Because Rick Asked Me To

Today the DOD's Blogger's Roundtable hosted my favvvvvvvorite MG Rick Lynch. So you know Princess Crabby was listening in, rapt.

Rick responded to a question posed by Dave Dilegge of Small Wars Journal.
I pulled up this morning your 100-day letter that outlines yourfocuses of effort that -- main focuses as you're getting ready to turn over to(Tank ?) Mountain. And I was wondering if you could expand a little bit on the-- pushing through the national media statement, specifically how you'rereaching out to Iraqis, the Arabic press, really, the people in-country there.What types of IO things that you're doing.

MG Lynch:
Yeah, sure. I mean, I believe that you're really speaking to three publics. You're speaking to the American public, the Iraqi public, and the insurgency. And we've got systems in place here in Task Force Marne to do all three. I've got a great public affairs office that reached out to the American public.

My point about the national media, I find myself very frustrated, because as much as we talk about the progress being made, rarely do I see that reflected in the national media. And I'm not sure why that is. I just wish that -- I wish that there was a balanced approach there, talking about the good things and the bad.

I know for a fact that if something bad happens, it'll be on everybody's TV station and everybody's newspaper. But the good things just don't make it through the national media filter. So what I've decided to do is go straight to the hometowns.

I mean, I have everybody in my staff, the leaders, all my leaders across the subordinate units engaging with their hometowns in print media, TV media, radios, to tell the story. To tell the progress to our -- I mean, we're America's army over here, fighting America's war. The American public deserveto know what's going on.

And then, for the Iraqi public, what I've done is I created an Iraqi media section. And that Iraqi media section does nothing but share the stories with the Iraqi media and facilitate them going out to get the stories. So we're actually transporting Iraqi media out to the places across our area of operations so they can talk to the people, understand the progress.

And a perfect example is just recently we had a major governance center open in Salman Pak. And as a result of that important event, we took outa lot of Iraqi media, both print and TV, and they covered it appropriately.

But telling the stories is important. It's important to tell it to the American public and the Iraqi public.
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So here you go............go read and/or listen to all the good things that are happening.