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11 Jun 07
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"We're not only fighting a physical war, we're fighting an information war as well," said "Andi C.," organizer of the first annual MilBlog Conference, which took place last month in Washington.
"The Bush administration and the DoD [Department of Defense] have not been very effective in the information war," explained Andi C., who, like many "milbloggers," prefers not to use her full name. "Milblogs have been doing the heavy lifting. Both entities could learn a thing or two from milbloggers."
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Many milbloggers, including some on active duty, expressed frustration with war coverage by "the mainstream media."
"[I] started reading the milbloggers and their accounts of what was going on over in theater, and I was thinking to myself, 'What a contrast to what you read every day,'" explained ThreatsWatch blogger Steve Schippert. "It was such a bad difference that it really started to get me angry."
Several milbloggers said they thought the media doubts there is any prospect of military success in Iraq. As an example, they cited Time Magazine's April 7, 2003, cover, which asked: "What will it take to win?"
One participant pointed out that the famous toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad's Firdos Square took place two days after the magazine's cover date.
Not all participants agreed that good news wasn't getting out.
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"It's out there," said Nuding. "You can find it on Yahoo, [on the War on Terror discussion blog] Winds of Change and other places."
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"People have to understand that there's a difference between having the news 'out there' and making people read it," he continued. "The mainstream media's real issue is one of reporting and analyzing in the context of some sort of bigger picture ... That's where the bloggers come in. It's really more about balance."
Conference panelists said they saw milblogging as a way for ordinary people to provide that balance.
"Technology is allowing ordinary people who are experts to get their message out much more efficiently," according to "Charlie", who along with his colleague, "John," runs a blog called "OPFOR." Both preferred to use only their first names.
Andi agreed with that assessment.
"Milblogs tell the good news, the progress on the ground," she said.
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Ward Carroll, news editor of Military.com, said that a good milblog "reads with a sincerity and an import that no mainstream media outlet can capture."
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Both John Donovan, whose milblog is at http://www.thedonovan.com, and "Beth," who runs Fuzzilicious Thinking, point out that connectivity is the key.
Not all milblogs get large volumes of traffic, but even the seldom-read are often connected to other blogs that have larger readerships or are in turn read by those with access to a greater audience.
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Charlie, whose OPFOR site has just ventured into podcasting, wants the military of the future to embrace bloggers more closely and make its content accessible over a wide variety of platforms.
"I would like to see a unit blogger," he explained, "some sort of central Web site where we get to see the combined blogs of each brigade combat team ... that can go out over podcasts, the Internet, etc."
For now, milblogs seem to be gaining in popularity because, in John from OPFOR's words, "The military art is largely a language, and there is a tremendous appetite in America for people who are fluent in that language."
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