The Army wants soldiers of all ranks to do more military reading and writing as leaders hope to get feedback from the force on how to fight the next war.
This past year, the service launched the Harding Project, with the first class of graduates joining their respective military magazines or publications as temporary editors.
The service sent 18,000 print copies of “Military Review,” featuring a series of “how-to” articles on professional military writing, to 4,333 units. They also published and shared the same articles digitally on multiple Army social media channels and websites.
Army Fellowship offers paid degrees and editor jobs to revitalize magazines
A difficult problem for soldiers who wanted to dig into their branch magazines, such as the “Infantry” or “Armor” magazines, was their size. The old approach to publishing meant that users had to find the web page and download a printable file to read the material.
In early October, the service launched its “Line of Departure” website, which features Army military magazines in online-specific and mobile-friendly formats. Now users can share individual articles from their smartphones, just as they can with news articles or social media posts.
Part of fostering a more educated and curious force is making materials more accessible, Lt. Col. Zachary Griffiths, special assistant to the Army chief of staff, told Army Times.
“It’s optimized for mobile and desktop viewing,” Griffiths said. The lieutenant colonel hopes the content can compete with what soldiers browse on their smartphones while in line at the commissary or during other spare time.
“The main thing we’re trying to do is make content accessible,” Griffiths said.
Sergeant 1st Class Leyton Summerlin, assistant to the sergeant major of the Army, told Army Times that “the goal is to deliver content in three clicks or less.”
The website launched with more than 200 articles from 11 military magazines, Griffiths said. Future work will add digitized archives of previous journal issues.
Much of the writing and academic work within the department has suffered in recent decades due to the military’s commitments to continued deployments abroad.
For example, the last time Armor magazine had an editor in uniform was in 2006, Army Times previously reported.
As the Harding Project fellowship program enters its second year, participants will be fully exposed to journalism practices as they train to run their department’s magazine.
Those selected – active duty captains, master sergeants or chief officers 4 – will spend a year at the University of Kansas earning a degree in journalism before taking a two-year tour of their branch office.
The Army wants fellows to not only bring substantive expertise from their field to their work, but also have the editing and writing skills necessary to better translate the jargon-rich material to new soldiers, Griffiths said.
Fellows will also serve as writing and reading ambassadors, traveling to units to explain writing opportunities and encourage more professional military reading.
