Category: Media

Media and Public Diplomacy: a look back at the relationship sixty years ago

~ Matt Armstrong

What is the role of media in public diplomacy? Is it a watch dog? I would say yes, if they only reported on what was being done overseas. Is it an extension of public diplomacy? Yes, if they are actually analyzing and deliberating the facts and shaping knowledge overseas.

America’s international engagement was clearly intended to further the reach of American media, to go where they could not. There were hearings to privatize the entirety of the international broadcasting operation, but the media declined saying they could not afford to do it, but they would be happy to continue to lease their transmitters and sell programming to the government.

A related post is Congressional Intent on Privatization of International Broadcasting, particularly the discussion from Rep. Karl Stefan (R-NE) from March 11, 1948.

The following is from Rethinking Smith-Mundt and focuses on the Congressional and public debates concerning the perceived government competition with American media. The leading voice from the media against government-owned broadcasting was the Associated Press’s Kent Cooper, then executive director. You may be aware of his opposition to government ownership, but I’ll give you a dollar if you know the basis of his opposition, a hypocrisy that his fellow publishers and Assistant Secretary of State Benton pointed out in debates played out in newspapers and radios.

Links to many of the historical articles will soon be placed in the Smith-Mundt Symposium’s library. 

Continue reading “Media and Public Diplomacy: a look back at the relationship sixty years ago
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A Briefing 2.0 for the Smith-Mundt Symposium

~ Matt Armstrong

There will be a ninety minute media roundtable pre-event a week before the Smith-Mundt Symposium. Originally intended as an event for “traditional” media (mostly, but not entirely, print), I’m expanding it to, surprise, include “new media”.

The guests will include one or two panelists from the Smith-Mundt Symposium as well as one or two people not on panels, plus me.

Date: January 6, 2009
Time: 3:00p – 4:30p ET
Location: Alexandria, VA

This event is organized and hosted by a third-party.

While the journalists will be seated at the table, bloggers may call in. As a “new media-ist” myself, feel free to insert a joke here about bloggers being heard (or read) but not seen. (Perhaps you’ll go with some comparative humor that journos are easier on the eyes than bloggers…)

If you are a member of the media or a blogger (“or” not meant as a slight 😉 interested in participating in person or via teleconference or in person, email me ASAP. Space very is limited.

Event: International News Coverage in a New Media World

~ Matt Armstrong

A joint Broadcasting Board of Governors and GWU Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communications event:

The Broadcasting Board of Governors and the GWU Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communications in commemorating the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights for a discussion of:

  • International News Coverage in a New Media World: The Decline of the Foreign Correspondent and the Rise of the Citizen Journalist
  • Experts will examine the dramatic shift of traditional media away from foreign reporting, the growth of web-based citizen journalists, and their effects on coverage of international news and human rights issues.

Date: December 10, 2008
Time: 11:30 am – 1:15 pm
Location: George Washington University, Jack Morton Auditorium
  805 21st Street, NW
  Washington, DC 20052

Schedule

11:30 – 11:50
Light Lunch

12:00 – 12:15
Welcome and Remarks by James Glassman, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs (invited)

12:15 – 1:15
Panel Discussion

Moderator:
Steve Roberts – J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Media and Public Affairs, George Washington University

Panelists:

* Sherry Ricchiardi – Senior Writer, American Journalism Review and Professor, Indiana University School of Journalism
* Patrick Meier – Research Fellow, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative
* John Donvan – Correspondent, Nightline ABC News (invited

RSVP: pubaff@bbg.gov or (202) 203-4400

Should be an interesting discussion. Very related to the Smith-Mundt discussion of informing Americans of what is going on overseas, as well as granting oversight by Americans into what is being said and done in their name and with their (our) money.

See also:

The internet and “public opinion” in China

~ Matt Armstrong

No time to comment, but Jim Fallows posted a worthwhile (and timely) post on the internet and public opinion in China.

Outsiders who follow Chinese events have known for years about Roland Soong’s EastSouthWestNorth site*, which draws from Chinese-language and English-language sources for reports and analysis.

I’ve just seen this post, from a few days ago, which strikes me as something that people who don’t normally follow Chinese events should know about. It’s the text of a speech Soong prepared for last weekend’s annual Chinese Bloggers conference (but did not deliver, for family-emergency reasons). In it, he discusses the differences the Internet has, and has not, made in the Chinese government’s ability to control information and maintain power within China.

This is a subject easily misunderstood in the United States, where people tend to assume either that the cleansing power of the Internet will ultimately make government efforts at info-control pointless, or, on the contrary, that the bottling-up effectiveness of the Great Firewall will protect the government from the power of an informed citizenry.  (My own Atlantic article on the subject here.)
Soong elegantly illustrates why such categorical assumptions miss the complexity of what’s going on. The whole speech is worth reading . . .

Read the rest of Jim’s post here.

You must be agile to be effective in the global information environment

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

The presidential campaign was a close-to-home example of how speed is essential to modern campaigns of informing and persuading. You must be quick and adept in your response lest your adversary beat you with an effective blow, truthful or not. Truth may be the greatest ally in any struggle for minds and wills from presidential politics to countering Al-Qaeda propaganda in Iraq. But truth is useless if you can’t get the word out.

A barrier to getting the word out includes not having “public affairs authority” to release a statement, or video to counter, or even preempt, adversarial narratives of all sorts of engagements. Only when the media, or the media consumer, is hostage to you does this work. If they have an alternative, even an adversary with a questionable or non-existent track record on the use of facts, they’ll go. The cause is most often a zero-defect approach to information, which is laudable, but this can be costly.

Today, I had the “pleasure” of again witnessing the challenge of not having PA authority. A request for interview came to me. I wasn’t the guy (not geographically desirable, plus there are better people to speak on the subject) so I forwarded the time-sensitive request to others. Of the several key individuals I pinged, all were well-qualified and eager to talk but unable to go on the record within the required window of time because they lacked PA authority. (Another was temporarily geographically undesirable, so that person doesn’t count here.) The result: the requestor went with someone else. In this case, the ‘someone else’ is fortunately a very knowledgeable and smart person that will give a top answer, however this person is tangential to the subject matter and not the preferred respondent. In other cases, we may not be so lucky.

These people were all educated, equipped, and (to some degree) encouraged to communicate (they were at least interested or enthusiastic). What they lacked was empowerment. We can debate the merits of centralized messaging, as well as the demerits, however in the fire hose of the global information environment, the ability to respond swiftly (and of course accurately) matters.

Pirates!

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 3 Comments

Pirates off Somalia pretty much launched this blog three years ago this month. Three years after a cruise used an LRAD to fend of pirates one hundred miles offshore and little firm called Top Cat was awarded a $50m contract, piracy remains a significant issue. So significant that blog friend Galrahn tell us Santa’s elves may have to resort to wooden toys (made from bamboo? where’s the bamboo coming from? doh!):

Could the Somalian pirates ruin Christmas? Maybe, according to PC World, who notes that shipping company’s in Mombai are so frustrated with Somalian piracy shooting up their ships heading through the Suez that they are contemplating moving materials around the Cape of Good Hope instead. What does that mean? Well, higher prices for one, delayed shipments for another.

To investigate, friend David Axe is headed off to Somalia to practice more citizen journalism and needs your help.

The first week of December, I will be heading to the Horn of Africa to cover theescalating piracy crisis. I’m working hard to get sufficient assignments to cover expenses, but it’s looking pretty bleak. This is expensive work — costs for me will total around $10,000 — and in recent years the rates for freelancers have dropped by around half. So far, the value of my assignments is just $2,200 $2,800. I’m committed to doing this work, cost be damned, but it’d be nice not to fall into complete financial ruin.

Help out Dave if you can.

From Nov-Dec 2005:

From ‘today’:

Note: two years ago I had a category for piracy, but I killed it to keep the category list clean and focused. In lieu of reinstating “piracy”, a new, broader and necessary category is introduced with this post: Non-State Actors.

Senator urges suspension of Iraq publicity contracts

~ Matt Armstrong

Briefly, from CongressDaily:

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., on Thursday sent a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates asking him to suspend $300 million in contracts for civilians to produce pro-American news stories, entertainment programs and public service ads in Iraq until the Senate Armed Services Committee and the next administration review the contracts.

Webb’s letter follows a Washington Post story detailing the Pentagon’s decision to award four firms a combined $300 million for public information campaigns in Iraq.

“At a time when this country is facing such a grave economic crisis, and at a time when the government of Iraq now shows at least a $79 billion surplus from recent oil revenues, in my view it makes little sense for the U.S. Department of Defense to be spending hundreds of millions of dollars to propagandize the Iraqi people,” Webb wrote.

His letter underscores continued congressional concerns over military contracts for information operations. The fiscal 2009 defense authorization bill requires the next Defense secretary and president to submit a report to Congress on strategic communications and public diplomacy initiatives.

“The contracts being let seem to fly in the face of this clear statement of congressional concern,” Webb wrote.

While some details of the contract might benefit from additional review, Sen. Webb’s letter seems to indicate a failure to understand and appreciate the importance of information and perceptions to our national security, but also the cost effectiveness of informational (and cultural and educational) activities.

See also:

Noteworthy

~ Matt Armstrong

“The “militarization” of diplomacy exists and is accelerating.” – A Foreign Affairs Budget for the Future: Fixing the Crisis in Diplomatic Readiness from the American Academy of Diplomacy. (see also this post)

“The trends across the board are not going in the right direction. And I would anticipate next year would be a tougher year.” – Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen, The New York Times.

“The announcement last week that the United States will relocate its London embassy from Grosvenor Square, in the heart of the British capital, to an out-of-the-way spot south of the River Thames may be good news for property developers, but should concern almost everyone else. The London move is the latest and most dramatic example of a worrying trend toward vastly scaling down American public diplomacy abroad, abandoning embassies that were once beacons of American culture and openness in favour of walled suburban fortresses.” – Globe and Mail, 6 October 2008 (h/t KAE)

“The New York Times’ Web site is getting more global, and IHT.com is going bye-bye.” – Forbes, 7 October 2008 (h/t KAE)

“There was no single silver bullet, but rather a multifaceted strategy crafted and carried out by those in Baghdad — not, despite recent claims, in Washington.” – Linda Robinson in the Washington Post (see also Tom Barnett)

“Whatever the final form it takes, the establishment of Africom is a good idea whose time has come — finally. The command’s emphasis on civil-military integration and a low-key operational profile is appropriate and well suited to its mission. We should wish it well.” – Bob Killebrew, Africom Stands-Up. (see also this post)

New Army Doctrine Places Stability Operations Equal to Military Combat Power

~ Matt Armstrong

While military operations may neutralize immediate “kinetic” threats, enduring change comes from stabilizing the unstable and building capacity to self-govern where there is none. Security, humanitarian relief, governance, economic stabilization, and development are critical for ultimate democratization, but more importantly, for peace and security locally and globally. Without competent and comprehensive engagement in these areas of “soft power,” tactical “hard power” operations are simply a waste of time, money, and life.

This week the U.S. Army released a new field manual, FM 3-07 Stability Operations, to adapt the military to these requirements of the modern age. The manual “represents a milestone in Army doctrine,” writes LTG Bill Caldwell in the foreword.

It is a roadmap from conflict to peace, a practical guidebook for adaptive, creative leadership at a critical time in our history. It institutionalizes the hard-won lessons of the past while charting a path for tomorrow. This manual postures our military forces for the challenges of an uncertain future, an era of persistent conflict where the unflagging bravery of our Soldiers will continue to carry the banner of freedom, hope, and opportunity to the people of the world.

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FCC to Probe “Hidden Hand” Analysts

~ Matt Armstrong

The Federal Communications Commission is looking into whether the Pentagon’s program to use and leverage retired officers as “message force multipliers.” David Barstow broke the story in The New York Times earlier this year. Today, writing in the Congressional Quarterly, John M. Donnelly’s reports the FCC launched a probe to “address congressional questions about a Pentagon program viewed by some lawmakers as propaganda.”

The FCC is looking into whether TV networks and certain on-air analysts broke the law by failing to disclose to viewers that the apparently independent analysts were in fact part of a Pentagon-funded information campaign, a spokesman for the commission said.

“What I can confirm is that the enforcement bureau at the FCC is looking into this matter, and I can confirm that they have sent letters in connection with it, seeking information,” the spokesman said late Tuesday, without elaborating on when the inquiry began or who its targets are.

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Noteworthy

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 2 Comments

“One of the major new difficulties here is the vast canvas of the media landscape. No longer can audiences be divided into ‘domestic’ and ‘international’ as they have done in the past. Anything that is published can be potentially viewed by either the domestic or the international audience or in fact a multitude of different audiences with a variety of compositions. And yet, the old view still prevails in a number of communications campaigns. This comes unstuck when your international audience views your domestic output. Steve Tatham provided one example of a British Army advertisement showing British soldiers searching Muslims. This was part of a recruitment drive aimed at UK television audiences, but it had a detrimental effect when it ended up on Youtube, and was deemed highly offensive by some Muslims.” – Daniel Bennett reviewing the symposium How Insurgents Shape the Media Landscape. Read Part One and Part Two.

“We have rarely seen such a work of profound analytic fallacy as the now much circulated study “Baghdad nights: evaluating the US military `surge’ using nighttime light signatures”, which has been making the rounds throughout the blogsphere as of late. … such an assumption ignores much of the literal reality on the ground – valuing remote sensing over the contemporaneous and local accounts of human sources, military commanders, and reconstruction agencies that have lived through the tumultuous progress of the latter stages of the Iraq intervention. It also conflates economic indicators with stability and security…” Deliberately Ignoring the Human Terrain by Kent’s Imperative

“An informed public is central to a properly functioning democracy. As bloggers, you are now part of this modern day newsroom. You are deciding what stories should be posted without the benefit of a traditional gatekeeper in the media that’s often been referred to as the Fourth Estate. … Bloggers play a vitally important watchdog role in the defense of democracy and the Constitutional order.” – LTG Bill Caldwell speaking to the Milblogging conference.

Related to the above, see the Combined Arms Center’s blogging page.

“We’ve seen over and over again that the blogs are the most effective fact-checking tool that we have.” – McCain spokesman, Michael Goldfarb, to Michelle Malkin. (h/t AS)

Treat audiences as investors was the message of a recent short post. This week I threw up another post (sourced again from H&K) about proxy engagement, which is fundamentally what public diplomacy is all about: talk to people, influentials preferred but not required, so they tell two friends, and so on like the old U.S. commercial. The firm behind the program in the latter post caught my mention of their client and followed up with me today to see if I needed more information. This is a ‘digital outreach team’ that is on top of it (GolinHarris, if you were wondering). That’s good follow up to promote the message and help it spread. This is where the Madison Avenue model really digs in but it’s also the approach that’s uniformly ignored by USG folks who invoke “Madison Avenue”.

“I think DMA is one of the most exciting things to happen to public affairs in a long time,” Hastings said. “It’s our opportunity to change the way we deliver news and information to our internal audience.” – Bob Hastings talking about the Oct 1 establishment of the Defense Media Activity. (h/t Galrahn)

Following up the testimony before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs’ Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia, see

Supporting Citizen Media

~ Matt Armstrong

When Big Media closes foreign bureaus and limits foreign affairs coverage, the need doesn’t change. For the seemingly distant issues, those problems that may become future flash points, we are increasingly reliant on citizen journalists for knowledge and analysis. Friend David Axe is one such brave soul, traveling to such places as Chad not to long ago.

From David’s post at Danger Room on the subject:

My trip to Chad this summer was 20-percent crowd-funded. In the wake of the trip, I got an offer from crowd-source photojournalism Website Demotix to join their stable of regular contributors. Now Demotix is running its first photojournalism contest, with a new camera as a prize. I’m a finalist with two of my photos: "Darfuri refugees" and "A Chadian soldier in Abeche" [see Danger Room post]. (Context for that photo found here.)

David is a finalist in contest where the prize is a camera, a Nikon D80. Go to Demotix – The Citizen Wire and vote for David’s picture.

Noteworthy

~ Matt Armstrong

"We can’t kill our way to victory, and no armed force anywhere — no matter how good — can deliver these keys alone. It requires teamwork and cooperation." – Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the House Armed Services Committee on the need for capacity-building and not just bullets, bombs, and roads. See CNN.

“Ever since my release from prison on August 7, 2004, I have been spreading my message across Kashmir. I have a three-point programme. First to impose an Islamic nizam (Islamic system) [in] Kashmir. Islam should govern our lives, be it in our political thought, socio-economic plans, culture or [other…]. The creed of socialism and secularism should not touch our lives, and we must be totally governed by the Koran and the Sunnat (precedents from Prophet Mohammad’s life). … Osama has come only during the last few years. People like me have been fighting for this all our lives. I do not want to be compared with Osama.” — Syed Ali Geelani, former Jamaat-e-Islami leader who currently heads the hard-line, pro-Pakistan and Islamist faction of a secessionist alliance in Kashmir.

“I cannot lie to you. The [Pakistan] army comes in, and they fire at empty buildings. It is a drama — it is just to entertain.” Entertain whom? “America.” – Taliban commander in FATA interviewed by Dexter Filkins in the New York Times Magazine.

Bulletproof designs add style to growing Mexico security industry – AFP news headline on a response to declining state capacity (and confidence) in America’s southern neighbor.

“The president would come armed with what Hadley called ‘sweeteners’ — more budget money and a promise to increase the size of the active-duty Army and Marine Corps.” – Bob Woodward’s preview to his new book in the Washington Post. See also Armchair Generalist and Abu Muqawama on same.

“POLITICO’S decision to make its content available for major new media outlets is another kick in the contract for The Associated Press war with newspapers.” – Tim McGuire on new competition the AP is facing from Politico.com. See E&P and McGuire’s post.

Book Review: Losing Arab Hearts and Minds by Steve Tatham

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 4 Comments

In the global information environment, the media influences public opinion and government policy around the world. It conveys to the public not only what the government is doing, but provides a feedback loop to the government through the coverage created by editors and reporters in response to their listeners, viewers, readers, and sponsors, whether advertisers or owners. Policies can no longer be presented to the public in the abstract as they are constantly measured against images on television, in the newspaper, and online, around the clock and around the world.

Reports on American Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication are filled with examples of how the United States failed to engage the Arab public since 9/11. These have come from the Defense Sciences Board, the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, and numerous think tanks, and more will appear as we near the end of 2008 and the end of the Bush Administration. There are also several books on the subject, see below for more on these, however none closely examines the critical relationship between the U.S. Defense Department and the Arab media and public. There is one book that does explore this “last three feet” of engagement and you’ve probably never heard of it.

Losing Arab Hearts and Minds: The Coalition, Al Jazeera and Muslim Public Opinion is by Steve Tatham, a serving officer (now Commander) in the Royal Navy. He was the Royal Navy’s public spokesman in Iraq from 2002-2003 and is uniquely qualified to give an outsider’s “inside” view of the Coalition’s engagement with the Arab media, or rather their intentional non-engagement with Arab media.

Drawing on first hand experience and other resources, Steve carefully and thoroughly describes the media affairs of the Coalition, notably of the United States. He does so on a foundation he establishes in the first one hundred pages as he explores the biases of the Americans, the British, and the Arab world. This includes superb analysis of the public statements from the Bush Administration, the American media environment (including “The Fox Factor”), lessons learned from the 1991 Gulf War, and Hollywood influences. He also looks at the major Arab media and their evolution, America’s response, such as the creation of Al-Hurra, with a scholarly, yet conversational, examination. His insider’s view of operations at and the people running the Information Centers in Doha, Kuwait, and Bahrain amplifies the theme of the book: that the United States public affairs were focused almost exclusively on the American public.

The tactical maneuvering of ignoring the Arab media created substantial handicaps in our ability to get the word out. By excluding a critical link to the Arab public, the very people the President would claimed was the purpose for the invasion (“to bring democracy”), air time would be filled not by our information and explanations. The resulting information product would spiral down.

To exclude significant media who speak to major target audiences was a combination of naivete and even arrogance and was not restricted to the Arab media. Threaded through the book is the truth the United States, and the military in particular, has only recently begun to come to grips with: that perceptions matter more than intent and that operational activities must be formed and guided by the information they generate and not followed ad hoc by a communication plan. Steve quotes an Al Jazeera executive, who said

By merely disseminating a point of view the battle is not finished. It take more than information to convince public opinion of your good will towards the Arab world.

Steve does a superb job exploring the frustration, prejudice, and ignorance displayed by America toward the Arab media and Arab public opinion and how it undermined the engagement and understanding of a critical, if not the critical, audience in the global struggle for minds and wills. Losing Arab Hearts and Minds is required reading for those interested in Public Diplomacy, Strategic Communication, Information Operations, and general military-media engagement. The failure of the Coalition, and the United States Defense Department specifically, to engage the Arab media was lost the battle for ‘hearts and minds’ before it really began.

Related Reading:

Noteworthy

~ Matt Armstrong

“…the people formerly known as the audience refused to behave like one. They brandished video cams, iPhones and recorders, doing their own documentation of what was under way.” David Carr in the New York Times. 

“The goal is to bring down the walls of the convention and invite in an audience that’s as large as possible. Credentialing more bloggers opens up all sorts of new audiences.” Aaron Myers, the director of online communications for the Democratic National Convention Committee, quoted in the New York Times.

“…most notably 1946 to 1974, when a pervasive concern to combat and contain communism prompted an unprecedented yet uncoordinated array of initiatives by the federal government to export American culture as exemplary illustrations of what the free world had to offer Europe as well as developing nations.” Michael Kammen writing in the book The Arts of Democracy: Art, Public Culture, and the State, quoted by John Brown in his review of said book.

“During the Cold War, the transatlantic community understood that pulling allies closer, not just countering enemies, was a priority for public diplomacy.” Kristin Lord in Public Diplomacy and the New Transatlantic Agenda.

“Since the Russian invasion of Georgia there has been a lot of discussion about the media war and who won it. … But another aspect seems to have received a little less attention – namely the nature of the media’s coverage and how it differed from other wars.” Daniel Korski in the Future of War Reporting.

More on the Media’s bias toward money not informing

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

Briefly, Paul Fahri writing at the Washington Post nails NBC News for its in depth coverage of the Olympics:

"SportsCenter" had a bit of news about the Olympics, but only a bit. …

"Nightly News," by contrast, was all over the Olympics. Man, were they all over them. First, Ann Curry gave the opening "billboards" for the top stories, which included a couple of Olympics-related features. Then, on came the Olympic news like the parade at the Opening Ceremonies. Curry mentioned Bolt, the medal count, and the news that an athlete from Afghanistan had won his country’s first medal ever. … Oh, yeah: Curry managed to squeeze in a story about the Spanish plane crash and a new presidential poll (I don’t think either mentioned the Olympics).

In other words, "Nightly News," which rarely cares about sports, was out-reporting "SportsCenter," the leading sports-news broadcast on TV, about the Olympics. High-fives, NBC News!

But hold on a second.

What I was really witnessing was a little lesson in media economics. The contrasting priorities of "SportsCenter" and NBC tell you loads about how money can drive the TV news agenda.

NBC has a massive investment in the Olympics (parent General Electric shelled out $894 million in rights fees alone), and has made an equally massive commitment to showcasing the Games on "the networks of NBC." Said networks (CNBC, MSNBC, etc.) are devoting a record 3,400 hours, on the air and online, to the Big Show this time around.

But all those decisions were made on the corporate side of NBC, not in the news division. Call me old school, but in the journalism textbooks, it says the news division is supposed to make up its own mind about what to cover without being too mindful of what the bosses in corporate are pushing. In other words, GE’s need for a return on its investment in the Olympics isn’t supposed to be NBC News’ problem.

Yet for the past two weeks, the line between NBC News and NBC’s corporate priorities has seemed awfully blurry. Since the Olympics began, "Nightly News" (emanating live from Beijing) has been larded with the kind of soft-focus/feel-good Olympic stories that are a staple of the soft-focus/feel-good stuff that’s appearing on NBC in primetime.

NBC responded to Fahri with a list of “hard hitting” news stories on China beginning just over a week before the Opening Ceremonies. While Fahri notes NBC’s coverage was still fluff, he misses the point that NBC’s network news was not covering the world but, in the week prior to the Games, priming its audience for China. Since the games started, all news coverage, and even the quasi-news show “Today” as Fahri points out, focuses almost entirely on the Olympics with barely a mention of global events.

It’s worthwhile to note that while, according to Fahri, the Spanair crash received coverage on NBC, on Al Jazeera English my interview was delayed nearly twenty minutes and my segment was squeezed from ten minutes to one because of Spanair and other pressing international news.

Who’s more focused on the news?

See also:

Rethinking Smith-Mundt: responding to Sharon Weinberger

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 4 Comments

I appreciate Sharon Weinberger’s thoughtful three-part response at Wired’s Danger Room (Part I, Part II, Part III) to my interim paper “Rethinking Smith-Mundt” over at Small Wars Journal. Several points in her impassioned response deserve attention. However, to begin, it is important to understand that researching and writing “Rethinking Smith-Mundt” was more than an “esoteric” pursuit. Derisively labeling our adversaries exploitation of information as “asymmetric conflict” as if it was something unfair, we clung to our guns as it were as we continued to imagine a bureaucratically controlled global environment (more on asymmetry here). However, even as the Russians roll into Ossetia and Sarkozy recreates the part of Chamberlain, the Russians have not neglected the power of information to affect foreign public opinion. They have used cyber-warfare to block access to Georgian information while actively propagating Russian messages and images.

The fact of the matter is we have just begun to realize that the comfortable world we, as Americans, grew accustomed to since the late-1960’s and early 1970’s, is gone. The global information environment, with its satellite communications, 24/7 news, text messaging, and immediate access to video and images has substantially reduced the autonomy of leaders provided by the raw, supreme power of militaries provided over the last four decades. With few exceptions, war is no longer war among leaders but among the people and between the people. Small groups now have an amplified voice and strategic reach to run the show. Increased communications skills of our adversaries better leverage the digital age, as well as the analog age’s culturally attuned rumors, has changed the objective of war. Whether restricting access to information through cyber-warfare, inserting distortions into the information ecosystem with distortions, the purpose of conflict has become not to destroy the enemy while preserving oneself, but a contest “in spirit, will, and intelligence on a silent battlefield.” Conflict through bullets or economies is transformed as “attitude warfare” or “perception warfare.” It is now organized processes of persuasion.

The U.S. Government, consultancies, and the presidential candidates are all finally realizing the tremendous value of information and the informational effects of policy and actions. While bureaucratic inertia has prevented systemic changes for years, this may be changing. There are several major reports, and a couple of pieces of draft bills, that look to revamp America’s architecture of engagement (think variations on USIA 2.0). Virtually any discussion on restructuring America’s informational engagement with the world includes at least one (almost always) erroneous statement on Smith-Mundt. “Rethinking Smith-Mundt” was written with this in mind.

As described in “Rethinking Smith-Mundt,” the Act was written and debated during a time when “hot war” was unlikely between the major powers, a time before “Us” and “Them” were firmly established. But this was not the Cold War so many invoke today (it was not 1968) with massive military power at the ready and missiles aimed at the other’s capitals. Economies were not substantially linked and the key threat was not invasion but subversion. As our Ambassador to Russia said in 1946, the most important “fact in the field of foreign policy today…is the fact the Russians have declared psychological war on the United States, all over the world.” It was, he continued, “a war of ideology and a fight unto the death.” The struggle for authority and relevance had shifted from the arena of power to the arena of ideas and international persuasion.

However, Sharon’s impassioned critiques of my recommendations are based not on the lessons learned from the past, of a holistic approach to informational activities based on truth. Her comments are based on a selective, band-aid approach to the modern beauty contest known as public diplomacy today. I know we both agree that what is called “public diplomacy” today is broken. Many believe the term itself has become so burdened to be nearly as radioactive as “propaganda.” Even the United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy rebuked the State Department for not tasking its public diplomacy officers with “public diplomacy.” Sharon experienced this and the failure of the bureaucracy to even comprehend “public diplomacy” during her brief stint as a Foreign Service Officer.

For a high-level thematic response to Sharon’s posts, see Steve Corman’s Real vs. False Distinctions in Rethinking Smith-Mundt. As Steve notes, Sharon is concerned about an “anything goes atmosphere.” I share this concern, which is why I want oversight and transparency, two elements previously central to the Act (related: 1948 Brookings report). TO be honest, “Rethinking Smith-Mundt” was less about modern recommendations than about dispelling myths about the Act. It was more about finding (surprising) common ground with history for today’s policy makers and report writers. The similarities between past and present were implicit as I didn’t want to bang the reader on the head in an already long and dense read. With that, below I go into more detail to respond to two of Sharon’s more significant of assertions.

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Trusting the media? A new report from Pew Research

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

Briefly, from Editor & Publisher:

The results of the new Pew Survey on News Consumption (taken every two years and released this afternoon) suggest that viewers of the “fake news” programs "The Daily Show"and "The Colbert Report" are more knowledgeable about current events (as judged by three test questions) than watchers of “real” cable news shows hosted by Lou Dobbs, Bill O’Reilly and Larry King, among others — as well as average consumers of NBC, ABC, Fox News, CNN, C-SPAN and daily newspapers.

From Pew Research, Key News Audiences Now Blend Online and Traditional Sources:

The public continues to express skepticism about what they see, hear and read in the media. No major news outlet – whether broadcast or cable, print or online – stands out as particularly credible.

There has been little change in public perceptions of the credibility of most major news organizations between 2006 and 2008. Over the last 10 years, however, virtually every news organization or program has seen its credibility marks decline.

In 1998, for example, 42% of those who could rate CNN gave it the highest rating for credibility (four on a scale from one to four). That fell to 28% in 2006, and remains low in the current survey (30%). Credibility ratings for several other television news organizations – including the three major broadcast news outlets – also have declined since 1998. Comparable percentages say they can believe all or most of what NBC News (24%), ABC News (24%) and CBS News (22%) report (based on those who can rate those organizations).

Credibility ratings for the Fox News Channel have remained largely stable in recent years. Currently, 23% say they can believe all or most of what they hear from Fox, down slightly from 2006 and 2004 (25%).

About a quarter (27%) who can rate NPR give it the highest credibility rating, up five points since 2006. NPR is viewed as somewhat more credible today than in 1998 (27% vs. 19%). The credibility ratings for local TV news also have gone up a bit since the last media consumption survey (from 23% to 28%). But a decade ago, 34% said what they saw and heard on their local TV news was highly credible.

On Jon Stewart and Rush:

Regular viewers of The Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart are much more liberal than the public at large. More than a third of Colbert’s regular viewers (36%) describe their political views as liberal and 45% of regular Daily Show viewers say they are liberal. The audiences for these two shows are roughly equal in size; 19% watch The Colbert Report regularly or sometimes while 23% watch The Daily Show.

Despite the ideological bent of many of these talk show audiences, majorities of the shows’ viewers say they prefer to get political news from sources that don’t have a particular political point of view rather than sources that share their point of view. Rush Limbaugh’s regular listeners are among the most likely to say they prefer sources that share their point of view – 37% express this view while 53% say they prefer news sources that don’t have a particular point of view. Similarly, 37% of Larry King’s regular audience prefers sources that share their political views. Stephen Colbert’s viewers are among the least likely to seek out sources that reflect their political views. Only 15% of regular viewers of The Colbert Report say they prefer news sources that share their point of view, while 79% say they prefer sources without a political point of view.

Check put the whole report here.

Unasked in NYT’s “photography as a weapon”: does the media have an obligation to check its facts?

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 2 Comments

Relying on the mainstream media to debunk foreign propaganda is increasingly difficult. Errol Morris, writing on the New York Times opinion blog, discusses the Photoshopped Iranian missile launch. This case, like an increasing number, was caught by “New Media” effectively acting as an “Old Media” watchdog. While many papers issued retractions after the catch, the impression was set. The clarifications that rarely, if ever, received the same front-page treatment as the error they were correcting may not have been noticed.

Twenty years ago, Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman noted that changes in the media were changing the information landscape in the United States. The increased concentration of media ownership changed the motive from a duty to inform the public to one of profit and an increased dependency on outside sources from the government, corporations, or “elite” experts for analysis. The recent Pew Research report shows that twenty years later the trend is worse as media has further retreated from the realm foreign affairs.

The result is easy manipulation of domestic by foreign and domestic communicators. The photography as a weapon discussion is aspect of this. Another is the Pentagon Pundits (aka “Hidden Hand”) scandal where substantial blame properly rests on the media as forewarned by Chomsky, although they have deflected much of what they’re due. (On this subject, see also this post.)

Outside the scope of this post is how do you reconcile the trashing of transparency and truth by Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Victoria Clarke who both orchestrated the leveraging the military analysts and “outed” the Office of Strategic Influence to protect her turf. Her skill at manipulation and disinformation in exposing an office that was essentially a public diplomacy office within the Pentagon (no, the place it should be, but it was 2001 and State is just now stepping up in 2008, so cut some slack) had no place in strategic communication, public diplomacy, or public affairs. Clarke manipulation highlights the failure of the media to investigate and understand the news it covers.

Read the discussion at the New York Times.

Also, for the truly interested, I suggest Robert Entman’s Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy.