There’s a ‘Pentagon Channel’?

April 8, 2005

Maybe I haven’t been paying close enough attention, but the existence of a “Pentagon Channel” came as something of a surprise to me. As Christy at Think Progress reported:

The Defense Department recently announced it wants to provide wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with news in their hospital rooms. No, not CNN, MSNBC or even Fox. Instead, it’s piping its very own, 24-hour, all-news network, called the Pentagon Channel, to the bedsides of returning vets.

The Pentagon Channel features what officials call “CNN-like” programming. The difference, of course, is all of this “news” has been carefully created and vetted by the Pentagon. There’s “Studio Five,” for example, with positive interviews from top Defense leaders and “Freedom Journal Iraq,” a Pentagon-approved daily look at the war.

If the Defense Department wants to provide injured troops with news about military developments, I’m sure the soldiers would appreciate it (though one wonders if they might prefer a more objective source). But it’s worth noting that this “network” isn’t just for hospitals.

Bethesda’s patient population joins a Pentagon Channel viewing audience of 2.6 million service members worldwide. With an annual operating budget of $6 million, the Pentagon Channel reaches 136 American military bases around the world.

So, an administration that’s had some “issues” with state-sponsored propaganda (hiring pundits, creating fake news segments), and a Pentagon that values free press so much that its morning clip service won’t include articles that include criticism of Donald Rumsfeld, has created a whole television network just to give its version of carefully-vetted news?

It seems to me that it wasn’t too long ago that Americans made fun of countries with government-run television networks, created to only broadcast news flattering to the state. Those were the days….

I’ve seen the channel, a friend of mine who works for the Embassy in Belgrade gets it. The crime being committed here is not “government sponsored news”/propaganda or whatever you want to call it, really the crime is the hilarious production values that the Pentagon Channel uses. Honestly though, for $6 million, this channel’s a pretty good deal for the government and though angry at the government for so many things, applaud them at being able to reach a widespread but narrow audience with information that they need. Not completely sure (anything’s possible these days), but really doubt that this is the only channels soldiers get to watch – the problem is if they pumped in Fox. Military people are smart and know the source of the information is their own government/employer and process it accordingly. Only when that source is claiming to be “fair and balanced” is when my danger meter begins to register.

The Pentagon channel does not have commercials if I remember right, rather they have even more hilariously produced public (or not so public) service annoucements informing military members about sexual harrassment, problems one can get into with finances and credit cards among other things. Though production quality-challenged, I still believe these ads are effective to the target and justify the expense. Also, sometimes the information can be as simple as informing members of a uniform change, base vacation possibilities and regulations, again among other valuable information to the target.

There’s a lot of things to applaud the Pentagon for, some of it just gets twisted around in the new day and age of this crazy government and we can’t see top from bottom. Another such example I’ve seen the left get twisted on was the website of the South East Times, published to bring news out of the Balkans. Yes, it’s government supported media, but it’s also effective and actually maintains some independence from it’s sponsor and provides a valuable service in a time where major news outlets are not covering the area in depth (sometimes it’s a simple translation). Another example of the government doing something smart with money that gets twisted in the wind.

  • I believe our goverments use of propaganda is terrible. The United States goverment turning out fake news reports, editing the news and now their own television channel. It sounds more like North Korea or Russia.

  • Back in the 50’s there was a show called The Big Picture which was nothing more than a sales pitch for the Armed Forces and their shiny new weapons. The level of quality was a notch above training films. I doubt that the station I watched it on paid anything for it. I watched it on Sat mornings, before the cartoons came on.

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