Who would you go “off-the-record” with?

Under what circumstances and with whom would you go “off-the-record” or “on background” with?

On the record, on background, not for attribution and off the record: These are prearranged agreements between a reporter and a source, which govern how specific information can be used. These deals must be agreed to beforehand, never after. A source can’t say something then claim it was “off the record.” That’s too late. When dealing with individuals who are not experienced in talking with reporters, journalists should make sure ground rules and potential consequences are clear, and then perhaps offer leeway. Of course, if the information isn’t integral to the story, a reporter can agree not to use it. If you talk to five journalists, you’ll likely get five different definitions for these terms. That’s why it’s important that a reporter clarify the use of these terms with a source before making any agreements.   – NYU School of Journalism Handbook

Here is my thoughts on the matter. The decision to go off the record, on background, or not for attribution all depends on your relationship with that reporter. It amazes me to see or hear of PAO’s who ask to go off-the-record with someone they hardly know, not knowing that persons professional ethics, morals, history, etc. A relationship with a journalist is just like any other personal or professional relationship  - it takes time and some work to establish.

I had the opportunity to work in Norfolk under several U.S. Navy Captain PAO’s, and I noticed some distinct differences between the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy Public Affairs experiences. One of the things I took away was that the Navy has (relatively) few large naval bases where one could spend an entire career. What this does for their PAO’s is give them the opportunity to develop relationships with the local Norfolk-based, San Diego-based, Hawaii-based, etc, media representatives over the course of many years. Many of the military corespondents in these towns stay in their jobs and while the PAO may move to different positions within the same location, he or she still maintains those connections.

When my boss went off-the-record, it is because he already had a long-standing, professional relationship with that reporter.

The Army is at a disadvantage because we have so many more bases all over the world that, other than the Fort Bragg’s and the Fort Hood’s, we only spend short amounts of time working with the local media reps before we move on to some other location 12-24 months later. I think the Army is at a disadvantage in this respect because we seldom have the chance to build the types of media relationships that our Navy PAOs do. This may be one of the reasons why some in our ranks seem to use “off-the-record” a bit more loosely than maybe they should – because the experience just isn’t there.

So who would you go off-the-record with? I don’t do it unless I have some professional history with the person and there is mutual trust. It can be advantageous for both parties to be able to go off-the-record or on background, but it’s not something that should be done with any media rep that happens to pass through my location on assignment.

Do you have a different opinion?

Image taken from this link.

Should we have PAO's dedicated to regions?

Foreign Area Officers (FAO) receive region training and language qualification. Civil Affairs does the same thing. Why not Public Affairs?

I say ‘yes’, and here are a couple reasons why.

Part of the new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy is developing a ‘seasoned corps of expert officers‘, giving them language and cultural training and them assigning them to the area for up to 5 years. I know we have at least one Army PAO in the program and likely a few more to come down the road. We all know the reasons why, because it was recognized that continuity and experience in one area are needed in the long-term.

But this is especially important to PAO’s because of media relations. One of the things I picked up while working at Allied Command Transformation, and working with primarily U.S. Navy Public Affairs personnel, is the fact that the senior Navy PAO’s had developed great working relationships with the media. Why? One reason is because many of the Public Affairs positions are in one of their several large naval bases – Norfolk, San Diego, Hawaii, etc. Yes, they have lots of smaller bases, but they have a few very large bases where one could theoretically spend an entire career at (similar to a Ft Hood or Ft Bragg for us Army-folks). Because you have senior officers with long periods of time spent in one of several hubs, they have over the years developed great relationships with the local media. Many of the local media representatives, for the most part, have stayed in the area.

One of the Army PAO challenges is that we have many more bases all over the world. All of us jump from position to position, doing a PCS every 24 months (+/-), rarely developing great working relationship with the local media. And a media relationship, like any other relationship, takes time to develop.

On top of the media relationship aspect, you not only have local knowledge, but also command knowledge and command continuity. Every commander likes to have that one guy/gal who has been in or around the unit for a long time, why not let it be the PAO? (This is sometimes covered down on by our great civilian PAO corps, but there are times/places that a uniform is needed).

Finally look at the media themselves – they all have a ‘beat’ or a specialty based off of either geography or subject. You have the Middle East correspondent, the Asia correspondent, the Technology correspondent or the local military correspondent.

So my solution is: create a similar program to the Afghanistan/Pakistan program for Public Affairs but do it for all our main regions and open it up to volunteers. There are probably a few of us who would love to get some language and culture training, and then spend a large amount of time in one area. A PAO in Korea, who speaks Korean, knows the commands and because of time can develop relationships with the Korean press would be a good thing. Same goes for Europe, Middle East, etc.

I would say ‘volunteers’ because some of us joined the military so we could move around, experience new places and new cultures, but having a few subject matter experts in our various areas of operation would be a good thing. And just like the Afgh-Pak program, you really need people that want to do this, not forced to do this.

It would also help the other PAO’s that find themselves assigned to the given area by having a fellow green-suiter that possess some local knowledge, language ability and has developed some working relationships. And finally I say stick to geography first because the system of language and culture training is already in place for many of our other functional areas.

What say you?

Photo was taken during my first deployment to ISAF in 2004 of the weekly ISAF press conference.

What's under the hood?

Some info to share on my recent migration from Ning to WordPress. About a year ago I really got into Ning because at the time offered everything that I wanted in a ‘blogging’ platform. It offered the ability to blog, create forums, groups, have members, videos, photos and a number of other things all in one space. Flash-forward a year and it’s time to make some changes.

So here’s what under the hood of the new site:

• Self-hosted WordPress blog
• Video channel on Youtube (still migrating content to it)
• Photos on Flickr
• My news off Netvibes
• Feedburner
• Odiogo for my audioblog
• Friendfeed for my Lifestream
• Twitter as my only microblog (I had 2 other Twitter accounts and a dozen other microblogs cross-posted on with Ping.fm)

So here are some of the reasons I moved off Ning:

1) Cost. Ning charges $5 a month to have your own domain name, $25 a month for no ads, and $25 a month for no Ning promotional links. Thee are also some additional premium services which I did not use. Considering all the Ning sites out there, and many of them having some premium services, that’s quite a nice little business for them. I just spent $60 for a domain name and a years worth of hosting from GoDaddy.

2) WordPress’ flexibility has improved. Even 1-2 years ago, I knew that WordPress was the best blogging platform after trying all of the major ones out there. At the time it just didn’t seem to offer everything I wanted. Probably a combination of my increased knowledge, better themes, and better widgets, and WordPress now can do what I want.

3) Ning is not for blogging. I did a post on this back in February. Ning is more like an intranet and the blog platform is for people within the network.

4) Specificity. Finally, my posts were becoming more and more about the military.  Social media and the Army has had a slow start but the momentum has picked up. A year ago  did not feel comfortable being out here as ‘Major Mike Nicholson’. Today I have no issue with doing it and have been increasingly moving towards it anyway. There are tons of social media and communication gurus out there in the world of corporate communications. I just want to now take this and apply what I know specifically towards a more specific segment.

Still have some work to do and expect there will be some minor tweaks along the way, but so far I’m happy with the move.

**Photo taken off of Dirk.Jan’s photostream