Contact Help

Thanks for your interest in THE TENSION!

Below, please find answers to questions about:

• GENERAL INFORMATION
• CONTENT PLACEMENT REQUESTS
• COMMENTS, QUESTIONS & CONTACT REQUESTS
• CONTACTING A SERVICEMEMBER/GOVERNMENT AGENCY
• PHOTO REQUESTS AND PERMISSION TO USE CONTENT
• ADVERTISING

GENERAL INFORMATION
Please visit About This Blog for general information, traffic metrics, and history.

THE TENSION is an independently and privately produced current events blog covering military and national defense news. The site has no affiliation with and is not funded by the U.S. government, the military, any political organization nor commercial interest. I am not a member of the armed forces nor am I employed by the U.S. government.

CONTENT PLACEMENT REQUESTS
I sometimes receive requests to publish commercial or charitable content or to highlight topics of interest. I will consider your request if you fully detail your proposal, including copy and artwork, in e-mail with CONTENT PLACEMENT REQUEST in the subject line to: thetension@gmail.com

COMMENTS, QUESTIONS & CONTACT REQUESTS
In an effort to encourage timely participation and prevent comment spam, I restrict on-site comments for articles over a week old.

I often receive messages with comments, questions or tips; I sometimes receive questions from members of the press. In the past I have taken much time and great effort to respond thoughtfully to reader questions and comments. However, after repeated instances of failing to receive even an acknowledgement of my responses, I have decided to reevaluate the practice. I will only consider responding to your comments or questions if you fully detail the nature of your inquiry in e-mail with COMMENT REQUEST in the subject line to: thetension@gmail.com

I sometimes receive requests to call by telephone. You should not expect me to contact you by telephone. I enjoy my privacy and wish to remain doing so. My interest in publishing this blog is solely as a part-time pastime. If you enjoy the blog, thanks for reading. The best way to show your appreciation is by making purchases through affiliate advertisers or by clicking through Google ads located on the sidebar. I will, however, consider your request if you fully detail the nature of your inquiry in e-mail with CONTACT REQUEST in the subject line to: thetension@gmail.com

CONTACTING A SERVICEMEMBER/GOVERNMENT AGENCY
I receive many requests from individuals who wish to send e-mail, a holiday greeting or a care package to a particular servicemember. I sometimes receive requests for various defense agencies' contact information.

I cannot provide e-mail address and/or contact information nor forward messages for servicemembers or agencies.

The U.S. Armed Forces News Service (USAFNS) has provided an "E-mail Our Troops!" Web page with information that should help with your servicemember contact request. Please visit the following URL: http://www.usafns.com/email.shtml

When you visit the page, be sure to scroll down to read the details, instructions and guidelines.

To contact the U.S. Department of Defense and related agencies, please visit the following URL:
http://www.defenselink.mil/faq/comment.html

For information regarding prisoners of war and missing servicemembers, please visit the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) at the following URL:
http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/

PERMISSION AND IMAGERY REQUESTS
THE TENSION is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Except where otherwise noted (see below), content is free to reference and link with attribution.

I source much of the blog's content and imagery directly from U.S. Department of Defense and related digital media distribution channels. With few exceptions, textual and digital media content on the blog has been provided in the public domain for press and non-commercial use. For a particular story or photo, I cannot provide information or attribution other than what has been published, nor can I grant permission to use, reproduce or incorporate primary sourced content or imagery.

I often receive requests for copies of photos and multimedia content posted on the blog. In the past I have taken much time and great effort to fulfill these requests. However, after several instances of failing to receive even a reply acknowledging receipt of a request, I have decided to suspend the practice. I will not fulfill requests for imagery or multimedia content, nor will I provide information or attribution other than what has been published.

The U.S. Defense Department responds to press and commercial media requests and queries through the Press Operations Center located at the Pentagon: Phone: (703) 697-5131

Visit the DoD press resources Web page at the following URL: http://www.defenselink.mil/faq/press-media.html

Newswire imagery appearing in some blog posts represents a 'fair use' of copyrighted content. In many cases, these types of images are thumbnails linked to newsphoto sources on the Web. The link may or may not be intact. For a particular newsphoto, I cannot provide information or attribution other than captioned, nor can I grant permission to use the imagery.

ADVERTISING
Readers can help support the blog by making purchases through affiliate advertisers or by simply clicking through Google ads located on the sidebar.

At this time, the blog runs no prepaid commercial or political advertising. However, advertisers are welcome to inquire. If you would like to place an advertisement or promote a media product on the blog, please e-mail your request and payment details with ADVERTISING REQUEST in the subject line to: thetension@gmail.com

FINAL NOTES
If you wish to discuss something other than what I already covered above, I will consider your request if you fully detail the nature of your inquiry in e-mail with IMPORTANT REQUEST in the subject line to: thetension@gmail.com

IMPORTANT
Because the blog's general mailbox processes a high volume of junk mail along with blog comments, it is sometimes difficult to sort legitimate e-mail from spam. I apologize that I will not always send a personal reply.

--SM

About the Author

Thanks for visiting my blog!

When I started publishing THE TENSION, I originally posted articles about news, culture, current affairs, politics, and media bias. I was particularly focused on exposing junk journalism and trendy pessimism as it exists in the effeminately wimpy, yet quite illusory "culture of crisis," which an agenda-driven media perpetrates on an unwary, susceptible public. I asked, if journalists are not by nature insipid, partisan ideologues who take us all to be rubes, how else can you explain their downright lack of curiosity? In the future, historians will probably look back at 2008 and mark it as the year when 'big' media effectively forfeit their role as America's Fourth Estate to the alternative media. (See Orson Scott Card's article: Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?) Every day in traditional newsrooms across the country editors accept premises without examination and digress to a single, simple rule to manage what's news: if it bleeds - it leads. The formula produces, at the very least, a distorted and disingenuous view of the world that begs for counterbalance. And as many others have already concluded, a blog seems to be the natural place to discuss such things. Am I hard on the media? Yes, and my opinions about content are valid ones (read on).

In the current incarnation of THE TENSION, I decided to move away from discussions about the ephemeral attention of the media and post primarily about substantial military topics. When journalists feel comfortable dropping even the appearance of fairness, their agenda-driven story template suffocates any chance of rational balance when it comes to reporting about the military. The military's job involves solving real crises, unlike the media, who are hell-bent on creating illusions of crisis where none exist. I decided my blog would be a good vehicle to get out the uncovered side of the news. However, I am not am not attempting to balance my coverage; I am just trying to bring balance with my coverage.

When selecting content for the blog, I use only primary and attributable sources. Limiting the blog's content to only "named" sources will often times slow my delivery of breaking news. Be that as it may, articles I publish here are reliable and truthful, and are presented without a hidden agenda.

That said, on occasion I will offer editorial comments. However, my written opinions, which are generally more sarcastic than sanctimonious, tend to be mercifully brief observations, even if they do sometimes descend into the pejorative. The greater mission here is to let the subject matter itself define the frame of reference for the content.

While we are talking about 'framing' the content, you may be surprised to know I actually have a degree in journalism and I have made a living as a writer (and thus, I have a valid opinion on the state of the media). Sadly, though, my education was not from one of those big liberal schools known for their esteemed journalism departments. Such as were, my career followed a path away from the dark side. Luck smiled on me when I found work as a technical copy editor creating and maintaining knowledge bases for a very large dot-com outfit back in the heady Internet bubble days of the late 1990s ... and smiled again when I parachuted to safety, stock options securely in hand, short moments before the bubble burst.

Since that fateful landing seven years ago, I have been languishing in the ranks of the gainfully unemployed. Eventually growing restless from a pastime free of word-counts and deadlines, I started blogging in 2005 as a leisurely exercise simply to see how many posts I could post within a month. That which remains -- in all its deliberately austere glory -- is the original effort thousands of pages later. And please note that I am the only one blogging on my own dime here.

If, by chance, you think you would be remotely interested in utilizing my consummate editorial or knowledge engineering skills, please drop me a line. I'm open to suggestions!

To contact me, send e-mail to: thetension@gmail.com.

Steven Moyer
(9.27.2008)

Content Reproduction Policy

The text and image above are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License. Commercial use prohibited.

All other areas of this blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Except where otherwise noted, content is free to reference and link with attribution.

© 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 & 2009, Steven Moyer;
Some Rights Reserved.