Pentagon Channel – News or Government Media Control?

SourceWatch provides a summary of the Pentagon Channel and states that is has been broadcasting since May 2004.   It is provided to the members of the US Armed Forces and their families via American Forces Radio and Television Service overseas.   However, it is available to all statewide cable and satellite providers and via the Pentagon Channel website.   SourceWatch also stated that Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Allison Barber oversees the Pentagon Channel.

About a year later, Professor Ralph J. Begleiter, from the Department of Communications at the University of Delaware, told The Chistian Science Monitor that the on-air staffers for the Pentagon Channel are not journalists – they are salesmen.

More recently Allison Barber, performing other Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense duties, was video taped preparing 10 members of our military for a teleconference with President Bush.   Here is a portion of the rehearsal as reported in Newsday.com: A role rehearsal –

“OK, so let’s just walk through this,” said Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Allison Barber, coaching the soldiers in Tikrit before the conference.

“Capt. Kennedy, you answer the first question and you hand the mike to whom?”

“Capt. Smith,” Kennedy said.

“Capt. Smith, you take the mike and you hand it to whom?” she asked.

“Capt. Kennedy,” the soldier replied.

“If the question comes up about partnering – how often do we train with the Iraqi military – who does he go to?” Barber asked.

“That’s going to go to Capt. Pratt,” one soldier said.

The above preparation process by Ms. Barber for a video/televised event leads me to this question.   If Ms. Barber is a leader by example and others at the Pentagon Channel report to her, is the Pentagon Channel’s presence in the public domain the first step at media control by the US government?