Breaking News: Public Affairs and the 21st Century

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This research project was undertaken to support the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs’ [ASD (PA)] in-depth audit and analysis of communication processes, procedures, staffing and resources for PA operations into the 21st Century. I was tasked to provide a chronology of DOD ‘s PA history and evaluate the documents developed by the military departments and Department of Defense (DOD) for their Public Affairs (PA) activities. The evaluation involved identifying duplications and redundancies, and if possible, to streamline the documents maintained by the PA communities. A later tasking brought the need to evaluate how joint doctrine affects PA activities. While reviewing the voluminous PA data and references to website sources provided by the four services, I became aware that all the services initiated guidance to their personnel based on directives levied by ASD (PA) but each service’s written guidance reflected their service’s culture - not a PA vision provided by DOD and service PA leaders. Further examination showed the DOD’s PA activity was not originally designed along organizational lines but developed piecemeal over the years.