Military Loses Freedom of Speech with New Memo

Posted by Lorren on July 3, 2010

As a result of General McChrystal’s interview with Rolling Stone, Defense Secretary Robert Gates is issuing an order stating that military officials will have to get permission from the Pentagon before doing an interview with the news media.

The order has not been released, but depending on the scope of this order, the memo could be a sweeping blanket of silence for the US Military. How far does the military plan to take this?

Will this order be in effect for E-1s straight out of boot camp, or will it only apply to higher officials? Will it apply to blogs? Will military officials be able to post on message boards? Will they be able to comment on blogs? What about writing product reviews, or authoring articles about how to cook pot roast on a site like Associated Content? The media is now a mixture of things, and is much more participatory than it used to be. Even Twitter and Facebook, which weren’t around when I was in the Navy, could in some ways be considered a part of the media.

We have to wait for the memo to come out, but I hope that this order isn’t extremely far reaching. Do we really want the Pentagon to get involved when Ensign Schmuckatelli is on leave and wins a pie eating contest, and the media wants to put his picture in his hometown newspaper? Really? There’s a line between bad-mouthing government officials in a nationalwide publication, and giving your comments on the new Star Wars movie in a local newspaper. That last one I actually did… I was in Aruba at the time. Would it be necessary for me to call the Pentagon up to ask if it was okay for me to tell them I was excited about seeing it? That would be ridiculous.