thedrifter
04-27-06, 06:37 AM
Military Bloggers of the World Unite!
By Harold Hutchison : BIO| 27 Apr 2006
Military bloggers unite! Well, actually, we did.
Last weekend was the 2006 Milblogging Conference held in Washington, DC. For this author, it was the first chance to meet Austin Bay, a TCS contributor and colleague of mine at Strategypage.com. But the gathering also gave folks an insight into how military bloggers (aka milbloggers) have been making a difference in the War on Terror.
Blogs, of course, proved their power in September, 2004, when Dan Rather's use of forged memos was brought to light -- culminating in "Rathergate". In essence, a network of military types who knew about the Air Force procedures of the time when President Bush was in the Air National Guard 1968, others who knew about the typewriters of the time, and a host of other experts, were able to provide the information that proved Rather's memos were phony.
At the conference, the general attitude towards the mainstream media was one of distrust. To illustrate the basis for that distrust, the blogger who ran the blog "In Iraq for 365" related an instance where American soldiers came under fire from a mosque. The American troops did not enter the mosque, however, though the media reported they did. To compound this misreporting, a network had footage of the American troops taking fire from the mosque, and MSM gatekeepers chose not to use this. As a result, the US military had to deal with international PR fallout from the incident.
Milbloggers also discussed how the media ignore of hero-stories and good news (such as these recent examples). Several panelists mentioned how the media largely ignored Sergeant First Class Paul Smith, who held off an attack on a U.S. Army unit during the liberation of Iraq in 2003 and received the Medal of Honor for his heroism. Another ignored hero is Marine Sergeant Rafael Peralta, who during a battle covered a grenade to protect fellow Marines. Yet the "knuckleheads" (to quote milblogger Blackfive) of Abu Ghraib got far more coverage than these heroes.
Milblogger efforts have shown that the landscape has changed greatly from Vietnam. As Steve, who blogs at Threatswatch, pointed out, the Tet Offensive was a military defeat for the North Vietnamese, but the victory by American forces on the battlefield was taken away by misreporting from the media of that time. Today, such misreporting will not go unchallenged, as there is a check against the MSM.
The milbloggers largely agreed that this is the major difference between the War on Terror and the Vietnam War. This time, the people who know the facts and the good news stories have the ability to get them out without the filters of the major mainstream media outlets, changing the terrain of the information battlefield. This shift in the terrain has helped keep the United States from completely losing the war on the home front.
Harold Hutchison is a military blogger for Strategypage.
Ellie
By Harold Hutchison : BIO| 27 Apr 2006
Military bloggers unite! Well, actually, we did.
Last weekend was the 2006 Milblogging Conference held in Washington, DC. For this author, it was the first chance to meet Austin Bay, a TCS contributor and colleague of mine at Strategypage.com. But the gathering also gave folks an insight into how military bloggers (aka milbloggers) have been making a difference in the War on Terror.
Blogs, of course, proved their power in September, 2004, when Dan Rather's use of forged memos was brought to light -- culminating in "Rathergate". In essence, a network of military types who knew about the Air Force procedures of the time when President Bush was in the Air National Guard 1968, others who knew about the typewriters of the time, and a host of other experts, were able to provide the information that proved Rather's memos were phony.
At the conference, the general attitude towards the mainstream media was one of distrust. To illustrate the basis for that distrust, the blogger who ran the blog "In Iraq for 365" related an instance where American soldiers came under fire from a mosque. The American troops did not enter the mosque, however, though the media reported they did. To compound this misreporting, a network had footage of the American troops taking fire from the mosque, and MSM gatekeepers chose not to use this. As a result, the US military had to deal with international PR fallout from the incident.
Milbloggers also discussed how the media ignore of hero-stories and good news (such as these recent examples). Several panelists mentioned how the media largely ignored Sergeant First Class Paul Smith, who held off an attack on a U.S. Army unit during the liberation of Iraq in 2003 and received the Medal of Honor for his heroism. Another ignored hero is Marine Sergeant Rafael Peralta, who during a battle covered a grenade to protect fellow Marines. Yet the "knuckleheads" (to quote milblogger Blackfive) of Abu Ghraib got far more coverage than these heroes.
Milblogger efforts have shown that the landscape has changed greatly from Vietnam. As Steve, who blogs at Threatswatch, pointed out, the Tet Offensive was a military defeat for the North Vietnamese, but the victory by American forces on the battlefield was taken away by misreporting from the media of that time. Today, such misreporting will not go unchallenged, as there is a check against the MSM.
The milbloggers largely agreed that this is the major difference between the War on Terror and the Vietnam War. This time, the people who know the facts and the good news stories have the ability to get them out without the filters of the major mainstream media outlets, changing the terrain of the information battlefield. This shift in the terrain has helped keep the United States from completely losing the war on the home front.
Harold Hutchison is a military blogger for Strategypage.
Ellie