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On March 17, we announced that Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport had issued an RFP that closed in early April. The decision is still pending with Brian Murnahan, DFW’s media relations specialist, saying that the announcement will be made at a company board meeting in either May or June. More to come…
Andy Levine, president and chief creative officer at Development Counsellors International, made an unusual proposal last week, after his agency was told that the state of Idaho would withdraw a contract offer to the firm.
DCI an RFP for economic development and tourism communications with the Idaho Department of Commerce last week. However, Don Dietrich, the state commerce director, said shortly thereafter that it was inappropriate for the state to hire a non-Idaho firm. Idaho withdrew its letter of intent.
Levine, in a letter to the editor in the Idaho Business Review, proposed that Idaho partner DCI with an in-state firm, meaning that “activities that are more effectively done by an in-state firm will be managed locally.”
“Those better done by a firm with our specialization will be managed by DCI,” he continued.
Bibiana Nertney, administrator for marketing, communications, and research at the Idaho Commerce Department, said on January 29 that the state had not decided how to proceed with the selection process.
After writing the feature about how the Bahamas is working to attract the entertainment industry, I found this article interesting. It takes a specific look at Minnesota, which is also working to add incentives and get more movies to film there.
Magazines’ growing use of user-generated content caught our eye last May after Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel announced it would fill its June 2008 issue almost entirely with reader content.
Yet as it turns out, that may not be the best strategy for every issue. 8020 Media, the company that published JPG magazine, a title filled all issue, every issue with user-generated content, announced January 2 that it is closing up shop.
8020 CEO Mitchell Fox told employees last week that the publisher was “at the precipice of profitability,” but “negative marketplace forces are too strong to overcome,” according to a report on The New York Times Bits blog.
Last weekend, I was able to attend the opening weekend Bahamas International Film Festival (BIFF) in Nasasau, which ran December 4 to 11. After a sparsely-attended screening of Mariah Carey’s new movie Tennessee, I found everyone at the Versace Chopard Opening Night Party, held at the One & Only Ocean Club on Paradise Island. After brief remarks from Festival founder and executive director Leslie Vanderpool, a fashion show and fireworks took over the evening. More events from BIFF after the jump.
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Tensions continue between the Port of Los Angeles and the American Trucking Association, which is challenging the Port’s Clean Truck Program. The Program, among other things, requires that all trucks coming into the Ports must be 1989 model year or later. The issue is if this regulation violates federal law that preempts state and local laws that impact motor carrier rates, routes, and services. The US Department of Justice filed an amicus brief in support of the American Trucking Association’s challenge earlier this week.
“Congress understood that motor carriers cannot efficiently compete if states and localities are free to impose burdensome regulatory regimes controlling their operations,” said Bill Graves, president and CEO of the ATA, in a statement. “And Congress also noted that when motor carriers compete efficiently, consumers benefit.”
The ATA is handling PR in-house, and is releasing statements, Op-Eds, and letters to the editor explaining its stance, Clayton Boyce, the VP of public affairs for the ATA, told PRWeek.
The Port released a statement on Tuesday that noted that the measures went into effect without incident and have seen a 95-97% compliance rate.
“The result has been an immediate reduction in pollution from older, dirty trucks operating in the Port area,” the statement noted.
The Rogers Group, the new PR agency for the Port, is supporting strategic communications for the Clean Trucks Program, while the Port’s in-house communications team is spearheading media relations.
Frank Lucas, the basis for Denzel Washington’s drug king character in American Gangster, is changing his image. The New York Post’s Page Six reports that Lucas will speak out against violence during a 20-city tour with his son, rapper Frank Lucas Jr.
A light rail train ran into a bus in downtown Los Angeles on Friday morning, the second accident involving public transportation in the city in a week. Fourteen people were injured, none seriously, including the operator of the train, the Associated Press .
“We had an out-of-service bus turn in front of the train,” Marc Littman, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), told the AP. “We don’t know who had the right of way.”
Both the bus and the train are operated by the MTA.
On September 18, PRWeek reported on how Houston-based institutions – and companies with a significant employee or customer presence in Southeast Texas – are responding to Hurricane Ike. Here’s another example.
Many cable TV viewers are familiar with scenes of destruction in Galveston, TX. For the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, that’s a problem, as many Americans may get the impression that Houston is facing similar poor conditions.
Thus, the tourism organization is taking photos of popular destinations around the city and distributing them to regional and national print and broadcast outlets, says Lindsey Brown, director of marketing.
“We sent out this list complete with photos because people are seeing a lot of images of Galveston on TV, so we want to make sure people understand that Houston was not hit nearly as hard as Galveston, and [show that] these are our major institutions around the city and this is what they look like.”
A spokeswoman for Los Angeles’ commuter rail, Metrolink, has reportedly after issuing comments that the engineer of the train that crashed into a freight car last Friday, killing 25, failed to stop for a red light. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which has taken over the investigation, told the Metrolink Board that the comments were “premature” and ordered it to withhold further comments.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the spokeswoman said the statement “was and is accurate.”
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For both journalists and communicators, the news cycle never ends. At The Cycle, PRWeek’s editorial team offers commentary and viewpoints on how the latest marketing, business, political, and cultural news impact the PR industry.
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