-: My names JD Dalfonso and I'm the
communications director for Congressman Darin LaHood.
Generally speaking, I serve the congressman
in capacity of communications director
which will entail me running the communications for
correspondence in and out of his office.
Whether that's press releases, social media,
through numerous avenues there,
to e-news letters and surveys for constituent feedback to
just to be in touch with what's going on
locally and also nationally regarding policy issues.
And then corresponding some thoughts and talking points
and some opinions and some perspective
that I've read and found out to the congressman
to help kinda target how he's going to approach
and then communicate those.
Outside of that, I'm based in the district where
much of my colleagues in this capacity
are in Washington D.C.
But the reason for me being in district
is to grow even greater response,
relationships with our local media.
So that's T.v., radio, print, even local magazines
and weekly papers across the 19 counties that
my boss represents.
So we set aside
about an hour every Monday
to join not only myself as communications director,
our deputy communications director,
our scheduler, our legislative director,
and our chief of staff.
And with that, we're able to put all our heads together
and understand what's upcoming in this week.
What's newsworthy, what's important for the district.
And then what's worthy of communicating for the congressman
and then how are we gonna go about that.
What avenues are we gonna use
to portray the congressman's message
and his stance on issues.
So in the instance of a D.C. workweek,
there's gonna be a number of pieces of legislation
on the floor.
So we're gonna highlight, what's passing through committee,
the process ahead of us.
And then find out what's the best avenue
to put the message out.
Is that social media, is it a press release,
is it a one on one interview with a reporter.
Particularly in parts of our district.
Is it e newsletter survey, do we wanna poll people
to get constituent feedback.
Is it TV interviews.
Which TV networks are we gonna use.
Or at least reach out to.
And then we tailor that approach
and then that gives us a blueprint
of how we want to execute it throughout the week.
And then anything that gets added
we'll add, or anything that may come up that week,
we'll just add to that agenda
and then add to the task and responsibilities
and timeline for the week.
So we try to keep it very structured but
it all starts on Monday afternoon.