The Foreign Service Journal, October 2006

public relations campaign. Furthermore, Hughes has backed up her PR talk with sev- eral substantive program and policy changes. In Foggy Bot- tom, a new “Rapid Response Unit” in the Bureau of Public Affairs monitors foreign broad- casts and blogs, and produces a daily one-page report on the stories foreign journalists are covering along with the U.S position on those issues. The report is then delivered to top political appointees, ambas- sadors and public affairs officers around the world. Hughes has also set up what she calls “an echo cham- ber,” in which policy statements are posted on State’s Intranet in an effort to unify the department’s message on key issues attracting attention in the international media. Those statements are also used to draft editorials that air on Voice of America broadcasts. Hughes has also freed ambassadors to be interviewed by the foreign press without advance permission from Washington. She has herself conducted interviews with Al-Jazeera and other Arab media on the grounds that they have wide viewership in the Muslim world, even though they were once unwelcome at State because of their per- ceived hostility to U.S. policy. And out of concern that too many previous media relations efforts have focused on bilateral relations, she’s set up regional public diplomacy hubs in Dubai and Brussels. The public affairs officers there focus on regional media outlets such as Al-Jazeera. “The purpose of our ambassadors and our Foreign Service officers is to be out interacting with the media, to be communicating with the public about America’s poli- cies and values and actions,” Hughes told the Associated Press in June. “We are working to try to change the entire culture of the State Department.” The changes have won positive reviews. Officers on Hughes’ staff indicate that they are impressed with her energy and her access to the White House. And some express admiration for her skills as a public relations oper- ative. The Bush administration’s message “may be hard to believe,” says one veteran officer. “But she excels at choreographing the ways to get it out there.” Many in the field say Hughes’ public relations-style approach to public diplomacy reflects the kind of top- down thinking that works better in politics than foreign affairs. Many of Hughes’ initia- tives, in other words, start with a dictate from Washington that the field must then follow, with little receptivity to ideas coming from the other direction, they say. Earlier this year the Govern- ment Accountability Office credited Hughes with taking the first steps toward a professional public relations campaign, but continued to criticize the department for its slowness in distributing guidance to the field. Hughes has made much of the increased number of interviews Foreign Service officers have conducted in Arabic — a number that doubled from 2004 to 2005 to about 100 total interviews, and is slated to rise again this year — but, as the GAO notes, there is still a long way to go. Its study found that 37 percent of the language- designated posts in the Muslim world are filled by officers without the requisite language skills. In January, President Bush launched the National Security Language Initiative to help cut into that deficit. Under the program, State is slated to receive $27 million to boost the language skills of FSOs. At the same time, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has changed promo- tion criteria at State to require more advanced language mastery. These efforts may well improve the situation, but it will clearly take years before State can respond to the foreign media in the Muslim world as readily as Hughes and others would like. Describing Hughes’ efforts, Steven Johnson, a former State public affairs officer now at the conservative Heritage Foundation, a Washington think-tank, says it’s about “what you’d expect a former journalist to do, which is focus on the media.” But, he adds, “I’m not sure she has focused enough on the other parts that make up two- thirds of the public diplomacy mission: building bridges of understanding through academic and cultural exchanges, as well as foreign broadcasting, and coordinating the for- eign public affairs efforts of other government agencies. In that [respect], she’s still getting her sea legs.” Critics within the department say that Hughes also needs to focus more on the development of her Foreign Service staff. Hughes has not taken it upon herself, they say, to commend career staff when they do a good job, or F O C U S O C T O B E R 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 23 A new “Rapid Response Unit” in the Bureau of Public Affairs monitors foreign broadcasts and blogs, then produces a daily one-page report.