If you’ve been paying more than the least bit of attention, you know the American mass media is virtually ignoring anything coming out of the war in Iraq that might come close to the level of good news. In order to get such news, you have to turn to alternate sources, such as military blogs. And behind those military blogs, making sure the good news continues to flow, is Army Reserve Spc. Claude Flowers of the 304th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment.
Flowers, along with Spc. Garth Gehlen, USAR, and Maj. Richard J. McNorton, USAR, engage the blogosphere from U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla. CENTCOM is responsible for military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa.
And “Engage” is not only the team’s motto, it’s what they do.
“We were given the mission to do electronic media engagement,” Flowers said. “The idea was put forth that so many people are getting their news from online sources that we would be remiss if we neglected that audience.”
There is both good news and bad news coming out of Iraq. Every time a person is killed in action, I receive a notice. For instance, this one, which came in today:
Pfc. Benjamin C. Schuster, 21, of Williamsville, N.Y., died in Ar Ramadi, Iraq on Feb. 25, from a gunshot wound. Schuster was assigned to the Army National Guard’s 2nd Battalion, 101st Cavalry Regiment, Buffalo, N.Y.
What I don’t see nearly as much of, though, is good news coming out of the war. On occasion I’ll get a story about Iraqi villages which have running water for the first time in decades. But unlike the casualty reports, I don’t see a steady stream of it. Instead, I have a steady stream of the top brass babbling on about, well, read for yourself:
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld visited the Truman Presidential Museum and Library here today to reflect on President Harry S. Truman’s leadership during the early days of the Cold War and the lessons it offers today for the global war on terror.
So the good news winds up largely unreported, even by the military’s own press! But wait, is there enough good news coming out of Iraq to keep my desktop nearly as full of headlines as it is of casualty reports? Maybe I just don’t have the right sources.
McNorton, Gehlen and Flowers seem to think there’s enough good news. In fact, they spend their days feeding stories of good news from Iraq and Afghanistan to military blogs such as MilTracker, formerly known as Camp Katrina, a site dedicated to telling the “good news about the U.S. military.”
The team also ask bloggers to link back to the CENTCOM web site, and when they run across incorrect or incomplete information in a blog entry, they provide a correction or more information. “We don’t go in there and get into a debate,” said McNorton. And they don’t go in to police the content of blogs. But they do report OPSEC (operational security) violations.
“Repeatedly we hear from people, ‘I never would have heard this story in the mainstream media,’” Flowers said. “People really are interested in what soldiers are doing. Blogs are individual statements. They’re the voice of individuals. They’re a way of understanding this war on a very human level.”
The Army has also engaged a public relations firm to supply exclusive editorial content to selected bloggers, most of whom cautiously accepted the offer. But the first content to come out of the deal seems to have been not quite what they expected. Noah Shachtman panned the “two Wonder bread-bland profiles of Army reservists” he received as his exclusive content, calling it “almost comically lame.”
I reviewed the CENTCOM site, and while I found it was indeed full of good news, it didn’t seem that there was enough of it to write about on a daily basis. Perhaps a weekly basis. It’s also got a few technical problems, such as the non-existent podcast. In the meantime, something just came in about torture at Guantánamo Bay. I should go read that.
Information from the American Forces Press Service was used in this report.
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SPC Claude Flowers
Mar 03, 2006
Hi, Mr. Hampton:
Your interest in CENTCOM and our website (http://www.centcom.mil) is appreciated. You should mention, however, that all of these quotes (including mine) are drawn from a piece by US Army CPT Steve Alvarez of the Armed Forces Press Service http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=15287), and that you did not obtain them yourself. It’s only fair to CPT Alvarez (who deserves acknowledgement for doing the work), and to your readers.
The original story by CPT Alvarez appears below.
SPC Claude Flowers
CENTCOM Public Affairs
# # #
CENTCOM Team Engages ‘Bloggers’
By Capt. Steve Alvarez, USA
American Forces Press Service
MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla., March 2, 2006 – The widespread use of Web logs, or “blogs,” by online writers has proliferated information on topics as varied as the authors.
Blogs, in essence, are online journals or forums for their authors, known as “bloggers.”
Public affairs officials here said thousands of blogs are created each day, and they estimate that more than 21 million blogs are posted on the World Wide Web today.
Blogs sometimes include information — accurate and otherwise — about the U.S. military’s global war on terror. U.S. Central Command officials here took notice and created a team to engage these writers and their electronic information forums.
“The main interest is to drive their readers to our site,” Army Reserve Maj. Richard J. McNorton said. McNorton is CENTCOM’s chief of engagement operations.
Anyone who wants a virtual voice can create a blog and share information with the online world. The ease with which bloggers spread information is what public affairs officials at CENTCOM saw when they created the blog team.
McNorton said the team contacts bloggers to inform the writers about any given topic that may have been posted on their site. This outreach effort enables the team to offer complete information to bloggers by inviting them to visit CENTCOM’s Web site for news releases, data or imagery.
The team engages bloggers who are posting inaccurate or untrue information, as well as bloggers who are posting incomplete information. They extend a friendly invitation to all bloggers to visit the command’s Web site.
Many bloggers appreciate the team’s contact, blog team officials said, and most post CENTCOM’s Web site as a link on their blog sites. This, McNorton said, has a “viral effect” that drives Internet news consumers to CENTCOM’s Web site.
“Now (online readers) have the opportunity to read positive stories. At least the public can go there and see the whole story. The public wants to hear these good stories,” he said, adding that the news stories the military generates are “very factual.”
From his desk at CENTCOM headquarters here, Army Reserve Spc. Claude Flowers of the 304th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment from Kent, Wash., fights in the global war on terrorism daily in his own way. It is an effort, officials here said, that is making a big difference in the communications arena in the online world.
The team’s motto is “Engage,” and Flowers and others work with more than 250 bloggers to try to disseminate news about the good work being done by U.S. forces in the global war on terror. The effort, officials here said, has reached more than 17 million online readers.
“We were given the mission to do electronic media engagement,” Flowers said. “The idea was put forth that so many people are getting their news from online sources that we would be remiss if we neglected that audience.”
Flowers is one of three people who read blogs and try to drive Internet readers to the CENTCOM Web site, where readers can learn more about operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.
“We needed to do something to make people aware of the fact that we had this clearinghouse of photos and information,” Flowers said. “We can get the whole story out there. We let them know we have a Web site.”
Flowers said the Web site is filled with informative facts, figures, imagery, data and information that readers can digest before a third party processes and presents the information for them through other media.
“Certainly anyone is welcome to use the material on the Web site,” Flowers said. “So far, the reception has been tremendous.”
Team members said they have contacted a full spectrum of bloggers. In one instance, a blogger was writing about the opening of a water treatment plant in Iraq. The writer was presenting the information as a positive milestone for the U.S. military in Iraq, but the information was not complete. The team contacted the writer and offered information via the CENTCOM Web site, and more information was added to the blog to make the article more accurate.
In another blog contact, the team wrote a blogger who had written untrue information about U.S. military tactics. The blogger stated that the U.S. military routinely used children in Iraq and Afghanistan as human shields during their operations by using candy to entice and lure kids near them. The team posted a comment on the writer’s blog stating that the U.S. military did not use human shield tactics and explained the full circumstances of the incident where Iraqi children died in 2004 when insurgents attacked U.S. forces in Baghdad.
Most blogs ordinarily have a feature that enables readers to contact the writer or allows readers to post comments. When the team “reaches out” to a blogger, the team members do not conceal their identity. They fully disclose that they are public affairs personnel and identify themselves accordingly. And, McNorton said, they are there to correct information, no more.
“We don’t go in there and get into a debate,” he said. And officials here are quick to point out that they are not policing Web sites. They are simply offering bloggers the opportunity to get raw information directly from the source.
Flowers said that many military personnel have also become bloggers during their deployments as a way to keep friends and family informed on their activities in the war. Here too, the team members don’t police content, but if they do discover an operational security violation, they contact the blogger’s command to point out the security violation.
“(Operational security) for a Web site is no different than OPSEC for a letter,” Flowers said. “You shouldn’t publish anything you don’t want everyone to read,” he said, adding that the enemy uses open sources of information to wage war on coalition forces.
But, he said, “The power of military blogs is that they’re a letter home from servicemen and women that the entire world can read,” Flowers said.
All bloggers have their niche audience, Flowers said. Some are faith-based, others are military community members, and yet others are involved in mustering humanitarian aid for people in Iraq or Afghanistan. But while the reasons for their blogs differ, most bloggers consistently offer the same comment to Flowers and his team.
“Repeatedly we hear from people, ‘I never would have heard this story in the mainstream media,’” Flowers said. “People really are interested in what soldiers are doing. Blogs are individual statements. They’re the voice of individuals. They’re a way of understanding this war on a very human level.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE: The author wrote a daily blog for hometown online newspaper Orlando Sentinel as part of his official duties during his yearlong deployment to Iraq in 2004-2005. CENTCOM officials said his blog, the first official U.S. military war blog published by a daily newspaper, helped in conceptualizing the blog team.)
Michael Hampton
Mar 03, 2006
You’re quite right; the attribution was missing. I probably dropped it by mistake in a revision somewhere. It’s been restored.
Michael Hampton
Mar 03, 2006
Hm. I should also mention, since I don’t think I made it clear in the article itself, that since I’m generally focused on the homeland, I rarely get to take a look at what’s going on in Iraq and elsewhere with this war.
This is more of a criticism of the American mass media, who seem completely uninterested in any good news coming out of Iraq. I had a deployed servicemember tell me recently that he was with an embedded reporter who, when asked if he wanted to see some of the good things his unit was doing, replied that he did not.
“We are doing great things over there that are not being reported. Indeed, reporters are invited to attend openings of schools, water treatment plants, etc., but all they ask about is ‘where’s the last IED explosion?’ They only care about reporting the bad stuff,” he wrote. “As a result, what you see back in the States is a never-ending parade of death and destruction, yet it represents a minority of what’s actually going on.”
SPC C. Flowers
Mar 04, 2006
Hi, Mr. Hampton:
I appreciate you making that clarification about the work of CPT Alvarez, and doing it so quickly. It speaks a lot to your integrity. Thank you, sincerely.
Anything that CPT Alvarez (or I, or any servicemember) writes or produces as a military journalist is copyright-free, but it’s always nice when there’s attribution! I’ll pass along a link to him. I’m sure he’ll be grateful to see his work being read and discussed.
Interesting point you make about the editorial focus of different individuals covering the Global War on Terror. That’s beyond our control. We’ve structured the CENTCOM website to include as much information as possible and are in the process of adding new material all the time (We’re ramping up to add more audio and video files, for example).
What any particular website or news outlet chooses to use is entirely up to them. Some only pick up the casualty reports. Others are interested in particular regions or projects. You and your peers are welcome to use any materials you find on our site, and if you have any advice/suggestions for additional features you think we should add, feel free to let me know.
Thanks again. Have a good weekend.
SPC C. Flowers
CENTCOM Public Affairs
Trevor
Mar 05, 2006
Thanks for reporting on this. There is a lot of good news in Iraq. That’s not to take anything away from the bad news, which is also abundant. However, there is certainly a bias toward reportingh only the negative news. It sells better.
Jul 07, 2006
Air Force to begin watching blogs - Homeland Stupidity
Sep 02, 2006
Military funds positive-PR generator - Homeland Stupidity
Robert McLaughlin
Apr 24, 2007
I saw an old movie last night about WWII where journalists came home and everyone wanted to hear stories about how we are winning the war. I do not understand the desire to not win. We are winning yet it is being denied by the journalists who are not reporting the whole story. This is selective reporting and reminds me of the Soviet Union and Pravda. If journalists get on TV and say, “We’re winning the war!” they will get just as much press, and be more accurate.