Pentagon publicists "don't know how to handle bloggers"

Noah Shachtman at defensetech says, "Armchair Generalist went foraging through the University of Bradford non-lethal weapons report I mentioned yesterday, and found himself a little chestnut from the Pentagon's PR department."

Over lunch on the first day of the conference a representative from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defence for Public Affairs discussed strategies to counteract critical viewpoints of the non-lethal weapons programme in the media. She encouraged those present to keep repeating a positive message particularly when there was a negative story published, and not to shy away from commenting.

If there was negative coverage about an important programme that could be derailed by the general public or congress then they would 'really go after them', she said. She indicated that officials would give increased information access to 'bread and butter military journalists' as opposed to the '60 minutes type journalists' in return for more positive coverage. She also advocated a strategy of targeting military analysts working for various news media and getting them on message.

She admitted, however, that they still don't know how to handle the bloggers.

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