FLEISCHER: There are some reporters, you know, in that briefing room, you can imagine, Bill, you get a lot of dot coms and other oddballs who come in there. They’re screened.

O’REILLY: Like the Huffington Post. Now it gets called on.

FLEISCHER: And I used to seat them all in one section. I would call it “Siberia.” And I told the president, “Don’t call on Siberia.”

You’d never know that Stein asked (and elevated) a question that the White House had been dodging, about whether it supported “truth and reconciliation” prosecutions of former Bush officials. You’d think Stein had asked about Alex Rodriguez or something. Nope: That was the Washington Post.

If we on active duty don’t get engaged effectively with new media, and I don’t mean by “information prevention” methods, then we cede any relevant arguments to whoever actually shows up and is effective. Worse, we could shut down the “forceful backup” we should be getting and wind up with silly decisions that cost a lot or drive the sailors crazy.

Not long ago I had an interesting colloquy with a senior Army officer who was trying to understand how I could consider myself both a reporter and a blogger. A lot of his argument boiled down to noting that I don’t do my job the way The Washington Post does: I aggregate other people’s reporting, add my own, and also add analysis, even opinion. It was frustrating to hear that this was considered somehow illegitimate. But later in the back-and-forth it occurred to me that I didn’t do a very good job making a case for the merits of my style of reporting as a way to inform the public. So it just goes to show you this is a two-way street and people should leave themselves open to new arguments.

But now like-minded individuals have really taken a quantum leap forward. Check out TroopTube, a video-sharing service recently created to keep deployed troops in touch with the outside world. That’s not its only function, of course: By sharing troop videos, the Pentagon goes a long way toward getting its message out in a fascinating and immediate way. But as anyone who’s ever been in an MWR tent knows, troops downrange really want something cool to watch when they’re not hitting up their Facebook or MySpace. TroopTube is an excellent and overdue idea, and while I think it was created by Military OneSource, which I think is outside the Pentagon communications directorate, I’m sure the staff at DOD New Media welcomes this project with open arms and is already looking for that one video where the dudes ghostride an MRAP.