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High-Ranking Navy P.R. Officer
Addresses PRSSA
The key to good P.R. is
"being the smartest, most informed informed person on public
relations in the room in order to avoid surprises and to handle
dominant personalities," said U.S. Navy Capt. Hal Pittman. Pittman
is the Allied Command Transformation's Chief of Public Information
as well as Public Affairs Director for the U.S. Joint Forces
Command. Pittman spoke to the SDSU PRSSA chapter on Oct. 3, 2006.
Capt. Pittman spoke on behalf
of the procedures CENTCOM uses to handle information. According to
Pittman, "CENTCOM is the U.S. Central Command, one of nine 4-star
unified commands. CENTCOM oversees the geological region of the
Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa. They oversee the
ongoing U.S. military and coalition combat operations and
humanitarian actions there."
His main purpose for his work
in communication is to exercise the rights of a democratic society
on behalf of citizens and military alike, especially in time of war.
He also uses CENTCOM's communications ability as a deterrent to the
U.S.'s enemies.
Pittman said the principles
of information dispersement are to create consistency and the free
flow of internal and external information. He also strives to comply
with the Freedom of Information Act to send out information on the
government, even if it doesn't put the government in a favorable
light.
Part of Pittman's job is to
plan strategy in dispersing information, along with training the
personnel that will carry out those strategies. This includes
planning on a wide scope and developing tools with which he could
tell where the organization is and where its going. Analysis is also
important. Polling and the delivery of information is tracked to
determine the program's effectiveness.
The captain said outreach is
essential for the military to get its information to the right
places. "Public affairs in strategic communication involve review of
defense strategy, examining military abilities to deal with
audiences overseas such as the enemy, people in the United States
and those in the service. The outreach also takes in headquarters,
host nations and working groups."
One of those groups is NATO. Pittman
talked about the difficulty on working with a large organization to
build consensus on joint decisions. "There needs to be a
communication process in order to bring all the people involved
under one tent."
The process he uses involves
Web sites, articles and photos, tri-folds and brochures, specialized
design logos, electronic newsletters and corporation-style blogs.
Communication with
international groups is also important. There are media centers,
such as the Dubai Media City, where offices are located in a
technological park. In Dubai, CENTCOM invites 1500 media
organizations from Arab and other countries around the world to have
access to information.
In order to help the command
better tell stories, they rely on training, changing methods of
documentation and procedures and the use of data to define the core
mission. This helps develop the missions, goals, priorities and
necessary actions to track the communication's progress.
One aspect of this effort is
CENTCOM's media engagement teams. Their ultimate goal is to have the
media cover the good news. Established a year ago, the mission uses
trained interviewers to investigate stories and deliver them by
telephone or satellite hook-ups. They also pitch stories to
mainstream journalists. These public relations personnel are chosen
from as low of rank as the military's entry level positions
resulting in 19 to 20-year-olds interviewing other young soldiers,
sailors and marines.
One effective tool to get
information out has been the military's electronic homepage that has
between 650,000 to one million visitors monthly with weekly updates
and liveblogging. Through CENTCOM, individual blogs covering
information about the military's actions are sought out. This gives
CENTCOM a chance to forward their online newsletter and to correct
misinformation.
Pittman said, "CENTCOM does not have an
organization blog per se, but its PA team provides content to
bloggers that request it. Right now they are linked to more than 300
blogs. The content includes news releases, articles, photographs or
just answering questions or correcting misinformation that might be
posted on a site. Some blogs also receive the weekly electronic
newsletter.
For more information visit
CENTCOM's Web site at
www.centcom.mil
Pittman also invites you to
take a look at the U.S. Joint Forces Command at www.jfcom.mil
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