Assistant Secretary of Defense For Public Affairs - Roles and Responsibilities

Roles and Responsibilities

The ASD(PA) manages the following critical functions: community and public outreach, press operations, speechwriting, news analysis, communications planning. The ASD(PA):

• Serves as the principal spokesperson for the Department of Defense and is the sole release authority for official DoD information to news media representatives.
• Ensures free flow of information to the news media, service members and families, Congress, our partners, and the general public at large.
• Develops and maintains relationships with the news media based on trust and integrity, on behalf of the Department leadership, to ensure honest forthright reporting about the Department.
• Provides the critical link between DoD and the American people to ensure the efforts of service members are told in a timely and accurate manner and that information is only constrained by national security requirements.
• Responsible for ensuring media representatives are given maximum access to ongoing military operations, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, to provide fair and accurate reporting.
• Develops communications policies, plans, and programs in support of DoD objectives and operations.
• Integrates social and online media tools into the department’s communication strategy to maximize our ability to communicate timely information to traditional and non-traditional audiences.

In addition, the ASD(PA) exercises authority, direction, and control over the Defense Media Activity (DMA). DMA provides news and information to our over one million service members stationed at home and around the world via broadcast, radio, web, and periodicals. DMA also trains DoD and other Federal Department public affairs professionals.

The ASD(PA) is supported by the following divisions:

Press Operations

• Provides expert advice and counsel to the Secretary of Defense, the Deputy Secretary, the Under Secretaries and every key organization with the DoD to ensure timely and accurate information is provided to the media, Congress, and the public at large.
• In 2010, conducted more than 200 press briefings in the Pentagon Briefing Room per year including 13 briefings by the Secretary of Defense; supported 41 press briefings during Secretary of Defense travels.
• Coordinates and releases approximately 1,250 news releases/advisories a year.
• Arranges more than 1,200 media interviews and responded to thousands of queries, resulting in a countless number of press articles, broadcasts, and online media postings.
• Provides guidance to the communications shops for all the Services, CoComs and Under Secretaries of Defense on media issues to include formal exercise and contingency operations public affairs guidance.

News Analysis

• Publishes the Early Bird, a daily representative, balanced and impartial sampling of articles, broadcast segments, and online reporting/commentary reflecting important developments about the Department.
• Ensures this daily news compendium remains useful to senior DoD decision makers and that it adapts to the changing news media landscape.

Speechwriting

• Prepares more than 50 major speeches and congressional testimonies each year to communicate the Secretary’s goals and priorities for the Department in a way that has impact in the media, the general public and within the U.S. military.

Communications Planning and Integration (CPI)

• Interfaces with planners in OSD Policy, Joint Staff, CoCOMs, military services, and the inter-agency to develop communication plans and strategies that accurately reflect U.S. policy goals, objectives and facts.
• Serves as the key communication planning integrator for the DoD and serves as its lead on communication planning interactions with other U.S. Government elements.

Community Relations

• Maintains engagement with more than 200 national, regional and local nonprofit organizations that support our service members and military families and provides guidance and counsel to worldwide DoD offices overseeing 2,300 Family Readiness volunteers and coordinators.
• Receives and responds to over 50,000 public queries annually via web, phone, hard copy letters; responds to 2,900 annual public requests for commercial use of DoD imagery.
• Responds to approximately 800 queries per year from non-profit/VSO leadership, congressional offices.
• Conducts the Pentagon tour program for 136,000 visitors per year.
• Conducts the Joint Civilian Orientation Conference (JCOC), a twice annual five-day program that connects prominent business and community leaders with senior military officials and troops on the ground.

DMA

• Communicates messages from senior DoD leaders to support and improve quality of life and morale, promote situational awareness, provide timely and immediate force protection information, and sustain readiness. DMA consists of 2,400 employees and has an annual budget of more than $200 million to provide the following services:
• American Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) broadcasts multiple television and radio channels providing a “touch of home" for nearly one million members of the military and their families deployed or stationed in 177 countries to include in Afghanistan and Iraq and aboard Navy ships.
• American Forces Press Service covers and produces print and imagery products covering DoD, JCS, Combatant Command events, news, and information that are posted continuously in real-time to the primary DoD public web sites.
• Stars and Stripes is a news and information organization that serves military audiences world-wide. Annual distribution of the newspaper is 33 million copies. Stripes is a journalistic and editorially independent publication provided free to deployed troops.
• The Pentagon Channel (TPC) provides continuous television coverage of DoD senior leader events, policies, and programs through cable and satellite service to 30 million households in the United States.
• Defense Visual Imagery Management Operations Center (DIMOC) collects, distributes and archives on a real-time basis combat camera still and motion imagery depicting U.S. military activities and operations worldwide.
• Defense Information School provides initial and advanced public affairs and visual information training for military and civilian students of all Services and International partners. DINFOS has an annual student load of more than 3200 students and 30 courses of study.
• Public Web supports and manages the hosting for nearly 600 OSD, JCS, Combatant Command, and Military Service public-facing web sites.