How Should the Services Respond to MilBloggers?
Another milblogger, Chris Eder at AFNBroadcaster, posed a question to PBS’ MediaShift not long ago wondering how the armed services should react to bloggers. His question was this:
The Air Force’s #1 weakness is telling a timely story, and its #1 strength is telling an accurate story. Citizen journalism’s #1 strength is telling a timely story. Given these restraints, how do you think the Air Force could best leverage all of these voices to tell one message?
On the MediaShift thread I responded with the following:
I don’t really think the Air Force should be trying to “leverage” their airmen’s messages. As soon as Big AF started to appear to grant semi-official status to a milblogger, I think that blogger would lose some credibility and independence.
I think the best thing the AF can do is to stay out of our way so long as we don’t compromise OPSEC or run afoul of the UCMJ.
Chris replied to my feedback on another thread here and it’s worth repeating in its own post for the purpose of more thorough debate. This is what he wrote:
My intent isn’t to have every Airmen blog about the AF. Gen Mosley wants every Airmen to tell their story, and I think letting them, and giving them a place to tell it would be a good way to do it.
Now, Chris’ original question used the words ”one message”, and he appears to have modified his position to some extent, with the Air Force merely providing a venue. I invite Chris to explain more thorougly the Air Force’s idea here, and all of you to join in with your thoughts.
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Bio: I currently teach security studies at the graduate level, hold a BS in management and a MA in national security studies, and am pursuing a MA in systematic and philosophical theology. I've written for Navy Times, Proceedings, Armed Forces Journal and a number of blogs. As a 24-year veteran of the U.S. Navy and Navy Reserve, I attained the rank of Commander, deployed five times for four different conflicts and served as a Foreign Area Officer and a Surface Warfare Officer. During my seven years in the private sector, I worked in the fields of information technology and publishing, and even ran for public office once.
April 19th, 2007 at 18:38
This is not the AF’s idea, rather mine. I’m a Combat Correspondent (broadcast journalist) in the AF with an idea and possible solution. The Chief of Staff of the AF, Gen Michael Mosley in a recent letter wrote every Airman is an Ambassador and they should tell their story. I suggest they are already doing it! Military.com has more than 1700 military blogs, Mudville Gazette…same same! Then ofcourse here we are…you’re a Navy blogger…me an AF blogger. So I did some research and proposed a network journalism approach !
I’m off to my all expense paid vaction to the IZ. More to come.