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| US military to "bypass an increasingly combative press corps." |
| 2004-03-08 |
| EFL The U.S. military will launch its own news service in Iraq and Afghanistan to send military video, text and photos directly to the Internet or news outlets. The $6.3 million project, expected to begin operating in April, is one of the largest military public affairs projects in recent memory, and is intended to allow small media outlets in the United States and elsewhere to bypass what the Pentagon views as an increasingly combative press corps. U.S. officials have complained that Iraq-based media focuses on catastrophic events like car bombs and soldiers’ deaths, while giving short shrift to U.S. rebuilding efforts. The American public "currently gets a pretty slanted picture," said Army Capt. Randall Baucom, a spokesman for the Kuwait-based U.S.-led Coalition Land Forces Command. "We want them to get an opportunity to see the facts as they exist, instead of getting information from people who aren’t on the scene." |
| Posted by:Yosemite Sam |
| #11 ruprecht, I think it also works in bash. But I was thinking Perl.... I hope that they don't blow it by giving an obvious 'slant' to the news stories but include the good and the bad. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-3-8 10:26:00 PM |
| #10 More... This comment: "This is the kind of news that people get in countries where the government controls the media. Why would anybody here want to buy into it?" Mac McKerral, president of the Society of Professional Journalists, told The Associated Press. ... is BS and McKerral knows it. If he really believes this then he should be on the phone to every city editor in the country telling them not to take any press releases or footage from government sources. And while he's at it, he may as well advise them not to report on the press releases of all the NGOs in this country who get free uncritical publicity for all kinds of ridiculous "studies." Of course, he had to say this. But's it baloney and if he doesn't know that it's baloney he's never had to cover a real story in his life. |
| Posted by: RMcLeod 2004-3-8 7:42:59 PM |
| #9 You can imagine the NYT version of this story. Will news from the Military be Trustworthy? or some such crap. This is a great idea, because, in fact, it mirrors what many police departments do: they issue a press releases and then the press reports on them. The key thing is that the press releases create the menu of possible stories for the day. After many years in the newspaper business I can promise you that this approach is a good one. Smaller and regional papers will use the material, because they can get the "government's" story more rapidly. The big papers will use the material too, because, again, it's follows a model police departments use. The reporters can't be everywhere and, therefore, you rely on the official sources to give you the menu of material for the day. If the official sources are lying, or more likely shading the story to put themselves in a favorable light, a good reporter will be able to debunk it...but that means doing work debunking the official source. Believe me, the last thing a government agency, any government agency wants is to get caught in a lie, so the credibility of this material should become high rather quickly. But again, keep in mind the key thing: the government agency creates a menu of material simply by producing interesting, high quality press releases. If you ignore the press release and someone else covers the story, you're screwed. So you have to pay attention to what's on offer or your boss is going to ask you why you got beat. This is really a fine idea. Hopefully, the DOD has some decent people ready to right the PR stuff, ex-media people would be ideal. |
| Posted by: RMcLeod 2004-3-8 7:37:14 PM |
| #8 This has all the odor of Rich Galen who has done a great job of blogging from Iraq and getting this kind of positive story into the same media outlets. |
| Posted by: Mr. Davis 2004-3-8 4:55:22 PM |
| #7 I've used that command in Bourne shell, does it work in other shells as well CrazyFool? |
| Posted by: ruprecht 2004-3-8 3:58:00 PM |
| #6 s/combative/biased-antiAmerican/g This is a good sign and (hopefully) the end of Big media's monopoly on the information being given to the voters. (TechNote: The above command subsitutes 'combative' with 'biased-antiAmerican' in the story (globally)). |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-3-8 12:25:57 PM |
| #5 Bring back Christiana, the "War Whore"!!! |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2004-3-8 12:21:25 PM |
| #4 One more nail in the coffin of the big media. At what point will the White House and others start to lean more on the internet and less on the white house press corps and their bias, and often very stupid, questions. Easier to simplyl posts the answers on the Whitehouse.gov website so that any journalist cooking up a story can go there for the White House version of the facts. It would also allow very easy fact-checking of a lot of stories. |
| Posted by: ruprecht 2004-3-8 12:08:32 PM |
| #3 I'm all for Corps-, Brigade-, Battalion- and Company-level public news websites, as well as platoon- and squad-level group blogs. A guy I work with has a son up near Mosul, living in a mud hut with a hole in the ground to crap in; yet he has broadband Internet- complete with webcam. If the establishment media continue to report dishonestly and selectively, then surplus 'em. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2004-3-8 12:03:43 PM |
| #2 Hooyah! $6.3M - Hell, that wouldn't even cover the Rooters monthly bar tab. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-3-8 11:22:02 AM |
| #1 "We want them to get an opportunity to see the facts as they exist, instead of getting information from people who aren’t on the scene." -A very poignant and accurate comment. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2004-3-8 11:19:55 AM |