In an email sent to the staff today, embattled PR giant Fleishman-Hillard announced a ban on corprate campaign contributions, set up a hotline for employes to report questionable practices directly to the CEO and come up with a new system for verifying billing. An unnamed outside academic also was brought in to "assess the ethical commitment of the firm." It's all part of the continuing fallout from the Doug Dowie era in the Los Angeles office. PR Week has the story.

* Friday stories: Times (not online), Daily News