Ombudsman: Restrict access? DOD shouldn’t go there

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Ombudsman: Restrict access? DOD shouldn’t go there
By Dave Mazzarella, Stars and Stripes ombudsman
Mideast edition, Thursday, November 6, 2008

On a night like no other when America’s open and democratic virtues were put on worldwide display, an ill-advised policy within the Department of Defense proclaimed to servicemembers and the news media alike: “No you can’t.” What a servicemember and a journalist couldn’t do, the policy drafters ordered, was engage in conversation on a military base as the returns from a momentous election rolled in.

Stars and Stripes’ plans for providing news of Tuesday’s election started out with a new and seemingly innocent twist, tied to the opportunities of the new media. Reporters were to go to the common areas of bases and observe the reaction of servicemembers as the voting was tallied and shown on TV and the Internet. They were then to file to Stripes’ Web site, via “twitter,” an electronic form for sending brief, staccato messages.

The Stripes editor in charge of the Pacific, Tom Skeen, explained that the reporters were to “go to common public areas on bases to capture the flavor of Election Day for a color story … to simply observe and record what folks are doing and saying as the returns come in.” He said this in a message to the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs (OSDPA) in the Pentagon, after, as a courtesy, he had advised the offices of U.S. Forces Japan.

The notification was one of “courtesy” because there was little reason to believe the plan would cause any problems. After all, the assignments called only for what is known as color, or atmospheric, coverage. The areas where this was to take place were public; only six months before, a memorandum sent worldwide by the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, Allison Barber, had stated that “S&S reporters are entitled to pursue the news in the common areas of military facilities, such as shopping areas, MWR facilities, areas open to general public or common facilities in housing areas.”

But that wasn’t good enough for the Pentagon officials who received Skeen’s message. Permission denied, they said. And not only in Skeen’s Pacific bailiwick, but worldwide. “As a matter of long standing policy, DoD personnel are to avoid engaging in activities that could associate the Department with any partisan election,” Maj. Stewart T. Upton wrote after conferring with others. Appeals to OSDPA were unsuccessful.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=125&article=58656