Ollinick has had a busy year. Last spring she helped Oprah Winfrey develop a program about the victims of infamous crimes, based on our 19-page special report "Shattered Lives." During the summer she ran PEOPLE'S six-week seminar series on popular culture at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. And last month she booked executive editor Susan Toepfer on more than 153 local and national news shows, including Good Morning America, to talk about our annual Best & Worst Dressed issue. Clearly, one person cannot do all this alone: Working with Ollinick are assistant manager Dianne Jones, publicity coordinator Akieva Harrell and Sheri Wohl Lapidus, who manages publicity for our sister publication IN STYLE.
Before joining our staff a year ago, Ollinick honed her publicity skills at ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY and Rolling Stone, but she finds PEOPLE'S mix of stories a unique challenge. "While it's a lot of fun to get the word out about PEOPLE'S 50 Most Beautiful People or Sexiest Man Alive, we also have a chance to show our involvement about more sensitive contemporary topics—issues such as victims' rights, teenage pregnancy and AIDS," she says.
The magazine also has a commitment to public education—even when the subject matter is painful. On Sept. 16, the Suicide Prevention Project at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Piscataway, presented managing editor Landon Y. Jones with a special media award citing several PEOPLE articles as "exemplary models for educating the public about the complexities of suicide." Over the years, we have published many pieces on the causes and effects of suicide—most recently in our Sept. 18 story "The Lost Daughters," which concerned the efforts of two California families to come to terms with the deaths of their daughters. Among the speakers at the Prevention Project conference was actress Mariette Hartley, who helped diminish the stigma associated with suicide when, 11 years ago in PEOPLE, she courageously wrote about her own father's death." "Mariette speaks with the authority of a terrible experience," says Jones. "But what is amazing is how much affirmation she was able to bring into that room, along with the tears. People who begin the long journey to healing after a suicide can gain so much strength and solace from those who have been there before—and survived. That is a message that we want to help get out."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
