Bill Roggio

Bill Roggio is the managing editor of The Long War Journal. "His coverage includes strategic and operational issues relating to the war in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Lebanon, and more extensively in Iraq, as well as al Qaeda's operations, tactics, and strategy. Bill has embedded with the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army in Iraq in 2005, 2006, and 2007, and with the Canadian Army in Afghanistan in 2006. His articles have been published in The Weekly Standard, The National Review, The New York Post, The Toronto Times, and Die Weltwoche. Bill served as a signalman and infantryman in the U.S. Army and the New Jersey National Guard from 1991 to 1997."

He is "the president of Public Multimedia Inc., a nonprofit media organization with a mission to provide original and accurate reporting and analysis of the Long War; a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies; a Hoover Institute Media Fellow; and a contributor to the The Weekly Standard. His coverage includes the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Lebanon, and Iraq, as well as al Qaeda's operations, tactics, and strategy.

"Bill has embedded with the US Marine Corps, the US Army, the Georgian Army, the Iraqi Army, and the Iraqi police in Iraq in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008, and with the Canadian Army in Afghanistan in 2006. His articles have been published in The Washington Times, The New York Post, The National Review, The Toronto Times, and Die Weltwoche. His photographs have been published in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. He also presents regularly at the US Air Force's Contemporary Counterinsurgency Warfare School on the media and embedded reporting."

Bloggers' Roundtable
Roggio is also a blogger with the U.S. Department of Defense's Bloggers' Roundtable.

"Roggio served in the military and started The Fourth Rail in March 2004, using media accounts, milblog posts and Defense Department press releases to craft coverage of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Impressed with his reporting, the U.S. Marine Corps invited Roggio to become an embedded reporter in the Anbar Province of Iraq.

"Because he was a blogger and not affiliated with a media company, he had to find organizations to help him acquire credentials. The Weekly Standard sponsored Roggio's first trip to Iraq along with the Canadian talk radio show The World Tonight. He raised $33,000 from more than 700 of his readers for the trip.

"Roggio has since joined troops three times in Iraq and once in Afghanistan. He formed his own media company so that he can acquire press credentials. Without any formal journalism training, Roggio--who is vocal about his pro-Iraq war stance--has turned his writing into a career.

"'When I go on BBC radio I'm called a journalist and when I'm on The World Tonight he calls me a military analyst, blogger, journalist,' Roggio said. 'I say whatever they are comfortable in calling me.'"

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Steven A. Boylan
 * war propaganda
 * Paul Hanusz

External articles

 * Nikki Schwab, "Military Bloggers Wary of New Policy. Army Says Change Will Have 'No Effect on Blogging'," Washington Post, May 5, 2007.