[R-G] Pentagon, media clash over control of information

[Anthony Fenton]

Pentagon, media clash over control of information

By CHRIS TOMLINSON – 1 day ago

BAGHDAD (AP) — The black-and-white video starts with a mini-van locked  
in the crosshairs and the sound of a missile launching. A ball of fire  
suddenly consumes the van and a palm grove somewhere in Iraq.

"Good shot," says a voice squawking over what sounds like a military  
radio. Before the one-minute video clip is over, two more SUVs are  
destroyed by Apache helicopters.

The video is one of dozens brought to viewers around the world by Maj.  
Alayne Conway, the top public affairs officer for the 3rd Infantry  
Division. When her unit was in Iraq, her office sent out four to six  
videos a day to media outlets around the world, as well as posting  
them on YouTube.

"You want to make sure you edit it in the right way," Conway said.  
"You have to go through the steps. ... Is this something that is going  
to make Joe Six-Pack look up from his TV dinner or his fast-food meal  
and look up at the TV and say, `Wow, the American troops are kicking  
butt in Iraq?'"

Critics say the purpose of such violent material is not to inform the  
public about what the military is doing, but to promote it. Public  
affairs officers argue that they are in a battle with insurgents to  
shape the public perception of the wars they are fighting, and they  
will use every means available to push the military's version of events.

The Pentagon now spends more than $550 million a year — at least  
double the amount since 2003 — on public affairs, and that doesn't  
including personnel costs. Public affairs officers are, in the words  
of the military's training manual, a "perception management tool."  
Their job is to provide facts but not spin to American audiences and  
the American media.

Over the past two years, the number of public affairs officers trained  
by the Defense Information School has grown by 24 percent to almost  
3,500. The military is also expanding its Internet presence from 300  
to 1,000 sites and increasing its free cable programming on the  
Pentagon Channel by 33 percent to 2,080 programs.

Along with putting out its own messages, the public affairs arm tries  
to regulate what other media put out.

In recent years, as reporting out of Iraq turned more negative, the  
public affairs department has increased its ground rules for media who  
embed with troops from one to four pages.

In mid-2008, Associated Press reporter Bradley Brooks was stepping off  
a cargo plane in Mosul en route to an embed when he saw pallbearers  
carry the flag-draped coffins of dead soldiers from Humvee ambulances  
onto a plane. Brooks talked to soldiers, who mentioned their anger  
with political leaders, and wrote a story.

Within 24 hours the military had expelled him from northern Iraq. He  
was told he had broken a new rule that embedded reporters could not  
write while in transit.

In 2008, eight journalists were detained for more than 48 hours,  
according to cases tracked by the AP, more than in any other year  
since the war began. Since 2003, the AP alone has had 11 journalists  
detained in Iraq for more than 24 hours. And a Reuters journalist has  
been detained by U.S. forces as "a security threat" since Sept. 2.

"All of these journalists, with the exception of the one being held  
now, have been released without charge. That troubles us because it  
suggests that they are not able to successfully charge these  
journalists with anything," said Joel Simon, executive director of the  
Committee to Protect Journalists.

Pentagon officials say commanders have the right to detain anyone they  
consider a threat to security, and that the U.S. Constitution does not  
apply to foreign battlefields.

"The U.S. military is going to control the battle space in which they  
operate," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told a gathering of  
journalists in April 2007. "The First Amendment provides no right of  
access to the battlefield — zero, none." Whitman's assertion has never  
been tested in court, and legal opinions vary.

The public affairs department has even arranged to fly friendly  
bloggers to Iraq and Afghanistan, according to documents made  
available through the Freedom of Information Act. The public affairs  
office decided who could take part in special "Blogger Roundtables"  
with Pentagon officials in 2005, and transcripts show that those  
chosen were overwhelmingly pro-military and repeated the information  
they heard on their own Web sites without always revealing its source.
On the Net:

     * http://www.youtube.com/watch?vPPlLXvWGivE&featurePlayList&p3B51EE9C01BFD6

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