No friend of Frank...

My blog-friend, Boston Maggie , was invited to the Pentagon as part of a milblog team to talk about access with the respective service heads. I am disappointed to report that the response form the Navy was disappointing. She provides (below) some detail to her visit. The Navy presenter is ADM Frank Thorp, who is the Navy’s top PAO (public affairs officer) known as the CHINFO.

Let me be blunt, RDML Thorp blew it, almost as badly as he botched the initial interviews as an O6 regarding PFC Jessica Lynch's fate. I am continually amazed at how many flag and general officers seem to forget how important good PR is in today's world, even the small elements. You can bet that this meeting will be repeated across the net. Having been an individual to see first hand how a little news story can ruin well laid plans (Dixie Chicks), I am appalled at this officer's behavior. At the very least you represent the citizens of the nation (essentially his boss) and were due much more courtesy.

I am also disappointed in RDML Thorp as he has had a front row seat on many groups which have been analyzing the new paradigm for communication. In fact he sat on the Defense Science Board on this very topic in January of 2008. The recommendations from that board were to recognize the sea changes and take action now.

The amount of positive play that military affairs gets outside of the "trade" journals (Army / Air Force / Navy Times, etc.) is almost zero. What friendship does he expect to strike up with the perpetually anti-military NYT? The WSJ is more concerned about the impact of reduced military spending and could care less about insights generated by journalists like Bing West, Michael Yon and the like. And yet these are the very people who end up providing the feedstock for the main stream media.

The DoD and the Navy in particular do not get the new media. They almost had it during the Iraq war as they provided access during the major combat stage. However, once the tanks stopped rolling and the tough foot patrols began, their support dried up. Even professional journals like Proceedings have started to dip their toe in the new media waters. I am a minor league MILBLOGGER, but my perspective is first person and has been witness to some amazing events, which got no mention in the MSM.

I had intended to reprint the whole of her e-mail story, but will await her publishing it on the web. Suffice to say, the cat’s out of the bag and hopefully RDML Thorp will take a moment and reflect on how easily impressions are made or broken in our new viral, global media world

Until the military recognizes that they must pay as much attention to the small stories as the big ones, we will continue to find short shrift via official channels.

It's not the Physics Prize...

Congratulations Al Gore! You may (did) have already won the Nobel Peace Prize! Your lovely little film, despite its atrocious inaccuracies, has elevated the discussion of a weighty scientific topic to religious fervor! This prize, I regret to inform you, will be shared by a legion of scientists who know where their bread is buttered. The members of the IPCC have graciously allowed the policy makers in the UN to sanitize their analysis and recommendations to fit within the present environmental world view.

Gore's film has been censured by the British high court as being unsuitable for educational purposes without substantial caveats and clarifications. The facts surrounding climate on the earth are complex and variable. Simplistic assumptions by anyone place the individual in the likely spot of being incorrect. I certainly believe there is a cyclic nature to climate on this planet. I am NOT convinced that the reasons for the present change (if any) are due to human generated circumstances.

Let's be clear, reducing the input of all emissions into the atmosphere is a good thing. Just as the Malthusians were wrong about apocalyptic consequences from population growth, the prospect for error among the anthropogenic sect exists. Science needs debate. It needs debate in which theories are challenged and validated in the most scrupulous manner. I believe that this is occurring in the scientific community, however, as our media attempts to report on this issue - they get it horribly wrong.

There are web sites in which anyone who challenges the origins of current climate conditions is labeled a "denier". This is an extremely inflammatory term in which individuals are lumped with the likes of Holocaust deniers. A denier is someone who, against overwhelming evidence and facts, refuses to accept some issue. There are deniers in South Africa who refuse to acknowledge the mechanisms by which HIV infections occur or convert into AIDS. There are deniers within Islam who refuse to acknowledge the rights of women as equal members of the human race. Individuals who question the theories and hypothesis of climate science are not deniers. They may be skeptics, of which I am one, but hardly deniers.

As Mr. Gore assumes the position as high priest of the current cult of climatology, be assured that the one sided emphasis in this debate will accelerate.