if you get this information beforehand, there is nothing to  prevent  you  from  preparing  your  story  material Thursday  afternoon.  Then,  if  all  goes  according  to schedule, you can distribute the release by Friday neon instead of working on it over the weekend or leaving it until Monday morning. Go over the plans for the event with the XO or the personnel officer or perhaps the skipper himself. Make sure the people to be honored have a place to stand during the first part of the ceremony and they arrive front and center in the same order as the awards will be handed to the CO. Additionally, make sure the entire ceremony takes place in front of the microphone and that your photographer  will  be  able  to  get  a  shot  of  each  person with  the  skipper,  with  the  award  recipient’s  face  clearly identifiable. One way to slow the captain down a bit is to furnish him  a  bit  of  background  information  on  each  individual. Then he will pause and say a few words to each man, giving the photographer enough time to get the shot. If the CO has a citation to read, the photographer can use this time to get ready for the next picture. If experience with this particular skipper or location has already proven that it is impossible to get good pictures  at  the  actual  event,  arrange  to  shoot  an individual photo of the awardee. The individual picture can range from an informal portrait of the recipient in his  working  environment  to  a  standard  head  and shoulder shot. Then you can settle for one overall shot during  the  ceremony. MAJOR  EVENTS If the event is more complicated, of course, so is your job. At a major event you have to consider many more problems than just hometown coverage. These may  include  some  of  the  following: l l l l l Deciding   what   the   program   will   be   and establishing an order of events Drawing up a guest list and preparing written invitations  or  the  form  for  a  printed  invitation Making  a  seating  plan  for  participants,  VIP guests  and  the  general  public,  and  possibly providing transportation or parking, or both Arranging  Navy  photo,  press  and  radio  or television   coverage Distributing advance news releases and news advisories .   Escorting reporters and providing them vantage points from which to do their jobs Obviously, you cannot do all of this yourself. The best plan is to draw up a command directive appointing a coordinator or project officer and assigning tasks to appropriate  subordinate  commands  or  members  of  the staff. his does not relieve the PAO or senior journalist of any of the work but it gives you all the authority you need to do your job. Your command planning directive might  look  something  like  the  command  planning directive in figure 5-2. If you use the command planning directive as your working  document,  the  special  event  should  go  off without a hitch. There is no reason you should worry about a VIP’s lunch, parking arrangements or the other details that are properly the concern of others in the command. The Navy way is to give these problems to the appropriate department heads–as an OPORD gives tasks to a task unit. ARRANGING  NEWS  COVERAGE In arranging news coverage for a special event, you must prepare advance releases and a news advisory, informing the media that they are welcome to cover the event. In the hypothetical case used in figure 5-2, your news  advisory  results  in  responses  from  two  local morning papers and one evening paper. One of the morning papers is also covering for UPI. AP is sending its own reporter. Two television stations are sending photographers and three radio stations are also going to record the entire event, later editing their tape down to short sound bites for news broadcasts. Your office staff consists of the PAO, yourself, a J03, two JOSNs and a PH2. The boss has a civilian secretary who does not like to work on holidays. While the PAO is busy working on guest lists and seating  arrangements  with  the  XO,  you  start  laying  out your requirements for space, furniture and power. You will  have  four  video  photographers,  two  from  each television station. Each station will use a photographer with  a  Betacam  on  a  tripod.  They  will  need  fixed positions in front of the reviewing stand where they can get a good view of the SECDEF and pan around to the troops on the field. The stands have to be as solid as possible to cut down on movement and obviously to support  the  photographers  and  their  equipment.  Also, you do not want the photographers right in front of the reviewing  stand  where  they  will  obscure  the  SECDEF’s view of the field. 5-20