Blogging the War

The War on Terror has been unique in its coverage simply because of the presence of user-created content for the first time in a U.S. military conflict. In addition to the traditional media coverage of a military conflict, we've also been privy to first-person accounts, from the first accounts of the U.S. invasion of Iraq from bloggers like Salaam Pax's Where Is Raed? to current military personnel blogs like the Fresno Bee's Life in Iraq from Army counselor Capt. Jeffrey Leonard, an entirely new perspective has been shown on the conflict.

Last week had several conflicting stories about the continuation of this "war coverage 2.0." The first announcement came from The History Channel, who announced that they would be including multi-media content covering the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan on its web site. The content, which they promise will be uncensored, would be provided by what they are branding Band of Bloggers, a group of military personnel who would send content taken from hand-held video cameras, cell phones, and other digital methods.

No sooner did The History Channel announce that this content should be available in the third quarter then the military announced that they were cracking down on bloggers with a new policy that stated that all forms of electronic communication, including blogs and emails, had to be checked by a superior before being sent or posted. While common sense would seem to dictate that this policy would apply only to classified information or sensitive information like location or strategy, the revised text of the rules (which once referenced only sensitive information as needing review) seemed absolute, stating that personnel must:

Consult with their immediate supervisor and their OPSEC Officer for an OPSEC review prior to publishing or posting information in a public forum.

1. This includes, but is not limited to letters, resumes, articles for publication, electronic mail (e-mail), Web site postings, web log (blog) postings, discussion in Internet information forums, discussion in Internet message boards or other forms of dissemination or documentation.
2. Supervisors will advise personnel to ensure that sensitive and critical information is not to be disclosed. Each unit or organization’s OPSEC Officer will advise supervisors on means to prevent the disclosure of sensitive and critical information.

However a day after the original revisions were discussed in the media, the Army issued a statement to the Associated Press that stated, "In no way will every blog post/update a Soldier makes on his or her blog need to be monitored or first approved by an immediate supervisor." While that sounds like good news for both bloggers as well as The History Channel, it still remains to be seen how the new policies will be implemented, and what, if any, effect they will have on current bloggers as well as any new blogs that may be launched in the future, such as the Band of Bloggers project.

All of this comes at the same time as an updated version of the Free Flow of Information Act was introduced in both the Senate and the House. This new version would give bloggers much of the same protection afforded to traditional journalists in terms of protecting confidential sources and other protection.

It's a new world, with a new media. Trying to hash out how citizen journalists go about their reporting is going to go back and forth for some time, in my estimation. We can only hope that the legislation will continue to move in the direction of promoting protection of user-created content.