PRSA local update II: Dallas Mayor Laura Miller and her husband, state Rep. Steve Wolens, will keynote Media Day 2004 on Friday, Oct. 15 at Las Colinas Country Club. Either side of lunch, panels and seminars will explore a range of topics, including ethics in the media, business and politics. Register online at prsadallas.org. Questions? Contact Allison Allison at allison_allison@richards.com or Sophia Stoller at sophiastoller@excite.com. ... Deadline to apply to be a speaker at the 2005 PRSA Southwest District Conference is Oct. 8. Speakers are needed in media relations, fund-raising, internal communications, web management, special events planning, community relations, government relations and investor relations. Send a 180-word (or less) biography, contact info, presentation abstract (180-word limit) and what knowledge or skills participants will take away (50-word limit) to Don Brown at dbrown@pnm.com. Call (505) 241-0837 with questions. Speakers will be notified by Nov. 1. The conference is Feb. 10-11 in Albuquerque, N.M.
PRSA local update III: Members and guests will showcase their talents, discuss upcoming projects and develop partnership opportunities at the PR Consultants SIG meeting Friday, Oct. 22, at Central Market, I-30 and Hulen Street. Bring business cards and marketing materials and grab lunch downstairs, then meet in the upstairs Community Room. Networking begins at 11:15 a.m., mini-presentations at 11:45. RSVP: Sandra Brodnicki, sandra@brodnickipr.com, (817) 572-1556. ... This month's Nu Pros lunch will be at noon Wednesday, Oct. 20, at Cafe Express, 1540 S. University Drive. A week before that, Nu Pros members will escort teens from the TEAM Fort Worth mentoring program at the monthly luncheon. Reach Adrienne Gaviglio at gaviglioa@aol.com. TEAM Fort Worth consists of students from 14 targeted FWISD schools who hope to benefit from one-to-one and group mentoring with supportive adults. E-mail Andra Bennett at abennett@fortworthchamber.com to volunteer to meet a North Side High School student at the Petroleum Club elevators and introduce him around the Oct. 13 luncheon.
PRSA local update IV: "About PR issues, for PR people and by PR people." That's the way QuickSilver's Steve Lee, APR, describes the blog Rants and Raves, which launched last month with a bit of an international item -- an article on the state of public relations in the United States written by Dr. Doug Newsom, APR, Fellow PRSA and appearing originally in VOICE, a PR publication in India. Newsom, Lee, Jim Haynes, APR, Fellow PRSA and other practitioners will regularly contribute. More from Lee at slee@qsigroup.com.
SPJ national update: Guilty as charged; Patriot pruned; and tragic toll. There were no folksy Texan phrases in Dan Rather's report Sept. 20. He said the "60 Minutes" report Sept. 8 -- an "unimpeachable source" for explosive documents about President Bush's National Guard service turned out to be a former Guard officer with a deep hatred of Bush and a history of mental problems -- had been a mistake. More here and here and here and here and here and here. ... Powers granted the FBI under the USA Patriot Act were ruled unconstitutional Sept. 29 by U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero. The ACLU had challenged what it called the FBI's "unchecked power" to demand confidential customer records from internet service providers or telephone companies. More here. And the 64,000-member American Library Association will survey thousands of libraries this fall to determine how often federal agents have used the act to try to secretly get readership info. The act "jeopardizes library patrons' privacy in a way that has never been done before," sais Emily Sheketoff, executive director of the ALA's Washington office. ... U.S. casualties in Iraq in August rose to a record high for any month since the March 2003 invasion. The Washington Post's Karl Vick said the number wounded, about 1,100, was "by far" the highest monthly injury count. More here. And a Knight Ridder exclusive holds that U.S. and multinational forces and Iraqi police are killing twice as many Iraqis, most of them civilians, as attacks by insurgents. More here.
SPJ national update II: Movie time; when a casualty isn't a casualty; Bush "indifference" to FOI; and polls apart. Inside dusty, barricaded camps in Iraq, American troops between missions are gathering around screens to view Michael Moore's documentary attacking the commander in chief. "Everyone's watching it," says a Marine corporal at an outpost in Ramadi that is mortared by insurgents daily. More here. ... Nearly 17,000 service members medically evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan are absent from Pentagon casualty reports commonly cited by newspapers, according to military data reviewed by UPI. Most don't fit the definition of casualties, according to the Pentagon, but a veterans' advocate says they should all be counted. More here. ... A federal judge in New York, complaining that the administration "shows an indifference" to FOI laws, ordered the Pentagon and other agencies to produce a list of all of their documents on Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by Oct. 15. The ACLU on July 2 sued after the government failed to provide any relevant documents in a year. More here. ... Two in 10 respondents in a national Chicago Tribune poll say that editorials critical of a war the U.S. is fighting should not be allowed. Twenty percent said negative reporting on a war should not be allowed. About half said limitations should have curtailed coverage of the prison abuse scandal in Iraq. Overall, says the Tribune's Charles M. Madigan, five or six out of every 10 people "would embrace government controls of some kind on free speech, particularly when it has sexual content or is heard as unpatriotic." More here. On the other hand, Americans' support for their First Amendment freedoms is back at pre-Sept. 11, 2001 levels, according to the State of the First Amendment survey, conducted by the First Amendment Center. More here.
