PRNewser is attending the annual PRWeek Awards tonight and will be posting updates from the event here. Thanks for joining us!

View this year's finalists and more information here.

Possibly one of the busiest people at SXSW is Tammy Lynn Gilmore, who heads up PR for the event. We spoke to Tammy recently -- before she was consumed completely by her work at the conference.

Coordinating PR for an event as large as SXSW Interactive is not a job for the light of heart. We asked Tammi how she manages through it all, and of course what the craziest thing someone has done to try and get a press pass.

How many press pass requests did you get for SXSW this year?

continued...

Account wins in this edition of Spin the Agencies of Record include the 2012 Olympics, the Golden Globes, a Miami hotel, a people-focused search engine, a direct mail provider, and the top weather site:

And the winner is: Sunshine & Sachs for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association account, producers of the Golden Globe Awards

The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games awards the gold to Freud Communications for the summer games.

Canyon Ranch Hotel & Spa Miami Beach shacks up with rbb Public Relations

PeekYou searches and clicks with 5WPR

DRP Group targets the audience for DirectMail.com

Middleberg sees clear skies with Weather.com

In the latest edition of mediabistro.com's Media Beat interview show, editor-in-chief and senior VP of content for PCMag.com Lance Ulanoff talks a bit about the publication's embargo policy.

"The other thing that is unique about us, and certainly it's a difference between us and TechCrunch, because I've argued online with [TechCrunch editor] Michael Arrington about this, is we sign non-disclosure agreements," he said.

"All that means is that we'll meet with the company in confidence so they will show us stuff way early, we can write something, put it in queue, and publish it the moment that the NDA, or embargo or non-disclosure agreement lifts. TechCrunch won't do that. In fact he said that he'll sign them and then he'll break them."

Ulanoff said one of the reasons why this is necessary is PCMag.com is one of the few publications left that does "lab-based testing" of products, which often takes a significant amount of time.

View all past episodes of Media Beat here.

More layoffs are taking place at BusinessWeek today.

"Those who have been cut from the publication include media and marketing writer Tom Lowry and Michelle Conlin, who focused on 'workplace issues,'" reports FishbowlNY.

The magazine is planning a major re-launch which will be rolled out on April 23rd.

MORE: Adweek says 25 have been laid off.

Some Bay Area reporters are not happy with California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman after they were invited to an event billed as "open to the media" but were not allowed to ask any questions.

The event was a meeting with Union Pacific Railroad officials and a tour of Oakland's port.

The video above shows Whitman spokesperson Sarah Pompei attempting to fend off the reporters. "So why were we invited?" one reporter asked, when told Whitman would have no time to meet with them.

Here's the damning quote, via InsideBayArea.com:

A Whitman spokeswoman said Union Pacific had asked that no news media accompany Whitman on her tour of the facility; [Scott Moore, Union Pacific's vice president of public affairs] told one reporter that it was the campaign's decision.

This looks like a classic game of "he said, she said" to us.

First it was college football's Bowl Championship Series. Then it was baseball slugger Mark McGwire during his steroid admission use tour.

Now, Ari Fleischer is handling the most high profile sports scandal of the past year, and maybe even the decade: Tiger Woods.

The former White House Press Secretary to George W. Bush was hired by Woods, the The NY Post reports, citing "two sources in the golf community."

PRNewser was not able to confirm if Tiger had hired PR help before his recent press conference. However, with an upcoming appearance on March 25th at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Woods clearly needs to be thinking about his public image.

One PR agency head we spoke with who has handled many high profile clients in situations similar to Woods told PRNewser today, "it's about time they hired somebody, what were they waiting for?"

"Unlike his press conference he's going to have to answer questions," the agency head said.

Fleischer recently told ABC News that sports PR is "more relaxing" than politics. Will he think the same after his work with Woods?

Michael Wolff, Newser.com: The Good Flack: Can Better PR Save the Times?

TheWrap: CNN Developing New Morning-Show Pilot

Webnewser: At We Media Summit: 'I Don't Know Where I Got my News Today'

socialmediatoday: 10 Newbie Twitter Mistakes Made By Businesses

MediaPost: Twitter And Facebook Creating Challenges for U.S. Courts

One of SXSW's major sponsors, Chevy, is already trying to capitalize on the massive buzz around the conference with a few programs that got underway this week.

The company has sent a team of bloggers to road trip it down to Austin from their hometowns and document their journey.

Fleishman-Hillard is working with GM on the campaign. We spoke with Christopher Barger, Director, Global Social Media at GM, about the program. "A lot of what we're doing [at SXSW] is very subtle," he said. "We want to let people have the experience, rather than go out and put a brand on everything."

What is the company looking to get out of this, we asked?

"In the short term we're looking at how many times it is being tweeted, how much interaction is taking place, how much it is being mentioned, how many posts or articles are out there. It's traditional PR measurement."

However, Barger said that the long term effects are "more important."

"We don't look at this as a nine-day campaign and then it's over," he said. "The more relationships and more long term engagement we can get out of this, is what it's all about. "

Chevy is also working with location-based mobile application Gowalla. Naturally we asked why they chose Gowalla as opposed to other services such as Foursquare. Barger said it was in part because Gowalla is Austin-based. "They knew this community, this festival really well," he said.

According to a survey of journalists from the websites of TV, radio, newspaper, and web-only properties, 81% are looking to outside video sources to cover stories, a 33 % increase over last year. The findings are the result of surveys with 300 sources conducted by satellite, b-roll, PSA and internet video firm D S Simon Productions.

The survey also found that 75% of those using video use embed codes, while 100% of those identifying themselves as from newspapers do so. Three quarters of all respondents said they would use more, or much more video content next year.

Also worth noting within DS Simon's whitepaper is what topics resonate with various media. Not surprisingly, politics led the way for radio websites, and technology for web-only properties. TV sites favored health-care, newspapers favored sports, and magazines preferred business and finance.

More information on the 2010 Web Influencers Survey can be found here.

Bears running around the suburbs, car chases, man-on-the-street and expert sources: The Onion News Network has a deconstruction of any given story on dayside cable news. Excessive profanity may make this NSFW, depending on where you work.

If you are lucky enough to tie-in your "random expert," here's the essence of what you get: "I've spent my entire life attending the nation's most prestigious schools to talk about bullshit like this. I'm really just happy to be on TV."

[h/t TVNewser]

RELATED: Did You Ever Wonder Where B-roll Comes From?

PRNewser, along with other mediabistro.com reporters, will be covering the SXSW conference from Austin, TX this weekend and into next week. As one can imagine, we're being flooded with PR pitches to meet with all kinds of people and companies.

We don't mind it at all. We like to be kept informed - and it comes with the gig. However, we thought PRNewser readers would be interested in us highlighting one "good" pitch and one "bad" pitch.

SXSW, along with other major conferences, is a very hard environment in which to pitch. There is a complete firehose of information being shot at bloggers and media. So, after the jump, we've posted one "good" pitch and one "bad" pitch.

continued...