MGH in Baltimore adds four employees: Valerie Amey, Kelly Cahill, Margot Feingold and Joseph Gorman; Clapp Communications added Lisa Harlow; and, The Washington Blade, the nation’s oldest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) newspaper, hired Stephen Rutgers as director of events and marketing.

Randy Santos is featured in a Popular Photography article titled “How To: Photograph Washington D.C.'s Infamous Cherry Blossoms”. According to Santos, “timing for light and avoiding crowds is key.”  He added,

Grafik reports that its branding work for JK Moving Services placed it among one of the world’s most effective rebrands in the eighth annual REBRAND 100® Global Awards. According to Grafik, “this acknowledgement is the highest recognition for excellence in brand repositioning, and is the first and most respected global program of its kind.”

All In PR, a PR firm based in DC, opens its doors with founder and CEO Brittney Bogues focused on making her mark on the sports and entertainment world.

Daughter of NBA’s “Muggsy” Bogues and Wake Forest University graduate, Brittney Bogues founded All In PR “on an old school public relations meets new school electronic media mantra, creating a dynamic 24/7 digital production powerhouse company for professional athletes, music artists, non-profits and creative concepts.”

The DC Ad Club and Ad 2 DC earned 10 Club Achievement Awards - including three for first place - in the American Advertising Federation’s annual national competition. This breaks the club’s previous record of winning three awards in 2009.

Competing in eight categories with more than 10 clubs of comparable size (500 or more members) from across the country, the DC Ad Club won top honors in two categories: Club Operations and Advertising Education.

"The Pitch" is an upcoming AMC reality show that premiers on April 30 and follows real ad agencies as they pitch real new business.

According to ADWEEK, the series features agencies like The Ad Store, SK+G, WDCW and McKinney battling it out for assignments from Frangelico, Popchips, Subway and Waste Management of Houston, Texas. “The biggest Madison Avenue players demurred when asked to participate, preferring to keep their new-biz secrets secret (whiter boards? balder execs),” stated the story.

Public radio news talker WAMU takes the top spot in the DC market radio ratings for the "first week" of March, reports dcrtv, with all-newser WTOP falling to 2nd. New all-newser WNEW placed 33rd.  In Baltimore, WWIN-FM is the ratings leader.

IMRE added Marty Conway as vice president in its Sports practice. Before joining IMRE, Conway worked with Major League Baseball (MLB) for a combined 14 years as Vice President of Marketing and Communication and Vice President of Marketing and Development for the Baltimore Orioles and the Texas Rangers, respectively.  During his time with MLB, Conway was responsible for marketing the launch of two new ballparks, Oriole Park at Camden Yards and Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.

Convincing the young and cool to embrace a product they think belongs to the old and stodgy is an ambitious goal, and LM&O’s new ad campaign for D.C.-area opera company UrbanArias takes that challenge head on. The company’s festival of short opera runs April 13-22 at Artisphere in Arlington.

Central Casting, a D.C.-based casting company, will be hosting an open casting call on Sunday, April 1, for the upcoming Netflix episodic, “House of Cards,” starring Kevin Spacey. Central Casting has signed on to cast for 28 episodes of this original political drama, the largest Hollywood project to be shot in the D.C. area since “Transformers 3.”

“In a sign of the times for the troubled newspaper industry,” reported Paul Farhi in The Washington Post, “the nation’s most venerable press-management and training organization,” has gone out of business.  The American Press Institute, based in Reston, has merged with Arlington-based Newspaper Association of America, under a merger approved by the two organizations in January.

"CBS Suits Not Worried About WNEW's Slow Start" states dcrtv.com.  dcrtv reports that Inside Radio newsletter has an item that “patience is the headline for CBS Radio's new Washington FM.”  The report continued: “The Washington all-news battle between CBS Radio's upstart "News 99.1" WNEW and Hubbard incumbent WTOP-FM, 103.5, has only just begun.

WTOP Radio announced that its Vice President of News and Programming Jim Farley is the 2012 recipient of the Freedom of Speech Award given by leading trade publication TALKERS Magazine. The Freedom of Speech Award is a non-partisan honor given to those talk media figures whose work demonstrates the First Amendment in action and raises awareness of its principles.

WTTG-TV’s Holly Morris and her crew were at Design Army this morning to do three video pieces on the multi-award winning design shop - at the recent ADDY Awards competition, Design Army won 27 ADDY® Awards (1 Special Judges Award, 24 Gold and 2 Silver) - and you can check out her reports

More than 300 people are expected at the first annual Mid-Atlantic Marketing Summit - Intelligence & Insights on the Future of Communications that's set for April 20. As the region’s premier event in marketing, technology, communications and media, this full-day event will bring together advertising, marketing, communications and media executives to discuss high-level marketing and communications issues through a series of panels, keynotes, presentations and networking.

When the DC Ad Club presented its 2012 ADDY® Awards, recognizing advertising creative excellence, Thursday, March 15, MDB Communications won “Best of Broadcast” for its DC Lottery “Intervention” campaign. You can check out one of the spots in the award-winning campaign and a bit of background on the campaign from Richard Coad, MDB’s Chief Creative Officer

COO Forum, a group that provides peer support and professional development to chief operating officers and second-in-command executives will launch a Bethesda chapter in April led by Sue Butler, managing director, executive search, Thinkinghire. Started in 2004 in the San Francisco Bay Area, COO Forum links second-in-command executives and now operates more than 50 chapters nationally.

According to dcrtv.com, all-news WTOP took the top spot in the monthly February radio ratings for DC, and urban contemporary Magic 95.9, WWIN-FM, topped the radio ratings in Baltimore.

The National Association for State Community Services Programs hired Environics Communications as its PR agency... The first ten of 25 people have been selected, photographed and interviewed as part of the National Museum of Women in the Arts 25th anniversary ad campaign, 25 Art Lovers ... Weitzman Agency in Annapolis added Victoria Salvatoriello as account executive ... and, Linda Roth Conte of Linda Roth Associates was featured Wednesday in "The 3-Minute Interview" in the Washington Examiner.

In the midst of the Highway Bill being considered in Congress to fix our nation’s crumbling roads and bridges, DC-based Elevation, Ltd., has launched a hard-hitting campaign with provocative messaging to address the issue’s urgency.

The effort is being focused within the home states of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Kentucky) and House Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) and will expand to other states as voting in Congress continues

GolinHarris is getting out of the lobbying business, reports The Hill.

According to the report by Kevin Bogardus, the public-affairs firm is shifting its lobbying work to Cassidy & Associates, a sister company also owned by the Interpublic Group.

The Hershey Harrisburg Regional Visitors Bureau will use a just-awarded $100,000 grant from Dauphin County commissioners “to bait its hook for tourists from the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., areas” states one press report.

The report continued:

“More rumblings" that Mike Huckabee will replace Rush Limbaugh on Cumulus's radio stations, including news talker WMAL in DC, reports dcrtv.

The dcrtv report continued:

The DC Ad Club presented its 2012 ADDY® Awards, recognizing advertising creative excellence, on Thursday evening at the Almas Temple in DC. This annual reception and awards presentation was attended by about 400 advertising and media professionals.

General Counsel, P.C. and NetStrategies are holding "Sticks and Stones May Break Your Bones, But Online Slurs Can Kill Your Business," a March 20 breakfast seminar on defending your organization's reputation. Anyone can post negative information about your organization on the Internet, and the cost in lost business or credibility can be astronomical. In this seminar for business owners and executives, you will learn how to protect yourself from disgruntled ex-employees, customers with an axe to grind, competitors or even strangers with a hidden agenda. The seminar by General Counsel, P.C. and NetStrategies will detail the ways you can proactively guard your reputation, extend the reach of your Web communications, and mitigate the inevitable problems that companies Read More »

Susan Davis International has joined Capitol Communicator, the leading online resource for communicators in the mid-Atlantic, to provide media relations and publicity services.  "We’re excited to have the support and assistance of Susan Davis International as we continue to build and expand our outreach efforts,” said Paul Duning, Capitol Communicator publisher. As envisioned,

Using the power and insights from Google Search, the Google Politics & Elections team is working to tell the story of the 2012 presidential election, with the most recent chapter being about Super Tuesday - and they did it with the help of DC-based JESS3, the official design and strategy partner with Google for the 2012 election cycle.

Next Friday, March 23, is the deadline for West Glen Communications annual “Give Back” campaign, which provides nonprofits a free satellite feed of their television public service announcement (PSA). WestGlen started the “Give Back” campaign in 2009 when it recognized the challenges faced by nonprofits, which include, for many, decreased resources and an increasing need for donor visibility in a crowded media environment.

A 90-minute documentary on the history of The Bayou is working its way to completion … with the major obstacle being the money needed for the rights to the material in the documentary.

According to the promotional material on the project, “Born by a mob murder and killed in vitality, The Bayou thrived for 45 years as a distinctive musical marvel that transcended genres and eras in the shadows of the gritty Georgetown waterfront. The film chronicles the unlikely rise, the changing faces, the jaunty anecdotes, the gaudy on- and off-stage high jinks and the mystical allure of The Bayou (1953-1998)

ServiceSource hired Environics Communications to help raise awareness of its services ... Van Eperen & Company adds Marin Hedin and Robert Cisneros ... Spurrier Media Group is opening a satellite office in the Washington metro market ... and, PlowShare Group moved to 128 King Street in Alexandria.