Unless one has just recently come out, it's been 4 or 5 months since a CG Magazine issue has come out. Are they making the next one a hard-cover or somthing?
Anyone know what the hold up is?

From what I understand they changed the magazine schedule for a couple reasons. One being not enough content being received to put out monthly issues and the other being to produce a larger, more inclusive/cost efficient magazine. Right now they are coming out every couple months. That's as much as I know, sorry I can't be more help.

Can't we find enough stuff to write about in the propaganda machine...I mean magazine? Are we really that bad a service that there aren't enough good things to write about?

Or...and this is a serious question...are there too many restrictions as to what pictures and stories can be printed or has the PS rate been resigned to damage control?

I am not in the PS rate but I am just curious as a I do have great deal of experience in media relations and some public relations.

PA rate. I'm not sure many PSs do have a great deal of experience with media relations.

PA rating

Maybe they should combine the CG Magazine and the Reservist? CWO Kruska and his very small staff seem to be able to come up with a magazine every month.

OR...go back to the old COMDT's Bulletin format and include advancements, promotions, orders, and awards.

Belay my last...rating.


It is a rating I'm looking forward to working with in a short time.

It's a number of issues from what I understand, not just the quantity of stories being or not being provided. It's also a matter of the budget for the magazine and how to get the biggest bang for their buck. I have been told budget cuts for the magazine were part of the reason there is no longer a monthly publication.

As far as I know the Reservist does not get funded by CG magazine. I believe it's its own seperate entity.

Also there has been a major shift in focus for the rating to go from photojournalism to video, online media, etc., due to the demands of the taxpayers and the fact that online media has surpassed television as the most widely used way by which people get thier news.

It's not just a problem the Coast Guard is facing. All magazines are now going to online publications in addition to print subscriptions and traditional photographers and journalists are shooting video in addition to their classic roles to meet the demands.

In the Coast Guard we have 75 people in an organization of rougly 50,000 trying to get the word out and CG magazine is great internally, but if you can reach your target internal audience in addition to your external tax payers by going the was of online and mass media then you have to go th way of reaching the most people out there.

We don't have a rating force size that allows us to appease everyone in every manner we would like to, but we do the best we can with what we have.

There are only 75 public affairs people in the entire Coast Guard?

The Coast Guard seems to actually have quite a few more magazines than might be justified for the size of the service:
The Reservist
Coast Guard Magazine
Proceedings
Engineering, Electronics, and Logistics Quarterly (formerly System Times)
Navigator (Coast Guard Auxiliary)

plus a few service newsletters. Seems like some consolidation couldn't hurt if there are so few public affairs folks.

Proceedings is a U.S. Naval Institute publication and is based out of Annapolis.

Maybe I should have given the full title: Coast Guard Journal of Safety & Security at Sea Proceedings...but the page I copied all the titles from just used "Proceedings"...

http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/