According to the article, entitled "Pentagon boosts 'media war' unit", “The US defence department has set up a new unit to better promote its message across 24-hour rolling news outlets, and particularly on the internet. The Pentagon said the move would boost its ability to counter “inaccurate" news stories and exploit new media. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said earlier this year the US was losing the propaganda war to its enemies” ... “A Pentagon memo seen by the Associated Press news agency said the new unit would "develop messages" for the 24-hour news cycle and aim to "correct the record". The unit would reportedly monitor media such as weblogs and would also employ "surrogates", or top politicians or lobbyists who could be interviewed on TV and radio shows.”
I’m not going to comment on whether I agree or disagree with the war in Iraq, there are already enough people voicing their opinions about just that. My concern is that of the media consumer. The new Media War Unit will “develop messages” which said with another word is propaganda.
Prop-a-gan-da/ Pronunciation Key - [prop-uh-gan-duh] –noun
1. information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.
2. the deliberate spreading of such information, rumors, etc.
3. the particular doctrines or principles propagated by an organization or movement.
This Media War Unit will add more information that is not necessarily true but might “help or harm a person, movement, institution, nation etc”. So subtract from this is that the Bush administration would like to help themselves to get some positive news coverage, changing the public opinion in view of the forthcoming elections. The propaganda is not just for the people in Iraq and to change the negative impressions of America in the Arab world, it is also meant for us here in the west. We, the people, being in whatever democratic country have the power to vote in or out from parliament our political leaders, but to be able to do so we need reliable information. That information we get from our newspapers, TV, radio or internet, the very same that the Media War Unit is now targeting with “developed messages”.
News served to us in the media (TV news, News papers, online news websites) is written and produced by people. Journalists have their opinion, this opinion is often shown the choice of words and the way the article or news-piece (copy) is written.
Secondly there are time constraints and deadlines to adhere to. Does the journalist writing a piece for the 9 o’clock news of a breaking story in Iraq (having received a press release an hour earlier) have the time to really investigate that story, really get an understanding before rewriting and adding a few words from an interviewee (a section selected and edited to match the story-line). Does the journalist have the time to find different points of view, get the grasp of it before jumping on to the next story and serve it to the public without being influenced by the “tone” of the press release and without being influenced by his/her own opinions?
Will the journalist themselves be able to sift through what is propaganda, an opinion-changing attempt from some specialist Media War Unit? I doubt it.
Last but most important there are the overall editorial line, the ownership of the paper or TV channel etc. In a newspaper, yes, you would have more time to work out an article but most newspapers are very coloured by it’s politically oriented ownership. They have more time to select the stories, the pictures and where to place it in the paper and how much space they are willing to give to each story. All is done daily to support the viewpoint of the editorial line. For example during the Italian election this year the newspapers were openly supporting either Romani Prodi or Silvio Berlusconi. A lot of space and positive words dedicated to the political party of choice and for the opposition bad tabloid-like coverage with ugly photos. Even the fairly objective and politically impartial Corriere della Sera became pro-socialist to the outrage of many of its loyal readers relying on the until-then if not objective news at least divided evenly between the political sides.
Already the it is difficult to sift the news and make up your own mind about the different new stories considering the political directions of the newspapers, editorial lines of TV and radio channels, and journalists own opinions if not to add to the confusion with propaganda from specialist Media Units. We need to be aware, to take a minute to be critical to what we hear, read and see to draw from it the truth, if at all possible. At least we need to try and read between the lines that good news might not necessarily be so good, and that bad news is probably slightly out of proportion.
* Picture is featured on the BBC news
website.
