OCE # 2 Media (spring 06)

Instructions:
Read "War in the Information Age" by Donald Rumsfeld and "When Message and Medium Look to Fool" by Leonard Pitts

Write an essay responding to this question: What do you think of the U.S. Military paying the Iraqi media to publish pro-U.S. stories? These stories are basically true but leave out any negative references or context. They are like press releases passed off as news.

The first two articles are straight news pieces from the Los Angeles Times to give you background. You are not required to quote or refer to them, but you may chose to. 

• Refer to and quote both Rumsfeld's and Pitts' articles. Use them to back up your position as well as information to refute. No research is needed for this essay. Your first paragraph should include both article titles, authors, publications, and publication dates.
• Add your own thoughts, ideas, analogies, examples, etc.
• Assume your reader is familiar with the articles, and minimal summary is needed.
• Use more than one mode of development (such as comparison contrast, cause and effect, narrative, definition, etc) as needed to advance your thesis.
• Participating in peer editing is part of your grade. Make sure your first draft is ready on the day we peer edit. Meeting with your instructor in conference with your second draft is also part of your grade. Make sure you meet that deadline as well.
• You will edit your second draft for grammar using the checklist in your packet.
• Your essay must be typed in 12-point font, double spaced.
  
  You will turn in the 3rd draft, outline, 1st draft, peer edit sheets, 2nd draft, checklist, and grade sheets. Staple them together in the above order.
  
  Length: 450 – 475 words
   

• BACKGROUND INFORMATION
  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-infowar18feb18,1,1082213.story
  From the Los Angeles Times
  Propaganda Effort in Iraq a Mistake, Rumsfeld Says
  The Defense secretary says he ordered the planting of articles to stop after learning of it, although others have said the effort continues.By Mark Mazzetti
  Times Staff Writer
  
  February 18, 2006
  
  WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Friday criticized a U.S. military program that pays Iraqi newspapers to plant stories favorable to the American mission, and mistakenly said the Pentagon had shut down the program shortly after its existence was revealed.
  
  In his most specific comments thus far about the information operations program, — carried out by U.S. troops and a private contractor — Rumsfeld said the U.S. military should not be paying Iraqi media to publish articles, whose origin was concealed even from the news outlets.
  
  He said he had not been initially aware of the clandestine program, and ordered it shut down after news outlets published details of it.
  
  "When we heard about it, we said, 'Gee, that's not what we ought to be doing,' " Rumsfeld said Friday during a taped interview on PBS' "The Charlie Rose Show."
  
  Rumsfeld said the contractor, Lincoln Group, and commanders in Iraq were notified of the Pentagon's concerns and ended the propaganda effort.
  
  "They stopped doing that," he said.
  
  Rumsfeld's remarks were made available by PBS producers before the show aired late Friday night.
  
  One person familiar with Lincoln Group's operations, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of an ongoing investigation, said the program in Iraq was still active as of a week ago.
  
  Army Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said during a Dec. 16 news conference — more than two weeks after the existence of the operation was revealed — that it had not been shut down.
  
  "We did a preliminary assessment shortly after the [news stories] came out, and we concluded that we were operating within our authorities and the appropriate legal procedures. And so we have not suspended any of the processes up to now," Casey said.
  
  A Pentagon spokesman did not return a call seeking comment.
  
  Rumsfeld's remarks reflect a difference in attitude toward the program between officials in Washington and those in Baghdad.
  
  Shortly after the existence of the program was revealed, White House and Pentagon officials expressed concern, while commanders in Baghdad defended it.
  
  Pentagon officials say a full inquiry into the program by Navy Rear Adm. Scott Van Buskirk has been completed, but its results have not been publicly disclosed.
  
  Despite voicing concerns about the program, Rumsfeld condemned the U.S. news media's negative portrayal of it in a separate appearance Friday, saying such criticism has a "chilling effect" that discourages U.S. troops from finding creative ways to win hearts and minds abroad.
  
  "The conclusion is drawn that there is no toleration for innovation," he said in an address before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
  
  Since early last year, the secret program has planted hundreds of stories in Iraqi newspapers trumpeting the success of U.S. military offensives, the efforts to rebuild Iraq and the training of the country's nascent security forces.
  
  American troops wrote articles, called storyboards, which were delivered to the Iraqi staff of Lincoln Group. The contractors translated the storyboards into Arabic and paid newspaper editors in Baghdad to run the articles.
  
  Some senior officials at the Pentagon argue that it is hypocritical for the U.S. to promote democratic principles, freedom of speech and political transparency in Iraq while the military is paying to disseminate propaganda in that country's news media.
  
  They also say such activities violate a 2003 Pentagon directive that appears to prohibit U.S. troops from conducting psychological operations, or psy-ops, that target the media.
  
  "Psy-ops is restricted by both [Defense Department] policy and executive order from targeting American audiences, our military personnel and news agencies or outlets," says the directive, dated Oct. 30, 2003, and signed by Rumsfeld.
  
  The Defense secretary has long emphasized the importance of a "war of ideas" that must be waged on the airwaves and in schools and mosques throughout the Muslim world.
  
  Rumsfeld has argued that the U.S. government is poorly situated to explain its policies abroad, and he said Friday that the government needed a coordinated "strategic communications" effort to deliver themes and messages to often hostile audiences.
  
  "The longer it takes to put a strategic communications framework in place, the more we can be certain that the vacuum will be filled by the enemy," Rumsfeld said.
  
  His remarks drew criticism from some Democrats, who blamed the Bush administration's policies, rather than the U.S. government's inability to deliver its message, for anti-American sentiment abroad.
  
  "Nothing has done more to encourage Al Qaeda recruitment and make America less safe than the war in Iraq and the incompetent way it's been managed," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said in a statement. "Our greatest failure is our policy."
  
  Rumsfeld also criticized the media's coverage of the U.S. military prisoner abuse scandal and the detention of detainees classified as enemy combatants at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
  
  He challenged U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's call for the Guantanamo facility to be closed.
  
  The United Nations issued a scathing report on the prison this week.
  
  Annan "is just flat wrong," Rumsfeld said. "We shouldn't close Guantanamo.
  
  "There's no torture there," he said. "There's no abuse. It's being handled honorably."
  
  *
  Times staff writer Kevin Sack in Atlanta contributed to this report.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  BACKGROUND INFO
  
  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-briefs22.2feb22,1,204846.story
  From the Los Angeles Times
  IN BRIEF / WASHINGTON, D.C.
  Rumsfeld Alters Claim on Planting Iraqi Stories
  From Times Staff and Wire Reports
  
  February 22, 2006
  
  Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the Pentagon was reviewing its practice of paying to plant stories in the Iraqi news media, withdrawing his earlier claim that it had been stopped.
  
  Rumsfeld said he was mistaken in the earlier assertion.
  
  "I don't have knowledge as to whether it's been stopped. I do have knowledge it was put under review. I was correctly informed. And I just misstated the facts," he said at the Pentagon.
  
  Rumsfeld said Friday that the controversial practice had been stopped.
  
  The Times reported Saturday that, despite Rumsfeld's claim, the program had continued.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rumsfeld23feb23,1,6322828.story
  From the Los Angeles Times
  War in the Information Age
  In a 24/7 world, the U.S. isn't keeping up with its enemies in the communication battle.By Donald H. Rumsfeld
  DONALD H. RUMSFELD is the secretary of Defense.
  
  February 23, 2006
  
  OUR NATION IS engaged in what promises to be a long struggle in the global war on terror. In this war, some of the most critical battles may not be in the mountains of Afghanistan or the streets of Iraq but in newsrooms in New York, London, Cairo and elsewhere.
  
  Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but for the most part we — our government, the media or our society in general — have not.
  
  Consider that violent extremists have established "media relations committees" and have proved to be highly successful at manipulating opinion elites. They plan and design their headline-grabbing attacks using every means of communication to break the collective will of free people.
  
  Our government is only beginning to adapt its operations for the 21st century. For the most part, it still functions as a five-and-dime store in an EBay world.
  
  I have just returned from Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. In Tunis, the largest newspaper has a circulation of roughly 50,000 — in a country of about 10 million people. But even in the poorest neighborhoods you can see satellite dishes on nearly every balcony or rooftop.
  
  Regrettably, many of the TV news channels being watched using these dishes are extremely hostile to the West. The growing number of media outlets in many parts of the world still have relatively immature standards and practices that too often serve to inflame and distort rather than to explain and inform. Al Qaeda and other extremist movements have utilized these forums for many years, successfully adding more poison to the Muslim public's view of the West, but we have barely even begun to compete in reaching their audiences.
  
  The standard U.S. government public affairs operation was designed primarily to respond to individual requests for information. It tends to be reactive, rather than proactive, and it operates for the most part on an eighthour, five-days-a-week basis, while world events — and our enemies — are operating 24/7 across every time zone. That is an unacceptably dangerous deficiency.
  
  In some cases, military public affairs officials have had little communications training and little, if any, grounding in the importance of timing, rapid response and the realities of digital and broadcast media. Let there be no doubt that the longer it takes to put a strategic communications framework into place, the more we can be certain that the vacuum will be filled by the enemy and by hostile news sources who most assuredly will not paint an accurate picture of what is actually taking place.
  
  We have become somewhat more adept in these areas, but progress is slow.
  
  In Iraq, for example, the U.S. military command, working closely with the Iraqi government and the U.S. Embassy, has sought nontraditional means to provide accurate information to the Iraqi people in the face of an aggressive campaign of disinformation.
  
  Yet this has been portrayed as inappropriate: for example, the allegations of "buying news." The resulting explosion of critical media stories then causes all activity, all initiative, to stop. Even worse, it leads to a "chilling effect" among those who are asked to serve in the military public affairs field.
  
  Improving our efforts will likely mean embracing new institutions to engage people around the world. During the Cold War, institutions such as the U.S. Information Agency and Radio Free Europe proved to be valuable instruments for the United States. We need to consider the possibility of new organizations and programs that can serve a similarly valuable role in the war on terror.
  
  Although the enemy is increasingly skillful at manipulating the media and using the tools of communications to its advantage, it should be noted that we have an advantage as well. And that is, quite simply, that truth is on our side. Ultimately, the truth wins out.
  
  I believe with every bone in my body that free people, exposed to sufficient information, will, over time, find their way to the right decisions.
  
  We are fighting a battle in which the survival of our free way of life is at stake. It is a test of wills, and it will be won or lost with our public and the publics of free nations around the world. We need to do all we can to correct the lies being told, shatter the appeal of the enemy and attract supporters to our noble and necessary efforts to defeat violent extremism around the globe.
  
  
  
   

Miami Herald, The (FL)
December 9, 2005
Section: Metro & State
Edition: Final
Page: 1B
Memo:In My Opinion

WHEN MESSAGE AND MEDIUM LOOK TO FOOL

LEONARD PITTS Jr., lpitts@herald.com

Thomas Jefferson understood.
He said that if asked to choose between government without newspapers or newspapers without government, ``I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter.'' Jefferson knew that a free and adversarial press was the people's best defense against the excesses of their government and a fundamental building block of healthy democracy.

Unfortunately, that was 40 presidents ago.
The present president has a decidedly different view of the news media's role. His administration sees the press as a thing to be bought. In fact, while political manipulation of the news is hardly new, Team Bush has a long and singularly sordid record of trying to turn the media into a wholly owned public relations subsidiary.
Now they're taking their act on the road. And get this: They're doing it under the guise of building democracy. Which is rather like stealing from the collection plate under the guise of giving to the needy.
I refer you to last week's Los Angeles Times report that the Pentagon has been secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories, written by American troops, that reflect favorably upon the U.S. mission in that country. The stories, while basically factual, are reportedly written so as to flatter U.S. forces and the Iraqi government and to omit information or perspectives either might find embarrassing. These press releases are presented to the Iraqi people as independent reports by independent reporters.
One is appalled, but hardly surprised. After nearly five years of watching these folks' truth-optional approach to dealing with the public, one is seldom surprised anymore.
BUYING PRAISE
This is, after all, the same Bush administration that was caught buying praise from an ethically challenged columnist - in violation of federal laws against propagandizing the public, according to a September report by the Government Accountability Office. It's the same administration that allowed into the White House press room as a reporter an Internet porn entrepreneur who wrote for a GOP website. The same one that issues video reports favorable to its policies to be broadcast without attribution as TV news. The same one that censors and quashes its own scientific studies when they conflict with its preferred worldview.
So this is just more of the same in a new ZIP Code.
It will be argued by the usual sycophantic Bush enablers that what's being done is justifiable. We are at war, they will say, and in war it is perfectly acceptable to propagandize the enemy.
So it is. But the flaw in that logic is this: We are not at war with Iraq. We are at war in Iraq against insurgents seeking to topple the government. At least, that's the line put forth by Team Bush. Iraq, they say, is a sovereign nation to which we are simply helping bring the joys of democracy - one of which would be a free press.
That being the case, you cannot justify telling covert lies to its people any more than you can justify telling them to ours. You want to communicate something to them? Buy an ad. Drop leaflets. Put up posters. But don't produce a commercial and tell people it's news.
CREDIBILITY AT STAKE
Doing so undermines both the message and the medium. It could also conceivably encourage Iraqis to question how seriously they should take - how seriously we ourselves take - this whole notion of a free and independent press.
Indeed, one can only guess how this is playing with Iraqi journalists. After all, the messages could hardly be more mixed. On the one hand, U.S. officials are offering them workshops in media ethics. On the other hand, U.S. officials are violating the most basic media ethics with blithe indifference.
But then, it's a sour joke in the first place that the Bush administration purports to teach Iraqis how democracy works.
You can't teach what you don't understand.





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