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

[Anthony Fenton]

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

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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