A Harder Hit at Dow Jones
Dow Jones & Co. Inc. expects to record more severance charges in the second half of 1999 on top of a previously announced second quarter restructuring charge. Dow took a $1.6 million after-tax restructuring hit for employee severance as part of its conversion to electronic pagination of the Wall Street Journal. Dow did not say if it expects additional layoffs. (Dow Jones, 212/416-2000)
PRSA Creates Affiliate Membership Status
Next stop, statehood? The Public Relations Society of America has created an affiliate membership status for the 800 members of the Puerto Rico Public Relations Association. The newly established affiliate status gives members in Puerto Rico access to all PRSA programs at member rates. PRSA says the move is in recognition of the growing global nature of public relations. (Richard George, 212/460-0310)
In other PRSA news... In other PRSA news, the association's nominating committee has announced its slate of nominees for election to three PRSA officer positions and six director-at-large posts on the society's board of directors in 2000.
The nominee for chairman-elect is Kathleen Larey Lewton, senior VP of Healthcare/Biotechnology at Fleishman-Hillard, New York. She will become chairman and CEO of PRSA in 2001. P. Michael McDermott is the nominee for treasurer. He is a professor of mass communications at Iona College, New Rochelle, N.Y.
Deanna K.W. Pelfrey, president of Pelfrey Associates Inc., Louisville, Kent., is the nominee for secretary. The complete slate is available at http://www.prsa.org. (Richard George, 212/460-0310)
Deals and doings
Burson-Marstellar has closed its acquisition of Hart Cooper Partners, a San Francisco-based marketing and PR firm focused on emerging technology companies. Hart Cooper will retain its name and become a subsidiary within B-M's technology practice...Business Wire and Medialink Worldwide Inc. have formed a joint venture to build a comprehensive Internet portal for the delivery of multimedia news releases to Internet news sites. The new venture, Newstream.com, expands and renames the portal announced by Medialink in June...Curran & Connors Inc. won, for the sixth year in a row, the Platinum Achievement Award at the 13th Annual International ARC Awards ceremony. The award recognizes the design firm that produces the largest number of winning reports in the annual report industry competition. Currran & Connors picked up 53 awards, including 11 gold, 18 silver and 13 bronze.