[PAO] Is The Suggestion Box Open Part 2?

Sat Sep 26 21:40:34 CDT 2015

Ken,

All this goes away if:

(1) The unit plans for PA coverage before the event takes place, assigns a
PAO for the event, and the activity director or CC follows through

(2) PAOs take the job seriously and bone up. There is a lot of excellent
training information online.

(3) The SUI is conducted according to the checklist, so reading it way ahead
of time will prepare the PAO for a good rating.

(4) The PAO is able to establish dialog with the CC for current and future
work.

(5) The PAO seeks guidance from PAOs up the chain.

Thanks for the comments, though.

Arthur ~

cid:image001.png at 01D0C38B.F0C6B850

Lt Col Arthur E. Woodgate, CAP

Southwest Region Director of Public Affairs 

  & Director of Organizational Excellence

(H) 512.432.0231 
(VoIP) 512.547.6997 
(C) 512.567.1935

awoodgate at austin.rr.com

LtColWoodgate at gmail.com

U.S. Air Force Auxiliary

GoCivilAirPatrol.com <http://www.gocivilairpatrol.com/> 

http://swrcap.com 

 <https://www.facebook.com/pages/Civil-Air-Patrol/107647995924164>
cid:image002.png at 01D0C38B.F0C6B850 <http://instagram.com/civil__air__patrol>
cid:image003.png at 01D0C38B.F0C6B850 <https://twitter.com/civilairpatrol>
cid:image004.png at 01D0C38B.F0C6B850
<https://www.flickr.com/photos/civilairpatrol/sets/>
cid:image005.png at 01D0C38B.F0C6B850   

-----Original Message-----
From: cap-pao-bounces at lists.sempervigilans.org
[mailto:cap-pao-bounces at lists.sempervigilans.org] On Behalf Of Ken
Sent: Saturday, September 26, 2015 7:48 PM
To: CAP Public Affairs Officers
Subject: Re: [PAO] Is The Suggestion Box Open Part 2?

Hello folks some other things that come to mind as a former squadron PAO :

1.  CAP VOLUNTEER NOW WEBSITE ( <http://www.capvolunteernow.com/>
http://www.capvolunteernow.com/) COULD PRESENT INFORMATION DIFFERENTLY --
Since this IS the CAP news site National needs to ensure that all wings are
appropriated covered at this 

website.   IF a particular wing hasn't been covered in 45 days I think 

National needs to be asking the wing why there's no articles.  Also I think
on the web based submission form for the story releases the minimum number
of words needs to be lowered.  I always found as a former PAO that I
couldn't think up enough words to fill that in, so no news 

got reported to National.   Also I think for each wing there needs to be 

a specific index page/pages maintained either by the wing PAO or his/her
designated person could upload stories to that area, so if someone was
interested in a particular state they could easily see what that wing (and
units within that wing) has accomplished.  NATIONAL could also decide what
gets "front page" coverage.

2.  SOCIAL MEDIA EFFECTIVENESS NEEDS TO BE CAREFULLY EXAMINED ---  I think
the jury is still out on what we really achieve with some of the 

social media methods.   Surely an up to date 

regions/wings/groups/squadrons website & public access facebook pages is
IMHO primarily where the effort needs to be and with most volunteers having
limited time to spend on too much social media (but frankly we've met some
people that apparently that's all they do and showed up at a CAP activity
just to meet some of our social media posters, with really 

no interest in the organization LOL !!!!).   Generally when anyone is 

considering joining a volunteer organization, they will checking out that
organization's website/facebook site as well as doing a google news 

search to see what they come up with.   Many of the cadets we recruit 

are due to other cadets talking about the program to their peers in 

school versus any media sources.   Senior members will vary BUT most 

will look at websites etc.   I might add that its' important to ensure 

that old web sites/pages are taken down IF at all possible since sometimes
the search engines find those pages.  The current CAP membership may not
have any control or even know who originally had the website.  Might be a
good "how to do (get old sites taken down)" article to post on the CAP PAO
training site IF there's been success in website removal.

3.  EXTERNAL NEWSPAPERS/TV/RADIO IS STILL EFFECTIVE --  IMHO getting
coverage via these sources is VERY important since it validates the
organization's existence & it's more likely that those that could help CAP
or recognize its' individual members are reading/watching/listening to these
media (two of our squadron members were recognized via letters from our
local state representative after an article was published about our annual
awards dinner).  We compete with many other organizations for news space.
HOWEVER, the local community newspapers are always looking for stories (and
in many instances I had to split a story to only cover the members that were
from the towns/cities that the specific newspaper edition covered).  Some
will have a paper, web (reduced number of stories), and also pdf archive.
Note:  IF it is primarily a printed/pdf 

type archive the search engine won't find all the time.   As far as TV 

media coverage, that is IMHO the most stressful for the PAO because there's
always "if it bleeds it leads!" in the background and even a scheduled story
(usually verified that same day by followup with the news director) might
not get covered.  Also TV media have websites and a story on the evening
news likely will be posted to the website and some 

archive up to two years including the video.   My understanding anything 

to do with veterans/military are hot interest items for our local media and
the local "Wreaths Across America" ceremony at the veterans cemetery 

gets excellent TV coverage.   Also google has a news search function 

that will gather all stories for the day and email one the story links, 

which gives a good idea what is getting covered (and not covered).   

What I also liked about TV media is the chance to get to personally talk 

with some of the up and coming news reporters/TV anchors.   Also we had 

talked with one TV station about the possibility of providing them with
video and the story details in case they weren't able to send a crew to
cover the activity.  BTW some media outlets may not always list the
organization's webpage address when the article gets edited for publication.
Radio wise we had copies of the older public service announcements and last
year one of our members who works in the technical side of broadcast radio
was able to get this placed with three major radio stations in our area and
these will be running thru 2016 (oh, BTW let me mention, the IG during our
SUI was also told about this and even our wing commander had heard one of
the PSA's while driving to 

work, yet NO mention in that SUI report.   I might add that likely we 

were the only unit in the wing that had accomplished this!).  Also it didn't
appear to us that National had any interest in knowing how that volunteer
provided professional voice PSAs were being utilized, since no reporting was
required.

4.  PRE DETERMINED/AUTHORIZED RELEASES FOR MEDIA COVERAGE DURING CERTAIN
MISSIONS --  I think we really need to get this worked out. After the last
east coast hurricane/tropical storm we had a local CAP aircrew/aircraft that
was going to fly to the coast to take some recon 

photos.   It just seemed to me that IF we had automatic permission to at 

the very least get some video footage (the plane taxiing away)  along with a
prepared statement ..e.g. that units from x are supporting the x agency for
disaster relief efforts by taking photos of the coastline 

(and if an example of an aerial photo is available provide it to us).   

TV news is based upon the immediate and not the deferred so a real good
story got missed due to the hurdles of the requirements for a release for
something so simple.  Google news showed no immediate stories but only one
after the whole mission was complete there was one story in the printed
media.  With the number of personnel participating in this there should have
been significant local coverage throughout the northeast and even from
outside the area for wings that were supporting the effort.

5.  MAKING APPROPRIATE COMMENT ABOUT CAP ON NEWS MEDIA WEBSITES IN RELATION
TO THE SENSITIVITY TO THE NEWS STORY  --- Some media outlets allow the
readers/viewers to comment on stories.  For awhile there was one CAP member
that was basically just posting the CAP tag line in the 

comments area without any thought to what the story was about.   In one 

example a community very cherished parish priest flying his aircraft 

crashed and was killed.  CAP found the aircraft.   Perhaps a more 

personal crafted message, something along the lines of CAP was successful in
finding the aircraft BUT were saddened that the pilot did not survive, might
be more appropriate as the first line in the post and then a bit more about
the organization.

6.  TRAINING PAO MORE ON LINE/ WEBINAR PRESENTATION ---  There's been lots
of work put into the National PAO website, but perhaps more on line training
opportunities or even prerecorded webinar presentations could help PAO's
along their quest for becoming the best.

7.  THE CAP TV & RADIO CHANNEL -- Perhaps now with all the web streaming
that can be done National should consider a TV & radio channel that produces
video and/or voice with weekly programs. Similar to what was done with the
recent National Commander's comments on the CAP status as an Auxiliary with
the USAF being included in the total force definition.

Ken

_______________________________________________

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