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# A Conversation with ... Joe Yoswa

By DLA Public Affairs

                Fort Belvoir, Virginia  –              
 

**What’s the most common misperception people at DLA have about the field of public affairs — its role in the agency, what it does and doesn’t do, and the people who do this job?**I’ve worked in public affairs for about two decades, in and around DoD and other government agencies. I’ve seen the same misperception again and again: people think public affairs officers can control what the media writes. What a good PAO can do is shape the discussion with reporters and news outlets. What we can’t do is keep reporters from doing what good reporters do, which is talk to other sources.News reporting is going to present more than one side of a topic. Real news lets us hear from subject matter experts from at least two perspectives, maybe more. The PAO’s job is to make sure reporters provide information that’s in context, balanced and accurate and properly characterizes their organizations. It is not to tell the reporter what to say, or how to say it or who to interview. We also do a lot of reputation building for our organizations. In today’s digital environment, we have many more outlets to use in telling our story: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, our homepage — it’s almost limitless. We send news releases to commercial news organizations to get the word out. Our goal is to amplify our presence with our customers and stakeholders while reaching audiences that are unfamiliar with DLA. The contributions of our public affairs staffs across the enterprise give us content that reflects our work and builds our reputation as an agency.**How does DLA Public Affairs help those who carry out DLA’s operational mission — such as the logisticians, acquisition specialists and the contracting folks?**Our goal is to use our operational events to communicate what we do. We also have a responsibility to communicate our strategy. So we’ll develop content using the operational missions we perform to inform our entire workforce, our customers and our stakeholders of our strategy. Our strategy focuses us on what we, as an agency, want to accomplish. By telling stories about our operational efforts — how we plan and execute those efforts — we reflect the agency’s strategic goals (Warfighter First, People and Culture, Strategic Engagement, Financial Stewardship and Process Excellence). These stories help personalize our strategy, letting our employees and other audiences see how the strategy is in everything we do. When you communicate the strategy this way, it becomes more engaging.If you go to the Strategic Plan online, you can read the stories that support our goals. I think employees like hearing about how DLA supported the Ebola crisis, or national emergencies like hurricanes Matthew or Katrina. Even reading about our day-to-day business of feeding and supplying our warfighters, no matter where they are. **You’ve served in uniform as an artillery officer and as a civilian leader. How do those roles differ, and what do they have in common?**Being an artillery officer was a great way to prepare me as a public affairs officer. Mainly because both artillery and public affairs require planning and timing to achieve the proper effect. As an artilleryman, a lack of planning or improper timing can cause catastrophic effects by placing rounds on friendly forces.It’s the same with communication. If a story runs but no one reads it, or we make a video and no one watches it, did your message hit the target audience? You have to ask yourself constantly: When should this story run? Where can we place it? Is it something everyone in the agency is required to know? Or is it only a small group of employees that need the information?Through planning we figure out what needs to be told and who needs to hear it. And timing is putting the right information in front of our audiences so they can respond to it or know what is happening. In some cases, we are the reinforcing fires to the messages our leaders and managers are providing to our workforce.In both cases, it’s a balance between planning and timing. And when you get this right — “boom,” you’re on target!**Since you were at Soldiers magazine, how has magazine and web publishing changed?**When I was working there, online magazines were just starting. No one really had an idea of how print and web were going to work together. I’m not sure it’s any clearer today, either. Everyone is still experimenting.The biggest challenge then was getting my magazine team to write for the web. Most of them had written for magazines well over a decade, if not multiple decades. Considering that transition — digital — was radical. Print was sacrosanct; they thought I’d lost it.Today, Soldiers is only available as an online magazine; Loglines is still in print and we’re beefing up our online presence. We have a large part of our DLA team on the warehouse floors across the agency, and they don’t always get a lot of computer time. I expect the print version to be around awhile.I think the online-print dynamic will continue to play out for the next few years. Print products have a different use from online products; they’re more about marketing and awareness over time. They’re reminders of what you can find online. As I said, that’s still playing out.It would be great if our readers gave us some feedback and told us if they like our print or online products better.**How does the written product directed at a potentially worldwide audience — as with Loglines and stories on DLA.mil — differ from command information?**Good question. At their foundation, all public affairs products are command information products; both Loglines and DLA.mil serve that function. I hope everyone knows what “command information” means — providing our workforce information on the agency’s goals, developments affecting them and DLA, increasing their effectiveness as DLA ambassadors and keeping them informed about what’s going on in the agency.When I started in the Army, many years ago, command information was distinctly different from public information. It passed through outlets that primarily served a military audience: service magazines, division newspapers and, for those overseas, Armed Forces Radio and Television and Stars and Stripes. Public information was passed through the commercial news media or as part of a community relations program with the surrounding municipalities.The World Wide Web changed all that. The information we now provide to our workforce is easily available to the public. This is a huge benefit to us as an agency as we work with a larger number of partners and agencies. Our “command information” or news stories not only reach our workforce and families but also our customers, stakeholders, other government agencies and organizations that want to work with DLA — even Congress.**Since you started your career, you’ve seen the advent of web publishing and the mainstreaming of social media. What trends or changes do you see emerging in public affairs over the next few years?**I’m older than that! I’ve seen us move from word processors, to desktops and then laptops. Now DLA Information Operations is talking about “thin clients” and “the cloud”! I’ve seen the shift in broadcast from three major networks with news at 6 a.m. and 5 p.m. to CNN and the “around the world, around the clock” 24-hour news cycle. And I’ve seen a worldwide network of newsrooms shrink again to a few key cities and reporters become paid news bloggers who shape opinions instead of provide news updates.But if you stop and think, it’s something we’ve been through before, just on a larger scale. At the turn of the last century, printing presses became smaller and more affordable; anyone could print a newspaper and get paid for their writing. For those rags or tabloids, accuracy wasn’t required, and it’s not required now for blogs or other forms of social media.Anyone with an account can post or comment to social media; there’s no filter, no automatic fact check, no one looking to make sure the information is correct or even useful beyond the entertainment value or the ability to stir up opinion.Our department, civilians and military members, built a reputation for credibility because of an adherence to honesty. The American public consistently rates the military as the most trustworthy institution; I believe PAOs help develop and maintain that standard.**What can the other parts of DLA do to help DLA Public Affairs tell their story?**A good story is a good story. Pitch your idea to us, and do it early, too. It’s very hard to cover an event if you’re being told the day it happens. Each primary-level field activity has a PA staff. My staff supports headquarters and the regional commands. Reach out, and we’ll help tell your story, which in turn is the DLA story.

 

 

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