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.

The Wall Street Journal takes a look at Ben Bernanke’s PR campaign and how it has placed him in the “starring role” as he tries to clearly communcate the Federal Reserve’s role, the paper .

According to Reuters, the Fed is reworking its communications strategy, as part of a transparency push that may include regular news conferences and increased availability of information, possibly online.

In recent months, Bernanke has discussed the economic crisis to audiences ranging from college students and the general public to the media and Congress, and he tells the WSJ: “‘I think it is important for the public to understand what is going on and to know that the government is trying to solve the problem … They should know we have a plan and a strategy.”‘

Yet, the paper also notes that Bernanke may placing himself at the heart of the PR effort to ensure his position as chairman of the Federal Reserve is secure. Within the year, President Barack Obama will decide whether or not to reappoint Bernanke.

Criticism of AIG’s hiring of PR firms just won’t die. Rachel Maddow and Breakingviews recently took critical looks at the company’s agency roster given its federal funding. This time, it comes in the form of an article from Time: “Is AIG spending too much on public relations?” The author points to recent comments from members of Congress that question “the firm’s p.r. payroll,” as well as a lawyer of former AIG chairman Hank Greenberg. AIG’s SVP of comms, Nick Ashooh - who made PRWeek’s people with the “toughest jobs in PR” 2008 list - broke down the responsibilities of its PR firms to Time.

AIG retained only one full-time p.r. firm when it ruled the insurance world. Today’s four firms, said Ashooh, have different missions: Sard Verbinnen & Co. helps to structure statements on the bailout, Kekst & Co. focuses on sales of assets to pay back federal loans, Burson-Marsteller handles controversial issues and Hill & Knowlton fields inquiries from Capitol Hill and prepares congressional testimony for company officials. “If the criticism was we were running image-advertising or doing sponsorships to make ourselves look better, I could see that,” Ashooh said. “But we’re doing a lot of information-processing. It’s really been just responding to inquiries” from Congress and the media.

Who’s winning on Twitter in the political sphere? Left or right? One blogger on the right’s use of to build a conservative movement on the microblogging site.

Much of the chatter in the media has been that the left, via its awe-inspiring, marathon-length successful campaign for Barack Obama has spawned the first tech presidency. But Blog P.I.’s William Beutler of New Media Strategies argues the right is harnessing at least one channel better - Twitter.

These new conservative projects are often built around Twitter itself. Sometimes this results in really annoying tweets, but at this point the right is doing more interesting things in this space.

Thoughts from others? From TweetLeft?

The Special Olympics is hoping to eradicate the use of the word “retard” through a new campaign that asks the public to sign a pledge to “end the word.” It comes on the heels of President Obama’s late night gaffe where he equated his bowling score with that of one belonging to the Special Olympics while with Jay Leno.

In describing the community’s reaction to the president’s misstep, Timothy Shriver, chairman of the board of Special Olympics, wrote today that, “At Special Olympics, we had to deploy a round-the-clock team to monitor our website and remove offensive posts. Clearly, we’ve got a problem.”

His column for the Washington Post is here. Pledge drive is here.

More Hispanic media and minority publications have had more access to the White House and President Obama this year, the Washington Post reports, and it all stems from Obama’s strategy to be more inclusive.

“We should have a conscious strategy of communicating through Hispanic media,” White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel says in an interview. “It’s one of the fastest-growing groups in the country. Telemundo is one of the most significant media outlets.”

Every administration does some outreach to minority outlets. But by talking to Black Enterprise well before the New York Times, which last week got its first sit-down interview since Election Day, Obama is shaking up the existing media order. Just as he took a question from the Huffington Post — but not from the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune or Wall Street Journal – at his first news conference, the president is broadening the circle of access to include more sympathetic outlets.

The New York Post has issued an apology – more or less – for running a cartoon that many state political leaders thought was racially insensitive, to say the least.

“It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill. Period,” reads the Post’s editorial apology. “But it has been taken as something else – as a depiction of President [Barack] Obama, as a thinly veiled expression of racism. This most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize.” Read more »

Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network (NAN) is planning more protests and public actions condemning the New York Post after the newspaper, a property of News Corp., ran an editorial cartoon widely considered to be racist.

The cartoon, playing off the of a chimp put down by Stamford, CT police officers after nearly killing a woman, features a gunned-down primate with the caption, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” Critics of the drawing have said cartoonist Sean Delonas is representing President Barack Obama with the animal, while the Post has said the drawing is a satirical play on a current event.

Sharpton called for a boycott of the newspaper on February 19 during a protest outside the Post’s Midtown headquarters. Another demonstration, this one leveraging an appearance by director Spike Lee, is planned for February 20, said Rachel Noerdlinger, VP of communications at the NAN. Sharpton has appeared on more than 15 TV programs and conducted numerous print interviews in the day since the cartoon ran, said Noerdlinger, who has organized media outreach for the effort. Future action, including a possible boycott of Post advertisers, will be determined after a February 19 planning meeting, she told PRWeek.

For its part, the Post has had no comment beyond its original statement.

Meanwhile, in other reaction to the cartoon, Ted Rall, president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, said the drawing isn’t racist but a “cheap form of editorial cartooning.” Michael Wolff, biographer of News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch, bets that Post editor Col Allen will be fired shortly.

Here’s a Google News of coverage of the controversy.

The New York Post has issued only a defensive statement in response to accusations that a February 18 editorial cartoon, which depicts two police officers firing on a monkey with the caption, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill,” is blatantly racist.

The cartoon references reports that Stamford, CT police officers shot a monkey to death on February 16 after it severely mauled a friend of its owner. Critics, including Rev. Al Sharpton, have said that the cartoon chimpanzee may mock President Barack Obama, who his stimulus plan into law on February 17 after lengthy negotiations with Congress.

The statement, attributed to Col Allen, Post editor-in-chief, contends that “the cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut.” Post rep Suzanne Halpin, an EVP at Rubenstein Communications, said the newspaper is conducting no other outreach regarding the cartoon.

“It broadly mocks Washington’s efforts to revive the economy,” Allen said in the statement. “Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist.”

Sharpton, referencing the long-time use of primates as racist caricatures of black Americans, said in a statement on February 18 that the newspaper should “at least clarify what point they were trying to make”.

New York Gov. David Paterson also said that the Post should explain the cartoon.

Last month, PRWeek reported that Washington bureau cutbacks by many mainstream media outlets are resulting in fewer story opportunities, less experienced correspondents, and more work for communications pros.

However, the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism explained in data released February 11 that the situation “is not so much smaller as it is dramatically transformed.”

Although the number of mainstream media reporters has shrunk, a corps of niche media journalists has grown in its place. The organization reports that online newsletter ClimateWire has more than twice as many Capitol Hill journalists as Hearst News Service, and Mother Jones has about as many Washington reporters as Time. Foreign outlets have also stepped into the void. Al Jazeera has 105 staffers accredited to cover Congress, only 24 less than CBS News, according to the report.