SPJ national update IV: Do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do alert at level orange, and wonder how much health care that would buy. An official GOP merchandise Web site has sold clothing made in Burma, whose goods President Bush banned last year. A $49.95 fleece pullover was sent to Newsday as part of an order that included a shirt made in Mexico and a hat that lacked a country-of-origin label. The president of Denver-based Colorado Trading & Clothing said the pullover was in one of the last shipments before the import ban kicked in. "It's a terrible irony" that the jacket went to Newsday, he said. Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee, a human rights group, said "it's amazing that the campaign would be selling stuff made in the most brutal country on Earth, known for things like child labor and sexual slavery." More here. ... The Pentagon has granted $240,000 for embryonic stem-cell research linked to Parkinson's disease. Lund University in Sweden said the Defense Department believes the findings could help treat neurological illnesses caused by battlefield toxins. The president has forbidden the use of federal funds to manipulate human embryos and limited research to a few existing cells taken from fertility clinic leftovers. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Blackburn, an advocate of stem-cell research and therapeutic cloning who was recently fired from the President's Council on Bioethics, has become a cause celebre for researchers who say that politics is distorting White House science policy. "I don't feel martyred," the University of California, San Francisco scientist and native Australian said. "I wear it (the dismissal) as a badge of honor." ... Struggling with rising workloads and stagnant staff levels, the IRS opted not to pursue 2.25 million tax cases last year worth $14 billion in individual income taxes and $2.3 billion in corporate taxes, the Treasury Department said in written answers to Senate Finance Committee questions. The median size of the delinquent accounts was $14,000; the largest account exceeded $50 million. The money left on the table would cover NASA's 2004 budget or the budgets of the departments of Commerce and Interior combined. More here.
SPJ national update V: Oops, and oops, and ask not for whom the intel tolls. Six months after promising to create an office to help the nation's struggling manufacturers, President Bush's choice to head it backed out when it was learned that he had opened a factory in China. Anthony Raimondo's firm, Behlen Manufacturing Co. of Columbus, Neb., laid off 75 U.S. workers in 2002, four months after announcing plans for a $3 million factory in Beijing. ... The president marked International Women's Week by paying tribute to women reformers. "Earlier today, the Libyan government released Fathi Jahmi," he said in a White House speech March 27. "She's a local government official who was imprisoned in 2002 for advocating free speech and democracy," Ah, but Jahmi is a man. "Definitely male," said Alistair Hodgett, a spokesman for the human rights advocacy group Amnesty International, whose representatives tried to see Jahmi in prison during a recent visit to Libya. ... The White House claim that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had ties to al Qaeda "appears to have been based on even less solid intelligence than the administration's claims that Iraq had hidden stocks of chemical and biological weapons," Knight Ridder writers Warren Strobel, Jonathan Landay and John Walcott said in a story released March 3. Further, "administration advocates of a preemptive invasion frequently hyped sketchy and sometimes false information to help make their case. On two occasions, they neglected to report information that painted a less sinister picture." More here.
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PEOPLE & PLACES
Greater Fort Worth PRSA ringleader Sandra Brodnicki, owner of Brodnicki Public Relations, received the Star-Telegram Entrepreneur Expo Small Business Award during the Lockheed Martin/JPMorgan Chase Entrepreneur Expo on March 12 hosted by the Fort Worth Women's Business Center. She is a graduate of the center's Project NEW, which she credits with helping her three-year-old company increase its profits 314 percent in 2002 and 83 percent last year. The WBC is one of 83 women's business centers in the nation; only two are in Texas. ...
PRSA Southwest District Conference co-chairs Krista Brown and Ann Heidger are awash in gratitude to the 200 attendees and speakers, sponsors -- Alcon Labs, Biz 360, Burrelle'sLuce VMS, Business Wire, Cockrell Printing, Corporate Communications Center, the Irving Convention and Visitors Bureau, Market Wire, Medialink, MultiVu, PR Newswire and VOCUS -- the planning and implementing committee -- Carolyn Bobo, Mary Dulle, Cathy Mueller, Kara Roberson, Chris Smith, Pamela Smith, Kelly Strzinek, Glenda Thompson, Beth Ann Black, Elizabeth Nuño, Jeff Smith, Angela Vargo, Chad Perry (PRSA Southwest District president) and Kelly Albanese (PRSA national) -- and everyone who participated in the 2004 conference at the Harvey Hotel in Irving, conducted by the Greater Fort Worth and Dallas chapters. From Krista and Ann: "Thank you!" ...
Suzie DeMent, formerly publications editor at Alcon Labs, has been promoted to marketing associate, surgical. Writes Mary Dulle: "Suzie came to work at Alcon while still a student at TCU and has done an outstanding job in the public relations group. Her former PR colleagues foresee a shining future for her." ...
Star-Telegram city government reporter Anna M. Tinsley won two first-place awards, four third-place awards and an honorable mention, and her brother, Ben Tinsley, a police reporter in the paper's Northeast Tarrant County newsroom, won three second-place and one third-place award at the Press Women of Texas annual conference March 27 in Waco. ... The Star-T's Darren Barbee (writer), Michael Currie (page designer), Mark Hoffer (graphic artist) and Danny Robbins (writer) nailed first-place honors, and Liz Stevens, Pete Alfano, Linda Campbell, Mark Horvit, Dave Lieber, Tim Madigan, J.R. Labbe, Ken Parish Perkins, Wayne Lee Gay, Stewart House, Kate Gorman, Alison Woodworth, Paul Moseley, Clif Bosler and Seth Schrock took home a passel of seconds and honorable mentions in the Texas APME competition. The Star-Telegram won first place in team effort for its coverage of the Baylor University basketball scandal and a first in team page design for "Crime of Fashion!!!" Renee Studebaker of the Austin American-Statesman won a Headliners Award as Star Designer of the Year, and Dean Hollingsworth of The Dallas Morning News won a first in infographics; both are UTA Shorthorn exes, as are Barbee, Currie, Hoffer, Campbell and Schrock. ...
The Associated Press Sports Editors last month named the Star-Telegram one of the top 10 papers in the U.S. for daily and special sections. In Society for News Design competition, the Star-T sports department received nine awards of excellence -- the most of any paper in the large circulation category -- in the 25th annual SND judging. Michael Currie won four awards, Seth Schrock and Rusty Hall one each, and the department's body of work received one of only six Judges' Special Recognition awards. UTA Shorthorn exes Currie and Schrock were among only six designers to receive an award of excellence for their portfolio. Outside sports, Ralph Lauer won two SND awards for portrait photography, and Mark Hoffer won an award for special section design. ...
The Shorthorn, UTA's 85-year-old student newspaper, and Renegade, the university's one-year-old student magazine, have won the top U.S. student media awards for overall excellence. The Shorthorn was one of eight U.S. college newspapers, and the only paper from Texas, to receive the Columbia Scholastic Press Association's Gold Crown during ceremonies March 21 in New York City. More than 650 college newspapers entered the competition. This is The Shorthorn's second Gold Crown in the past six years. Renegade will receive the Associated Collegiate Press' Pacemaker award, generally considered the Pulitzer Prize of college journalism, in November ceremonies in Nashville. Renegade is one of nine college magazines nationwide, and the only magazine from Texas, to receive a Pacemaker this year. ... Still at UTA, the Texas APME named The Shorthorn this year's best daily college newspaper in Texas. The paper's rate card won first place in College Newspaper and Business Managers competition, and a recruitment ad designed by Michael Roger won Best of Category in black-and-white promotions.
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GET A JOB
YMCA of Metropolitan Fort Worth seeks a marketing specialist. A degree in marketing communications, ad/PR, journalism or related field is required, along with strong writing and graphic design skills. Experience with Pagemaker, Photoshop/Illustrator and other design software is a plus. Submit a résumé and writing sample to marketing director Hope Caldwell, YMCA of Metropolitan Fort Worth, 540 Lamar St., Fort Worth 76102. ... The Associated Press need a news editor in Denver and Montgomery, Ala. Write denver@apjobs.org and montgomery@apjobs.org. ...
