By I have been following the latest Taliban misinformation campaign over at the ROK Drop Forums and here is a good idea on how to combat this misinformation:
Every time an American bomb kills civilians in Afghanistan, the U.S. loses another battle in the information war to the Taliban. And despite more accurate weapons, more careful targeting, and speedier responses to the press, the Pentagon can’t seem to figure out how to stop the setbacks in this decisive struggle for influence. A former top military official believes he may have the answer, however: let troops blog in combat, so they can ward off the accusations of atrocities as they fight. (…….)
Former Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne thinks the best solution may be to let the troops themselves document the story. “We need to make sure we capture the news cycle by providing our troops with something like a combat blogger,” Wynne tells Danger Room.
But that means changing the Defense Department’s often-schizophrenic approach to bloggers in uniform. Within the armed services, there’s a growing recognition that average soldiers are the most trusted voices the military has. But leaders are squeamish about letting their troops publish online. The result: Army secrecy regulations, read literally, make it next-to-impossible for average soldiers to blog — while leading generals, deployed to war zones, are keeping online journals of their own.
Wynne thinks it’s time to let military bloggers have a freer hand. “This thing of letting the Taliban, letting Al Jazeera, letting the enemy public affairs unit get a hold of 24 to 48 hours of news cycle and then you announce that you’re forming an investigative team — what is that?” Wynne says. “The sad part is, that when [the military] forms an investigative team, it looks like it’s only for one reason: to cover it up.” [Danger Room]
This is a pretty sad idictment of the news media, that they are so bad that now it appears US servicemembers will have to do the job that they are to incompetent to do, accurately report the news.
12:51 pm on May 14th, 2009 1
I think the Vietnam war was the turning point for the news media. Given free reign and more interested in selling copies, or making a reputation, than validation of their countries policies, was the downfall of the "US" news media.
The post Vietnam philosophy of the media changed to expanding readership to a global audience to increase sales and profits.
Iraq became a prime example of giving terrorists moral equivalence, until the surge and ultimate defeat of the insurgents.
The media is no longer top dog, as the internet has often filled the vacuum.
While the MSM still carries the news of the day, the internet is often the watchdog of the media.
4:39 pm on May 14th, 2009 2
Would never happen. Not the least of reasons because of OpSec. But also because not all troops will feel obligated to offer a favorable spin on everything they did or saw. Can you imagine a young John Kerry or Oliver Stone as bloggers? Even I, in my GI days, would have been a nightmare for the military as a speak my mind blogger.
Correcting my opening comment, 'would never happen,' actually it did happen before and it was a disaster. Some of you junior old timers would remember a short lived publication called SSAM, (Solidiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines). It was a military flirtation in the early or mid '80 with free speech for the troops. It was a much more open forum version of Stars and Stripes. It lasted for about a year before it was killed because, I guess, there was too much airing of dirty laundry. The younger troops loved it, senior leadership hated it.
If anyone preserved any copies of that paper today they would probably be collectors items. I suspect the military's publication department would not want to have archived any of it. They probably quickly burned every copy they had.
12:18 am on May 15th, 2009 3
That is why an MOS would be developed to be a combat blogger. That person would be trained in OPSEC measures but could instantly send information from the battlefield that it was the Taliban that killed civilians instead of letting the Taliban control the news cycle for nearly a week before the facts come out.
Bottomline is that it is still a sad indictment of our news media.