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BACK TO : PROPAGANDA AND THE GWOT Year 4 - 2005
Pentagon Channel provides PR for military by M Harris 
Pentagon Channel provides PR for military Melissa Harris BaltimoreSun.com, 7 October 2005 The news anchors and reporters dress in uniform. The commercials promote companies and nonprofits donating to the military. But other than that, the Pentagon Channel - the 24-hour news network added to Comcast cable in Prince George's County this week - looks an awful lot like C-SPAN. If producers were to shed the uniforms and add a news ticker, the Defense Department's network could pass for CNN. Produced by the Pentagon's public relations maestros, the network doesn't ignore bad news, but the spin is pro-military. It's also a way for top brass to boost morale, by airing shows such as celebrity concerts, and to communicate to the rank-and-file. Some argue that the message should come through a closed-circuit network rather than being sent into more than 12 million living rooms. "It's clear that this administration is putting more effort than ever into what's called public diplomacy, such as Karen Hughes' listening tour in the Middle East," said Shawn Parry-Giles, director of the Center for Political Communication and Civic Leadership at the University of Maryland. "They see communication as part of the problem. They think the U.S. is misunderstood at home and abroad, and that if you don't agree with them, then you don't understand. Given the state of our involvement in Iraq, they need to be persuasive now more than ever. And efforts like this will increase." The channel offers dozens of programs, including Battleground, a weekly showing of combat films; the biweekly Stallion Report, with news from the Mosul region of Iraq; Around the Services, the daily half-hour equivalent of World News Tonight; and The American Veteran, according to the Defense Department's Web site. The network, which made its debut last year, can be viewed on Channel 185 on Comcast's digital plus tier system. The expansion marks an 85,000-household increase, including Andrews Air Force Base. The network also can be viewed at pentagonchannel.mil. |