Summary: This paper will examine the origins, practices and effects of Australian military-media relations in Afghanistan. It will compare and contrast the Australian Defence Force’s (ADF) news management strategy with those of its coalition allies, the US, British, Dutch and Canadian forces. It will consider the Australian media’s marginal role in the provision of news from Afghanistan, explain why and how they have been sidelined and analyse its consequences by looking at specific examples of ADF news management practice. It will explore how Australian media coverage of the war in Afghanistan has been shaped by Anzac mythology, how ADF coverage of the the war has been directed more to the reinforcement of national myth than than the provision of a sober accounting of events in Afghanistan, and how as a consequence this has distorted the public’s understanding of just what it is we are doing in Afghanistan.
