John made an important comment - we're losing the Information War because we are sitting on information too long - for some important reasons, but we're still losing.

The DoD rep said that they're still trying to figure out how to take advantage of the blogosphere. One commenter noted that CENTCOM contacted him and asked if he wanted to interview someone, and when he responded to it, he never heard again. (The same thing happened to me.) CPT. Deiss said that CENTCOM puts staying connected to the bloggers as a priority, so it was not intentional - they definitely want us engaged and working with them.

Lex asked a good question - are we doing PAO stuff reactively, or proactively? It ought to be a top-level objective to get the word out. The DoD folks said that being proactive is not what they do; it would be too much like marketing. They are facilitators of existing desire to get the info out - to be too proactive, they would look like they're inventing the message.

DadManly asked about what the panelists thought about how to handle active mililtary bloggers in the wake of the new OPSEC regs - would it be a good idea to have "embed bloggers"? Credentialed military bloggers? Lex joked that his ideal world was "access without accountability."

Chuck Z said that he has credentials - it's something he's fought for - freedom of speech. He said that he is also accountable for what he says.

Labels: Milblog