A tip of the pen to IOERROR, who passes along news that the U.S. Military plans to recruit bloggers to publish Defense Department editorial material in the blogs’ independent-seeming forums.
William Arkin of the Washington Post writes that
the “content” under discussion, an Army public affairs officer tells me, is not the nitty gritty of deployments and living conditions overseas. It is planned to be an official counter to the perceived unwillingness of the mainstream media to report the “good news” from Iraq and the war on terror.
What a ridiculously, horribly, awful … hang on, what’s this you’re slipping me, Colonel? Oh, really? Well, I never!
… ahem. As I was saying, what a ridiculously, horribly, awfully obvious thing to do! Why didn’t they get on it sooner? It’s a stupendously great idea! Brilliant! I love it! Keep it coming!
I’ll note for the record that I did not receive such an invitation. Obviously I am not spreading enough “good news” myself…
As long as government is allowed to speak, individuals do not have freedom of speech.
Well, as long as government is allowed to pay off others to speak its propaganda while pretending to still be independent voices, it diminishes the power of those of us who really are independent to build an effective voice.
But, we’re damn stubborn here at Irregular Times, and we’re going to exercise our freedom of speech whether the government wants us to have it or not.
Well, I *did* get an invite. And my blog, while supportive of soldiers and the war, has not been all that kind to the people who run the war, where it’s appropriate to whack on them.
Of course, I suspect most of you aren’t going to accept my thoughts on the subject because I’m a retired myrmidon who can’t think for himself, etc.
Perhaps I can offer as a credential that I made the Army’s CIO “What blogs are and how to deal with them brief”… and not with universal smiley faces on what they’d like to see. Yet I got the offer.
Can many of you guys here *read* a milblog without cringing and running away thinking we’re mindless, uncritical thinkers? Mind you – I post a lot of silly carp [sic] on mine, so I’m not quite as representative, perhaps.
But I’ve stuck fingers in the eye of the Pentagon before and will do so again – and I got this note, as well.
Is it any worse than Kos’s ties to the DNC? Or any reporters tie to a source? I think not – and precisely because it’s an official thing -I strongly doubt it will amount to much more than an ARNEWS feed which you can harvest from here: http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/news/
If anything, give them some credit – the MSM has it’s own calculus of newsworthiness, and has to jam that into the filter of the constraints of their medium, so, good news isn’t going to get out there near as much as bad news – not just because of their bias (“I gotta report the *important stuff!*) but also because of what their audience wants. “If it bleeds it leads” is a business judgement, not a news judgement.
Bloggers, most of whom aren’t making any serious money, much less a living, can be more flexible. So the stories will get out more.
Most of the commentary on this subject thus far has struck me more as being “Dangit, they aren’t allowed to get their stories out except through US!”
Just a thought. Well, several.
John, it sounds as though you’ve got some preconceptions of your own to work through. Nobody here has said that people in or retired from the military shouldn’t blog. Nobody here has given any indication of “cringing and running” after reading the blogs of people in or retired from the military. And if you’ve read this blog with any frequency you’ll know that a number of people who read it are ex-military themselves, and we don’t fail to “accept their thoughts on the subject because they’re a retired myrmidon who can’t think for themselves, etc.” These issues are all your baggage. Please own them.
To me, the relevant issue here is that the military is recruiting and using apparently independent bloggers to serve as mouthpieces for Defense Department propaganda. I do think that dailyKos’ ties to the DNC create a problem, and the case of Judith Miller highlights what happens when a reporter turns herself into a shill for a source. But this issue is especially important because it’s a government institution that’s doing the messing with its own citizens. That’s citizens, not consumers, not subjects.
You’ve got every right to believe what you believe and to write what you write, and I welcome you to write back. But I do think it is inappropriate to characterize criticism of a propaganda effort by military institutions as synonymous with a criticism of the existence of soldiers.
Nice news in Iraq!
Actually heard some today, figured I’d relay it.
Background: Sadam used to have the ears cut off people he didn’t like, after which they’d be shunned by society.
News: Plastic surgeons have been working to restore the ears of these people.
I saw footage, it was nice to see them and their families so happy! Mothers saying how it was like they were reborn, the men themselves saying how much better they felt and how they were going to try to mend their marriages (the stress of being shunned by society messes up social lives).
Possibly not the most important thing to spend money on, but it’s nice to see people who’ve really had their lives greatly improved.
Pingback: Irregular Times: News Unfit for Print » Blog Archive » Quick War Update Mid-January 2006
Pingback: Knowledge Research Open Source Solutions