Makovsky, president, Makovsky & Co., will present "Secrets of Rainmaking: How to Attract and Win New PR Clients," a PRSA teleseminar, from noon to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 13, in conference room 1-314 (Pathology and Anatomy, the sign says) at UNT Health Science Center, 3500 Camp Bowie Blvd. Parking is free in Lot A, off Clifton Street; tell attendant that you're there for a meeting. Enter main building at south entrance near the flagpoles. Cost is $10 for members, $15 nonmembers. A brown-bag lunch is encouraged, as food will not be provided. ... Dallas IABC promises fun in a casual setting for participants to bring their fresh communication ideas, job-search experiences and holiday stories to the sixth annual networking luncheon from 11:15 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 13, at Blue Mesa Grill in Addison. Cost: $23 for online registration up to Jan. 11 ($28 day of the event) and $12 for full-time students. More here. ... Application deadline is Feb. 1 for the 2004-05 John S. Knight Fellowships at Stanford University. Twelve U.S. journalists will be selected, and each receives a stipend of $55,000 and tuition, health insurance and an allowance for books, housing and child care, plus "nine months of study, intellectual growth and personal change at one of the world's great universities -- in classes, in independent studies and in special seminars with guest speakers." More from knight-info@lists.stanford.edu, or visit knightfellows.stanford.edu. SPJ national update: Foul air changes stalled, shopping at the E&P, and the U.S. gift that keeps on giving. Bush administration weakening of the Clean Air Act has been blocked until a legal challenge is heard, which could take months. The EPA wants to allow industrial facilities to make repairs in the name of maintenance without installing new pollution controls. Twelve states and a host of cities argue that the changes would harm the environment and public health. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the challengers "demonstrated the irreparable harm and likelihood of success" of their case. ... Editor & Publisher has some opinions on the best and worst of 2003. The Road to Baghdad: Prior to the invasion, E&P says, the press failed to hold the administration accountable on its claims of weapons of mass destruction and alleged Saddam Hussein links to 9-1l. Embed, Baath and Beyond: More than 600 reporters joined the Pentagon's embed program, resulting in remarkable coverage, but did embedded also mean indebted? Blair Watch Project: Reporter turned serial fabricator Jayson Blair threw The New York Times into an uproar, leading to the departures of top editors and the arrival of the paper's first ombudsman. More here. ... USA Today's front-page story Dec. 11 on how the Pentagon "painted a misleading picture" about the use of cluster bombs in Iraq was born when reporter Paul Wiseman encountered Iraqis personally affected. Wiseman wrote that many Iraqi civilians and some U.S. soldiers are being killed and wounded by cluster bombs, especially so-called "dud" bombs that do not explode upon initial use but are stumbled upon. The story was reported from Baghdad and Washington over a four-month period. More here. SPJ national update II: Here's a beef for you; casualties? what casualties?; and if the truth falls in the forest, who is there to hear? Dr. Lester Friedlander, an Agriculture Department veterinarian from 1985-95, worked in a Pennsylvania plant that specialized in turning 2,000 old dairy cows a day into hamburger. Ideally, he could pick animals at random and watch them walk, looking for signs of nerve damage. Instead, he said, department rules let them walk by in groups of six. "I'm lucky if I see the second or third. The sixth? Forget about it." He rejected 25-30 cows a day worth about $500 each, and when he stopped the production line, he said, managers groused that he was costing them $5,000 a minute. After complaints to Washington, he said, he was transferred. He quit and has since sued the department over his transfer. More here. ... The Iraqi Health Ministry ordered a halt to a count of civilian war casualties and told workers not to release figures already compiled, the head of the ministry's statistics department told the AP in December. The health minister, Dr. Khodeir Abbas, denied that he or the U.S.-led occupation authority had anything to do with the order and said he didn't even know about the survey of deaths, which number in the thousands. The ministry statistician said the order came from the director of planning, who said it was on behalf of Abbas. More here. ... The chief of the U.S. Park Police was suspended in December for telling reporters that her department is ill-equipped to effectively patrol area parks and has a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall. A statement from the National Park Service did not specify why or for how long Teresa C. Chambers had been put on leave, or if she will be paid. The park service later admitted that she was punished for breaking federal rules that prohibit "lobbying" and "discussing budget proposals before they are finalized," according to a Washington Post story. The move received widespread criticism, from representatives on Capitol Hill to union officials. More here. SPJ national update III: Media rules vote awaits spring thaw, those tricky Badgers, and now you see him, now you don't. A Senate vote on legislation that would cap national TV ownership at 39 percent of the nation's homes slipped at least until early this year because the Senate couldn't reach an agreement to enable a vote on the massive appropriations bill that included the measure. Democrats objected to GOP plans to hold a fast vote on the bill, complaining, among other things, that the cap was the result of a deal between Senate GOP leaders and the White House that excluded Democrats. ... In an effort to push the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a racially diverse campus, officials digitally inserted a black student's face into a photo of white football fans that appeared on the cover of the new undergraduate application. UWM may decide to reprint covers for some of the 110,000 brochures, which had been completely revamped for the first time in several years. At least 50,000 of the booklets were already mailed to high schools and prospective students. More here. ... A photo in the U. of Missouri's basketball media guide was altered to erase Ricky Clemons, a point guard tossed off the team last summer. Clemons' image was edited out of a Columbia Daily Tribune image of the celebration following a Missouri home win Feb. 1. Chad Moller, the school's director of athletic media relations, reacted: So? "We do that with photos quite frequently," he said, "if there is something in the photo we don't like." SPJ national update IV: Media fare better in court, and spoof and imbalanced. A Media Law Resource Center report found that media defendants did well in 2002, as compared with other years, in cases brought to trial. The number of trials against the media hit a record low in 2002, and the media win rate, 80 percent, was the best record in the history of the report. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is usually sympathetic to free-speech challenges, but not in 2003. Justices sided with the government in every First Amendment case it ruled on during the nine-month term that ended in July, upholding laws and policies intended to protect the public from cross-burners, pornographers and drug dealers in public housing. ... Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel threatened to sue the makers of "The Simpsons" over a spoof news ticker, the show's creator, Matt Groening, has claimed. Groening said Fox News raised the unlikely prospect of suing a show broadcast by its sister channel, Fox Entertainment, because it wanted to stop a parody of its famously anti-Democratic Party agenda. The row centered on a parody of Fox News' rolling news ticker that included headlines such as "Do Democrats cause cancer?" ================================================= PEOPLE & PLACES SPJ member Tracey Smith's wife, Melody Phinney, suffered a brain aneurysm and died Nov. 18. She also was the sister of local writer Melissa Mia Hall. ... IABC president Lori De La Cruz has made the leap from the public sector and opened her own marketing and graphic design shop. Blue Marble Media offers a suite of services to support strategies across all media, including advertising, electronic communications and interactive learning. The agency specializes in the creation of materials for identity, image, marketing, economic development and environmental education. Formerly the city of Euless' communications/marketing manager, De La Cruz also has 15 years of graphic design experience. She's active in the Texas Association of Municipal Information Officers and the HEB Chamber of Commerce. ... Julie O'Neil, TCU assistant professor of public relations, wants to assist a nonprofit with its research needs. She will teach a senior research methods course this spring and is designing a semester-long class project. Reach her (817) 257-6966 or j.oneil@tcu.edu. ... At lunchtime in a hotel dining room in Dallas the other day, Dan Rather stood before a group of car dealers, jewelry store owners and furniture wholesalers, sounding more like a campaigning politician than a network news anchor. Flanked by images of himself splashed on oversized screens, he sang the praises of KTVT, the CBS station he had come to visit, and to help. "KTVT is hotter than a Laredo parking lot in this market," he told the advertisers, both actual and prospective, as he tried to coax a few new viewers to the perennially low-in-the-ratings "CBS Evening News." More here. Kudos & Contracts ... For the fifth time in six years, the UTA newspaper is a finalist in the prestigious Columbia Scholastic Press Association Crown awards competition. The Shorthorn is the only Texas newspaper on the list. Winners will be announced in New York City in March. ================================================= GET A JOB A start-up charter airline in McKinney has an opening for a sales/marketing/PR coordinator. Must be outgoing and enthusiastic, able to multi-task, a motivated self-starter who can develop creative ways to attract business while managing the dispatching and scheduling of charter flights. Aviation background not necessary (manager will train). Some evening work may be required, depending on charter schedules. Call Jay Cooper at (214) 288-3227, or e-mail résumé to jay.cooper@netzero.com. ... JPS Health Network seeks a senior PR coordinator. Required: a bachelor's degree in journalism or public relations and two years of journalism/PR experience (or a degree in a related field and three years of journalism/PR), proficiency in the layout program QuarkXPress and a knowledge of publication design and layout, printing specifications and operations. Apply online at jpshealthnet.org. ... A PR manager is needed to plan, direct and evaluate all public relations functions for the Salvation Army of Tarrant County. A bachelor's degree is required plus three years experience in PR. Fax a résumé to the human resources director at (817) 338-9251. ... Dallas-based Trinity Public Relations is looking for a bilingual (fluent Spanish) account coordinator with a couple of years in PR/marketing. Candidate should have some media relations experience and enjoy talking with reporters, especially on consumer stories. Knowledge of the broadcast industry is a plus, as is experience writing news releases and developing media lists. E-mail résumé and, says owner Tony Katsulos, "whatever else you'd like us to know about you" to info@trinity-pr.com. ... Bob Boyles in Coppell needs an editor to help him self-publish a 55,000-word book on software selection and project management. Boyles expects to print 500-1,000 copies in the first run and sell them for $60 per book at seminars beginning in April and on Amazon.com. Four 50-person seminars have already been booked, he says, with IBM as the sponsor. Contact Boyles at 217 Simmons Drive, Coppell 75019, bob@smarterdistribution.com or (972) 304-1180. ================================================= NEW MEMBERS PRSA ... Whitney Gilliam, Zix Corp. ... Lisa Richardson, Fort Worth Sister Cities ================================================= COMINGS & GOINGS Additions ... at the S-T: Miami Herald arts editor Cary Darling will become pop culture critic this month or in early February; formerly entertainment editor at The Orange County Register, as a music critic there from 1988-92 he covered rock, hip-hop, reggae, world music and electronica. ... Katie Award winner David Wethe, for three years with the Dallas Business Journal, now covering hotels, tourism and sports business out of the Arlington newsroom Exits ... at the S-T: captivating librarian and new bride Maryjane O'Halloran, who no longer wanted to work nights but will continue full time as a librarian at Arlington High School ... copy editor Jon O'Guinn to The Dallas Morning News ================================================= PRESIDENT'S CORNER Pamela Smith, Greater Fort Worth PRSA The new year is off to a good start: Saddam Hussein has been captured; the stock market's going up; TCU played in the inaugural Fort Worth Bowl; and a new PRSA board has been installed. In 2004, PRSA's goal is to focus on you, our members and potential members. Our board is committed to meeting the professional needs of public relations practitioners in Tarrant County. A special thank you goes to Roger Partridge, 2003 chapter president. Through his leadership, our chapter has become more efficient, more of our services are online, the luncheons (and board meetings) stay on schedule, and teleseminars with national experts have been offered to the membership, often at no charge. And our December holiday luncheon generated $300 for The WARM Place, a nonprofit organization that assists children and families who have had a death in the family. With no program at the meeting other than networking, everyone spent quality time getting to know more about each other. Several initiatives are under way. Lisa Fellers at Texas Wesleyan University will head a new venture, the PRSA Education Special Interest Group. She has lots of ideas, so be on the lookout for upcoming events. Adrienne Gaviglio at Pancho's is in charge of our Nu Pros SIG, a resurrected effort to enable PR newcomers to interact with us "senior" professionals. Chapter directors will also be busy this year, with Krista Brown coordinating the March 25-26 Southwest District Conference, Gary Morey keeping us updated on legislation affecting our profession, and John Hoffmann charged with a national goal of increasing the chapter's diversity. It will be a busy year, but one that will be of value to you. Please feel free to contact me -- pamela.smith@tccd.edu or (817) 515-5209. Our new board members are also there for you, and their contact information is online at fortworthprsa.org. Happy New Year! ----- PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE Lori De La Cruz, IABC/Fort Worth We at IABC/Fort Worth believe in starting off the new year with a bit of bronc riding and a hearty "Yee-haw!" Be sure to join us Tuesday, Jan. 6, for our special guests from one of Fort Worth's signature events, the stock show and rodeo. From a one-day affair with a few head of cattle tethered under ice-laden shade trees, the Southwestern Exposition and Livestock Show and Rodeo has grown into a 23-day extravaganza with international appeal for exhibitors and visitors alike. Gushes the Web site: "An extensive international program has been developed and annually attracts visitors from well over 50 foreign nations. In recent years, the average grounds attendance of over 800,000 persons makes the Stock Show by far Fort Worth's most attended annual event." Gee, I thought it was just a bunch of cows. Who knew? Out of the barns and into the boardroom, nominations for IABC/Fort Worth's Communicator of the Year are due Thursday, Jan. 15. If you've been unable to find the nomination form on our Web site, check again. Due to a technical problem (the webmaster's hard drive failed and dumped everything), the site wasn't updated in December. My deepest regrets for failing to back up my hard drive. Again, who knew? Go to iabcfortworth.com for the nomination form and lots of other useful info, such as job opportunities and updates from IABC national. Happy New Year, and we'll see you on IABC Tuesday! ----- OVER & OUT John Dycus, Fort Worth SPJ Our friend Doug Clarke will likely be on dialysis the rest of his life, the result of renal failure in November. Not that it will stop him from teaching three courses at TCU this semester or "goin' huntin' this Friday (Jan. 2)" in Ozona, "defending our country from the vicious forked-horn whitetail deer." He signed up for a kidney transplant, but that won't happen for at least a year, and even then only if he's in top shape. "I've become real observant of all the health rules -- about 40 years too late," he says. "Otherwise, I'm just progressing along. Feeling pretty good." Don't send get-well wishes. Do send venison recipes. ... Is that a talking bass in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? You couldn't count all the smiles in the produce section as we raffled off everything from the aforementioned wise-guy ichthyan to Mary Dulle's gigantic Nestlé's Crunch, Grady Spears' autograph on his latest cookbook, a signed NASCAR poster and a massage for those tired, aching muscles at the JPS children's library benefit Dec. 13 downtown at the Rail Market (which, incidentally, starts this month as a new eChaser advertiser). Our thanks to underwriter Allan Saxe, the most generous man in Texas; Bob Ray Sanders, the only ringmaster you'd ever want for an event like this; every vendor in the building -- they all donated raffle items -- and to Jackie DeBolt and her Rail Market maintenance/ marketing crew. Seventy-five revelers, from 4 months to 78 years, turned out on a cold night for a good cause, and we took in a passel of books, most of them new: 40 softcover "adolescent" novels, 70 hardcover medium-to-small books, 36 cardboard baby books and 45 large hardcover books. JPS grants babe Johnell Kelley, an expert in these matters with four children younger than 6, conservatively estimates the books' value at $1,411. Wow. ... The new SPJ directories are here. Members we don't see in the next month or so will find a copy in their mailbox. ... See the ad, buy the ad. Like some PR SWAT team on a mission, 16 on-their-owners -- Nancy Farrar, Sandra Brodnicki, Janel Grice, Lori De La Cruz, Toni Auer, Bill Lawrence, Tracy Smith, Barbara O'Toole, Carolyn Hodge, Glenda Thompson, Aimee Jones, Jill Scott, Henry Stewart, Paul Sturiale, Gigi Westerman and Barbara Tipton -- passed the plate, collected $12.50 apiece and designed a logo, and there you have the eChaser's other new advertiser, the PR Consultants Special Interest Group. What a focused crowd. Wish I had a campaign so one of them could run it. ... One of the California New Times weeklies hosts a yearly short-story contest with simple rules: a title of seven words or less, and a story of exactly 55 words. A Dayton Daily News copy desk challenge once produced this contender, titled "That Damned Black Bird." Abandoned as a chick, he was nurtured by a parrot trainer. Now he just won't quit cadging scraps. The landlady tries to encourage the bachelors to bus their own trays, but men are such pigs. That spooky fellow in Apartment 3E, Mr. Poe, is absolutely the worst of them, and always leaves his door open. Closing words: "Republicans used to believe in fiscal responsibility, limited international entanglements and limited government. We have lost our way." -- Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. ... "Eighty-four percent of the total increase in nonfarm payrolls over the August-November period is traceable to hiring in four segments of the labor market -- the temporary staffing industry, health, education and government. In other words, the bulk of the so-called hiring turnaround since August has been concentrated in either the contingent workforce (temps) or in those industry groupings that are least exposed to global competition. Over the past four months, jobs have continued to decline in manufacturing, the information sector (i.e., telecom, publishing, data processing and broadcasting), wholesale distribution, and finance and insurance. Never in the modern-day history of the U.S. business cycle has there been such a profound shortfall of hiring." -- Stephen Roach, Morgan Stanley/New York ... "Reports that say something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know." -- Donald Rumsfeld on the hunt for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction; the defense secretary's comments at a news briefing in February 2002 won the latest "Foot in Mouth" prize from Britain's Plain English Campaign; Arnold Schwarzenegger placed second with: "I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman."

Think funnel cake and Ferris wheel, cutting horses and barrel racing, long-stride cowboys and cowgirls in flying fringe. Think chuckwagon races and trick riders, rodeo clowns and the glittering pageantry of the grand entry. Think fat, floppy-eared rabbits, pigs with personality, blue-ribbon poultry and sheep primed for sheering. Think midway barkers and whoop-it-up crowds and spending 20 bucks to win a $5 stuffed giraffe for your best gal. Think grand-prize steers and enough ag demos to make you believe you've died and awakened in Bryan. Think stock show weather. OK, don't do that.

Next at Greater Fort Worth PRSA ...

Keeping Your Balance on the PIO High Wire

Serve the city that hired you, or the public that is served by the city? Lt. Kent Worley, public information officer for Fort Worth Fire & Rescue; Dot Kent, public education specialist in environmental management with the city of Fort Worth; and Senior Cpl. Chris Gilliam, PIO of the Dallas Police Department, know all about life in the public sector and how it differs from the corporate world -- what it's like to have television cameras trained on you as your department responds to an emergency -- and they'll share their insights at the January meeting.

Next at Fort Worth SPJ ...

Remember Salam Pax? The irreverent, 29-year-old Iraqi architect reported from the rooftops of Baghdad on the bombing of his country and in the process elevated blogging to an Internet art form of grass-roots journalism. His Web diary, or "blog," riveted readers. So are blogs the purest form of coverage, where information is unfiltered and unspun? Or are they a bog of misinformation that's being manipulated by unqualified writers?

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PR pros Steve Cody, managing partner and co-founder, PepperCom; Wendy Lane, president, Lane Marketing Communications; and Kenneth Makovsky, president, Makovsky & Co., will present "Secrets of Rainmaking: How to Attract and Win New PR Clients," a PRSA teleseminar, from noon to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 13, in conference room 1-314 (Pathology and Anatomy, the sign says) at UNT Health Science Center, 3500 Camp Bowie Blvd. Parking is free in Lot A, off Clifton Street; tell attendant that you're there for a meeting. Enter main building at south entrance near the flagpoles. Cost is $10 for members, $15 nonmembers. A brown-bag lunch is encouraged, as food will not be provided. ...

Dallas IABC promises fun in a casual setting for participants to bring their fresh communication ideas, job-search experiences and holiday stories to the sixth annual networking luncheon from 11:15 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 13, at Blue Mesa Grill in Addison. Cost: $23 for online registration up to Jan. 11 ($28 day of the event) and $12 for full-time students. More here. ...

Application deadline is Feb. 1 for the 2004-05 John S. Knight Fellowships at Stanford University. Twelve U.S. journalists will be selected, and each receives a stipend of $55,000 and tuition, health insurance and an allowance for books, housing and child care, plus "nine months of study, intellectual growth and personal change at one of the world's great universities -- in classes, in independent studies and in special seminars with guest speakers." More from knight-info@lists.stanford.edu, or visit knightfellows.stanford.edu.

SPJ national update: Foul air changes stalled, shopping at the E&P, and the U.S. gift that keeps on giving. Bush administration weakening of the Clean Air Act has been blocked until a legal challenge is heard, which could take months. The EPA wants to allow industrial facilities to make repairs in the name of maintenance without installing new pollution controls. Twelve states and a host of cities argue that the changes would harm the environment and public health. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the challengers "demonstrated the irreparable harm and likelihood of success" of their case. ... Editor & Publisher has some opinions on the best and worst of 2003. The Road to Baghdad: Prior to the invasion, E&P says, the press failed to hold the administration accountable on its claims of weapons of mass destruction and alleged Saddam Hussein links to 9-1l. Embed, Baath and Beyond: More than 600 reporters joined the Pentagon's embed program, resulting in remarkable coverage, but did embedded also mean indebted? Blair Watch Project: Reporter turned serial fabricator Jayson Blair threw The New York Times into an uproar, leading to the departures of top editors and the arrival of the paper's first ombudsman. More here. ... USA Today's front-page story Dec. 11 on how the Pentagon "painted a misleading picture" about the use of cluster bombs in Iraq was born when reporter Paul Wiseman encountered Iraqis personally affected. Wiseman wrote that many Iraqi civilians and some U.S. soldiers are being killed and wounded by cluster bombs, especially so-called "dud" bombs that do not explode upon initial use but are stumbled upon. The story was reported from Baghdad and Washington over a four-month period. More here.

SPJ national update II: Here's a beef for you; casualties? what casualties?; and if the truth falls in the forest, who is there to hear? Dr. Lester Friedlander, an Agriculture Department veterinarian from 1985-95, worked in a Pennsylvania plant that specialized in turning 2,000 old dairy cows a day into hamburger. Ideally, he could pick animals at random and watch them walk, looking for signs of nerve damage. Instead, he said, department rules let them walk by in groups of six. "I'm lucky if I see the second or third. The sixth? Forget about it." He rejected 25-30 cows a day worth about $500 each, and when he stopped the production line, he said, managers groused that he was costing them $5,000 a minute. After complaints to Washington, he said, he was transferred. He quit and has since sued the department over his transfer. More here. ... The Iraqi Health Ministry ordered a halt to a count of civilian war casualties and told workers not to release figures already compiled, the head of the ministry's statistics department told the AP in December. The health minister, Dr. Khodeir Abbas, denied that he or the U.S.-led occupation authority had anything to do with the order and said he didn't even know about the survey of deaths, which number in the thousands. The ministry statistician said the order came from the director of planning, who said it was on behalf of Abbas. More here. ... The chief of the U.S. Park Police was suspended in December for telling reporters that her department is ill-equipped to effectively patrol area parks and has a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall. A statement from the National Park Service did not specify why or for how long Teresa C. Chambers had been put on leave, or if she will be paid. The park service later admitted that she was punished for breaking federal rules that prohibit "lobbying" and "discussing budget proposals before they are finalized," according to a Washington Post story. The move received widespread criticism, from representatives on Capitol Hill to union officials. More here.

SPJ national update III: Media rules vote awaits spring thaw, those tricky Badgers, and now you see him, now you don't. A Senate vote on legislation that would cap national TV ownership at 39 percent of the nation's homes slipped at least until early this year because the Senate couldn't reach an agreement to enable a vote on the massive appropriations bill that included the measure. Democrats objected to GOP plans to hold a fast vote on the bill, complaining, among other things, that the cap was the result of a deal between Senate GOP leaders and the White House that excluded Democrats. ... In an effort to push the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a racially diverse campus, officials digitally inserted a black student's face into a photo of white football fans that appeared on the cover of the new undergraduate application. UWM may decide to reprint covers for some of the 110,000 brochures, which had been completely revamped for the first time in several years. At least 50,000 of the booklets were already mailed to high schools and prospective students. More here. ... A photo in the U. of Missouri's basketball media guide was altered to erase Ricky Clemons, a point guard tossed off the team last summer. Clemons' image was edited out of a Columbia Daily Tribune image of the celebration following a Missouri home win Feb. 1. Chad Moller, the school's director of athletic media relations, reacted: So? "We do that with photos quite frequently," he said, "if there is something in the photo we don't like."

SPJ national update IV: Media fare better in court, and spoof and imbalanced. A Media Law Resource Center report found that media defendants did well in 2002, as compared with other years, in cases brought to trial. The number of trials against the media hit a record low in 2002, and the media win rate, 80 percent, was the best record in the history of the report. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is usually sympathetic to free-speech challenges, but not in 2003. Justices sided with the government in every First Amendment case it ruled on during the nine-month term that ended in July, upholding laws and policies intended to protect the public from cross-burners, pornographers and drug dealers in public housing. ... Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel threatened to sue the makers of "The Simpsons" over a spoof news ticker, the show's creator, Matt Groening, has claimed. Groening said Fox News raised the unlikely prospect of suing a show broadcast by its sister channel, Fox Entertainment, because it wanted to stop a parody of its famously anti-Democratic Party agenda. The row centered on a parody of Fox News' rolling news ticker that included headlines such as "Do Democrats cause cancer?"

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SPJ member Tracey Smith's wife, Melody Phinney, suffered a brain aneurysm and died Nov. 18. She also was the sister of local writer Melissa Mia Hall. ...

IABC president Lori De La Cruz has made the leap from the public sector and opened her own marketing and graphic design shop. Blue Marble Media offers a suite of services to support strategies across all media, including advertising, electronic communications and interactive learning. The agency specializes in the creation of materials for identity, image, marketing, economic development and environmental education. Formerly the city of Euless' communications/marketing manager, De La Cruz also has 15 years of graphic design experience. She's active in the Texas Association of Municipal Information Officers and the HEB Chamber of Commerce. ...

Julie O'Neil, TCU assistant professor of public relations, wants to assist a nonprofit with its research needs. She will teach a senior research methods course this spring and is designing a semester-long class project. Reach her (817) 257-6966 or j.oneil@tcu.edu. ...

At lunchtime in a hotel dining room in Dallas the other day, Dan Rather stood before a group of car dealers, jewelry store owners and furniture wholesalers, sounding more like a campaigning politician than a network news anchor. Flanked by images of himself splashed on oversized screens, he sang the praises of KTVT, the CBS station he had come to visit, and to help. "KTVT is hotter than a Laredo parking lot in this market," he told the advertisers, both actual and prospective, as he tried to coax a few new viewers to the perennially low-in-the-ratings "CBS Evening News." More here.

Kudos & Contracts ... For the fifth time in six years, the UTA newspaper is a finalist in the prestigious Columbia Scholastic Press Association Crown awards competition. The Shorthorn is the only Texas newspaper on the list. Winners will be announced in New York City in March.

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A start-up charter airline in McKinney has an opening for a sales/marketing/PR coordinator. Must be outgoing and enthusiastic, able to multi-task, a motivated self-starter who can develop creative ways to attract business while managing the dispatching and scheduling of charter flights. Aviation background not necessary (manager will train). Some evening work may be required, depending on charter schedules. Call Jay Cooper at (214) 288-3227, or e-mail résumé to jay.cooper@netzero.com. ...

JPS Health Network seeks a senior PR coordinator. Required: a bachelor's degree in journalism or public relations and two years of journalism/PR experience (or a degree in a related field and three years of journalism/PR), proficiency in the layout program QuarkXPress and a knowledge of publication design and layout, printing specifications and operations. Apply online at jpshealthnet.org. ... A PR manager is needed to plan, direct and evaluate all public relations functions for the Salvation Army of Tarrant County. A bachelor's degree is required plus three years experience in PR. Fax a résumé to the human resources director at (817) 338-9251. ...

Dallas-based Trinity Public Relations is looking for a bilingual (fluent Spanish) account coordinator with a couple of years in PR/marketing. Candidate should have some media relations experience and enjoy talking with reporters, especially on consumer stories. Knowledge of the broadcast industry is a plus, as is experience writing news releases and developing media lists. E-mail résumé and, says owner Tony Katsulos, "whatever else you'd like us to know about you" to info@trinity-pr.com. ... Bob Boyles in Coppell needs an editor to help him self-publish a 55,000-word book on software selection and project management. Boyles expects to print 500-1,000 copies in the first run and sell them for $60 per book at seminars beginning in April and on Amazon.com. Four 50-person seminars have already been booked, he says, with IBM as the sponsor. Contact Boyles at 217 Simmons Drive, Coppell 75019, bob@smarterdistribution.com or (972) 304-1180.

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PRSA ... Whitney Gilliam, Zix Corp. ... Lisa Richardson, Fort Worth Sister Cities

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Additions ... at the S-T: Miami Herald arts editor Cary Darling will become pop culture critic this month or in early February; formerly entertainment editor at The Orange County Register, as a music critic there from 1988-92 he covered rock, hip-hop, reggae, world music and electronica. ... Katie Award winner David Wethe, for three years with the Dallas Business Journal, now covering hotels, tourism and sports business out of the Arlington newsroom

Exits ... at the S-T: captivating librarian and new bride Maryjane O'Halloran, who no longer wanted to work nights but will continue full time as a librarian at Arlington High School ... copy editor Jon O'Guinn to The Dallas Morning News

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Pamela Smith, Greater Fort Worth PRSA

A special thank you goes to Roger Partridge, 2003 chapter president. Through his leadership, our chapter has become more efficient, more of our services are online, the luncheons (and board meetings) stay on schedule, and teleseminars with national experts have been offered to the membership, often at no charge. And our December holiday luncheon generated $300 for The WARM Place, a nonprofit organization that assists children and families who have had a death in the family. With no program at the meeting other than networking, everyone spent quality time getting to know more about each other.

Several initiatives are under way. Lisa Fellers at Texas Wesleyan University will head a new venture, the PRSA Education Special Interest Group. She has lots of ideas, so be on the lookout for upcoming events. Adrienne Gaviglio at Pancho's is in charge of our Nu Pros SIG, a resurrected effort to enable PR newcomers to interact with us "senior" professionals. Chapter directors will also be busy this year, with Krista Brown coordinating the March 25-26 Southwest District Conference, Gary Morey keeping us updated on legislation affecting our profession, and John Hoffmann charged with a national goal of increasing the chapter's diversity.

Lori De La Cruz, IABC/Fort Worth

From a one-day affair with a few head of cattle tethered under ice-laden shade trees, the Southwestern Exposition and Livestock Show and Rodeo has grown into a 23-day extravaganza with international appeal for exhibitors and visitors alike. Gushes the Web site: "An extensive international program has been developed and annually attracts visitors from well over 50 foreign nations. In recent years, the average grounds attendance of over 800,000 persons makes the Stock Show by far Fort Worth's most attended annual event." Gee, I thought it was just a bunch of cows. Who knew?

Out of the barns and into the boardroom, nominations for IABC/Fort Worth's Communicator of the Year are due Thursday, Jan. 15. If you've been unable to find the nomination form on our Web site, check again. Due to a technical problem (the webmaster's hard drive failed and dumped everything), the site wasn't updated in December. My deepest regrets for failing to back up my hard drive. Again, who knew? Go to iabcfortworth.com for the nomination form and lots of other useful info, such as job opportunities and updates from IABC national.

John Dycus, Fort Worth SPJ

Our friend Doug Clarke will likely be on dialysis the rest of his life, the result of renal failure in November. Not that it will stop him from teaching three courses at TCU this semester or "goin' huntin' this Friday (Jan. 2)" in Ozona, "defending our country from the vicious forked-horn whitetail deer." He signed up for a kidney transplant, but that won't happen for at least a year, and even then only if he's in top shape. "I've become real observant of all the health rules -- about 40 years too late," he says. "Otherwise, I'm just progressing along. Feeling pretty good." Don't send get-well wishes. Do send venison recipes. ...

Is that a talking bass in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? You couldn't count all the smiles in the produce section as we raffled off everything from the aforementioned wise-guy ichthyan to Mary Dulle's gigantic Nestlé's Crunch, Grady Spears' autograph on his latest cookbook, a signed NASCAR poster and a massage for those tired, aching muscles at the JPS children's library benefit Dec. 13 downtown at the Rail Market (which, incidentally, starts this month as a new eChaser advertiser). Our thanks to underwriter Allan Saxe, the most generous man in Texas; Bob Ray Sanders, the only ringmaster you'd ever want for an event like this; every vendor in the building -- they all donated raffle items -- and to Jackie DeBolt and her Rail Market maintenance/ marketing crew. Seventy-five revelers, from 4 months to 78 years, turned out on a cold night for a good cause, and we took in a passel of books, most of them new: 40 softcover "adolescent" novels, 70 hardcover medium-to-small books, 36 cardboard baby books and 45 large hardcover books. JPS grants babe Johnell Kelley, an expert in these matters with four children younger than 6, conservatively estimates the books' value at $1,411. Wow. ...

The new SPJ directories are here. Members we don't see in the next month or so will find a copy in their mailbox. ... See the ad, buy the ad. Like some PR SWAT team on a mission, 16 on-their-owners -- Nancy Farrar, Sandra Brodnicki, Janel Grice, Lori De La Cruz, Toni Auer, Bill Lawrence, Tracy Smith, Barbara O'Toole, Carolyn Hodge, Glenda Thompson, Aimee Jones, Jill Scott, Henry Stewart, Paul Sturiale, Gigi Westerman and Barbara Tipton -- passed the plate, collected $12.50 apiece and designed a logo, and there you have the eChaser's other new advertiser, the PR Consultants Special Interest Group. What a focused crowd. Wish I had a campaign so one of them could run it. ...

Closing words: "Republicans used to believe in fiscal responsibility, limited international entanglements and limited government. We have lost our way." -- Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. ... "Eighty-four percent of the total increase in nonfarm payrolls over the August-November period is traceable to hiring in four segments of the labor market -- the temporary staffing industry, health, education and government. In other words, the bulk of the so-called hiring turnaround since August has been concentrated in either the contingent workforce (temps) or in those industry groupings that are least exposed to global competition. Over the past four months, jobs have continued to decline in manufacturing, the information sector (i.e., telecom, publishing, data processing and broadcasting), wholesale distribution, and finance and insurance. Never in the modern-day history of the U.S. business cycle has there been such a profound shortfall of hiring." -- Stephen Roach, Morgan Stanley/New York ... "Reports that say something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know." -- Donald Rumsfeld on the hunt for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction; the defense secretary's comments at a news briefing in February 2002 won the latest "Foot in Mouth" prize from Britain's Plain English Campaign; Arnold Schwarzenegger placed second with: "I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman."