As Hillary Clinton, now Secretary of State, works to clear the debt from her presidential bid, it appears that Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, the WPP polling firmfounded by Mark Penn, is the only remaining creditor.

It is owed $2.3 million, down from $5.4 million as reported at the end of 2008.

Cision closed its Norwalk, CT office last month, according to KC Brown, SVP and head of analysis services for the company. The office only handled analysis, according to Brown, who oversees this area.

Brown said the closure was due to “a very expensive lease coming due” and had been in the works for a long time. Some staff accepted an offer to be reassigned to offices in Portsmouth, NH; or New York City, some staff opted to leave the company, and “a couple” of people were cut, Brown added. He would not specify how many staff members were involved in these changes.

In February, PRWeek reported on layoffs at Cision totaling “less than 5%” of the company’s North American workforce and including North American VP of marketing Stephen DeBruyn. The company also sold its Swedish Monitor and Analyze businesses in late March. The company’s recently installed CEO and president, Hans Gieskes, has to reorganize the company to cope with the economic recession and the company’s own business issues. In its annual report, the president’s statement reads: “In order to protect our margins through a recession and be able to continue to invest in product innovation, we have increased efforts to reduce our cost base. During the fourth quarter of 2008, about 100 employees left the company or were given notice. In January 2009, we divested our loss-making Danish operation with about 70 employees. Significant cost reduction measures will continue in 2009 and structural activities for underperforming units cannot be ruled out.”

However, Brown was clear that the Connecticut closure was a real estate issue.

“It was a small operation and it was limited to analysis,” he said. “The folks we have in analysis have direct client interaction, so our clients know where everyone went. This has much more to do with a lease.”

A new report from the National Defense University offers some social media tips for government folks - ones “that actually makes sense,” writes Wired’s DangerRoom blog. The aptly named “Social Software and National Security,” report is expected out early next week, Wired says, but the blog provides a sneak peek at the four tenants the paper suggests:

• Inward sharing
• Outward sharing
• Inbound sharing
• Outward sharing

Hmm…

An excerpt under the “Outward sharing” headline reads:

The 2005 natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina is now a textbook example of the need for multi-agency, multi-government, multi-media engagement in an ad hoc and constantly evolving manner.  More recently, people using social software have been able to make useful contributions during real world events such as flooding in Bangladesh, the California wildfires, and Hurricane Gustav…

Sunday’s Academy Awards pulled in more viewers than last year, according to Nielsen. The show, which saw Slumdog Millionaire take home Best Picture, averaged 36.3 million viewers, up from 32 million last year. Looks like , including Twilight’s Robert Pattinson, got the job done.

Based on conversations I’ve had with a number of people in the industry, measurement (and measurement during this recessionary economy) is a hot topic. Join me and PR executives from SAP, FedEx, and Weber Shandwick on February 17 where we’ll be discussing this topic via Webcast. Details are below, including a link to register:

Measurement in an uncertain economy

Historically, PR measurement was one of the first things to go when organizations cut budgets. But smart PR client-side professionals are making the compelling case to their bosses that measurement is even more important during times of uncertainty. These PR professionals will discuss the cases they make for measurement, how it impacts the bottom line, and will show the audience how to answer questions that might come from their clients or the C-suite.

Date: Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Time: 1pm est/10am pst

Featured speakers:
Saswato Das, director, global communications, SAP AG
Bill Margaritis, SVP of worldwide communications and IR, FedEx
Tim Marklein, executive VP, measurement & strategy, Weber Shandwick

Birnbach Communications’ predictions for the top media trends of 2009 – if they come true – will have a considerable effect on the ways that PR professionals pitch media outlets. Among the calculations:

-Dozens of newspapers and magazines will shift to an online-only model. The traditional media that stay in print will use more maps, graphics, lists, rankings, and statistics, all while running shorter articles.

-Media layoffs mean that freelancers and bloggers will become more important. CNN’s iReport coverage of the November Mumbai terrorist shootings are an example of citizen journalism’s growing clout.

-Marketers looking to reach broad audiences have their work cut out for them as well, as niche media and social media sites grow at the expense of broad-based media. “This will make it difficult for marketers to reach broad audiences, with only a few events each year – like the Super Bowl and the Academy Awards – that reach across demographics and interest groups.”

Results from a recent media analysis conducted by Dow Jones Insight-2008 Presidential Election Media Pulse shows that, for the week of October 19 through the 25, Sen. Barack Obama increased his lead in total number of headlines over Sen. John McCain in Nevada, North Carolina, Florida, and Missouri. But Sen. Obama lost ground in Colorado, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. All are battleground states for the presidency.

An analysis of 20,000 mainstream media and 2 million social media sources between September 26 and October 26 showed that, of course, the economy was a big topic, with 46% of the total discussion involving the various issues related to the economic crisis.

Missing from the media coverage was President Bush. When Dow Jones Insight analyzed 20,000 mainstream news publications and Web sites from September 27 to October 26, Sen. Obama had 49% share of voice, Sen. McCain, 40%, and President Bush, 11%.

Unsurprisingly, the tumult in the financial markets caused a dramatic spike - 472% year-over-year - in financial industry news, according to Cision’s Q3 Corporate Media Reputation Index. The Index does a quarterly assessment of how news coverage reflects the corporate reputation of the 100 largest US companies. The release for the Q3 index says “financial company news comprised 46% of the Index, up 32 percentage points from the same quarter last year. No industry has ever dominated the Cision Index to this extent.”

Nevertheless, tech took the top spots, with Microsoft and Apple coming in at numbers one and two respectively. The top five are: Microsoft, Apple, Intel, Bank of America, and Walmart. BofA climbed a whopping 72 spots to take number four. Other financial companies making a leap include Goldman Sachs (up 30 spots to 17) and Wells Fargo (climbing 51 spots to number 26).

After numerous attempts by WPP Group to acquire Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS), TNS executives have released a statement recommending that shareholders accept the latest WPP offer. WPP’s efforts first began with a hostile bid in July. By Friday, 61% of TNS investors had accepted the offer, which totals about $2 billion. TNS still maintains that the offer is too low, but WPP Group that they would not raise the bid. The offer will remain open until October 8.

Women’s Wear Daily released its 11th annual consumer brand-awareness survey, The WWD 100. What struck me was the year’s significant number of Web site launches/updates and store openings, and brands’ investment in marketing beyond advertising.