Milblogger Kickin' Butt In Iraq

This is pretty darn cool...

Marines invite blogger to Iraq

Request followed frustration with mainstream media

JONATHAN FINER AND DOUG STRUCK

Washington Post BAGHDAD, Iraq - Retired soldier Bill Roggio was a computer technician living in New Jersey less than two months ago when a Marine officer half a world away made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Frustrated by the coverage they were receiving from the news media, the Marines invited Roggio, 35, who writes a popular Web log about the military called "The Fourth Rail" (www.billroggio.com), to cover the war from the front lines.
He raised more than $30,000 from his online readers to pay for airfare, technical
equipment and body armor. A few weeks later, he was posting dispatches from a
remote outpost in western Anbar province, a hotbed of Iraq's insurgency.
"I was disenchanted with the reporting on the war in Iraq and the greater war on
terror and felt there was much to the conflict that was missed," Roggio, who is now with Marines along the Syrian border, e-mailed in response to written questions. "What is often seen as an attempt at balanced reporting results in underreporting of the military's success and strategy and an overemphasis on the strategically minor success of the jihadists or insurgents."
Roggio's arrival in Iraq comes amid what military commanders and analysts say is an increasingly aggressive battle for control over information.
Scrutiny of Pentagon information operations increased last month, when news reports revealed the U.S. military paid Iraqi journalists and news organizations to publish favorable stories by soldiers, sometimes without disclosing the military's role in producing them.
Military officials say they have stepped up responses to insurgents' attempts to influence coverage -- such as a pair of recent bombings at Baghdad hotels where journalists stay, which officers and analysts said were designed to generate large-scale coverage.

I'm still of the opinion that blogs are slowly but surely replacing the dead dog media. I think this shows how blogs fill an important niche that the more traditional media outlets ignore, mainly, the truth!

However, they gotta get their digs in, the article goes on to say...

Military Paid for Positive Coverage

The military has paid money to try to place favorable coverage on television stations in three Iraqi cities, according to an Army spokesman, Maj. Dan Blanton.
The military, said Blanton, has given one of the stations about $35,000 in
equipment, is building a new facility for $300,000 and pays $600 a week for a
weekly program that focuses positively on U.S. efforts in Iraq.
The names of the city and the television station are being withheld because the producer of the show said he and his staff would be seen as collaborators and endangered if identified.
A local U.S. Army National Guard commander acknowledged that his officers "suggest" stories to the station and review the content of the program in a weekly meeting before it is aired.
The commander, a lieutenant colonel whose name is being withheld because he is based in the same area, denied that payments were made to the station, but the Iraqi television producer said his staff got $1,000 a month from the military. It does not disclose any financial relationship to viewers.
He also said military commanders suggest stories, often about U.S. reconstruction projects or community efforts by the military, and review each program. He acknowledged the program portrays the American military in a positive light.

I like to think of this as a friendly reminder from the media that, of course, the military...

Be de debil.

What say you?

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