Picking on PAOs
April 9, 2007 by Steve Field
Lately, it has felt like everyone has been picking on public affairs officers. At least in the milblogosphere.
Apparently, PAOs bear the sole responsibility for the fact that the military is losing the battle for America’s hearts and minds.
A few things to consider:
1. Public affairs officers may be professional communicators, but they don’t own the media. The media is independent, and decide what they will write on their own.
2) Public affairs officers may know how to position a message, but in the famous words of Ms. Torrie Clarke, former assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, you can’t put lipstick on a pig. (Or in the words of Ms. Stephanie Hoehne, principal deputy to the Chief of Army Public Affairs, you just can’t buff a turd.) Sometimes, bad news is just bad news.
3) Public affairs officers are only as good as their leadership. The PAO serves the commander. Bottom line. And if their commander is stifling their creativity and their ability to get the message out, then passing the blame to the PAO is simply unfair.
4) For that matter, public affairs officers seem to be institutionally devalued, which undermines their contribution to the fight. When I was at Fort Lewis, the I Corps commander (a three star general) had 0-6 colonels as his lawyer, chief of staff and chaplain. All of the brigade commanders were obviously full-birds. But his PAO? A lieutenant colonel.
I’m not suggesting that everyone in the public affairs community is at the top of their game. Or that even everyone is decent. But I do think that the PAOs have been getting a bad rap lately. And it pisses me off. Because overall, these guys are working their asses off to help support the fight.
Its easier to pass the buck. But true leadership requires looking in the mirror and saying “I’m going to fix this.”
My kid sister is a PAO - currently deployed Over There - and she has shared some of this frustration over years. A largely thankless job, but never more important, IMO.
T0 your point I think the PAO role is often just feeling the brunt of general frustration with the military’s defensiveness with the press, and unwillingness to consider itself part of the society that pays for it.
Case in point is the Navy’s handling of the whale’s and sonar issue in California. It takes a two pronged approach; do the right thing and then actively engage the critics and bring them into the process so that the believe that you are doing the right thing.
If walmart can (some say opportunistically) go green, tell the story, and get positive press for it, then there are some lessons there for how the military can engage the press.
If you think it is bad now, hold on. PA is going to catch hell when all this Iraq business is said and done.
There’s a short list to work, but it’s going to take a hero to get it done. I’ll apologize in advance for being mean.
Fix doctrine.
Fix training. (Is DINFOS aware that it is, in fact, 2007?)
Fight your way to the big table.
Keep the IO hegemony in check. (Good luck.)
Find the guys who default to making CI their top issue because they think it’s what the commander wants and shake them up.
Find the commanders who don’t know what the PA is there to do and shake them up — or at least make them aware of the core PA functions (hint: their PAs didn’t explain it to them it seems)
Never expect a “thank you” unless you catch bullets.
Never think that for one minute that the Brigade CDR will keep you over the guy who fixes his network when the Army says “pick one.”
PAs have those big 40-pound heads. I’d think they could put them together and dig out of this hole before it’s too late.
If not, you had a nice run. We can have SPC McGrunt with a profile do the BDE newsletter and 1SG Criticalpants has a wife who can put together a newsletter for the home front. What else ya’ got?
[...] Never could have imagined that would happen when I wrote this post. [...]
The d-ring gets better and better. Finally the world of communication is seeing what you have brought to our attention. The internet is not going away and can be used to better educate the public than “scripted” newscasts can! Bravo!!!