One of my complaints early on during blogging was an unwillingness of PAOs to consider speaking to bloggers or even respond to emails. Chester can vouch for my complaints...

Something changed between then and now, and PAOs are now starting to recognize the role blogs play in keeping families and friends of servicemen informed. PAOs also recognize the blogs can tell the story the media cannot or will not tell. They (the more savvy ones anyway) are now interested in opening the lines of communications.

Here's a dirty little (not-so) secret: you don't need an invite to embed. If you want to embed, just get in touch with the unit you are interested in and request it. You'll then need to get credentialed, but odds are someone will bite.

My advice is to have your body of work about the area you wish to cover available for review. Be responsible in the tone of your blog, and show you understand the area or situation you wish to cover. PAOs will respect you and assist you with getting on your way.

I will disagree that a blog is not news (I realize you did say "or rarely"). But I am biased in that area ;-)

Here is a major concern of mine: the clampdown on active duty MilBloggers. They are often a major source of news, and I source them whenever possible. What is better source of news than a soldier in combat, or embedded as a MITT with an Iraqi unit? I strongly warned any officer that would listen to not shut these sites down. Here is hoping they listen.

Sorry to stray, but you will forgive me, right Chester?

The program should be more systematic. Perhaps the blogger should focus his/her attention on aspecialized area, and be permitted to develop relationships with specific military personnel who have either the experise or the first hand experience in that specialized area. This way, the blogger will be able to develop his/her own expertise in the area, which should provide greater credibility. What is needed, however, is someone to coordinate the effort....someone to identify the respective areas, assign them to specific bloggers, and coordinate with the military so that such bloggers are put in touch with the right people.

Merv,
Agree wholeheartedly.

Bill,

Yes -- you are a rare exception ;) And yes, I knew about not needing an invite to embed (I've read your WaPo fiasco stuff of course), but if the military actively contacts bloggers and says -- "hey, here's a list of units that are crying for an embed" then I think more would be likely to look into it.

RAZ,
I think that the system you descibe is a great idea, but think it should develop organically. Let every blogger decide what he wants to write about and just let the PA officers be open-minded about helping them get in touch with sources when feasible. I disagree with "someone to identify the respective areas" etc. Just let folks figure it out in an ad hoc fashion. The military is way too coordination-happy already.

RAZ,

I'll disagree on creating a coordinated PAO response, or else the blogger does indeed become an information operation and loose all credibility. I will agree however that it is best for bloggers that want to cover a war to 'specialize', by that I mean covering what they know best.

Chester, I knew you know, just wanted others to be aware ;-) Good idea on providing information on areas that aren't being covered. Sadly, in Iraq, that would be just about everywhere... Thanks for this post and discussion.

"Here is a major concern of mine: the clampdown on active duty MilBloggers. They are often a major source of news, and I source them whenever possible. What is better source of news than a soldier in combat, or embedded as a MITT with an Iraqi unit? I strongly warned any officer that would listen to not shut these sites down. Here is hoping they listen."

The trouble is that these sources are usually not censored. And they tend to shut down rather than get censored.

And so there's the chance that they'll say something that the higher-ups would think does not put the military in its best possible light.

Put yourself in an officer's place. One of your men has a blog. All of a sudden a bunch of liberals are quoting him saying something that shouldn't be controversial, but somehow it is. You look at it and he mentioned some detail about treatment of civilians, say, something that's standard practice and not in any way unusual, but now all these liberals back in the USA and foreign countries are talking like it's a war crime or something.

And pretty soon your CO is onto you about it, some general way up the line is asking how come that blog didn't get shut down before the damage was done....

It's OK if some PAO starts a blog and doesn't mention that he's a PAO but pretends he's just one of the guys. But he probably won't say anything particularly interesting.

J Thomas,

If CYA is your only concern, then shut them all down. But that isn't leadership, and it doesn't help the message of the war from a soldier's perspective get out there.

The risks associated with MilBlogs are low and the rewards are high. We already know this based on several years of experience.

Hi, everyone:

I hope 2006 is off to a good start for all of you. A couple of things:

Chester (Hi, Chester!) did write, and I did pass along his suggestions up my chain of command, as I do with any reasonable ideas that bloggers send in. As you all know, milblogging and blogging in general are relatively new phenomena, and at CENTCOM, as everywhere, we're trying to find out how best to serve this form of media. We just upgraded the website (http://www.centcom.mil) and are in the process of adding content to it every day.

That seems to be the best way to support bloggers overall: To make information available to the entire community as quickly as possible through the webpage. If anyone has a question about a topic, someone here will try to find it on the site and pass along a link, or help with research. Creating an informative, comprehensive website has been a major focus. What individual bloggers pick up on from that point (Casualty reports in some cases, Coalition efforts in others) is entirely up to them.

If there is any news regarding Chester's other requests, I'll let you know.

Incidentally, Bill (Hi, Bill!) wrote a piece about the Azerbaijani forces which is in Coalition Bulletin #28; There's a link to the PDF on http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom1/Shared%20Documents/Coalition.aspx

Anyway, good conversation here. Thanks for the chance to chime in. Your interest in CENTCOM in particular and the Global War On Terror in general is appreciated, believe me.

SPC C. Flowers

CENTCOM Public Affairs