Farewell, Early Bird

A screen capture of a .pdf version of the Pentagon's final published Early Bird daily press compilation.

As we have seen in recent years--and will undoubtedly continue to see--in the print journalism sector, publications that were a significant part of the everyday lives of many thousands of people have been relegated to our collective memories due to the changing paradigms and business models of that industry.  While not its own unique periodical, the Pentagon's Early Bird was, for many, their main source of defense and defense-related national security information and they never paid a subscription price for its contents during its near 50-year run that officially ended on November 1st.

BTS: Turner Luncheon

[NOTE:  these 'BTS' features were created to document my personal experience in covering events that I report on here in this blog.  While I have been letting a little partisanship slip out in some recent postings, I will try to keep this and other 'BTS' items apolitical in nature and stick to the 'nuts and bolts' of getting and producing the stories.]

Representative Mike Turner participating in a debate on amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act on the floor of the US House of Representatives on May 17, 2012.

I was first made aware of Congressman Turner’s appearance through an announcement that was posted on the main Sharepoint site in my office's computer network.  The National Military Intelligence Association, with a chapter in the Dayton area, holds monthly membership meetings and tries to secure guest speakers from the local military and corporate community to speak to the gatherings.  On occasion, speakers from outside the area, to include Louis Andre, Senior Vice President of Intelligence Business Strategy for CACI International, Inc, and US Representative Steve Austria of Ohio's 7th Congressional District, have accepted invitations to address the membership.  To maximize participation at those events (and to help grow overall membership in the group), announcements are disseminated through a variety of online methods in and around the Wright-Patterson Air Force base community.  I will admit that I have attended a few luncheons over the past two years and the attendance averaged between 30 to 40 people and I assumed that this figure would be higher with someone of Turner's stature as this month's guest speaker.

Guest Paper: Skywrighter

While not technically a 'guest' publication, I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight a publication that I peruse on a weekly basis here in the Dayton suburbs.  As an Air Force retiree, I have access to the local Department of Defense military installation (Wright-Patterson Air Force Base) and the Skywrighter (a play on words alluding to both the base's name and to two of the three men it was named after--Wilbur and Orville Wright) serves as the base's official 'newspaper'.