Hack turned flack

After nine years at NPR, Susan Feeney joins public affairs firm GMMB as senior counselor. Her most recent post at the radio network was as Senior Planning Editor at All Things Considered.

GMMB is a division of Omnicom Group's (NYSE: OMC) Fleishman-Hillard with offices in Washington, D.C., London, Seattle, and Los Angeles. The firm focuses on policy, politics and advocacy with case studies including the Obama campaign's advertising and events, the U.N. Foundation's malaria prevention effort and the CTIA's positioning and safety messaging.

Prior to joining NPR in 2000, Feeney covered politics and the White House for The Dallas Morning News and The Times-Picayune. Feeney's has direct advocacy experience as founder of the Friends of the Times-Picayune, a non-profit emergency relief fund for families of the newspaper's staff displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The effort raised almost $400,000 in support of 200 families.

[Feeney, third from the left with fellow Friends of Times-Picayune]

Often hacks become flacks, though not usually for pseudo-military organizations that roll in to town in Mercedes SUVs bearing phony City Police emblems, as is the case with Becky Shay, former reporter with the Billings Gazette in Montana. The company she works for, the controversial American Police Force (APF) was part of her beat as recently as last month.

APF claims it is in Hardin, Montana to take over the new but empty prison. The tiny town made a name for itself (see TIME's coverage) nationally earlier this year, when they offered to take on the inmates of Guantanamo Bay, if and when the government shut it down.

Just a week in to the job, Ms. Shay is in deep, dealing with the State Attorney General's 9 page list of questions about the controversial founder of APF Michael Hilton. The AG wants to know more about the claims on APF's site, and on Hilton's lengthy criminal record in California, and about APF's government contracts, and about the company's deal with the economic development arm of Hardin.

In an interview and web story yesterday with the local TV affiliate (clip above), Shay says she vetted the company carefully before taking the position and is very happy about the terms:

"My terms were: I don't want the moon and the stars, but I'd like to be able to see them from the patio," Shay said. She is earning $60,000 dollars a year, received a signing bonus, a brand new company car and is getting help making the down payment on a new home.

"Here I am feeling the best I've ever felt about myself," she said. "At a great point in my life."

Regarding the barrage of questions from the media about the prison, "I will always answer any question that is posed," Shay told KULR-TV. "It may be a response, not an answer."

In the heat of the AG's investigation, Shay hasn't returned the Gazette's calls at press time, and TalkingPointsMemo reports that her voicemail is full.

Journalists leaving their posts to take up careers in public relations is not a new thing, though it seems to be accelerating lately with the doom and gloom hitting the media business.

My co-editor Joe Ciarallo recently asked "Do Former Journalists Make Good PR Pros?" Most of the numerous comments offered a resounding yes, though most were in fact, former journalists. The writing, research, adherence to deadlines, dealing with a variety of people, are all important skills. Though, one agency head who requested anonymity said, "never ends well." "Journalists would prefer to hang up on difficult clients. You can't do that on this side of the fence."

Moving from one side to another is both an interesting topic for PRNewser, and firmly fits mediabistro's M.O. to help media people retrain, reinvent, and find the jobs they want.

Without further adieu, we're adding a "hack turned flack" category to keep track of those who make the leap. I won't go in to depth about the word "flack" though I don't believe it's pejorative, and hack-turned-flack is a lot catchier than journalist-turned-strategic comm consultant.

Here's an alphabetical list of a few of the hacks-turned-flacks who have made the jump recently:

Dan Abrams, MSNBC anchor and general manager to found Abrams Research, then starting his own content play Mediaite with mediabistro's Glynnis MacNicol & Steve Krakauer joining HuffoPo's Rachel Sklar and the Daily Show's Colby Hall on the masthead.

Chris Gaither from the Los Angeles Times, to Google corporate comm

Mike Hegedus, CNBC correspondent to McKinley Reserve

Keith O'Brien, PRWeek editor-in-chief to Attention

David Patton, WSJ.com to Waggener Edstrom's Studio D division

Blake Robinson, founder of Crunchgear to MWW Group, on to Attention

Richard Wolff, Newsweek to Public Strategies, Inc.

Photo credit: Me, wearing a fedora.

Newport Beach, CA McKinley Reserve Media Group (MRMG) begins production this week on a TV show for KOCE-TV, the PBS affiliate in the market.

"24 in the OC," is produced and hosted by the firm's Executive Producer Mike Hegedus. The first episode will air on KOCE's OC Channel at the end of September.

Hegedus had 30 years of broadcast experience when he left CNBC to head McKinley's video practice earlier this year.

According to MRMG President John Thatcher, 24 in the OC will be similar to Hegedus's "Mike on America" segments for CNBC, profiling interesting people with compelling business models. He confirmed that the show will not be featuring the firm's clients.

Hegedus and his new show are a particularly interesting example of hack-turned-flack in that it's content entirely created by him, for a mainstream news outlet. MRMG is producing the show with no financing from KOCE, though is looking for sponsors to defray the costs.

Here's an example of a "Mike on America" segment, about the Pink Jeeps of Sedona:

Richard Wolffe, one of many high-profile "hacks" to turn "flack" this year, has been drawing the ire of bloggers by maintaining his pole position on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

He was Newsweek's Senior White House Correspondent before leaving journalism to join Public Strategies, Inc. as a Senior Strategist in the spring.

It's quite common for political consultants to appear on cable shows, however Wolffe has done so as a guest host, not a panelist. As a result, Wolffe and the firm received the full Gawker treatment today, illuminating some connections between Public Strategies' lobbying clients, and the healthcare fight on the Hill.

MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines responded to Talking Points Memo, promising to disclose Wolffe's new job title. Olbermann wrote on Daily Kos that Wolffe might be welcomed back when the show "can clarify what else he is doing."

As media watchers know, Olbermann switched a few years back from booking a wide variety of experts to a handful of pithy regulars, many from the synergized Newsweek. The reason MSNBC is sticking with Wolffe is for two big reasons: he covered the Obama run from the beginning, and because he's a very good guest--a smooth talking pundit with good suits and quick British wit. These things matter when viewer boredom is alleviated with a quick flip of the remote. A guest's delivery on cable is just as important as pedigree.

However, as you'll see from the clip of Wolffe's guest host appearance from Friday above, it's much harder to sit behind the anchor desk than to react to questions. He's pretty good but not very "Keithy," as the network promises in their promos.