12 days and counting...
...until the first presidential election in Afghanistan (at least as far as I know). It's beginning to sink in that I'm witnessing such a historic event.
It's hard to see, however, when you spend 15 hours in the office, 7 hours sleeping and then start the whole process all over again -- day after day. It could be a real drag if it weren't for the fact that the work is frantic and exciting.
It's been awhile since I wrote, so I've got some catching up to do.
Last week it appeared that we would be able to release a report that the media has been waiting for since June. The commanding general was going to do the press conference and our focus was on preparing him. Then Thursday night he got the word that the powers to be wanted him to hold off on releasing this particular report. So he decided to do the press conference anyway, but discuss recent accomplishments and preparations for the election. We had to quickly switch gears, write a new statement for him, and prepare a larger set of questions and answers so that he would be prepared to answer any questions the reporters might ask. We worked for hours! He is a perfectionist, so everything must be thoroughly researched. We work under some austere conditions, including the fact that my office is not staffed nearly as well as it should be. So huge preparations for large media events are all-consuming.
The press conference was held on Saturday and we had the largest attendance since I arrived -- including a couple big names and/or big outlets such as the New York Times, Time Magazine and NBC. The general did a great job and we were happy with the articles that came out as a result of the press conference. I slept pretty well Saturday night.
Sunday was another day of meetings for me. We usually make the circuit of meetings and press conferences at the UN and the Embassy, and visit with our public affairs counterparts at both places. Because the general will do several media interviews this week, we also spent several hours preparing materials. I was also part of a scheduling session for the general's calendar because media events will be a big part of his schedule for the next two weeks.
Today Reuters interviewed him and tomorrow he will do interviews with the Sunday Times of London and the BBC. Thursday he's scheduled to do a roundtable with 14 European editors. When he agrees to do interviews, our job is to properly prepare him. Although he's smarter than all of us put together, it's important that he has the latest information on everything from combat operations to country rebuilding to the elections to detainee operations to politics. It's amazing to me how smoothly he can move from one complicated topic to another during these interviews.
This is just the start as we are expecting about 1,000 media to pour into Afghanistan over the next week and one of the key people most of them want to interview is my boss. This requires me to review each request, prioritize it, coordinate scheduling with the general's staff, prep the general, "staff" the interview to ensure it goes well, and monitor the stories. We could be doing as many as one to two interviews per day for the next two weeks.
Many of the requests will be directed to other senior staff here because the general simply does not have enough time in the day to accommodate everyone. In these cases I am also involved in the initial planning, but then pass the prep, staffing and follow up to others on my staff.
In a few days the election headquarters media center will go operational and I'll have staff there as well to provide military input when appropriate. The UN is building the media center, which is located on the grounds of a large school very close to our compound. It will be quite a large operation with editing suites for the major TV networks, interview rooms for reporters to use, a large briefing area for mass press briefings, a 24 hour cafe to feed everyone working there, and about 100 work stations for reporters who will be working hours on end while the ballots are being counted.
I'm sure you haven't read much about the election here, but they estimate it will take 2-3 weeks to count the ballots. In that respect, it will be nothing like a US presidential election, but I don't think media understand this. The ballots are all paper and will be coming from all over the country. Because this is the first election ever for this country, most Afghans have no experience voting. Not much is computerized, so it will take a long time to get the votes counted. There are a ton of other details too numerous for my blog. But suffice to say that it will be interesting to watch.
As interesting as all of this is, tonight I needed a little break from the 15 hour days in the office, so I arranged to have dinner at the Embassy with the Ambassador's senior communications counselor. He's a great guy who also comes from a PR agency background. He knows everyone and the diplomatic community is quite friendly, so I always meet new people when I have dinner with him. In fact, tonight I met one of the new communications staff at the embassy who, it turns out, is from the Milwaukee area like me. Small world!
After dinner a few of my folks picked me up and we headed over to a party at the Reuters news offices. That was a fascinating experience. Along with reporters from several media outlets, also in attendance was one of President Karzai's PR people and several of President Karzai's body guards. I also had a long conversation with the UN consultant on elections who is responsible for building out the media center. He is from Australia but spends most of his time in Africa. So tonight was certainly an interesting night. The party was outside. Kabul days now are a perfect 75 degrees and the nights are getting cooler and cooler by the day. I didn't have a jacket with me, so I was a bit chilled. But it was nice to be outside under a full moon, hanging out with people from all over the world.
No two days are ever alike here, and it's all I can do to keep up. Thank goodness I've got some good people working for me and some good leaders helping me. I'm trying my best and that's about all I can do.
Finally, today was a big mail day for me. I got three cards from various people, as well as three emails. Home seems so far away now that I've been here a month.
Well, it's late and I've got another early day tomorrow. Good night from Kabul!
It's hard to see, however, when you spend 15 hours in the office, 7 hours sleeping and then start the whole process all over again -- day after day. It could be a real drag if it weren't for the fact that the work is frantic and exciting.
It's been awhile since I wrote, so I've got some catching up to do.
Last week it appeared that we would be able to release a report that the media has been waiting for since June. The commanding general was going to do the press conference and our focus was on preparing him. Then Thursday night he got the word that the powers to be wanted him to hold off on releasing this particular report. So he decided to do the press conference anyway, but discuss recent accomplishments and preparations for the election. We had to quickly switch gears, write a new statement for him, and prepare a larger set of questions and answers so that he would be prepared to answer any questions the reporters might ask. We worked for hours! He is a perfectionist, so everything must be thoroughly researched. We work under some austere conditions, including the fact that my office is not staffed nearly as well as it should be. So huge preparations for large media events are all-consuming.
The press conference was held on Saturday and we had the largest attendance since I arrived -- including a couple big names and/or big outlets such as the New York Times, Time Magazine and NBC. The general did a great job and we were happy with the articles that came out as a result of the press conference. I slept pretty well Saturday night.
Sunday was another day of meetings for me. We usually make the circuit of meetings and press conferences at the UN and the Embassy, and visit with our public affairs counterparts at both places. Because the general will do several media interviews this week, we also spent several hours preparing materials. I was also part of a scheduling session for the general's calendar because media events will be a big part of his schedule for the next two weeks.
Today Reuters interviewed him and tomorrow he will do interviews with the Sunday Times of London and the BBC. Thursday he's scheduled to do a roundtable with 14 European editors. When he agrees to do interviews, our job is to properly prepare him. Although he's smarter than all of us put together, it's important that he has the latest information on everything from combat operations to country rebuilding to the elections to detainee operations to politics. It's amazing to me how smoothly he can move from one complicated topic to another during these interviews.
This is just the start as we are expecting about 1,000 media to pour into Afghanistan over the next week and one of the key people most of them want to interview is my boss. This requires me to review each request, prioritize it, coordinate scheduling with the general's staff, prep the general, "staff" the interview to ensure it goes well, and monitor the stories. We could be doing as many as one to two interviews per day for the next two weeks.
Many of the requests will be directed to other senior staff here because the general simply does not have enough time in the day to accommodate everyone. In these cases I am also involved in the initial planning, but then pass the prep, staffing and follow up to others on my staff.
In a few days the election headquarters media center will go operational and I'll have staff there as well to provide military input when appropriate. The UN is building the media center, which is located on the grounds of a large school very close to our compound. It will be quite a large operation with editing suites for the major TV networks, interview rooms for reporters to use, a large briefing area for mass press briefings, a 24 hour cafe to feed everyone working there, and about 100 work stations for reporters who will be working hours on end while the ballots are being counted.
I'm sure you haven't read much about the election here, but they estimate it will take 2-3 weeks to count the ballots. In that respect, it will be nothing like a US presidential election, but I don't think media understand this. The ballots are all paper and will be coming from all over the country. Because this is the first election ever for this country, most Afghans have no experience voting. Not much is computerized, so it will take a long time to get the votes counted. There are a ton of other details too numerous for my blog. But suffice to say that it will be interesting to watch.
As interesting as all of this is, tonight I needed a little break from the 15 hour days in the office, so I arranged to have dinner at the Embassy with the Ambassador's senior communications counselor. He's a great guy who also comes from a PR agency background. He knows everyone and the diplomatic community is quite friendly, so I always meet new people when I have dinner with him. In fact, tonight I met one of the new communications staff at the embassy who, it turns out, is from the Milwaukee area like me. Small world!
After dinner a few of my folks picked me up and we headed over to a party at the Reuters news offices. That was a fascinating experience. Along with reporters from several media outlets, also in attendance was one of President Karzai's PR people and several of President Karzai's body guards. I also had a long conversation with the UN consultant on elections who is responsible for building out the media center. He is from Australia but spends most of his time in Africa. So tonight was certainly an interesting night. The party was outside. Kabul days now are a perfect 75 degrees and the nights are getting cooler and cooler by the day. I didn't have a jacket with me, so I was a bit chilled. But it was nice to be outside under a full moon, hanging out with people from all over the world.
No two days are ever alike here, and it's all I can do to keep up. Thank goodness I've got some good people working for me and some good leaders helping me. I'm trying my best and that's about all I can do.
Finally, today was a big mail day for me. I got three cards from various people, as well as three emails. Home seems so far away now that I've been here a month.
Well, it's late and I've got another early day tomorrow. Good night from Kabul!
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