The New York Yankees celebrated their 27th World Series today with a parade through downtown Manhattan's "Canyon of Heroes." Rubenstein Associates, the team's PR agency of record, issued the following statement to media on behalf of team owner George Steinbrenner, sent by agency president Howard Rubenstein.

continued...

It seems Ogilvy PR should be thanking California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration for mismanagement. It helped Ogilvy pick up a $9 million contract with the California High-Speed Rail Authority. The bidding process for the contract was re-opened after Mercury Public Affairs - who was about to win the account - was deemed to have too many close ties to the Schwarzenegger administration. Government board members called the original bidding process, "insufficient."

"Under a new bidding process, a staff selection panel that included three representatives from outside transit agencies chose Ogilvy over six other applicants. Mercury did not rebid, saying it lacked confidence in the new process," reports the Fresno Bee. O'Dwyer's says Ogilvy beat out Porter Novelli for the contract.

Does the U.S. have a perception problem? Not so, according to one survey. FutureBrand, in conjunction with Weber Shandwick's Global Travel & Lifestyle Practice, released their fifth annual Country Brand Index (CBI) today.

The U.S. came in first, followed by Canada and Australia. New Zealand and France round out the top five. In terms of methodology, the survey, "incorporates global quantitative research, expert opinions, and relevant secondary sources for statistics that link brand equity to assets, growth and expansion."

"It's logical to assume that the shift in the political climate and renewed optimism surrounding the election of President Obama was a key influencer in the U.S. topping the list," said Rene A. Mack, president, Weber Shandwick's Travel & Lifestyle Global Practice.

In a recent PRNewser poll, we asked, "Which Tactic Did You Employ the Last Time You Released Big News?" The results: "Posted on a wire and pitched the release," and "Exclusive with one publication" both came in dead even at 32% each.

21% said "News embargo" and 15% said "Posted on company blog/website and pitched the link." Judging from these results, we have to ask: Are embargoes on the decline?

Just last week agency Waggener Edstrom assembled a panel to discuss the topic of emgargoes, and reporters in attendance were split down the middle between those who defended them and those who hate them. The panel came on the heals of another declaration that embargoes are dead, this time from TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington, who has been publicly battling with PR for quite some time.

Skip forward to this week. Waggener Edstrom, the aforementioned agency who set up last week's panel on embargoes had an embargo broken in regards to one of their clients: Microsoft's MSN.com re-design. This led to another uproar and Arrington said he "banned" Waggener from communicating with TechCrunch. What did the agency learn from the experience? "Will we abandon embargos all together: nope. Will we have an even higher bar for use of the tool: you bet," said Jen Houston, global lead of Wag Ed's digital division, Studio D, in a blog post today.

First on PRNewser: Bite PR Manager of Business Development & Account Planning Kelly McCarthy is leaving the agency to join Ruder Finn as Director of Business Development. "I love Bite, always have and continue to wish them well, but it's a new chapter for me and a new opportunity. [Ruder Finn] is an agency that is growing and has fantastic credentials," said McCarthy.

Bite will "definitely" be hiring, said Vice President Sean Mills. "We're taking this as an opportunity to evaluate our new business structure across North America and make sure we have the right resources in the right places. As we get that sorted out you'll see us actively recruiting to fill her position." McCarthy's first day at Ruder Finn is November 16th. Bite PR's New York team had a bash to send her off last night.

Amid the worst shooting on a U.S. military base in history, the Pentagon, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and FBI face the challenge of balancing a public hungry for up to the minute news with making sure they always have 100% correct information.

This was the first major news event in which media organizations used Twitter lists to get the news out. The Austin American-Statesman was among the first to set up a list.

PRNewser spoke this morning with Dallas Lawrence, Chair of Social and Digital Media Practice for Levick Strategic Communications. Lawrence previously served as director of the Office of Community Relations and Public Liaison for the United States Department of Defense and also as spokesperson for Ambassador L. Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.

We asked Lawrence what the chain of communication looks like internally in a crisis situation such as Fort Hood, now that multiple government agencies are involved. Based on his past experience, Lawrence said, "by now, you're probably seeing communications fully coordinated by the Pentagon."

In terms of communications tactics, Lawrence stressed that accuracy is key. "While you need to calibrate that response, you also need to get it right. You can't fall victim to what some of the cable networks have fallen victim to, which is putting first story you hear you out there and then finding out it's wrong. The military has found a very good balance between rapid response but also making sure they get it correct," he said.

If anything, the military is best organization to handle crisis, said Lawrence. "One of the benefits the military has is having professional public affairs staff on every base. Some organizations may experience a crisis for first time, and don't have people that have crisis reflexes. Every person in public affairs is an enlisted person that has experienced crises."

[P.J. Clarke's, a 125 year-old institution with three locations in Manhattan, via Flickr]

Account wins in this edition of Spin the Agencies of Record includes an online jewelry boutique, an historic restaurant, a medical device high-intensity oncologic and neuropathic pain, a tire recycling company, and a film festival in the Caribbean:

5WPR lands a jem with MyJewelryBox.com

Dan Klores Communications (DKC) dines old school with P.J. Clarke's

RF|Binder prescribes PR as agency of record for Competitive Technologies, Inc. to launch the FDA-approved pain management device Calmare Therapy

S&S Public Relations bounces for Magnum D'Or Resource, a company that deals with all facets of rubber recycling and re-use. No, not those Magnums.

The Bahamas International Film Festival screens firms and awards top prize to Rogers & Cowan

It's been a rough fall for Condé Nast. The media powerhouse shuttered several titles, laid off hundreds of employees and reported sharp decline in ad revenue.

Now, the company is getting PR help. CEO Charles Townsend and Chairman S.I. Newhouse, Jr. have hired crisis manager and media coach Michael Sheehan. The executives were reluctant to make the hire, but did so after Lucky publisher Gina Sanders urged them to, reports the Post's Keith Kelly. Sanders is married to Condé "heir apparent" Steven Newhouse and worked with Sheehan when she was at Teen Vogue.

Sheehan has experience in politics and finance having counseled Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, AIG during last year's crisis, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and JP Morgan. He has also served as speech coach at every Democratic convention since 1988.

Army Public Affairs: Army Secretary John M. McHugh, others express sadness over Fort Hood tragedy

Army|Live: Keep Fort Hood in your hearts

Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR): U.S. Muslims Condemn Attack at Fort Hood

CBS News: Googling The End Of The (Media) World As We Know It

For ongoing coverage of how the media is handling the Ft. Hood massacre, refresh TVNewser

BusinessWeek's editor-in-chief, Stephen Adler will not be making the move to Bloomberg, following the company's acquisition of the magazine. Neither will Roger Neal, GM of BusinessWeek's online operations. However, executive editors Ellen Pollock and John Byrne and managing editor Ciro Scotti will make the move and stay with BusinessWeek.

Bloomberg chief content officer Norman Pearlstine said in a memo to the troops today that the majority of BusinessWeek employees would be hired by Bloomberg.

Neal, along with Byrne, was primarily responsible for Business Exchange, a social networking site created by the publication to the tune of $20 million. So far, it accounts for 16% of BusinessWeek's digital revenue, but has not grown as fast as expected. We hear that is a source of discontent from many employees who feel the company overpaid to build it.

It seems someone at Google PR thought it would be a good idea to book Vice President of Search Product and User Experience Marissa Mayer on a local morning drive AM radio show. The first question asked in the interview: How can we find naked pictures of you on the internet? Needless to say, Mayer wasn't pleased.

Apparently, the interview was to generate interest and excitement about the new Google Audio service coming out. However, someone in the PR department clearly didn't think things through, or at least didn't prep Mayer for what the experience was going to be like.

The hosts were unapologetic. "Sorry we didn't do just a pure sunshine-y, up with people commercial for your business that you didn't pay for," one said.

Twenty nine companies in New York City were cleared by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to receive H1N1 swine flu vaccines, BusinessWeek reports. Among the recipients are Goldman Sachs, Time Warner, JPMorgan Chase, Memorial Sloan-Kettering, New York Presbyterian Healthcare System, and New York University.

One business blogger suggested that this "looks like another PR snafu for Wall Street," since in some instances banks were allowed to receive the vaccines before hospitals.

Reached for comment, a Goldman Sachs spokesperson sent PRNewser the following statement: "It is important to understand that the Department of Health decides in its sole discretion who receives H1N1 vaccines - both the amount and timing. Goldman Sachs, like other responsible employers, has requested vaccine and will supply it only to employees who qualify based on the requirements laid down by the CDC and Department of Health."