How Can They Believe This Crap? Episode III

Third in a series wondering why Trump still has adherents

In Episode I, I suggested Trump's supporters have been brainwashed by their betters; in Episode II, that they simply find him entertaining.

One more theory occurs to me: Trump's supporters—though themselves victimized—think he's the victim.

Blame it on sympathy, the emotion Adam Smith described as the part of our imagination that lets us picture what others feel.

Sympathy elevates our humanity, Smith says—and as every fundraiser knows. It allows us to feel for sick children, frightened refugees, and abandoned pets.

But it has its downside, the philosopher says, giving rise to irrational beliefs.

We sympathize with the dead, for example, imagining how miserable we'd be, were we dead. This "illusion of the imagination" gives rise to our belief in an afterlife.

We make a similar mistake, Smith says, when we imagine the "rich and powerful."

We imagine their perfectly happy lives, and relish that imaginary happiness so strongly we come to believe the rich and powerful deserve their wealth and privilege. So we grieve for "every injury that is done them." 

We could care less about the plight of the poor and powerless; thinking about them provides no vicarious joy.

The rich and powerful, however, aren't perfectly happy, Smith says; in fact, they're often miserable, cunning and vicious. 

But they know how to exploit our sympathy—our illusions about them—by continually claiming victimhood.

Sympathy deludes us, Smith says—and leads us to love our oppressors.

Sympathy: that's how Trump's fans can still believe his crap.

Don't miss Episode IV

How Can They Believe This Crap?

Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.

— William Blum

The Trumpian twaddle that pollutes my social-media streams is deadening.

The obvious question I always return to is: How can so many Americans believe this crap? 

Are they all stupid? 

Or are some stupid and others venal? 

Or are they neither, but brainwashed instead?

Flash back 160 years for the answer.

The Civil War, the greatest trauma to wrack our democracy, was waged because wealthy cotton planters—20% of the South's population—needed cheap labor. 

Those 20% convinced the 80%—one million Southern men altogether—to fight to the death to defend slavery. 

How in the hell did they do that?

Through three cadres of influencers, says Civil War historian Gordon Rhea.

In "Why Non-Slaveholding Southerners Fought," Rhea asks you to "travel back with me to the South of 1860." If you do so, you learn:

• Southerners had no problem enslaving four million Blacks. They weren't real Americans, after all, but "immigrants," as Ben Carson says.
  
  
• Southerners were terrified Blacks would rebel. They'd not just "destroy the suburbs," as it were, but organize and form their own states. John Brown's 1859 Harper's Ferry Raid looked to them a lot like the BLM disturbances this summer.
  
  
• Southerners felt beleaguered by Abolitionists, the critical, cranky "Libtards" of their day.

Rhea says three loud-mouthed groups swayed the 80% of Southerners who owned no slaves to die, if need be, to perpetuate slavery:

• Clergymen. Before there was Fox News, clergymen were the South's broadcasters. Insisting the Bible was infallible, week after week they told churchgoers that slavery had the "sanction of Jehovah" and that Abolitionists were infidels who insulted God's word. One clergyman labeled the Abolitionists "atheists, socialists, communists, red republicans, and Jacobins." (AOC, are you wincing?)

• Politicos. In late 1860, five states—Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Louisiana—sent traveling envoys throughout the South to speak in public, hand out brochures, and place op-eds in local newspapers. Their message was one-track: Lincoln craved not merely emancipation, but equality for Blacks, which meant "the marriage of your daughters to black husbands.” Like today's Critical Race Theorists, Lincoln wanted to destroy the "American way of life."
  
  
• Local leaders. Local Southern leaders—who tended to be planters—told their communities that Abolitionists were "haters" and the enemies of "law and order." Abolition meant releasing "more than four million of a very poor and ignorant population to ramble in idleness over the country until their wants should drive most of them, first to petty thefts, and afterwards to the bolder crimes of robbery and murder.” Defeating Lincoln, they claimed, was the only way to ensure the "heaven-ordained superiority of the White over the Black."

Don't miss Episode II.

The Mike and Joe Show

News policy is a weapon of war.
It's purpose is to wage war and not to give out information.

— Joseph Goebbels

For 40 years, the scientists at CDC have issued a weekly "morbidity report" to help doctors combat disease. Since April, the weekly report itself has been doctored by a Trump lackey named Michael Caputo.

A GOP flack at war with the "deep state," Caputo has no science creds; he's merely a low-end buildup boy—and an unseemly one, at that. 

After leaving a PR job in the army, Caputo linked up with Ollie North, helping spread American lies in Central America. He then studied advanced propaganda under Roger Stone and packed off to Moscow for six years to aid Vladmir Putin and his crooked friends. Caputo has spent the past 20 years peddling Tea Party candidates and staging paltry stunts designed to help Trump buy the Buffalo Bills at a rock-bottom price.

Now, as Trump's assistant secretary of public affairs for Health & Human Services, he's again doing the Emperor's bidding by cooking the books on Covid-19.

By way of self-justification, Caputo told Politico last week, “Our intention is to make sure that evidence, science-based data drives policy through this pandemic—not ulterior deep state motives in the bowels of CDC."

Critics attribute Caputo's propagandist style to his mentor, but it owes more to Joseph Goebbels than Roger Stone.

While Hitler waged war, his propaganda minister kept a 20-volume diary in which he formulated his playbook. 

Among the proverbs therein:

"Not every item of news should be published; rather must those who control news policies endeavor to make every item of news serve a certain purpose."

"I regard myself as responsible for the morale of the German people. From that fact I derive the right to keep out of the German press everything that is harmful or even fails to be useful."

"The Minister formulates the principle for the immediate future that in enemy reports anything that could be dangerous to us must be immediately denied. There is no need at all to examine whether a report is factually correct or not."

Unless Caputo is fired for doctoring the CDC's reports—an unlikely event—it's certain he will next turn to publicizing "alternative facts" about the virus, using $300 million of taxpayers' money he has appropriated from the CDC's operating budget.

You might call these alternative facts "bald-faced lies." 

Caputo prefers to call them "best practices." 

Goebbels would have called them "poetic facts."

In November 1944, as Germany's defeat began to look certain, Goebbels' assistant Rudolph Semmler observed that his boss "has introduced a new expression into the vocabulary of propaganda. 

"He is now using the phrase 'poetic truth' in contrast to—or rather in amplification of—the 'concrete truth.' We should describe things as they might have happened.

"Many events, he said, could not be understood unless we embroidered them a little with the 'poetic truth' and so made them understandable to the German people."

So stay tuned for The Mike and Joe Show.  

Gaslighting you with best practices.

UPDATE, SEPTEMBER 15,2020: According to breaking news reports, Michael Caputo went off his rocker yesterday. Rumors had it that Goebbels also suffered a nervous breakdown in December 1938, while writing a book he planned to title, Adolph Hitler—A Man Who Is Making History. 

UPDATE, SEPTEMBER 16, 2020: Michael Caputo left HHS today on extended medical leave. Congress is investigating his abuse of power.

UPDATE, SEPTEMBER 26, 2020: Michael Caputo has been diagnosed with Stage IV cancer. While Goebbels never suffered cancer, he loved to discuss the subject with Hitler.

UPDATE, NOVEMBER 18, 2020: Michael Caputo's dream has been smashed by Congress.

UPDATE, DECEMBER 16, 2020: Emails reveal Caputo had been pushing the herd immunity theory on CDC officials. Journalists uniformly react with scorn.

UPDATE, MARCH 19, 2021: A federal investigation has revealed that, before joining HHS as assistant secretary of public affairs, Caputo had been working for Russian state propagandists on Trump's behalf.

UPDATE, APRIL 9, 2021: Congressional investigators have released emails proving Caputo altered data from the CDC to conform with Trump's claims that Covid-19 was harmless.

UPDATE, APRIL 12, 2021: Forensic News has revealed Caputo failed to disclose to the Justice Department a lavish gift he had accepted from Russian agents just weeks before he was appointed to his role at HHS. "The failure to report his gift to the Justice Department has raised numerous questions about the true purpose of Caputo’s work, given his concurrent work with Russian spies."

Gasbagging

The fewer the words, the truer the words.

— Robert Brault

Logorrhea, the gasbag's debility, eventually becomes our affliction as well.

That's because, through his torrent of words, the gasbag seeks to divert us from the inconvenient truth.

We often hear, in regard to politicians, talk about gaslighting; we hear much less about gasbagging.

Gasbagging—bloviating to distract and cover up—has become the weapon of choice for many politicos, especially ones on the right. Personally speaking, I can't stomach the tactic. I associate it with bullies and con men.

George Orwell warned against gasbagging in his essay Politics and the English Language. 

"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity," Orwell said. 

When confronted by an inconvenient truth, the insincere gasbag—then deny they're "playing politics" when that's precisely what they're doing.

"In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics,’" Orwell says. "All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia."

"The fewer the words, the better the prayer," Martin Luther said. I like that formula.

So, let us pray: 

Lord, make them SHUT UP.

Amen.

All These Condemned

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

 

― George Santayana

When I was a kid, it was routine to see people toss trash from the windows of their moving cars. Bottles, cans, cups, cartons, wrappers, bags, napkins, tissues, you name it.

It took a full-court mass media campaign—led by the packaging industry—to put an end to Americans' loutish behavior. The now-quaint Keep America Beautiful campaign sang out "Don't be a Litterbug," and we bought it (fines introduced by local governments helped).

Thirty years earlier, another mass media campaign—led by the Red Cross—was rolled out nationwide as the Spanish Flu decimated American cities. The even quainter Wear a Mask campaign spouted "Don't be a Mask Slacker." Americans bought it.

Our Executioner-in-Chief has resisted, mocked and politicized mask-wearing—and continues overtly to do so—with the result that he's condemned to death 183,000 Americans, with an additional 134,000—or more—soon to follow.

Now the Department of Health and Human Services is poised to spend $250 million of taxpayers' money on a new mass media campaign that urges America to Reopen Now, despite virologists' warnings that Covid-19 thrives on crowds.

The better use of the $250 million would be to fund a campaign preaching "Don't be a Maskhole."

But, hey, what's a few thousand more Americans' lives, when an election's at stake?

Klepto

Donald Trump has always put America first and
he has earned four more years as president.

— Nikki Haley

THANK GOD the four-day pageant of parasites known as the Republican National Convention is nearly over. I no longer have to shield my eyes.

I don't know about you, but I can't take another montage of lies, slurs, fantasies and fascist propaganda.

Trump's stooges have a vision of America, alright: it looks just like Putin's Russia. A kingdom of kleptocrats.

And Trump is the Klepto in Chief.

Trump's niece would have us believe Trump is a psycho, and he is. But he's also a klepto. Big time. Bigly. HUGE.

He needs four—better twelve—more years to amass America's greatest fortune.

Bezos, Gates and Buffett—the schmucks—had to work to acquire theirs. Trump, as president, can just steal his.

Trump's convention's over. Now his campaign begins.

Queue the violin.

NOTE: September 8 marks the 60th anniversary of the theatrical premiere of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, movie history's Number 1 thriller according to the American Film Institute.

Fantasy

Thinking calls not only for intelligence and profundity but above all for courage.

― Hannah Arendt

I've learned my lesson in the past 48 hours: arguing with right-wingers is thankless.

Foolishly, I joined two Facebook "conversations" inviting comments about the Black Lives Matter marches.

I was daft enough not to know "only the closed-minded need apply."

Right-wingers often pose as moderate and thoughtful, but are lightning-swift to unleash mockery, once presented a view at odds with their own, or with facts that contradict the dubious and paranoid bullshit they champion. They'll even throw in emojis to reinforce their contempt.

Mockery as a rhetorical strategy predates Trump's ascendance, so you can't blame that buffoon for right's embrace of it. Nor can you blame Rupert Murdoch and his cavalcade of stooges.

Twenty-five hundred years ago, Aristotle scolded Greek orators who mocked their opponents, insisting "the arousal of prejudice, pity, anger, and similar emotions has nothing to do with the essential facts."

The writer Thomas Friedman last week called right-wingers "angry and stupid," a characterization I can agree with.

But I'd go farther: right-wingers are colorless dummies―the Mortimer Snerd kind―without intelligence, profundity or courage.

And, like Mortimer, they work hard at being ignorant.

I'll share a fantasy of mine: I long one day to make a "knockdown argument," in the sense of that term as defined by the late American philosopher Robert Nozick.

The knockdown argument, Nozick said, represents the "attempt to get someone to believe something, whether he wants to believe it or not." Perfect in its power over others, it "forces someone to a belief."

But knockdown arguments aren't easy to come by, because listeners are so stupid. "Perhaps philosophers need arguments so powerful they set up reverberations in the brain," Nozick said. "If the person refuses to accept the conclusion, he dies. How's that for a powerful argument?"

I can only wish.

Is Silence Golden?

Under attack, corporations used to hunker down.

Herbert Schmertz changed that.

Schmertz, who died last week at 87, as head of PR at Mobil in the 1970s pioneered use of the "advertorial” to confront critics of the company.

He bought space on the op-ed page of major dailies like The New York Times and used it to publish essays expressing his company's viewpoint.

Many of his peers said Schmertz took unnecessary risks by combating critics. 

Critics, they insisted, are best ignored; eventually, they go away; and, in the meantime, media reporting of their positions can be influenced privately.

But is silence golden?

No company wants to go on record at the risk of losing business. A slip can tarnish a reputation in an instant; customers sympathetic with critics' views can be alienated; and arguing in public can make management look callous.

But the lessons of PR failures today are plentiful. They teach that “no comment,” while a company's knee-jerk response to critics, isn't always the safe course.

Darkest Hour

England's policy of "appeasement"―letting Hitler grab neighboring lands with impunity―provides the backstory of Darkest Hour, the new biopic about Churchill and Chamberlain.

As we watch the media under attack by right-wing Republicans, Churchill's warnings about the dangers to freedom of the press are as relevant today as they were in his time.

And so are his actions to sidestep thought control.

During the 1930s, Chamberlain favored appeasement, for an extremely practical reason: his party's rule hinged on the votes of working-class Britons, who opposed foreign entanglements and distrusted war profiteers (after all, they'd paid the price for militarism in the previous war against Germany).

In 1938, Chamberlain signed an accord with Hitler labeled the Munich Agreement, which let the Führer annex part of Czechoslovakia if he agreed to stop seizing more territory. Most Britons praised Chamberlain's coup; but of course it didn't stop Hitler, who provoked war with England a year later, when he invaded Poland. The pacifist Chamberlain proved within eight months an inept wartime leader, opening the door for Churchill's appointment by the king as his successor (the first scene of Darkest Hour).

Chamberlain's most fiery critic, Churchill had spent years protesting appeasement, using his favorite soapbox: the newspaper op-ed. When Chamberlain―in keeping with the Munich Agreement―moved to stifle all opposition to Hitler, he ruled out critical speeches in Parliament and threatened the newspapers with shutdown, citing national secrecy laws. Churchill, in response, promised to take his message to the streets.

In a November 1938 speech before the national press club, Churchill wondered aloud whether Chamberlain wouldn't rather live in a totalitarian state. "In those states they conduct foreign policy on the basis that the press say nothing but what it is told, and immediately say what it is told. It might be very convenient, no doubt, if we could suppress public opinion here, and everything was allowed to go on quietly without our knowing what was going on outside."

Churchill suggested England was in fact already experiencing a press blackout. With appeasement's critics in Parliament muzzled and the press censored, Chamberlain enjoyed carte blanch to bamboozle Britons. 

The situation left opponents like Churchill one choice: to resist the government's policy through the "public platform." And resist Churchill did. 

Between September 1938―when the Munich Agreement was signed―and September 1939―when Germany invaded Poland―Churchill spoke against appeasement relentlessly on the radio. He also repackaged 80 of his op-eds into a book―which became an immediate best-seller―and, with financial help from silent backers, erected billboards calling for his appointment to Chamberlain's cabinet. 

Churchill's cabinet appointment did come, three days after Hitler entered Poland and simultaneously with England's declaration of war with Germany.

2017: Year of Bunco

Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.

― Niccolò Machiavelli

2017―a year which will live in infamy―will be remembered as the year of bunco. 

The year in highlights:

• In December, the GOP-led Congress sells the public secretly-written tax reform based on its ability to lift the economy, when in fact the legislation will have no effect but to enrich already-rich donors. It promises as well to increase the federal deficit by at least $1.5 trillion within 10 years.
  
  
• In December, citing privacy concerns, the FCC revokes net neutrality, dooming the practice of free speech, social and political activism, and small-business success via the Internet. The action follows Congressional repeal in March of Obama-era Internet privacy protections.
  


• In November, despite extensive evidence, President Trump insists Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election is a "hoax" perpetrated by his opponent's minions. Meanwhile, an increasingly revanchist Russia readies to invade NATO countries, without comment from the president.
  
  
• In October, four days after the mass shooting in Las Vegas, the NRA states, "Banning guns from law-abiding Americans based on the criminal act of a madman will do nothing to prevent future attacks." Although more than one mass shooting occurs daily, gun makers―via the NRA and its lickspittles in public office―maintain any effort to regulate guns would be fruitless.
  
  
• In August, 10 days after riots in Charlottesville, Trump blames his critics―including the vast majority of journalists―for rousing white supremacist hate groups, while claiming at the same time his critics "are trying to take away our history and heritage."
  
  
• In June, EPA head Scott Pruitt defends Trump's exit from the Paris Accord on grounds that it will create jobs. Asked whether Trump and he believe man-made climate change is real, Pruitt responds, "The president has indicated the climate is changing; it’s always changing. I’ve indicated the same.” The US now stands as the earth's only nation to reject the treaty.
  

The Art of the Real

In the face of historically low approval ratings, President Trump mounted a puzzling charade on Monday.

He opened a Cabinet meeting to the media and filled the hour with a ham-fisted celebration of unearned and imaginary achievements in jobs creation, crime reduction, and national security.

His pathetically amateurish attempt at PR backfired.

Little wonder.

Forget fake: constituents―and customers―want real.

Nine of 10, in fact, told Bonfire Marketing they value real over every other brand attribute.

Customers today back brands they perceive to be honest, and shy from those they don't, says Andrew Reid, author of The Authenticity Handbook. "Authenticity is now a business imperative," Reid says.

I urge President Trump and his handlers to read my whitepaper, Path of Persuasion: Winning Customers in the Age of Suspicion.

It's an Oldy, but Goodly.

Defense of the Indefensible

In our time, political speech and writing are
largely the defense of the indefensible.

— George Orwell

As powerful as threats of violence, authoritarians wield words, Orwell taught us.

They dress up their psychotic plans in stale metaphors, hoping to make us fear things that aren't dangers, and dismiss things that are.

Banalities like fake news and job killers are used to discredit problems, while canards like innovation, fair trade and healthcare access masquerade as solutions.

Fake news. "The fake news media is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American people," President Trump repeatedly says. In reality, Macedonian teenagers and other black hats generate fake news; The New York Times does not. But by declaring all news "fake," Trump can in two words cast doubt not only on unwelcomed news reports, but on poll results, census data, economic studies, and scientific findings.

Job killers. Trump labels all government regulations "job killers" without regard to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that shows only two tenths of one percent of job losses result from regulations. Job losses, in fact, result from long-term and seasonal business declines, financial mismanagement, and changes in ownership. But by rescinding "job killers," Trump can assist scheming real estate developers, hedge fund managers, chemical and refinery company owners, and Fortune 100 CEOs.

Innovation. "The government should be run like a great American company," Trump insists. That means stripping non-defense programs and outsourcing activities like public education, prison administration, drug addiction treatment, and veterans' healthcare. Trump ignores the fact that a lot of private-sector innovation is bolted onto government innovation. He's appointed his son-in-law to run his vulture fund, the "White House Office of American Innovation."

Fair trade. “I’m not sure that we have any good trade deals,” Trump has said, and plans to cancel or renegotiate every deal he thinks is "unfair" to the US. But "fair trade" is merely a euphemism for protectionism, the enemy of free trade. Research by the US International Trade Commission shows our membership in the World Trade Organization, for example, has doubled trade, creating new and bigger markets for American exporters and cheaper goods for American shoppers. But Trump ignores that.

Healthcare access. Trump's system to replace Obamacare would force people with pre-existing conditions into "risk pools." Healthcare premiums for those people would cost considerably more than everyone else's. The fact remains, while risk pools would lower premiums for well people, they'd make sick people's premiums unaffordable. They'd enjoy "healthcare access" in the same sense poor people can enjoy views of the greens by gazing through the fences around any Trump golf course.

What's the best defense against ready-made drivel?

Periodic reminders of your humanity.

As Orwell's contemporary Aldous Huxley said, “The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.”

The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming

I was feelin' sad and kinda' blue,
I didn't know what I was a gonna do.
The Communists was comin' around,
They was in the air,
They was on the ground,

They wouldn't gimme no peace.

                                                                                        — Bob Dylan

Russian trolls have invaded our homeland, according to The Atlantic.

Posing on social media as angry Americans, they're riling our political factions.

"The ultimate intent is not so much victory for a certain side, but a loss for everybody: sapping the credibility of US institutions and tearing open as many wounds as possible," The Atlantic reports.

"After Election Day, we should not be surprised to find a vocal group of internet users with mysterious IP addresses decrying the result as a fraud and driving talk of conspiracy—and even of resistance or secession.

"In time, we may see a multiplying number of homegrown violent extremists (along the lines of the infamous Oregon militiamen), encouraged by the subtle manipulation of a certain rival government."

They have us by the brains.

Our only defense: a little critical thinking.

According to The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking, " Much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed or down-right prejudiced. Yet the quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depends precisely on the quality of our thought."

To improve your critical thinking, the Guide says, you need to:

• Raise and formulate important questions clearly and precisely;
• Gather relevant data and use abstract ideas to interpret that data;
• Come to reasoned conclusions you can test against others' standards;
• Stay open minded and explore alternative systems of thought; and
• Communicate effectively.

Government Communicators: Focus on Event Photography

Award-winning video producer Ann Ramsey contributed today's post. She is a senior producer at the US Department of Health & Human Services in Washington, DC.

Press conferences, roundtables, ceremonies, observances: these types of events are familiar material for the government communicator. Want to step up your game? Use photography. If you need great content—and who doesn't?—consider partnering with your staff photographer. The photos he or she shoots will be engaging visuals that you can turn into quality content.

But partnering with your staff photographer has more advantages than meet the eye:

History. Christopher Smith, staff photographer at the Department of Health & Human Services, has worked through many Administrations, knows the principals of the Department and their schedulers intimately, and can anticipate their photo requirements. Plus, he can locate past event photos going back many years. For commemorative projects, his image repository is a goldmine.

Economy. No licensing fees are required when you use your agency’s own photos, and no permissions are required to cover an open-press or a public event. Photography makes an effective complement to video; and if your budget doesn’t allow for video coverage, photography can work wonders all by itself. Professional photographers are available on a day-rate virtually anywhere, if you have none on staff. 

Authenticity. Stock photography is polished, inexpensive and convenient, yet has its limits. Viewers may "tune out" stock shots unconsciously as being promotional. When it comes to events, images of real faces and places have the edge over stock shots for authenticity—a priority for every government communicator. 

Quality. Professionals are equipped for the job. Lighting and special lenses can overcome obstacles such as dim rooms, cramped conditions, or far-off podiums. As important, professional photographers have been trained to tell a story or evoke a mood in one frame. Here are a couple examples:

For a group portrait at a conference, HHS staff photographer Christopher Smith brought a light-stand and wide-angle lens, and posed the subjects. The image of the group-members together, sporting their cause-related wristbands, evokes a sense of team spirit.

Equipment and know-how really make a difference. In a candid shot of HHS Secretary Burwell at a feedback session, our eye is drawn to her face by the photographer's use of selective focus and a long lens.

Staff photographers' role expanding

Traditionally, staff photographers cover any number of events, most often to provide visuals for the media and for archival purposes. But the role of the photographer is expanding with the new media formats in use today. Consider:

Social media. Many professional-grade digital cameras now have Wi-Fi connectivity, making immediacy an option. Well-composed photographs are eye-catchers for posts on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or other social media sites, whether in real time or afterwards. With photographs, your posts can be picked up by image-based search engines such as Google Images.

Electronic press releases, blogs and websites. A clear, relevant photograph helps hook audiences of your agency’s electronic press releases, blogs or Websites, where the event can be explained in detail. Putting a text caption or headline with the photo clarifies immediately what is being shown. 

Tools for partners and stakeholders. When sending pre-event announcements to partners and stakeholders, attach downloadable photographs for them to re-use as tools in helping you get the word out. If there are too many photos to attach, hyperlink email recipients to where the photos are stored (Flickr, Dropbox, an FTP site, etc.).

Ready to go to work? 

A professional photographer will reliably produce quality material, and be a godsend when you’re working out image selection, distribution and archiving. Here are some tips for effectively directing your staff photographer:

In advance: For smooth planning, inform the photographer of the advance team, event location, best arrival time, and any parking and security issues. Explain what the interior lighting is likely to be, and whether any exterior shots are needed. Provide the event rundown if possible, including any special access to VIPs or arrangements being made for the media. This helps your photographer set up for the shoot.

Before the event starts: Tell the photographer what your needs are. According to Christopher Smith, pros don’t need much detail. “I can plan what needs to be shot for most events," Christopher says. "What I really need to know is who the principals are, where and when the photos will be used, and whether anything special is going to happen at the event. For example, if the speaker is going to show a report or a plaque from the podium, and I know ahead of time, I can remind the presenter to hold it up for a few moments so I can get the perfect shot.”  For shooting format, Christopher finds the medium-resolution JPEG setting efficient for editing and storing.

At the event: Assist the photographer with any logistical matters. Help him or her to anticipate what comes next, and where. Indicate anything you would like covered that you may not have mentioned. After that, get out of the way. If you allow photographers to handle the shoot in their own way, you are likely to get the best material.

After the event: Give the photographer any details needed for assigning metadata. Specify what deliverables you need. A folder with a few selections? A Flickr download of the whole shoot? Some prints to distribute? Your digital media team will know how best to optimize photos for different social media platforms. If you are your own graphics department, here's a guide. Keeping file sizes small will ensure easy loading on line. Again, if you have no digital experts on hand, try using iPhoto, or access a free compression tool like Image Optimizer.

WAY after the event: Lest we forget, our friends at NARA in College Park will ultimately want to add our event photographs to the 8 million shots already archived. Keep your photos organized. It will save headaches later.

NOTE: This post first appeared in Federal Communicators Network.