Defense Media Activity: centralizing information practice and understanding

From the Defense Media Activity website:

The Department of Defense (DoD) is undertaking an initiative designed to modernize and streamline media operations by consolidating military Service and DoD media components into a single, integrated and transformed organization, the Defense Media Activity (DMA).

It seems the Defense Department is finally realizing that it too needs a central coordinator of information. Very probably the leadership role will be on the order of what State Department’s Under Secretary of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs is supposed to be in the absence of a United States Information Agency (USIA) or its Director who was to sit at National Security Council meetings and be in the take-offs of policy.

There are too many information assets within the Defense Department, some on the right track, others not, but always fighting some kind of turf war. I won’t get started on the Air Force’s attempt to boot up Cybercommand. It’s one thing to have a hacker and counter-hacker team, but it’s another to claim information transmitted through a certain medium is your domain. Do we have a bureau to address information in newspapers and another for radio broadcasts? No…

Back to the DMA, interestingly it does not have a news feed or other means of staying in touch. Perhaps they’re waiting for the “energetic and imaginative executive” to lead them. See also Walter Pincus in the Washington Post on same.) 

One thought on “Defense Media Activity: centralizing information practice and understanding

  1. Consider the State appointee, Glassman, only assumed office this past June, it will be a while before DOD gets a counterpart…Cheers,
    RJP
    House of Marathon

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