eChaser: April 2009 / p2

PRSA local update IV: Register before April 21 and save $100 to the PRSA Health Academy’s Leveraging Social Media in Health Care Public Relations: Innovations & Strategies for Enhanced Consumer Engagement, a conference May 13-15 in Washington, D.C. In 2007 Drenda Williams Witt of JPS Health Network received the academy’s Frank J. Weaver Lifetime Achievement Award. More from Healthcare SIG chair Christy Jones, christyj142@gmail.com.

PRSA local update V: Are we limbered up yet for the Komen Tarrant County Race for the Cure at 8 a.m. Saturday, April 11? The PRSA Pink team will run (more like a fast walk) the non-competitive 5K course as a group. Chapter members, business associates, families and friends are welcome to join. Registration is $30, with team T-shirts available for $10-$15. Contact team captain Cindy Vasquez at 817-921-0653 or cindy@cancercareservices.org.

PRSA local update VI: Are you a Meg, a Mike or a Moe? Greater Fort Worth PRSA has new sponsorship packages (those are support levels — megaphone, microphone, motion picture) to entice businesses and organizations to strut their stuff before Fort Worth’s finest PR, marketing and journalism professionals. Contact Linda Ld Jacobson, ljacobson@quepr.com.

PRSA local update VII: PRSA national chair and CEO Michael Cherenson, APR, will address Dallas PRSA’s Pro-Am Day on Friday, April 10. He also will participate in a session for NuPros and students that morning. Info here.

SPJ national update: The Washington press corps at the dawn of the Obama administration is far more specialized and less interested in reaching average Americans than it was just a few years ago. The capital also has many more foreign reporters covering the U.S. from an outsider's perspective, with the Arab news channel Al-Jazeera having nearly the same number of accredited journalists as CBS News, a report issued Feb. 10 said. The corps of journalists covering Washington, D.C., these days is not so much smaller as it is dramatically transformed. More here and here.

SPJ national update II: It's all apocalypse now at commercial newspapers, but most student papers seem to be doing fine. "We're not experiencing a problem," said Kevin Schwartz, general manager at The Daily Tar Heel at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "There's no advertising downturn for us." On the other hand, financial difficulties forced two prominent independent student publications — The Daily Californian at the University of California, Berkeley and The Daily Orange at Syracuse University — to cut print publication from five days a week to four. More here.

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PEOPLE & PLACES

Local schools fared handsomely at the SPJ Region 8 Mark of Excellence Awards competition. The TCU Daily Skiff took best newspaper, Image best magazine and DailySkiff.com best web site. The Daily Skiff landed four other first places, six seconds and three thirds on the work of Hilary Whittier, Billy Wessels, Saerom Yoo, Andrew Chavez, Alyssa Dizon, Chance Welch, Lindsey Bever, Keely Doering, Joe Zigtema, Brett Larson and Robert Bember. ... The Shorthorn at UTA received two first places, three seconds and one third on the work of its editorial board and Andrew Buckley, Justin Rains, Phillip Bowden and Stephen Peters. ... Tarrant County College’s The Collegian took best non-daily newspaper, plus a first and a third on the work of Alex Munhindura, Mark Bauer and Brandon Tompkins. ...

Newly named Texoma Web Offset VP/general manager Tim Blackwell will draw on his 20-plus years in the printing and graphic arts industry when he presents “Printing 101 and the Digital Age” at the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association convention April 10 at the Dallas Sheraton. The UTA alumnus is remembered from his days with DFW Printing Co. and The Dallas Morning News, where he built a stable of national daily and college newspaper printing accounts, including The Shorthorn, NT Daily and TCC Collegian. Blackwell left DFW Printing in February to manage Texoma Web Offset, a similar cold-set and heat-set web offset operation in Gainesville, Texas, founded in the early 1980s. While at DFW Printing, Blackwell secured several national daily printing contracts, including The Financial Times, Investors Business Daily and Daily Racing Form. At TIPA he will examine the evolution of the web offset printing process into the digital age, with emphasis on reproduction using today’s desktop pre-press applications. ...

Mary Dulle is now the volunteer editor of her neighborhood newsletter, The Poobah. She lives in Berkeley in Fort Worth and would like to hear about things her neighbors need to know — events, special projects, volunteer opportunities. Deadline is usually the 20th of the month. This is for non-commercial items only; for something commercial, she can send you to the ad director for an ad that would be “incredibly cheap considering the scope and reach of The Poobah!” Contact Mary at mkdulle@msn.com, 817-924-8365 or 817-723-5836. ...

Texas Wesleyan journalism students are actively seeking summer and fall internships. Interested organizations should contact Wesleyan’s Kay Colley at 817-531-4255 or kcolley@txwes.edu. ...

The Hondo Group has unveiled a rebranded web site to better showcase the company’s print and design work, with information on new interactive and green marketing services. The site was designed to be W3C compliant and built for multiple platforms and devices using XHTML and CSS.

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GET A JOB

MarketWave in Addison seeks PR/marketing pros interested in anticipated account executive, senior account executive and account supervisor openings. Must have PR experience, preferably agency, with marketing a plus. Industry work should include health care, nonprofit, technology or energy/environment. Send résumé to Christa Osswald, cosswald@marketwave.biz. ...

Road trip? An associate of Shakespeare Squared in Glenview, Ill., seeks a full-time contract marketing/sales writer with an understanding of insurance marketing compliance regulations. This would be a three-month on-site position in downtown Chicago. Contact Terese Simpson, tsimpson@ShakespeareSquared.com. ...