Soldiers in Iraq using YouTube to get message out

[slide to the left]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1216501,00.html?cnn=yes

The National Guardsman in the frame looks grim. His bunkmates are cutting up a bit, clowning for the camera. The cameraman tries to coax some action out the unwilling documentary subject, who refuses: "I'm not supposed to talk to the media," he says. You can hear the insult's sting in the cameraman's shouted protest: "I'm not the media! I'm not the media!" The sharp denial reflects a key collateral campaign in the Iraq war: to keep soldiers strictly on message.

But there's no question that the soldier behind the camera in "The War Tapes" is part of this war's media. Just as Vietnam had been America's first "living-room war," spilling carnage in dinnertime news broadcasts, so is the Iraq conflict emerging as the first YouTube war. Growing up in a world where they can swap MP3s as well as intimate details about their lives via MySpace or Facebook, American soldiers are swapping their Iraq experience as well. There's a byte-enabled intimacy to "The War Tapes," the film that bills itself as the first documentary about the war filmed by those fighting it. Critics of the mainstream media's war coverage might hope that the soldier's unmediated view would be a more positive one. Vice President Cheney complained last March that the public's dwindling support for the war was due to the "perception that what's newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad," rather than what success has been had "in terms of making progress towards rebuilding Iraq." Talk show host Laura Ingraham encouraged those covering Iraq to "talk to those soldiers on the ground" in order to get a sense of all the good things happening there that should be "celebrated." By that logic, putting cameras in the hands of those soldiers on the ground should provide enough celebration for an "Up with Iraq" musical.

[QuettaKid]

1. I think YouTube is going to prove to be very popular

as a campaign tool as Nov. gets closer.

[madeline_con]

9. It's also being mentioned in the MSM lately. n/t

[OKNancy]

2. great article

I'll give you a rec.. it's not really breaking news, but an analysis piece ( other article)
also just a tad over 12 hours old.

[durrrty libby]

3. I noticed this too

A few days ago a family in Lebannon used their cell phone to record sirens and

bombing sounds from their home.

It was a short clip, but very moving.

Within 24 hours it already had thousands of views and 2000 comments

I have also seen parts of this clip on CNN and MSNBC

Youtube has become the medium to get the story out.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

4. which is why it won't last in its present form.

you get that feeling its too good to be true like i do?

[Alpharetta]

5. I can see the functionality forced offshore

Copyright lawsuits are a good way to shut it down.

If the studios and networks manage to shut YouTube down by suing it to death, I expect other video servers will pop up overseas.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

6. hope so. im sure the networks are hoping to shatter it into about

30 different disparate sites.

[Alpharetta]

7. if the videos get spread out then expect a video indexing site

similar to Google Video. But offshore and uncontrolled.

The more the US tries to restrict the internet, the more it will place the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

8. that's cool with me. i just want my rock videos.

i want what i want. that used to be american, now i suppose that's offshore somewhere, like every other american dream.

i've been boozing so don't mind me much.

[madeline_con]

10. I have to share an observation...

that is probably obvious to everyone here. During Gulf WarI, they were so proud of what they were doing, it was televised 24/7. This one isn't. That has to tell you something.

But, the truth is getting out anyway.

On EDIT: It could be the internet and a computer (or3) in every home was not so widespread at the time of GWI.