One of the more overlooked career fields in the modern US Army is the position of Public Affairs Specialist. A US Army Public affairs specialist works with a variety of different sources of information, and is a key individual in assisting with the overall Army mission. The Army Public Affairs Specialist works with photographs, news releases, News articles and newspaper stories. They are the liaison person between different groups and the Army, and they work to assist and coordinate Army Public Affairs programs with civilian and military news Media.
You may help arrange and schedule interviews, assist in gathering information for news and Army information publications and news programs. They are also routes of information to allow the Army story to be told and related to the general public. Hands on training with cameras, photographs, newspaper and media sources, and other journalistic skills will be taught to you. You will be instructed at the Defense Information School on how to perform the duties and Public Affairs Specialist Tasks. During your training you will participate in putting together an actual newspaper with photographs and contributed stories. Instruction in operating a camera, writing news stories, and how to edit your work and other journalistic editing will be part of your instruction. Training for an Army Public Affairs Specialist begins with the required nine weeks of Basic Training, followed by advanced individual training. Radio, broadcast television, and other media sources are an important outlet of information for the Army, and help spread the stories about events and people in the Army. Different skills in photojournalism will be taught and demonstrated for you. The Public affairs specialist helps to schedule these types of events and to assist in making soldiers available to be interviewed by media sources. And you will be taught to investigate, research and write in news, feature and sports formats. Part of the training will be classroom but other parts will be in the field experience covering news and feature events. You will develop skills in news story, newspaper, and media production and design. You will be modeled and learn various interviewing techniques.
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Following Basic, you will attend twelve weeks of advance training at Fort Meade, Maryland. After your training, you will be assigned to a Active Duty Army unit. You will work to help provide communications between different groups and the US Army.