Task and Purpose has a lofty goal for a mere website:
Task & Purpose is a news and culture site geared toward the next great generation of American veterans.In short, they market themselves as the "New Great Generation of Veterans," a not so subtle comparison with veterans coming out of WWII, the Greatest Generation, as coined by Tom Brokaw to honor not only veterans but those that served on the homefront.The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are coming to an end, and what results is a new kind of American veteran.
They return to a nation in reformation; to a nation with a fragile, recovering, and off-kilter economy; and to a nation with more political division and dysfunction than ever before.
They return with remarkable skills, having shouldered unprecedented burdens, with a spirit of sacrifice and service needed to move the country forward.
We have no doubt that these men and women will do incredible things over the next 50 or more years.
Our mission is to give them a voice.
The guys and gals running T&P are confident and cocky, traits needed both in military circles and in today's fast moving and ever changing world wide web.
The problem comes when a company purporting to support the military community starts publishing articles that harm it only to increase their profit margin. When articles enhance and reinforce negative stereotypes of veterans and their families, they attract a vehement crowd to argue in defense of the community at large. According to a friend who writes at T&P, every click increases the paycheck of the author that wrote the article in the first place, so the more controversial the piece, the more money the author makes. This form of incentive pay encourages T&P writers to focus on controversy rather than quality. It’s what has become known in internet circles as click bait, that article with a sensational title and tags to maximize SEO without necessarily being quality content.
