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A warblog or milblog is a
weblog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
devoted mostly or wholly to covering news events concerning an ongoing war. Sometimes the use of the term "warblog" implies that the blog concerned has a pro-war slant. The term "milblog" implies that the author is a member of, or has some connection to the military; the more specific term "soldierblog" is sometimes used for the former.


History

The coinage 'warblog' is attributed to
Matt Welch Matthew Lee Welch (born July 31, 1968) is an American blogger, journalist, author, and libertarian political pundit. Early life Welch was born on July 31, 1968 in Bellflower, California. He was raised in Long Beach, California. He attended U ...
, who started his ''War Blog'' within days of the
September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...
. In the fall of 2001, the attacks gave rise to a "war-blogging movement," which favoured political punditry over the often personal and technological orientation that had dominated the blog genre up to that point, achieving much greater public and media recognition than earlier blogs. Most warblogs supported the US-led
War in Afghanistan War in Afghanistan, Afghan war, or Afghan civil war may refer to: *Conquest of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great (330 BC – 327 BC) * Muslim conquests of Afghanistan (637–709) *Conquest of Afghanistan by the Mongol Empire (13th century), see al ...
and the
Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror , image ...
from a hawkish perspective. Warblogging was popularized by
Glenn Reynolds Glenn Harlan Reynolds (born August 27, 1960) is Beauchamp Brogan Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee College of Law, and is known for his American politics blog, '' Instapundit''. Authorship Instapundit blog Reynold ...
, whose ''
Instapundit Instapundit is a blog maintained by Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee. History and characteristics InstaPundit was launched in August 2001 as an experiment, and a part of Reynolds' class on Internet law. After the Sep ...
'' was one of the most popular
political blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...
s on the web. Some prominent warblogs, such as '' Little Green Footballs'' by Charles Johnson and ''Daily Dish'' by Andrew Sullivan existed before
September 11 Events Pre-1600 * 9 – The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest ends: The Roman Empire suffers the greatest defeat of its history and the Rhine is established as the border between the Empire and the so-called barbarians for the next four hu ...
, but made the
war on terror The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campaign are militant ...
their primary focus afterwards. Other notable warblogs included ''Dynamist'' by
Virginia Postrel Virginia Inman Postrel (born January 14, 1960) is an American political and cultural writer of broadly libertarian, or classical liberal, views. She is a recipient of the Bastiat Prize (2011). Early life and education Virginia Inman was born ...
, ''KausFiles'' by
Mickey Kaus Robert Michael "Mickey" Kaus (; born July 6, 1951) is an American journalist, pundit, and author, known for writing Kausfiles, a "mostly political" blog which was featured on ''Slate'' until 2010. Kaus is the author of ''The End of Equality'' and ...
, ''
Talking Points Memo ''Talking Points Memo'' (''TPM'') is a liberal political news and opinion website created and run by Josh Marshall that debuted on November 12, 2000. The name is a reference to the memo (short list) consisting of the issues (points) discussed b ...
'' by
Josh Marshall Joshua Micah Jesajan-Dorja Marshall (born February 15, 1969) is an American journalist and blogger who founded ''Talking Points Memo'', which in 2004 a writer for ''The New York Times Magazine'' called "one of the most popular and most respected ...
, ''KenLayne.com'' by Ken Layne, and ''Lileks.com'' by
James Lileks James Lileks is an American journalist, columnist, author, and blogger living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is the creator of The Gallery of Regrettable Foods website. Career Columnist Lileks began his writing career as a columnist for the ...
. The readership of warblogs dramatically increased in March 2003, following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, with readers chiefly attracted by the offer of perspectives absent from most news reports; the pseudonymous
Salam Pax Salam Pax is the pseudonym of Salam Abdulmunem ( ar, سلام عبد المنعم), aka Salam al-Janabi ( ar, سلام الجنابي), under which he became the "most famous blogger in the world" during and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Along ...
, an Iraqi national who was posting first-hand accounts from Baghdad, emerged as a prominent war blogger. Media organisations that started their own reporters' warblog at this point included the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, the
Christian Science Monitor Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρισ ...
, and the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer The ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' (popularly known as the ''Seattle P-I'', the ''Post-Intelligencer'', or simply the ''P-I'') is an online newspaper and former print newspaper based in Seattle, Washington, United States. The newspaper was f ...
. In the first half of 2003,
CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
, ''
The Hartford Courant The ''Hartford Courant'' is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is considered to be the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States. A morning newspaper serving most of the state north of New Haven ...
'', and ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' were among the media organizations that prohibited staff reporters from covering US-led wars first-hand in their personal blogs for fear both of legal repercussions and of competition from such blogs. Most blogs that gained popularity as "warblogs" expanded their focus to
politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...
and general news, usually from a right-of-center perspective, yet continued to be commonly known as warblogs. While warblogs arose in response to the post-September-11 wars and mostly limited their commentary to them, some moved on to related political, social and cultural issues and continued after the end of the wars.


Milblogs

Military blogs emerged with the Iraq War in 2003. Initially named "warblogs" as well, they became popular under the name "milblogging" in 2004. In October 2005, a U.S. soldier named Jean-Paul Borda launched the blog aggregator Milblogging.com. A milblog is primarily focused on the events of the military, written about by those with inside knowledge of the military, whether an active soldier, a veteran of the military, a spouse of a soldier, or a civilian with a special connection to the military. Milblogs often criticized the media coverage of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, seeking to correct what they saw as biased or negative reporting. Thus, Matt Burden of Blackfive.net cites as the rationale of his blog the death in combat of a fellow soldier and good friend of his, who died saving the life of a magazine reporter, yet had his death go unreported by the magazine. One milblogger chose to offer his site "as an educational service to the American People who wish to know the true story of Iraq and Afghanistan." Other milblogs cite similar intentions to report the news that they did not feel the mainstream media was reporting. C.J. Grisham was among the first active duty soldiers to become a milblogger when he opened ''A Soldier's Perspective'' in December 2004."Julie Howe & CJ Grisham,"
PatriotWatch.com. Within five years, ASP was receiving an average of 1,500 visitors per day (nearly 1 million in total) from over 120 countries and was ranked the second most popular site on Milblogging.com. In 2005, there were fewer than 200 "milblogs" in existence. In July 2011, Milblogging.com listed more than 3,000 military blogs in 46 countries. The top 5 locations were US, Iraq, Afghanistan, the United Kingdom, and Germany. During the 2022 war in Ukraine, Russian milblogs became increasingly quoted.


Response by U.S. Military

Military blogs became accepted within a few years. Whereas secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld was at first believed to be skeptical of military blogs, by 2007 president
George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
lauded them as "an important voice for the cause of freedom." Official oversight of websites maintained by military personnel deployed to the Middle East began in 2002. The oversight mission consisted of active-duty soldiers and contractors, as well as Guard and Reserve members from Maryland, Texas and Washington state. Its remit was expanded in August 2005. In Iraq, commanding officers shut down a blog that reported on the medical response to a suicide bombing that had taken place in late 2004 in Mosul. The Army Web Risk Assessment Cell was created to monitor compliance with military regulations. In April 2005, a four-page document of regulations was issued by Multi-National Corps-Iraq, directing all military bloggers in Iraq to register with their units, and commanders to conduct quarterly reviews to make sure bloggers were not disclosing casualty numbers or violating operational security or privacy rules. Some milbloggers took down or altered their blogs for fear of violating the regulation that many of them believed to be too ambiguous. The regulations were updated in April 2007 but, according to many bloggers in war theatres, failed to resolve their ambiguities. Although the
U.S. Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secur ...
was initially concerned about milblogs as a potential
OPSEC Operations security (OPSEC) is a process that identifies critical information to determine if friendly actions can be observed by enemy intelligence, determines if information obtained by adversaries could be interpreted to be useful to them, a ...
violation, it eventually embraced the concept and attempted to implement official versions of milblogs. Official milblogs did not receive the same reception or popularity of the unofficial milblogs as they were written in the same dull language as other official publications of the Defense Department.


See also

* List of blogging terms


References

{{Blog topics