Check out Blogs over Baghdad

If you haven't yet, I recommend checking out Blogs over Baghdad. The SGM and his unit just deployed to the CENTCOM AOR and the site already has got some good stuff to read about their training and the SGM has some great ideas about using new media. He's a PA Soldier who, along with blogging about his experiences, is experimenting with the idea of a unit blog - in fact, Blogs over Baghdad is a unit blog that has entries from a number of Soldiers in their organization. In a recent post about milblogging, SGM Falardeau had this to say:

The Department of Defense has slowly evolved its opinion of blogs. A few years ago, they were seen as a serious threat and were discouraged, and their authors sometimes faced serious consequences for disclosing potentially harmful or embarrassing information. Over the years, reasoned minds discovered and communicated to leadership that it was nearly impossible to muzzle soldiers — and that doing so not only stopped that small amount of possibly harmful communication, but also the overwhelming amount of information flow that added layers of understanding about the lives of soldiers, their families and our institutions.

It is my hope that the experiences of the 314th and many others will continue to demonstrate the effectiveness of Soldiers blogging. Best wishes to the 314th and the many other Soldiers currently serving around the world.

Results are in: Most believe milblogs are pro-military biased

The results from the most recent poll corroborate what I'm finding in the survey of milblogs that I'm currently in the midst of: the overwhelming majority (62%) of the people who took this poll believe that most milblogs are at least slightly biased in favor of the military. From my trolling, there are a few milblogs out there that are more negative, but they are certainly the minority.

Thanks to the 16 of you who voted - a new Soldiers in the Blogosphere polling record!

Do you think most milblogs are biased?

• 18% (3) Absolutely! Most are pro-military and/or pro-war
• 62% (10) Yes, they are somewhat pro-military and/or pro-war
• 12% (2)No. Most are quite neutral.
• 6% (1) Yes, most are somewhat negative about the military or war
• 0% (0) Absolutely! Most are very negative about the military or war

So I ask: is this a problem? Is it somehow bad that most milblogs provide a positive outlook when discussing military matters in general or the wars specifically? Is this an important aspect of achieving balanced information when considering that most people believe that the mainstream media has a negative bias for the wars specifically?

I personally don't find this to be troubling as long as the positive outlook is based on facts. The idea of truthful information is paramount to creating and maintaining credibility. Interesting stories can be told, compelling drama can be generated, and readers will keep coming back for the next installment if the Soldier is credible.

Are milblogs biased?

One of the main complaints that I've often leveled at the main-stream media is that they are biased: negative stories, against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, liberal, etc. When we toured the CNN studios several weeks ago, we asked the executives about this perception of bias. They danced around the accusations of liberal- and conservative-bias. One did admit that they are biased toward conflict by discussing the elements of a good television news story. The best stories are the ones with dramatic footage of something out-of-the-ordinary happening. The best stories are about topics that are somewhat controversial or, at least, unusual. The best stories are the ones that engage people - they excite emotions in some way.

Similar elements could be listed about what makes the best milblog post, the post that gets the most interest and readership. These stories appear to be the ones with the most personal elements - a dramatic telling of a patrol from an infantryman's perspective, a memorial post to a fallen comrade, or the joy of returning home. Many of the most popular milblogs also include photos or videos that add to the emotional content of the post. But are these posts biased? Do most milbloggers write because they're against the wars and have found blogging as an outlet? Or are most milbloggers pro-military and pro-war and seek to use their blogs to balance what we percieve as the negatively-biased main-stream media with positive blog entries? That's the subject of the current poll (look to the top right of this webpage). Please weigh in with your opinion about any bias you percieve from milblogs you read. Thanks!