As Anna Nicole Smith’s multi-layered Bahamian saga appears to draw to a close, we’re left with the myriad lessons in shrewd media placement that so often follow in her wake. The stripper-turned-spokesmodel — who allegedly retreated to the Bahamas so she could have a little privacy — instead generated more press than she had since the days of her E! reality series in 2003. In a regrettably characteristic series of events, Ms. Anna witnessed the accidental death of her 20-year-old son Daniel, gave birth to a healthy baby girl, and reportedly married her long-time attorney, Howard K. Stern, all in the space of a week — and all with the rapt publicity assistance of Larry King, among other top-notch outlets.

After an extensive investigation, it seems that Smith’s son died following the ingestion of methadone, Lexapro, and Zoloft, a medication cocktail not meant to be combined. And her newborn daughter, it appears, is the result of a union between Smith and lawyer Stern — as of Thursday, Mr. Anna Nicole. Here’s where the PR lessons come in. While Daniel’s premature death surely added a depressing undertone to Smith’s oddly timed nuptials, any celebrity marriage is a boost for the Bahamian tourism industry.

Secondly, Smith says she’ll do whatever it takes to keep medicine-related tragedies from happening in other families; it could offer the opportunity for Lexapro or Zoloft to address brand safety issues with a high-profile spokesperson. (Of course, there are also certain anti-psychology drug proponents just licking their chops to get Smith to represent their organizations; we’ll see who gets to her first.) But perhaps the most valuable message here transcends PR entirely, a life lesson few people tell better than Anna Nicole and Howard K. Stern: If you hang around long enough, and make through some really difficult situations, you eventually get want you want.

New Yorkers apparently do not like to be told what to do. . . even if it is good for them.

Case in point: The New York City Board of Health has proposed that the 20,000 restaurants in NYC get rid of all but trace amounts of trans fats in the food they serve in an effort to make New Yorkers healthier.

But New Yorkers are mad! Since the announcement earlier this week, New Yorkers have done nothing but speak out against the city for trying to keep them from being fat.

NYC should start a campaign to show its citizens that being morbidly obese is bad and anything that might contribute to that would be bad too.

Fortunately for New Yorkers the city may not need to educate people about being healthy because the media has stood behind this one . . . there have been countless and TV news spots this week explaining that the food tastes the same, even without those pesky flavor-filled, artery-clogging trans fats. Sounds like the PR machine is running at full speed; pitching this story to the media with a consumer health angle. Great sell!

Some reporters won’t take as much as a stick of gum from their contacts, others think nothing of accepting lavish gifts and offers of free parties, as did Page Six’s newest scribe. Though the New York Post immediately put an end to this little arrangement, it’s amazing how much tolerance there is for the practice, including the very slow burn over Star Jones’ wedding - brought to you by everybody.

Ever since blog became a verb, readers have been asking us when PRWeek was going to launch one. But we had a lot of work to do here first, including re-launching the print edition and revamping our old website into a daily resource for PR news and information.

We also wanted to make sure that we could offer something valuable to our readers through a blog, above and beyond what we are doing online and in print. The Cycle, our main editorial team blog, aims to bring our readers into the kinds of discussions and thought processes we have as a team every day, as we evaluate the day’s news through the prism of communications.

PRWeek’s entire editorial team, including names that you don’t always seen in bylines, will be contributing to this blog. I hope that readers will get to know our team in a new way through this channel, and will see what I see every day - that this is an incredibly smart, funny, talented group of people who are committed to writing about PR, week in and week out. You are lucky to have them covering your industry. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments about the blog, and about all our efforts at PRWeek. Thanks.

Energy conservation is on everyone’s mind, including the federal government. In case you haven’t seen it, make sure you check out our news story (sub req’d), “DOE unveils effort” by PRWeek’s DC bureau chief, Ted McKenna.

If you’re itching to know more about energy efficient light bulbs and Wal-Mart’s support of their use, Fast Company’s September issue has the story for you.

Charles Fishman thoroughly covers the story with facts and figures that will have you buying CFLs ASAP.

The AP has an interesting report that 7-Eleven may be dropping its partnership with Citgo as a gasoline supplier, choosing instead to launch its own brand of gas.

Given its owner is the nation of Venezuela, Citgo was no doubt bound to suffer some fallout from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s worldwide anti-Bush shtick. Chavez in recent years has won a lot of exposure for himself calling President Bush “the devil” and other endearments.

But the article quotes analysts as suggesting that while 7-Eleven may not want to associate itself with Chavez’s anti-Americanism or appear to condone it, the company also has good financial reasons for choosing to launch its own brand. In the minds of Red Sox fans, though, the gigantic, iconic Citgo sign that has loomed over the Green Monster for the past four decades probably has no connection at all to Venezuela, or at least they don’t care. At night, the thousands of neon tubes inside the sign flash on and off in a pattern as soothing as a lighthouse.

It’s like a beacon, which incidentally is not far off of Beacon Street. A local Boston city councilor is suggesting getting rid of the Citgo sign, so the city can show its disapproval of Chavez. But if fans were to be even a fraction as outraged about getting rid of the Citgo sign as they were at the thought entertained by former Red Sox owners a few years ago to tear down venerable (to some people, cramped) Fenway Park, no anti-Venezuela backlash is likely to extend to the Citgo sign.

As seen before and will no doubt be seen again, “brands” often have a life totally independent of the corporations or countries that own them.

In the midst of this HP leak investigation drama, with board members and lawyers pleading the fifth before Congress, comes the question of the word “pretexting.” Have we added a word to the English language? Mirriam Webster doesn’t list it, but does show pretaxing, pretyping, prattling, portering, predating and partaking - all of which HP may have done as well.

Pretexting, in the case of the HP, means when private detectives gathered people’s personal information and then lied, pretending to be them to get access to their phone records. Isn’t that called fraud? Misrepresentation? Is there a new crime on the books here in California called “pretexting?”

Maybe I’ll ask Bill Lockyer, attorney general of the state, who’s looking in to criminal charges against the ineffective HP super-secret spy team.

Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute hates the word pretexting and asks journalists to stop repeating it.

When it comes to sports and PR, it’s very easy to assume that no team or player can do much wrong as long as the results on the field please their fans.

Not so fast sports fans. A recent Opinion Matters survey commissioned by PRWeek UK (sub req’d) shows that Chelsea Football Club, a power in the English Premier League, is having some serious image woes.

Danny Rogers, editor of PRWeek UK, said, “[Team owner] Roman Abramovich needs to be aware that at present his club is not helping the perception of club football in general. Chelsea needs to appear less arrogant and work to promote greater transparency and clarity in its communications.” The survey goes on to say that 70% of respondents believe the recent allegations have damaged soccer at a grass roots level.

Chelsea is the defending league champion and sits atop the standings early this season. If that continues, people will continue to buy tickets, jerseys, etc. However, that “70%” cannot be ignored. Present fans cannot sustain a team forever. You must continually develop your fan base. Consistently poor behavior by team reps is not how you do it.

The September 24^th issue of The New York Times Magazine included this interesting called “Branching Out” about Oregon’s Umpqua Bank, which has become a lifestyle brand. - This bank sells CDs and even hosts yoga classes.

Perhaps I’m too young to remember (or like to think myself to young to remember) the days of the bank as heartless behemoth. These days, at least, according to the advertising, your local bank is a part of the community that’s there to take the stress out of money matters.

Among Revlon’s many woes this week was the news that it was pulling the plug on its Vital Radiance line, targeted at women over 50.

The finger of blame has waggled in a few different directions, but has spent a fair share of time at the “fat” senior marketing team, according to its new CEO, many of whom are now out of a job. Maybe the marketing was terrible, I don’t recall any, but to give the team the benefit of the doubt, trying to market to women over 50 – who don’t want to be reminded that they’re over 50 – can be a thankless task.

The death knell sounded when Vital Radiance failed to retain vital shelf space in the major cosmetic retail outlets (including Wal-Mart and CVS), and no amount of marketing – good or bad – could have secured the line’s fortunes if consumers couldn’t find it.

But what occurred to me is that this points to a fundamental difference in how cosmetics are sold in the US, compared to many other countries. Cosmetic brands here have to rely that much more on marketing and branding, as at the majority of retail outlets, the everyday brands are double-packaged, with no testers on display. Brands like Maybelline and L’Oreal have between them a combination of extremely high brand awareness and trust, constant and prolific marketing presence, and a low enough price point to allow most consumers to take the odd risk with a new color. But Vital Radiance’s price point was too high (with prices from $13.50 to $20) to be able to sit in that “try it and see” bracket, especially without a testing bank.