Know someone who's received dubious recognition in the PR business? Well, here's your chance to give them their due. We are pleased to announce a call for nominees for the first annual PR Douche-Bag Award.

Inspired by industry notables such as Rick French, CEO of French|West|Vaughn, Ronn Torossian, CEO of 5WPR, Joe Thornley, CEO of Thorney Fallus, and, of course, Steve Rubel, SVP of Edelman PR... the PR Douche-Bag Award (PRDBA) will be given out annually to that special someone who has significantly contributed to the present perception of the public relations profession by "participating in the promotion of issues that meet the special informational and educational needs of almost no one globally."

Judging Criteria: Like the business of PR itself, judging this award will be more art than science. Technically speaking, "douche bag" is used colloquially as a lightly critical term to describe someone who is less premeditated than an asshole. It connotes someone who is generally inappropriate, a little slow and has at least an unconscious predisposition for sleazy.

Regrettably, as there is no barrier to entry to the PR business, almost any gomes can be nominated. However, we are going to try to limit this to PR's truly extraordinary DBs. We are looking for those select small, self important, arrogant, head-up-their-ass individuals who are so much of a douche bag as to take it to another level altogether, i.e. we're looking for the super huge douche bag more commonly referred to today as "d-bag squared."

Nomination Procedures: Any individual in the PR business may nominate a candidate. Each nomination must include a letter summarizing the candidate's qualifications, no longer than two typed pages that address the judging criteria. Two letters that second the nomination must accompany each nomination. The letters need to substantively address the criteria for the award. One of the seconding letters must come from a non PRSA member.

And if that's way too much trouble, just email me their names anonymously at chapel@strumpette.com.

Deadline: The deadline for nominations is August 31, 2007.

Judging Procedures: Based on the number of nominations, we will select the top ten PR industry douche bags. We will then post a poll on Strumpette and allow for open voting.

Award Gala: The DB Award Gala will be held at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on September 20 from 7:00 - 10 p.m. Hosted by the National Capital Chapter of Strumpettes, we are expecting the event to sell out attracting the best and brightest from top communications agencies, corporations, government organizations, associations and non-profits from throughout the Capital region.

See you there. Good luck douche bags.

Social networking site MySpace, under tremendous pressure from parents, teachers and law enforcement agencies, on Wednesday announced that it had deleted some 29,000 convicted sex offenders from its service, more than four times the figure initially reported. However, fears that people using social networking websites are inadvertently exposing themselves to PR predators, are probably overblown, researchers say.

Sameer Hinduja, an assistant professor in criminology at Florida Atlantic University and Justin Patchin, a political science researcher at the University of Wisconsin, recently conducted a test. The pair randomly selected 9282 profiles out of the 100 million purportedly available on the social networking site MySpace, the most popular social networking site and the fourth most popular English-language website in the world.

According to their findings: Of the 2423 profiles created by people under 18, a total of 948 were set to 'private', meaning that only friends could view them. Of the remaining 1475, about 8% revealed their full name, 57% included a picture, 28% listed their school, 81% identified their city, 1% an email address and 0.3% provided their phone number.

In the latest issue of the Journal of Adolescence, the researchers say that assiduous PR practitioners can, and do, glean important personal snippets from these postings. But overall the article says the situation is not as alarming as critics of social media currently suggest.

"When considered in its proper context, the results indicate that the problem of emotional manipulation and 'influence' using personal information does not seem to be as widespread as many assume," said noted PR industry analyst Martin Turnbull. "Seems just a tad overblown at the moment but firms are certainly gearing up," he added.

Leading human-rights activist Paris Hilton has been freed from prison in California after 23 days.

Her release follows the relaxation of apartheid laws - including the ban on the African National Congress (ANC), the leading civil rights party - by former South African President FW de Klerk.

Ms. Hilton appeared at the gates of Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood just after midnight Tuesday.

Dressed in street clothes she smiled at the ecstatic crowds and punched the air in a victory salute before taking a waiting black SUV with tinted windows to her parents' house in Bel-Air.

People danced in the streets across the country and thousands clamored to see her at a rally in Cape Town.

Doctors treated over a hundred people as police clashed with youths looting shops in various cities and townships and several people were reported shot dead.

At 1:23 AM local time Ms. Hilton, in her official capacity as deputy-president of the ANC, appeared on the balcony of Cape Town's City Hall to speak to the 50,000 people assembled outside.

She acknowledged Mr. de Klerk was a man of integrity, but said: "Our struggle has reached a decisive moment. Our march to freedom is irreversible."

"Now is the time to intensify the struggle on all fronts. To relax now would be a mistake which future generations would not forgive," she continued.

As she addressed the crowd all of the major TV networks broadcast a profile of Ms. Hilton - including a BBC interview - which was the first time she had been shown speaking on TV in almost a month.

Hilton reportedly lost nearly 10 pounds while incarcerated. All and all, she looked cute.

NEW YORK /PRNewsSpreader/ -- We are pleased to announce that Weber Shandwick, a leading public relations agency, has been ranked #1 in PRWeak's 2007 Agency Excellence Survey. PRWeak, one of the top toady trade publications in the PR industry, puts this survey out each year to advance the profession. By drawing attention to itself, bonding with advertisers, and helping winners with their new business initiatives, PRWeak has played a significant role in shaping the broad reputation the business has today.

This year, the PRWeak survey was performed by an unnamed independent research firm. The results were supposedly based on a composite score that includes overall client satisfaction, likelihood to recommend the agency, likelihood to rehire the agency, and various other stuff.

According to the self-promotional press release, "All respondents were involved in agency selection and management. The firm led whatever other PR firms that participated in the survey with number-one rankings in 15 of 25 attributes for client satisfaction."

And finally, somebody over at PRWeak said, "Weber Shandwick scored well above average on all attributes that clients considered a priority."

ABOUT WEBER SHANDWICK

Weber Shandwick is one of the leading public relations firms in the world with offices in a lotta major media, business and government capitals. The firm specializes in a full range of billable marketing communications activities; and even without a blogging policy of its own, they also offer services including Web relations and advocacy advertising. Despite the fact that our dealings with the CEO Harris Diamond have not gone very well and so far we think he's a clown... in 2006, Weber Shandwick was recognized by a couple other little trade pubs, namely: "Large PR Firm of the Year" by PR News U.S., and "European Consultancy of the Year" by The Holmes Report. Weber Shandwick is a unit of The Interpublic Group.

For more information, contact Eleanor Trickett, Executive Editor, PRWeek by phone at 646/638-6037 or e-mail elly.trickett@prweek.com.