Army Col. Talks on Media

Yesterday afternoon at an Institute of Politics brown bag lunch, Col. David "Rick" Kiernan characterized the U.S. military's relationship with the media as open and in keeping with its policy of "maximum disclosure with minimum delay."

Though media watchdogs criticized coverage restrictions during last year's Gulf War, arguing that U.S. reporters have in the past had much freer access to information and battle sites, Kiernan insisted that the military-press relationship "is not adversarial-It is symbiotic."

"We need them, they need us," Kiernan said in his discussion, entitled "The Media and the Military."

But Colonel Kiernan did contrast the military with the press, saying, "We [the military] are more versed in their field than they are in our field."

During Operation Desert Shield, Colonel Kiernan served as director of the Joint Information Bureau. He is currently chief of the Command Information Division of the U.S. Army.

Kiernan criticized the media for letting military coverage languish since Vietnam by eliminating correspondents specifically assigned to military maneuverings.

This lack of media preparation was immediately apparent in the Gulf War, he said, when very few reporters had enough background knowledge to sufficiently cover the conflict.

Kiernan estimated that military spokespersons spent 60 to 70 percent of their time teaching members of the press about the basics of military actions, lexicon, and weaponry.

According to Kiernan, part of this education was conveying "the monotony of nothingness" experienced by the average infantry soldier. "It's not all like the movies, and the media now understands this," he said.

Kiernan attributed the Gulf War's lack of coverage of individual battles--a significant break from Vietnam coverage--largely to the fact that Gulf fighting lasted only four