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How do you Plan for a Hostile Media?
By Charlie
Read the whole thing, but here are the headlines:
20 headless bodies
… nope
11 close family members of Jordanian-based Baathist reporter Dia al-Kawwaz, who runs the online anti-Iraq newspaper Shabeqat Akhbar al-Iraq, were slaughtered in Baghdad.
…err, not so much…
12-25 "construction workers" were killed in a Bombing by NATO forces in Afghanistan
…yeah… the “construction workers” were actually “Taliban”…
13 people were slaughtered by Al-Qaeda in their sleep
…except they weren’t….
There was an explosion at a refinery in Baghdad. The media immediately reported it as a rocket attack
…nope!
Iraqi soldiers have found a mass grave of mutilated bodies in a restive region north of Baghdad, a local security official told CNN Thursday.
…Nope!
With all of this false reporting, I’ve got a hunch that this may be an Al Qaeda death rattle playing out over the airwaves –basically, keeping their info ops campaign that worked in 2006 running into 2008. The only problem is that there are no bodies or explosions to back up their press releases.
I also can’t believe how gullible reporters are when they actually report on these matters. I don’t want to get on a rant about media types, because I’m sure some of them are nice guys who do hard work, but this type of reporting reflects badly on the reporters, the news company, and the media overall. I’m astonished that these folks have any credibility left.
What this does is decrease everyone’s trust in the media as a credible source of information –BUT- we live in an information age, where trustworthy or not, that same media reporting saturates us.
In our next war, wherever that is, handling the press may be the number one objective of our combat commander. It’s almost a cliché at this point to say “the US sucks at waging an information battle,” so I will focus on why: Training.
Currently, most PAOs are not trained to do their jobs, they are staff officers who get tagged with an additional duty. Next, the IO/G7/PSYOP/PAO guys are almost never synched up, and when they do it is rare when their plan fits in with what is actually happening on the ground. What we need, almost, is a type of “PR manager” like most corporations have to manage the totality of the information fight. Just like Civil Affairs, most of the IO types are not trained in their jobs. Because of that, and due to the fact that maneuver battalions can rarely issue press releases, the US is lagging in the infowar.
CAVEAT: In the above article, TF IRON’s PAO was on the ball with each false story, and they got the information out –although the big media didn’t put as much amperage into the correction as they did the initial screaming headline. So we’re getting there…
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Comments
It's not so much that CA/PSYOP guys don't know how to do their job... it's that big Army would rather tag a useless captain or major who otherwise would not be employed to be the IO or CA officer because big Army doesn't want to listen to a reservist or a battalion commander thinks he knows everything (or doesn't, but doesn't think it matters).
Not that I've ever experienced this or am bitter about it...
Simply put, the Army can blame the "evil" media all it wants... its own incompetency in these matters have to shoulder a good deal of the blame as well. Army likes things that go "bang" and "pow". Army wants to count RPGs seized, throw a red pin on a map as to where they were located and call it "winning the war on terror". It doesn't like to hear that "perception IS reality".
Geez, don't even get me started on this topic...
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How about we each get to flog the reporters and editors that put out these false reports? I believe these coward Taliban and Al Qaeda sympathizers might stop this crap reporting if there were any sort of repercussions.