The Pentagon Channel merging television and Web-based content

During my visit to The U.S. Department of Defense on Friday, I was lucky to spend some time with Brian Natwick, General Manager of The Pentagon Channel. I visited Brian the studio of this 24-hour television service available to stateside cable and satellite providers, via American Forces Radio and Television Services, overseas and via the Web at pentagonchannel.mil.

The Pentagon Channel is the ultimate form of Brand Journalism. It is an important way that the U.S. Department of Defense communicates with people all over the world. Here is a five-minute video where I ask Brian about what The Pentagon Channel does and the intersection of television and Web content.

Filmed with my Flip HD video camera and edited on iMovie.
Direct link to the video here.

My favorite (lightly edited) quote:

"The goal of social media at The Pentagon Channel is not to regurgitate the news, but to expand and give a total 360-degree view [of the news] from just a simple tweet to generate awareness, to Facebook, to an in-depth blog."

The Pentagon Channel site
The Pentagon Channel on Facebook
The Pentagon Channel on Twitter

:00 – 1:45 A little about how The Pentagon Channel gets the news out (and wins Emmy Awards in the process).

1:45 - 2:10 What The Pentagon Channel means to family members.

2:10 – 3:30 How The Pentagon Channel communicates via the Web and how Social Media allows an expansion of the television news.

3:30 - 5:00 The role of user generated content.

If you haven't seen it yet, check out my video conversation with Roxie Merritt, Director of New Media Operations at the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs in the U.S. Department of Defense.

Another great example of brand journalism coming later in the week. Stay tuned...

Comments

[Mary Ann Halford]

David, thank for this a terrific video. If the Pentagon can create a branded channel and engage their audience, I would argue that a lot more organizations should be able to do the same!

[Harriet Meth]

The Pentagon has done a great job with their channel. They have a nice mix of STORIES which makes the site feel like an actual channel and not just a landing site with marketing content.

As a communications consultant and former network news producer, I couldn't agree with you more that the time is NOW to wade into brand journalism. Many companies look at what they do as telling their stories but they miss the mark. This really is not about marketing and it is about telling stories from a variety of angles.

Best take-away message for all marketers: don't be overwhelmed and start small, slower if that works. But get your big toe (or one foot!) into the Brand Journo waters already!

[JohnNicholas]

I like it, as long as they feel that they don't have to explain every little detail of their job. Just tell us how your helping stop terrorist,thiefs and what not. we dont need every detail. good post.

[Mark Kolier]

I recently had the experience through Vistage to attend the MCBEF - Marine Corps Business Executive Forum. Great program and we toured the Pentagon and had a hour + briefing with a Brigadier General. Also flew on a CH-46 to Quantico with my group and had a live fire exercise (yes that was really fun). All the Marines seemed to be PDA addicts - which is not a bad thing - but it did surprise me. The military branches are trying to come out a little bit from behind the curtain. That's a good thing.

[Brett]

Pentagon Channel "really cool"???
Shocking that the Pentagon has a "channel" to communicate with families about this war, and our money is being used to do so. We are supposed to have "fourth estate" according to the Constitutional Framers to cover how our government spends our money on war, not let the government create its own "channels" and mix metaphors and confuse formats.

Have they covered the now about 16 electrocutions of servicemen in showers in buildings built by fly-by-night contractors in Afghanistan etc, at not fly-by-night contractor prices? Families in those cases can get no news from this institution, except a stonewall from the folks who have the most to hide.

This is not cool. This is confusing formats and metaphors and also forgetting the fundamental purpose of the Press in Democracy, and being too blinded by "social media" and "cool".

Unbelievable David! Please disclose who paid your airfare to Washington, and show all your receipts!

[David Meerman Scott]

Thanks all for your comments.

Brett - I paid for all of my expenses to go to Washington D.C. Maybe someone from the Pentagon Channel would comment on your particular question. However I stand by my statements -- I think that communications always is better than silence.

David

[Brett]

OK Interesting.

Here's a passage from Lynne Olson's "Troublesome Young Men" about Neville Chamberlain's bungling the start of WWII in 1939-40.

P281 'The British people meanwhile were being told an entirely different story about Norway. Stowe (American reporter for Chicago Daily News who broke the worldwide story of Britain's early failures in the invasion of Norway) discovered for himself one night after he and a photographer colleague took shelter in a farmhouse, and the owners of the house tuned in the BBC news for their English-speaking guests. "British expeditionary forces are pressing forward steadily from all points where they have landed in Norway," the BBC announcer reported in a plummy voice. "Resistance has been shattered along the railroad. In the Namsos sector, the British and French are advancing successfully toward Tronheim." The photographer stared at Stowe in bewilderment. "Christ, what's the matter with those mugs?" he burst out. "Are they crazy?"

The mugs weren't crazy, just badly misinformed. The conflict in Norway had erupted so quickly that virtually no British correspondents were in place to cover it. So the British press and public had to rely on the Army, Navy, and Air Force for information about what was going on. According to early reports provided by the service ministries to newspapers and the BBC, the British forces were meeting success after success. "The British Navy has embarked on a glorious enterprise," trumpeted the Daily Mail. "Hitler is shaken by hammer blows of our sailors and seamen." Some papers couldn't resist embroidering what were already specious accounts of military triumphs. The Daily Express published an article about the British storming of Narvik, which had not happened, asserting that the action had an Elizabethan ring to it....' etc etc.

I'll stick to my assertion that PR Newswire is already in place in the private sector to do what Pentagon Channel is setting out to do to release its press releases out to the world. They need to be vetted by real reporters, as always in the past.

I would rather they not use my tax money to create their own propaganda machine. The Founding Fathers wouldn't like it either.

They should use my share to rebuild the Asto-Physics Department at UC Berkeley which came under the axe with Schwartzenegger's cuts in this crisis brought on from decades long efforts to repeal Glass-Steagall signed into law by Clinton in 1998, and other deregulation and chronic tax-cuts for top investment income earners. This crisis threatens our institutions of higher learning now, which are the source of all our intellectual property for these amazing media technologies you trumpet and more, and the skills we all have to contribute to our once amazing economy.

Let the Pentagon Channel report on this most elemental threat to our national well-being. I am sure they won't. TKS

[David Meerman Scott]

Brett, Interesting argument. Thanks for your participation here.

While I do understand your position, I do feel that having information coming out of the Pentagon is a good thing. I would rather have the Pentagon Channel than not.

Hopefully, reporters at the Washington Post, New York Times, the network news and the like are watching out for the other side of the story.

David

[r4 gold]

I agree with that communications always is better than silence.But if it is based on lie than what its worth?Pantagone merge with this new technology than it will good and increase the rank and criteria of channel.