I’ve spent the better part of the last week building a new site for CTlab’s Current Intelligence blog, which at some point in the next couple of weeks will be migrated out from under CTlab housing into its own domain and platform. For those who’ve been following CI, the first thing you’ll probably notice is the greatly expanded format: CI will no longer be one blog, but many; moreover, it won’t be many blogs, but multiple columns and sections… the format, in general, will be something more akin to what we used to call a “magazine”. That’s the direction in which I’m taking it, and the prospect is exciting.
Tag: media
Omnivore 08/01/2010
- A Sobering Statistic For Aspiring Academics // Savage Minds
- On the Gulf Between Academia and Journalism // Daniel Bennett
- Journalism Academics Must Learn From Multimedia Reporters // Tim Luckhurst
- Measuring the Impact of Charisma // (via) MIT Media Lab
- Google Applies to Become Power Marketer // NYT
- Crisis? What Crisis? // Abu Muqawama
Afghan Hands – The Blog
A little over a week ago, I made a return visit to the ISAF webpages to poke around. It looks like some changes have been in the works. The website, which was pretty static before, is all swish now, and comes equipped with a social media dashboard in the footer where readers can subscribe to Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr (but no Twitter) feeds. It’s also got a new Afghan Hands blog, which carries “updates from Leaders and Troops across Afghanistan”.
So far, though, it looks like ISAF has only partially embraced the vigorous public diplomacy ethic espoused by NATO SecGen Anders Fogh Rassmussen and Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Admiral Jim Stavridis. Judging by the content of the few posts that are already up at Afghan Hands, ISAF is using this as essentially press-release-by-another-name, which is completely redundant, not to mention unnecessary: officially sanctioned, edited, and command-vetted information can be and is readily pushed to the web in other formats, and pushing it as blog content when it’s not doesn’t add credibility. If anything, in the realm of social media, it demonstrates limited understanding of appropriate and convincing uses of such technologies. There’s also no date-time stamp on individual entries, which is a small point but just as fundamental, and bad practice in any domain of publishing, whether it’s public affairs/public information, blogging, intelligence, or what have you.
To my note to ISAF Public Affairs suggesting that a date-time stamp would be really helpful, no reply. I’m going to assume for now that these are all just growing pains, and that the wrinkles are still being ironed out. NATO and ISAF are in a position to make the Afghan Hands blog a welcome and authoritative hub for information and discussion. It would be disappointing, to say the least, if they don’t make the most of an otherwise golden opportunity – and more than a little ironic, given recent arguments from MGen Mike Flynn, the ISAF intelligence chief, that intelligence analysts could stand to learn a few things from real world journalistic practice. Stay tuned.
Learning the Ropes
Or at least, the strings… Rob Crilly’s got some common-sense tips on how to be a stringer for media outlets – especially relevant in an age of spare budgets and lean news organizations, when the staff foreign correspondents are becoming an increasingly rare breed.
Though I take exception to eliminating the middle initial from my professional name. If I didn’t include it, then every time someone googled me they’d come up with this much better known individual…
Threat = Intent + Capability + Disposition + Activity
AQ vs. Hezbollah: which is scarier? This is one debate that hasn’t been given enough air time. Ex does a decent job, but misses a couple of key points in the formula.
MICHAEL A. INNES 