| URL | The Long War Journal |
|---|---|
| Type of site | News |
| Owner | Public Multimedia, Inc. |
| Created by | Bill Roggio Paul Hanusz |
| Launched | 2007 |
| Alexa rank | 100,258 |
The Long War Journal is an American news website, also described as a blog, which reports on the war on terror. The site is operated by Public Multimedia Incorporated (PMI), a non-profit media organization established in 2007. PMI is run by Paul Hanusz and Bill Roggio. Roggio is also managing editor of the journal.
The journal evolved from Roggio's personal blog with which he reported on conflicts involving terrorism and Islamic insurgencies around the world, but mainly in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. PMI states that its journal seeks to provide news on conflicts without promoting a political agenda and with a goal of providing in-depth, contextual, detailed reporting. The site's staff, led by Roggio, use international media sources plus contacts in the United States intelligence community for information for their reports. The site states that it is a project of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
The organization is funded by private donations, sponsorships, and grants. As of 2011, the site received an estimated average of 12,000 views a day. The Long War Journal has been used as a source by a number of large, mass media organizations. The journal's reporting has included stories on insurgent and terrorist activities in Pakistan.
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The Long War Journal began as Roggio's personal blog, BillRoggio.com, in which he provided detailed reporting on conflicts around the world using information obtained from media and internet sources plus information given him by contacts in the United States intelligence community. Hanusz, a regular reader and financial contributor to Roggio's blog, had the idea of organizing Roggio's reporting into a nonprofit journalism organization along the lines of the Center for Public Integrity. Thus, in 2007, Roggio and Hanusz left their full-time jobs and created PMI as a non-profit corporation with the goal of, according to the Columbia Journalism Review, "to develop a first-of-its-kind media entity made up of independent reporters, at home and abroad, dedicated solely to reporting on terrorism, so-called small wars, and counterterrorism efforts around the world, to do it in the kind of fine-grained detail that the mainstream press never will, and, as much as possible, without an overt partisan bent."[1][2][3][4][5]
Roggio and the Long War Journal's staff use reports from various media organizations, including publications in countries where terrorists or Islamic insurgencies are active, such as in Afghanistan and Pakistan, then amplify and add historical context to what they find with information from their own network of US intelligence sources. In some cases, PMI has funded trips by its own media-credentialed journalists to report on war zones such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Philippines. Roggio, a former United States Army signalman and infantryman, uses his military experience to add strategic, operational, and tactical level context to the journal's reports. According to the Columbia Journalism Review, "Roggio's greatest service, then, may be the way he picks up where the mainstream press leaves off, giving readers a simultaneously more specific and holistic understanding of the battlefield."[6]
The Columbia Journalism Review reports that the Long War Journal for the most part avoids political bias in its stories. The Review, however, noted that Roggio has at times aligned himself with conservative bloggers on issues such as the "Easongate" controversy.[7] The journal states that it is a publication of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which describes itself as non-partisan but has been called "neoconservative" by The Nation.[8]
In 2006, before the establishment of the Journal, Huffington Post commentator Stephen Kaus criticized Roggio after Roggio complained about the Washington Post's negative coverage of his 2005 trip to Iraq as an embedded reporter with the United States Marine Corps. Kaus later added, however, that "I should make clear that Roggio's reporting and blogging make a valuable contribution and I take my hat off to his courage. It is the attacks on the Post that are unwarranted."[9]
As of 2008, PMI had a full-time staff of seven people in addition to Roggio and Hanusz. The organization has employed up to 16 reporters at various times, including sending them on field reporting trips to Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Philippines.[10]
Reader donations help finance PMI, which also seeks financial assistance through corporate sponsorships, foundation grants, and content-distribution deals. The organization does not release details on its finances.[11]
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported in November 2007 that The Long War Journal was getting between 10,000 and 20,000 views each day.[12] In 2008, the Columbia Journalism Review reported that The Long War Journal website was receiving about 6,000 daily visitors.[13]
As of June 2011, the site ranked 91,493 on Alexa. The site's rank in the United States was 25,177 and 20,141 in Pakistan. According to Alexa, 984 other sites linked to The Long War Journal's site.[14]
Quantcast, in June 2011, estimated that the site received an average of 12,000 visitors a day for the preceding one year period. According to Quantcast estimation, 67% of the site's visitors are male, 84% are caucasian, and 67% are attending or have graduated from college.[15]
The Long War Journal has been used as a source by media organizations or quoted in press publications including the New York Times (two of which were on the newspaper's front page),[16][17][18] Reuters,[19] Associated Press,[20] United Press International,[21][22][23] Sunday Times,[24] The Hindu,[25] Cable News Network,[26] the Times of India,[27] The Australian,[28] CTC Sentinel,[29] Time,[30] The Nation,[31] Washington Times,[32] and The Atlantic.[33] Marc Thiessen used the journal as a source in a 15 March 2011 opinion piece for the Washington Post.[34] Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Thomas E. Ricks cited Long War Journal reporter Nathan Webster in Ricks' Iraq-related book, The Gamble.[35]
In December 2007 the journal reported, with accompanying graphics and maps, on supply routes for weapons and supplies from Iran to insurgents in Iraq. The story was ignored by the mainstream press.[36]
The Long War Journal predicted nine months in advance that the government of Pakistan would make a truce with the Taliban of North Waziristan. The journal also was among the first, before most mainstream media, to report on Al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan and the conflict between militants in those areas and the Pakistani military.[37] In addition, the journal has reported on the relationship between the Pakistani government and military and the Haqqani network.[38]