Air Force News, news from Iraq - Air Force Times

Public affairs, strategic communications merge

The Air Force is consolidating its public affairs and strategic communications functions.

The reason, said the service’s public affairs chief Nov. 13, is to get its message out more proactively to airmen and to the public, and better coordinate its communications.

“The bottom line is communication,” said Brig. Gen. Darren McDew. “Sometimes people think in order to do strategic communication, it needs to be a separate organization from public affairs, and it doesn’t.

“It is all one and the same. … Now we have an organization going forward that has a full-spectrum communication capability.”

The first step came Nov. 3, with the formation of the Directorate of Public Affairs.

Previously, public affairs handled internal media and day-to-day contact with the external news media. Strategic communications focused on larger-scale efforts designed to influence public perception of the Air Force and its contributions to national security.

But McDew said the separate structures hampered the Air Force’s efforts to forge a cohesive communication strategy.

McDew said the long-standing tradition of public affairs being led by an officer from another career field eventually will be a thing of the past. Both McDew and his predecessor, Brig. Gen. Michelle Johnson, are career mobility pilots and commanders.

“I think it’s important to completely professionalize this career field and have a career field that is sustainable and that will produce someone who … understands the full spectrum,” he said.

“The folks around me that have been doing this for 20-some-odd years are better at it than me. So we have got to get to the point where we can produce someone who does this for a career … and will eventually grow up to be the director of public affairs.”

The changes in public affairs shops across the Air Force will be significant, if less pronounced than those at the Pentagon.

For starters, McDew said, the public affairs career field has been hit by personnel cuts. The number of public affairs officers fell from 470 in 2005 to 246 today, a 48 percent reduction. He said it is too early to talk numbers, but some of those positions could be restored.

Also, some organizations have stood up their own strategic communications offices or advisers. Those functions will now be rolled into the public affairs shops.

“This is the template going forward,” McDew said. “It’ll be how everybody will look to formulate their communications enterprise.”

But the most significant change will be in how public affairs officers from the Pentagon to the wing level do their jobs. Gone are the days of waiting for the media to find out about something and then reacting to the story, McDew said.

Instead, public affairs officers will work to shape coverage of the Air Force and get out ahead of stories before they go public.

“We … need to be able to look out and over the horizon and anticipate areas where we might need to communicate and what that might need to be,” he said. “We need to be able to … proactively engage. … I’ve always joked that everyone likes that adrenaline rush of kind of swooping in and saving the day. It takes a little more work to plan ahead, anticipate a problem and make it go away even before there’s a big rush.”

McDew also said there will be a greater emphasis on spotlighting airmen as the public face of the Air Force, and a greater reliance on new media.

To achieve the first goal, he said, the Air Force needs to put airmen, rather than airplanes, at the center of its communication efforts. That includes highlighting the ways that airmen contribute beyond just flying fighter sorties.

“In my mind, it is more about people than about programs and platforms,” McDew said. “Airman magazine [should] always have a person on it, not just an airplane. Airplanes are wonderful, but our Air Force is run by people.”

The Air Force also will focus on using multimedia and technology rather than rely solely on old-fashioned press releases, he said.

“Today’s environment says that we can no longer put out a press release and hope that solves everything,” he said.

“We have an … audience that wants to communicate and be communicated with differently. We need to accommodate all of those things going forward.” Ë