Well duh...

Found this nugget to be incredibly interesting, and yet another example of the Air Force's firm positioning behind the power curve in understanding strategic communications, public affairs and personnel strategy:

Public affairs, strategic communications merge
By Erik Holmes - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Nov 17, 2008 11:47:05 EST

The Air Force is consolidating its public affairs and strategic communications functions.

The reason, said the service’s public affairs chief Nov. 13, is to get its message out more proactively to airmen and to the public, and better coordinate its communications.

“The bottom line is communication,” said Brig. Gen. Darren McDew. “Sometimes people think in order to do strategic communication, it needs to be a separate organization from public affairs, and it doesn’t. (link)

What I found most interesting about this article wasn't the rationale for combining the communications functions (although, I have to admit that Gen. McDew's reasoning seems to show that they finally "get it") but the fact that the Air Force finally realized how demoralizing it was that the careerfield was lead by a pilot rather than a trained PA--meaning that even the most skilled PA's basically had zero chance of earning a star, regardless of their officership.

McDew said the long-standing tradition of public affairs being led by an officer from another career field eventually will be a thing of the past. Both McDew and his predecessor, Brig. Gen. Michelle Johnson, are career mobility pilots and commanders.

“I think it’s important to completely professionalize this career field and have a career field that is sustainable and that will produce someone who … understands the full spectrum,” he said.

“The folks around me that have been doing this for 20-some-odd years are better at it than me. So we have got to get to the point where we can produce someone who does this for a career … and will eventually grow up to be the director of public affairs.”

I wouldn't characterize this as a long-standing tradition--morganobrien.com favorite Ron Rand ran Air Force Public Affairs until 2004. Nonetheless, you can understand how demoralizing this was for junior officers looking to excel, especially when the careerfield was being pillaged without prejudice:

The number of public affairs officers fell from 470 in 2005 to 246 today, a 48 percent reduction. He said it is too early to talk numbers, but some of those positions could be restored.

While this news would not have impacted my decision to leave, I can't help but smile to myself as the institution finally figured out what every junior officer facing force shaping knew to be true a couple years ago. It is a shame, though, that the service lost some solid PAO's due to lack of foresight.