first drones and now this...
How will it be different than NY Times, WashPost, AP, CBS, NBC,CBS, CNN, NPR, PBS etc??
Actually, there will likely be a major difference.
The “conservative” argument in favor of this change is that this will allow the Department of Defense to get its story out to the public more effectively via nontraditional media which, unlike a traditional newspaper or magazine or television or radio station, have an audience which isn't clearly defined by geography. A ban on using propaganda on US citizens makes it difficult to use certain types of social media (at least in English) to communicate anything that is not “fair and balanced” and actively promotes the United States position while being sure the target audience does not include United States citizens and domestic media. The people advocating this change believe the military should be more assertively promoting its message and mission.
I believe that argument is fundamentally flawed.
If the Department of Defense has a story to tell, that story can (and should) be told truthfully and accurately to **ANY** audience, either foreign or domestic. There's no need for a PR operation — truth sells itself to those who care about honest facts.
The core of what is being advocated is a fundamental shift in the purpose of Army Public Affairs (and also the other services, some of which, from what I am told by people in uniform, effectively moved in this direction long ago) from being an impartial provider of truth to becoming a public relations operation. While there is a very important difference in theory here, I'm not sure much will change in actual practice since PAO has been perceived — wrongly — as being in the business of “public relations” for a very long time.
Nevertheless, this is a critical difference in theory and mission. How that will work out in actual practice is not at all clear.
The conservative argument for this change is that the military needs the freedom to promote its own story, and that this doesn't open the door to lying because any falsehoods directed at a United States audience will quickly be detected and attacked. My best argument against this change is that the PAO is already perceived by the news media as being less-than-credible and as being a biased source of pro-military information, and now that PAO is officially embracing propaganda as a tactic, it will be much harder to argue against the claim that military public affairs people lie.
There are liberal arguments against this change as well, some of which make sense to me as a conservative but are not as important to me as the fundamental question of whether public affairs is in the business of providing unbiased facts or doing public relations.
Again, while I do not see a major change in actual practice, this is a bad change in principle. The Department of Defense has a legitimate goal to get its message out to more people, but this was the wrong way to accomplish a legitimate goal. Credibility counts, and perceptions can quickly become reality.