For anyone who managed to make it through the soporific parade that is the NFL draft, the major story was the precipitous fall of golden boy Notre Dame quarterback. Expected by most to be drafted third, team after team kept passing on the boy until Cleveland (the team that passed on him with the third pick) traded for the 22nd pick in the first round in order to make Quinn a member of the squad.

This is not merely a pride issue. CNBC’s Darrell Rove predicts the draft slide will cost Quinn $17 million. Others say more. Estimating the figure has become quite a .

But Quinn will be okay; he still has his endorsements:

JaMarcus Russell might have the stronger arm, but Brady Quinn has shown a stronger hand at making money off the field. He already has signed sponsorship deals with Nike, Hummer and EAS, which makes dietary supplements. He is blogging for Xbox, has agreed to help market Subway and has a promotional deal with Sprint that has him hyping the draft.

USAID director Randall Tobias, former chairman of Eli Lilly, is the first of perhaps what will be at least a few prominent people in Washington to resign over a connection to California-based Pamela Martin & Associates.

That sounds like one of a million PR firms, but is actually alleged to be a high-end prostitution ring whose operator, Deborah Jeane Palfray, denies knowing that her associates were doing anything other than providing “sexual fantasy” for $275 an hour without any actual sex. ABC News reports that Tobias said he “‘had some gals come over to the condo for a massage’ but denied any sex was involved.”

Shortly after her arrest, Palfray threatened to release phone records of her firm’s clients, then later said she had given the list to an unspecified, reputable news organization.

That organization, it turns out, is ABC News.

Thus, there could be a lot of crisis-management work for public affairs firms — or at least in-house corporate and government communications people — following the Saturday, May 5 broadcast of ABC’s “20/20,” featuring an interview with Palfray, who says she plans to call any and all of her clients to testify on her behalf.

An ABC News’ April 30 online news story by Brian Ross and Justin Rood says that people Palfray plans to call to testify at her trial could include “a Bush administration economist, the head of a conservative think tank, a prominent CEO, several lobbyists, and a handful of military officials.”

“I’m sure as heck not going to be going to federal prison for one day, let alone, four to eight years, because I’m shy about bringing in the deputy secretary of whatever,” Palfrey is quoted as saying in the “20/20″ interview. “I’ll bring in every last one of them in if necessary,” she said.

Pre-emptive crisis-management work has apparently already begun, at least judging by the Washington Post article on Saturday that said several DC law firms have called Palfrey’s lawyer to determine if their clients’ phone numbers are in Palfray’s records, and if so whether there is some way to keep them private.

The April 27 State Department press release on Tobias’ resignation says simply that Tobias “is returning to private life for personal reasons.”

Tony Snow, Bush administration press secretary, is back on the job after spending the last five weeks on leave recovering from exploratory cancer surgery.

Snow started typically early, appearing Monday on the North Lawn of the White House for a series of morning television network news shows, including an interview on Fox and Friends, with his former Fox network colleagues.

The New York Times has finally decided to its participation in the annual DC journalist-politician lovefest dinners by groups like the White House Correspondents Association. The paper soft-launched the news in Sunday’s Frank Rich column.

Many, many media observers, including yours truly, have been calling for an end to these events for quite a while. They inevitably lead to embarassing (and sometimes sickening) moments like NBC bulldog reporter David Gregory being reduced to a backup dancer for a Karl Rove mock-rap. The upshot of the Times‘ move will be that all the other media outlets that still participate in the events will look more and more like clueless hacks. But don’t bet on these traditions fading out completely any time soon; the DC press corps is famously insular.

Big profile in today’s Washington Post by Anne E. Kornblut of Burson-Marsteller chief and Hillary Clinton’s (unofficial) chief strategist Mark Penn, who, according to the story, has become Clinton’s chief adviser on strategic communications, even though he is not the campaign manager.

Among the interesting points in the article: Though Burson has said Penn will not take any time off from his job at the firm and will be fully able to handle running the agency as well as working for client, the article cites Penn associates as saying he spends most of his days working on the Clinton campaign. Penn “has been cleared of all client responsibilities, except for Microsoft, for the duration of the campaign but that he still relies on a team of about 20 employees to do most of the day-to-day work,” Kornblut writes.

The article also raises questions about conflicts of interest, noting that Bush strategist Karl Rove sold his direct-mail business during the 2000 race to forestall such claims (and ensure his full attention toward Bush). But that’s not a problem for Penn, according to Penn, as he only does communications strategy and not lobbying.

Dan Klores, who gave up day-to -day control of his Dan Klores Communications firm to become a playwright and documentary producer, got a good - if brief - mention in a Variety magazine review last week of an Iraq War-themed one-act work called “Myrtle Beach,” part of a series of one-act plays being produced at a 42nd Street theater in New York. He also received a nice write-up from James Brady on Forbes.com.

Inasmuch as we love the debate over PR 3.0 — seriously, we do — I’m wondering if anyone who was compelled to write about our headline actually had anything to say about the article?

Because the whole point of it was — new media is pretty important, and traditional PR agencies get that. And they’re spending a good portion of resources on getting better at new/social/whatever media. Whether or not social media consultants think traditional agencies can adapt, well, that’s for another discussion.
So, anyways, if anyone out there (even if you don’t have a blog to critique it on) wants me to e-mail them a version of the article (it’s currently for subscribers), I would welcome, with open arms, your glowing feedback or “taking to the mat,” as it were.

My column this week is all about e-mail interviews.

See the impetus at Calacanis.com and Wired.

And the tidy solution.

Ed Moed, of Peppercom, files a really compelling post on what GM should do now that it has lost the global lead to Toyota.

And, the company’s reputation has been severely damaged for a number of years now. Instead, with the impending Toyota distraction (and it was a huge one) out of the way, GM can make real strides in its turnaround with the hopes of once again becoming a company that is known for quality, smart business practices and maybe even innovation (a future aspiration).

Sometimes editors fall so in love with their ideas, they neglect to properly explain them. Judging by some of the blog posts about our “Public Relations 3.0″ agency business report cover line, that seems to be the case here.

In spite of what our critics may think, we do not believe that PR has surpassed digital progress, only that it is an older industry, one that is now in its third true period of evolution. Of course, that evolution is largely informed by the digital era, and that is why it is so closely connected.

Honestly, I thought it was obvious. When I started covering the industry in 2000, it was already in the midst of a long-running transition from providing focusing on communicating to the media and to the public through the media, to its place in the C-suite where managing corporate reputation, CSR, employee engagement, and boosting sales would be part of the job description.

Now public relations is at the beginning of its third age, when it is demonstrating its unique facility for navigating environments where the companies and brands have less and less control. Rather than lamenting the decline of traditional media’s influence, the PR industry is embracing the new platforms and communities that test their creativity and the authenticity of the messages.

This change is happening much more rapidly than with PR’s previous transition, when even two years ago we were still getting letters to the editor about how little respect the profession is afforded. But even if the changes are occurring quickly, they are no less significant.

So that’s the rationale. Public Relations 2.0 was simply not far enough - the industry has quite suddenly found itself facing a refreshingly high set of expectations from clients and the public alike.

Opinions re: 3.0 can be found here.

Comments are welcome below.