Poor PIO work on oil spill mission

[RiverAux]

I've got to say that I'm disappointed with CAP's public information operations in regards to the Gulf oil spill.  Other than the daily statistical update (which is a very good practice), very few press releases have gone out (or if they have gone out, very few were submitted to NHQ and placed on the CAPVolunteer page).  My news alerts have caught very few CAP oil spill articles, another sign of very little PAO work.   

Are we repeating our mistakes of Katrina and operating a major mission with no coordinated PIO effort?  We're talking about over 600 hours of flying here - it doesn't get much bigger than that for CAP. 

What is happening at the state level?  A quick review of the web sites for the affected Wings found very little oil spill news.  LA Wing has a notice about daily flights and a link that media can use to find out more info (kudos).  MS and FL Wings each have one press release from early May and Alabama and Texas don't seem to have anything.  Southeast and Southwest regions have nothing obvious.  Anything over at CAP-USAF's place at the Holm Center?  Nope. 

We are apparently running multiple mission bases (again like Katrina) and I wonder how many have a PIO working at them?   

We're talking about a multi-region mission with potential national prominence and this is all we're doing? 

Granted, we're a tiny little part of what is going on, but I'm sure that CAP members from the impacted states are coming from all over their states and press releases should be going out in their hometowns when they leave and when they come back.  TV crews should be at the airports watching them fly away.  A PIO at the base should be sending back releases to their home towns while they're  there. 

And, of course, as always I despair of CAP being mentioned in a future history of the AF response to this disaster.  Do we have any historians working on this mission?   Conducting historical interviews with participants? 

I'm sure that there are PIOs around the country that would jump at the chance to spend some time down at these bases working on these issues.  Has a call gone out for PIO assistance?  They obviously need it. 

Sorry for the rant, but this is an opportunity that only comes along every once in a while and we appear to be letting it go to waste. 



http://www.capvolunteernow.com/highprofile_missions//gulf_oil_response/

[Al Sayre]

Unfortunately,  they are very limited by the customer(s) as to what they can put out.  It's a  source of frustration for all of us.

[Smithsonia]

^^^^^^
What?
There is an opsec issue and their trying to keep the Gulf Oil spill out of the news? Well, that's working good too!!!

[Al Sayre]

CAP is not the IC on this mission.  ALL press releases must go through the CAP IC, Mission IC, Mission PIO, Joint Information Center, etc. etc. for approval before it can be released.  Our press releases are very low on the priority list, so with all the vetting by the customers, not a lot gets out.

[Smithsonia]

Here's the PIO issue in a tar ball.
1. Keeping information out of view means - it looks like nothing is being done and insipid rumor replaces facts.
2. All good works, every fish and duck cleaned, every photo of dirty boom picked up , every sweaty yellow suited beach cleaner, every thing and everybody: Should be made available to the media (or at least a representative telling the individual story about what is being done here and now). WHY? BECAUSE IT MAKES MOMENTUM FOR YOUR (OUR) (THE MISSION's) SIDE OF THE STORY. And that crowds out the complaining, suffering, hard case, poor response stories.
3. In a large unwieldy complicated story like this. Important public information goes first. Which beaches will cause oily residue, which fishing grounds are closed, which are open, where the oil is going, when will the next attempt be to plug the well, how much oil is leaking today. For the most part that is NEED TO KNOW public information.
4. But second and right behind the NEED TO KNOW... is the WANT to know information. Who will defend the beach? How will they defend the wildlife? How long it takes to clean a pelican? AND who is keeping track of the spill drift... Oh that might be CAPs story.

To all PIOs, ICs, JIC staff.
Pull your heads out of the holes and get on the story. OR watch the story get on you. Yick! Yick! Yick!

This is Public Information 101. I can tell you from working in crisis management for 30 years, 43 years in the media, and on the Exxon Valdez story for 18 weeks... this is the way to go. Be proactive. Be honest. Do good work. Otherwise lies grow faster than the oil drifts.

[RiverAux]

CAP is not the IC on this mission.  ALL press releases must go through the CAP IC, Mission IC, Mission PIO, Joint Information Center, etc. etc. for approval before it can be released.  Our press releases are very low on the priority list, so with all the vetting by the customers, not a lot gets out.

Al, thats understood, but what it illustrates is that the process is messed up bad.  This needs to be a high priority for CAP to get straightened out.  Is there a JIC?  Are CAP members there?  Someone needs to be working this issue hard.  Your comments reinforce my view that we learned nothing from Katrina, another massively missed public affairs opportunity. 

[Smithsonia]

Here's a near perfect Oil Spill Process snap shot. CAP can do the same... of course once approved by the IC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10375350.stm

Think of these kinds of journalistic pieces more CSI and less Law and Order. Giving people a behind the scenes look and
providing confidence that the job can be done - it supplants the natural daily anxiety. The concept is called story-forming.

It is a thing that we should do more of...

[coudano]

on the other hand the pi in fosset was pretty high strung...
no PI is better than bad PI...

[Smithsonia]

FEMA External Affairs/Coast Guard and CAP are set up for short events. Hurricanes are 2 week events. Tornadoes are 3days, Snow storms are a week, earthquakes are a week, etc. This is more like a war. This is more like a political campaign. This rolls out daily. The days roll on for months. The energy and attention exhausts ICs, staffs, and PIOs.

So instead of getting public need to know advisories exclusively. You need to work on yellow, red, and blue stories.

Yellow is the daily advisory about topical operations and Public Information. It's day to day information.
Red is vital like the capping of the well. There's a hurricane coming. Somebody got killed. Timely on-target and big news.
Blue is straight backgrounders. Process and coverage of the hard working - get it done boys and girls. It is character driven. It has people cussing and celebrating. People sweating and working hard. It is Ernie Pyle type reporting.

You need to do all three. You need to keep a score board. You need this PIO ops board to move stories from Yellow to Blue. When a red hits you need people who can pick up the slack and join in that item. It isn't actually all that tough to manage if you know what you are doing.

CNN's Anderson Cooper is going off on the lack of transparency and lack of communication professionalism right now. There is a better way to do it.

To do this the other way there must be confidence in the PIO staff. SO they know your work and trust your judgement. This is yet another reason to cross train and teach advanced skills.
This is another reason that we should work with FEMA, Coast Guard, State Emergency Directors. Also tribal knowlege is important. Find retired people who struggled through the same type incident and pick their brains dry.

Another thing is to stay fresh and keep yourself in control or you'll get McChrsytal-ed.....

Right now people are getting coverage for every hair brained idea that they bring to the IC and get no response. So it looks like there is a solution and the team isn't paying attention.

The other thing - if you get bad coverage one day. You have another story in the chamber ready to go. You will have good days and bad days. You must get on the field and be ready to play everyday.

[RiverAux]

Smithsonia is batting it out of the park on this one....

Here is an interesting perspective on Joint Information Center operations for this event that may or may not have some bearing on the lack of CAP PIO work: http://cgblog.org/2010/06/12/will-icsnims-have-to-be-rewritten-after-deepwater-horizon/

[BuckeyeDEJ]

Speaking as the director of public affairs and marketing for Florida Wing, let me say these things.

-- There are a lot of hoops any media release must jump through before it can be released. Local units must get any and all releases cleared first through my staff, then through SER/A6PA, then HQ CAP/PA. And from there, First Air Force, the Joint Information Center at Mobile and higher government authority may be/are involved. So timeliness can be an issue.

-- We're all supposed to "stay in our lanes," and we are. Releases of national interest are going to come from Maxwell AFB. My scope is whatever's within the state of Florida, and to help with releases from subordinate units. We are getting local releases approved. One, from Marco Island Sr Sq, wound up across the Internet thanks to the Fort Myers News-Press. But our perview is only what our jurisdictions are, and that's that.

-- Florida Wing is doing tasking for both the Unified Command at Mobile, Ala., and for the State of Florida, the latter of which is separate and unrelated from the federal incident command. On the face of it, if it's not part of the unified command, you'd think we can clear it ourselves, but it doesn't work that way. SER/A6PA was set up as the clearinghouse for all oil-spill incident information until the additional layers of authority were brought to bear.

Does all this mean that the CAP story isn't getting out? Depends on your point of view. The local stories are being approved. Stories of wider interest may be delayed because of workload up the food chain, and depending on how quick news organizations want to act, we might be out of luck. Them's the breaks, folks. We've promised a 24-hour response time for everything we get from subordinate units, and that's all we can promise. Everyone else is working as expediently as they can.

The nice thing is that media inquiries and releases that have no relation to the ongoing oil spill disaster are being handled as usual, and we can still crank out that stuff. So can you, wherever you are.

This disaster is a long way from being over. It could be the better part of a year before things are under control, depending on where the water carries the oil and how much oil makes land and where. Florida has the most coastline threatened here, and as CAP's largest wing, we'll be up to the task.

Salute smartly and execute professionally, folks.

[SarDragon]

The Unified Command site.

Has some interesting commentary.

[RiverAux]

Buckey, thanks for the information.

I would say that I'm not quite as concerned about national level CAP releases -- with a situation like this and considering what we're doing, I think we're looking more at the sort of special interest stories that Smithsonia discusses ("Blue" level) stuff.  I think maybe one or two of those a week would probably be sufficient and since timing of those isn't critical, a 24-hr approval process isn't any big deal. 

Local press coverage is where the money is at with a mission like this, though occasional bits in big news media are also great. 

Regarding the local releases....are they not being submitted to VolunteerNow or has NHQ made a decision to just not publish many of them?   Or do the few on the website actually represent the entire sum of the PIO work for this mission and just not much is being done?  For example, there are only two FL Wing releases on VolunteerNow. 

[Smithsonia]

^^^^^^
My posts were not made to disparage the CAP PIOs although that is part of this thread. Only to indicate a niche that is underserved by FEMA/Coast Guard/State Agencies. We should be cross trained to fall in and plug the gaps.

There are numerous people in CAP with superior experience and excellent skills. Like some of our former military and airline pilots who come to a Unified Command mission with trusted ability... we have PIOs who can do the same.

So while not specifically about CAP/PIOs-PAOs, my post is a call for a better, integrated, cross-trained, trustworthy, best practices system. There will be a next time. We should be ready, next time.

[BillB]

Buckeye.....Florida media is very aggressive. You'll find that many TV stations will find out if CAP is taking part in an activity and will send their own staff. For example the local TV station plans on covering the local Squadrons color guard when they return from National Color Guard Competition. They also have plans to cover the Wing Encampment opening day activities including an interview with a senior command line member who has local ties. Followed by generic video of the final Pass-in-Review. To date there is no CAP PAO connection.

[BuckeyeDEJ]

Buckeye.....Florida media is very aggressive. You'll find that many TV stations will find out if CAP is taking part in an activity and will send their own staff. For example the local TV station plans on covering the local Squadrons color guard when they return from National Color Guard Competition. They also have plans to cover the Wing Encampment opening day activities including an interview with a senior command line member who has local ties. Followed by generic video of the final Pass-in-Review. To date there is no CAP PAO connection.

So who's the CAP contact? PM me, please -- I'd like to know more.

And yes, I know Florida media is aggressive -- I've been one of them, and I still can't get the ink out of my veins!

[RiverAux]

I would like to commend Florida Wing for the special page they've added to their web site on the oil spill response .  The only addition I might suggest would be to post some links to the FL Wing releases that have already gone out so there are a few specifics beyond the general information there.

I particularly like the link allowing folks to email the FL wing base staff for the mission.  Great idea. 

http://flwg.us/deepwater.aspx

If this page was there when I started this thread, I must have missed it and apologize for lumping FL Wing with the Wings that haven't done much.

[BuckeyeDEJ]

River, we've had that up since the first week of May, if not before. Thanks.

[RiverAux]

Decent local tv news story.  http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?S=12814571

Points out how useless the CAP seal is on the golf shirt in so far as public affairs go.  Too much stuff that is too small to show up well on camera.  CAP command patch would be better and would be more consistent with our other markings. 

[davidsinn]

Decent local tv news story.  http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?S=12814571

Points out how useless the CAP seal is on the golf shirt in so far as public affairs go.  Too much stuff that is too small to show up well on camera.  CAP command patch would be better and would be more consistent with our other markings.

How about the good old triprop? You know the original one we've had for 70 years?