[A-List] Fwd: [R-G] Nato strategist gives chilling insight into military’s media control at times of war

Wed May 27 10:41:31 MDT 2009

Weep, all those who cherish the integrety of true scolarship!    Lie to a
man or a nation and you steal from him or from it.  When those human numbers
reach billions, beware.    Nuclear weapons will not save you from your own.
   suzannedk at gmail.com

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Anthony Fenton <fentona at shaw.ca>
Date: Wed, May 27, 2009 at 6:27 PM
Subject: [R-G] Nato strategist gives chilling insight into military’s media
control at times of war
To: Suzanne de Kuyper <suzannedk at gmail.com>

http://spinwatch.org/blogs-mainmenu-29/nicholas-jones-mainmenu-85/5279-nato-strategist-jamie-shea-gives-chilling-insight-into-militarys-media-control-at-times-of-war-

Nato strategist Jamie Shea gives chilling insight into military’s
media control at times of war

London, May 1, 2009
Nicholas Jones

A chilling insight into the military mindset -- as explained by Nato’s
leading media strategist Jamie Shea -- provided an unexpected but
revealing talking point at UNESCO’s annual world press freedom day
debate on the international media’s role at times of war.  Shea spoke
in support of a motion that "governments at war are winning the battle
of controlling the international media" -- a motion that carried the
day by a majority of more than two to one.
Set against Shea and his supporters was a powerful line-up of
international journalists and media campaigners who argued that local
reporters in conflict zones were increasingly managing to provide a
reliable alternative service to that offered by the western news
media. In addition, an army bloggers and citizen journalists complete
with mobile phones and video cameras were mounting a credible fight
back against governments and their media allies. But what dominated
the opening of the debate (at the Frontline Club, London) was Shea’s
brutally frank exposition of how Nato governments were becoming
increasingly successful in managing the flow of information from the
military to the public.

Shea, who was Nato’s spokesman during the Kosovo conflict and is now
director of policy planning for the Nato secretary general, said that
governments had proved “quick learners” after the damage inflicted on
Nato partners during the war against Serbia. Developing and
maintaining a media strategy was now taken as seriously as fighting
the conflict itself.  The objective was to create a story line
designed to keep journalists “as busy as possible”. “Keeping
journalists occupied is the priority; feeding them constant briefings
so they don’t have much time to go off and find out information for
themselves”.

Media handlers realised that embedded journalist liked to put on
battle fatigues suggesting they were “part of the action”.  Regular
press tours to theatre were another priority, coupled with access to
privileged interviews but the military had to make sure the
journalists were “flown home before they have time to look around” for
themselves in operations such as Iraq or Afghanistan.  Academic
experts were also invited on tours and encouraged to write
“influential op-ed features and columns which are often sympathetic to
our case”.

Shea was equally forthright in defending the media network which Nato
was developing which included Nato television, a Nato radio station
and Nato newspapers.  Nato tv, established two months ago, was a feed
providing video material from locations to which the media did not
have not access themselves and which was free of charge. “We have
people employed by Nato, interviewing people employed by Nato…We must
not give the impression that the people doing the interviews are
independent journalists…It is important they should not call
themselves journalists…It is ok as long as you put on the label that
the origin is Nato”. Shea insisted that he was not advocating that
governments should win the information battle.  Ministers and the
military needed the media to keep them on their toes.  “I believe in a
free press putting us under pressure. We have not won yet, but we are
getting better all the time from a government perspective…But lots of
positive stories don’t add to winning in the long run…There is still a
stalemate in Afghanistan and the Taliban is still strong”.

Andrew Gilligan, the former BBC defence correspondent, supported
Shea’s thesis that the military had the upper hand. Wars had created a
sellers’ market in news.  Reporters sent out at huge cost to combat
zones and embedded with the military had to produce stories to justify
their existence, giving governments extraordinary scope to manipulate
the story lines. Very few bloggers or citizen journalists could get to
combat zones. Who really knew what was happening in the villages being
bombed in Afghanistan? “A sellers’ market in news has given
governments massive scope for controlling the media…I think government
are winning more often than they used to”.

Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists,
opened for those who believed that governments were losing the
propaganda war during military operations. He said there were dozens
of examples of journalism which smashed the idea that government were
controlling the international media. Local journalists and bloggers
were lifting the veil of secrecy which governments hoped to wrap
around bombings whether in Gaza or the market places of Iraq. The
spirit of independent journalism was alive and well and new technology
assisted the struggle to avoid the censors. Alan Fisher, Al Jazeera’s
English correspondent, was convinced that governments were losing the
battle because there were more news outlets than ever before and more
ways to access the truth. A blogger in Baghdad with a “clapped out
computer and a dodgy generator” had continued giving a street view at
the height of the conflict in Iraq. “Technology, so long the Achilles
heel of the modern news media, is now one of our biggest assets,
because cameras, mobiles phone, computers etc are getting smaller all
the time. And people giving us eye witness accounts are one of our
biggest assets”.

Realising that the “shock and awe” of his opening remarks about the
military’s prowess in taming western media had made life difficult for
those speaking against the motion, Jamie Shea did commiserate with
journalists. Once a conflict was over journalists moved in and started
their investigations but at the very moment the media had access,
governments “switch off their media operations and move on” which
often meant information was difficult to obtain.

The media had not been helped by the decline in specialist defence
correspondents.  “All too often they have been replaced by generalists
who don’t have the expertise to ask the right question or know where
to find the information.  I do believe in governments putting more
people into their media operations…Governments are not firing press
officers but in an economic down turn, newspapers are firing
journalists…I do hope the media put in more people as well in order to
balance it out."  “Governments should only win the media battle in non-
democratic states", he said; "in democracies they should be up some of
the time, down some of the time…This is a cricket match which requires
checks and balances and opposing forces. What governments are doing to
improve media operations is not sinister; it is not sinister to
finance public information; ninety per cent of the information which
goes out is accurate and is of use to journalists…But if governments
are not held to account, they will become uneconomical with the truth”.

When it came to the vote, the motion that “governments at war are
winning the battle of controlling the international media” was
approved by 38 votes with 15 against and nine abstentions.

END

...

Video of the Debate:

http://frontlineclub.com/events/2009/05/2009-world-press-freedom-day-debate-governments-at-war-are-winning-the-battle-of-controlling-the-int.html
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