DoD News Aggregation Service "The Early Bird" Dead After 65 Years

SanDogWeps writes "Periodically viewed as copyright infringement by the media, the Department of Defense's 'Early Bird' has been delivering applicable headlines to the Armed Forces since 1948. It stopped updating on October 1st, along with a number of other government products, but when the lights turned back on, The Early Bird remained dark. A number of reasons have been floated, including applicability in the internet age, cost, and a lack of interest. Others claim The Early Bird was nothing more than a propaganda machine, by culling articles that painted DoD in a favorable light."

Re:The only constant is

[INT_QRK]

Re "others claim The Early Bird was nothing more than a propaganda machine, by culling articles that painted DoD in a favorable light": Anyone who actually read the Earlybird over the years would know that this statement is patently untrue, as the service would routinely would feature articles that were unfavorable. I always thought that the reason would have to be so that readers would be afforded visibility on the range of relevant signals in the air, including the good, the bad and ugly.

As a submariner..

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm greatly disappointed by this. I understand that my service, particularly on an SSBN, is one of the few remaining parts of the military without constant connectivity, but that hardly improves my mood. The Early Bird was the least biased and most lengthy of the small amounts of news that could occasionally make it across on the passive broadcast. I just hope not too much happens for the rest of the year.