Media Plan

Someone asked me the other day about how to develop themes and messages and the appropriate questions and answers in a media plan. There is no easy way to do this as it is more art than science. However, common sense goes a long way. For themes and messages, keep in mind your job is to protect the command and hopefully the best way to do that is thru telling the truth. Themes and messages are the things you want the public to know about your given operation. They are the reason for the media engagement in the first place. A theme is the overarching umbrella. For example: "protect civilians" is a theme. Messages that support that theme are things like: "civilians should leave unsafe areas and head to xxx" or "our units provide refuge and security to civilians and can contact xxx". In general, the theme is more over arching, while the message is a little more specific. Qs and As are a guessing game. In general, again, you want to come up with at least 3 questions that you can imagine you just do not want to answer or deal with, 2-3 questions you really really want to get out and hope they ask, 2-3 questions that you think they will most likely ask and at least 1 curve ball (something that may be totally unrelated to what is going on in your AO...like DADT for example). The answers to the questions you come up with SHOULD be vetted thru the staff. Oftentimes they can/will not be, but the media plan should be as detailed as possible to provide appropriate and adequate responses. Also, of course, responses should be woven with command messages. Answer to the question + Command Message=Response. And of course,  if your SME does not know the answer, hopefully in your prep (you did do prep, right?) they answer appropriately and your PAO will provide the due out to the journalist for an answer later. It is key the PAO maintain and sustain contact after the event to monitor feedback.