Thursday, May 17, 2007

When you wear more than one hat

Chris Dorobek is troubled by an announcement that Dawn Onley, of Spire Communications, will serve as an editor of Military Logistics Forum.

My first thought was hmmmmmmm, will Presto Vivace clients have any chance of place in Military Logistics Forum? Presently we don’t have any clients with that sort of story, but that is the sort of company we handle. I am reassured by Onley’s explanation:

My job with Ivy is to offer public relations support to several companies [she named a number of the companies] and help them with media pitches, press releases, arranging and overseeing press interviews, etc. None of my clients are players in the DoD logistics space. In fact, I don’t even know of any logistics work that any of my clients are involved with.

The thrust of my editorial vision at MLF is to spotlight logistics and transportation programs/systems/initiatives across the DoD, DLA, TRANSCOM, the military services, agencies and their ports, fuel terminals, ammo plants, supply centers, arsenals and depots. While MLF will certainly cover technology, there are a lot of other non-technical aspects in this area.


The idea of a PR pro also serving as an editor is startling; but is it really so different from the consultants who frequently write columns for the trade press? Several years ago a client of mine was burned by a consultant/columnist whose living depended upon a rival company. I am still angry about that hit piece.

As long as Onley is not editing news stories that touch on her client’s business it strikes me as a workable, if flawed, arrangement. In a country where a defense contractor can own a news network, this strikes me as small beer.

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