"Blog eradication team reporting, General Canute!"

Babble on.

Did you know that, according to a story in the Toronto Star, the Canadian Forces has no official policy on blogging? Neither did I. That surprised me enough that I wrote a post about it at The Torch - one I hope you'll read.

The truth is that the CF should have two policies: one for uniformed personnel who choose to blog, offering guidance on how to do that without running afoul of their military obligations; and one for DND Public Affairs on how to utilize blogs to the benefit of the CF.

Some will cry foul over the last part of that statement: "but...but...you wouldn't allow yourself to be manipulated by a PAO, would you?" No, I wouldn't. But I would consider putting stories out on my blog that had come from CF Public Affairs and weren't getting any MSM press, if I found those stories had merit. And besides, the CF shouldn't be concerned with how I run my blog, they should be properly concerned with how to get their message out to the Canadian public.

You, gentle reader, may not realize it, but some bloggers - myself included - already get press releases. Personally, I receive information directly from a Canadian political party office (I'll let you guess which one), from an independent advocacy group, and from a PR firm who does defence lobbying, among others. Some of this information makes its way into the blog posts I write here and at The Torch , some makes its way into the e-mail trash bin.

Online media is only going to grow in volume and importance. The CF needs to get out in front of the wave, instead of forbidding it to come in.

Babble off.