Whose Line is it Anyway May 1, 2008
Posted by Truth Be Told in Military and the Media.Tags: Air Force bloggers, Army bloggers, bloggers roundtable, magharebia, Marine bloggers, mawtani, Military and the Media, Military bloggers, military in Afghanistan, military in Iraq, Military Spokesman, Navy bloggers, Public Affairs, setimes, Soldier blogs, VOA, voice of america
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The Department of Defense now hosts three foreign language news and information websites with perhaps three more under development. Some journalism and political critics charge the Pentagon with conducting deceptive operations by hosting websites that might be received as open source journalism versus a U.S. Government hosted site. The Pentagon is identified as the host on the “About” page. Is the enough?
The U.S. Government has long sponsored media outlets aimed at foreign audiences intended to promote U.S. interests. Radio Free Europe was a mainstay of the Cold War and Voice of America has been broadcasting around the world for nearly as long. The U.S. has also sponsored television programming aimed at foreign audiences. Al Arabiya has been broadcasting across the Middle East as long as Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera is funded by the government of Qatar, Al Arabiya is run by the U.S. Department of State. In fact, the State Department has traditionally run all the afore mentioned media outlets on behalf of the U.S. Government. DoS used to have a separate agency dedicated to influencing foreign publics, the United States Information Agency, (USIA). Although the agency was disbanded a decade ago in a management streamlining effort at State, the USIA mission continues as an integrated part of Embassy activities overseas.
So why all the hubbub over the Pentagon’s websites? Frankly, I believe there is adequate disclosure regarding the websites’ hosts. I routinely review who’s responsible for website content whenever I view a new site. Sometimes it’s listed right there at the bottom of every page, others are disclosed on their “About” page, still others are less forthcoming, especially sites that tout consumer products. Many websites providing product reviews are really sponsored by the products themselves and some can be darn sneaky in the minimalist ways they disclose such facts. Fine print has been replaced by multi mouse clicks by cyber lawyers.
Although communicating directly to foreign audiences through mass media platforms has traditionally been a Department of State responsibility, the Department of Defense is really no new comer. In 1999, the military launched the Southeast European Times, a website to counter, then Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s, anti-Kosovo rhetoric. By 2002 it had morphed into a news website and boosts today 800,000 hits a month. DoD’s mandate for these websites is to provide factual information to level the cyber playing field against extremists propaganda.
What’s the military public affairs professional to do? Be aware that these sites are out there. Provide non-participatory advise and guidance that the mandates for factual information are maintained. Many stories are undoubted sourced from within theater, so it’s incumbent on the PAO the provide some oversight that ensures these sties stay true to form. Finally, embrace the concept of DoD venturing out into the untested waters of ‘new media’. Observe the use of new media as a way to discover new ways to employ public affairs operations across the spectrum of new media. The Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs has a small directorate devoted to New Media. When I say small, I’m talking a dozen. These folks are breaking new ground in the venues of new and social media networking like the DoD bloggers roundtable. But, it’s going to take a while to develop and vet best practices into doctrine. Don’t wait! Take the cyber-bull by the horns and open the gate. You may get thrown once in a while, but nobody is going to do it for you. Saddle up and take a new media ride.
Air Force out of step with the times April 5, 2008
Posted by Truth Be Told in Military and the Media.Tags: Air Force, Air Force bloggers, Air Force Network Operations Center, Army bloggers, Cyber Command, Facebook, Marine bloggers, Military and the Media, Military bloggers, military in Afghanistan, military in Iraq, Military Spokesman, My Space, Navy bloggers, Public Affairs, Soldier blogs, UTube
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The “Aim High” United States Air Force has recently blocked access to most blogs. Airman and Air Force civilian employees are forbidden to access any blog site that is not officially affiliated with either the US Government or a “recognized” news media outlet. This move puts the Air Force further out of step with reality and stands to alienate a generation of young men and women so very important to the Air Force, their current and further Airman.
The Air Force Network Operations Center recently instituted a block on all sites containing ‘blog’ in their URL as well as multitudes of other sites based on subjective content review. Many legitimate and even official government sites have been caught up in the dragnet. In an article published on Wired Blog Network February 27th, AFNOC spokesman stated, “Often, we block first and then review exceptions,” said Tech. Sgt. Christopher DeWitt.
DoD has blocked other sites like UTube, My Space, Facebook and others stating access to these sites can drain too much band width on government servers, but there is also an undercurrent impression that service members waste government time on these sites when they should be pressing their noses to the grindstone. Truth Be Told, countless hours of government time is lost on uniformed and civilian employees perusing internet sites like USA Today, ESPN, Monster, Craig’s List, Drudge Report, etc… purely for personal interest. Not that long ago, I was dabbling with the thought of retirement from government service and posted my resume on Career Builder. I regularly checked my resume alerts at work. Nobody is out to block those sites.
Archaic a policy that it is, how does this affect military public affairs? The services senior leadership have been enlightened to the revelation that, times, they are a changing. Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, former spokesman for US forces in Iraq and now the Chief of the Army’s Combined Arms Center recently posted in his official blog that soldiers should be encouraged to blog. He also is a proponent of soldiers posting video on UTube, although soldiers cannot access UTube from their government computer. Other members of the DoD senior leadership echo Caldwell’s view.
What the AFNOC has done to the Air Force is say to their Airmen, we don’t trust you. We want to restrict your access to the world around you. We can’t restrict your internet access at home, but we sure can at work.
That leaves a pretty negative impression on the 18-25 year old airmen whose knowledge base of information gathering is one of unfettered freedom. How does the Air Force PAO encourage airmen to tell the Air Force story through blogs without coming off as a hypocrite?
This all leads back to two organizations with competing priorities, professional communicators and computer network organizations. Every service has their own AFNOC agency for network control and security. They all have the same self interest priorities. Preserving bandwidth and providing information security. Both are extremely important to the military’s need to communicate, but they are very narrowly focused on what their coveted bandwidth is used for. Professional communicators require a wider variety of access to communicate the military’s value to a global public. The former own the networks the latter require, so guess who has the upper hand.
AFNOC’s move to block the majority of blog access sets a two steps backwards precedence. It’s not likely that other services will follow in the Air Force’s footprints because I believe the sister services have adopted a more open approach to new media. I do think Air Force PAOs have had their wings clipped and the ability of the Air Force to communicate their messages to both internal and external audiences have been compromised. As time goes by, I should hope the Air Force will realize the negative impact this policy will produce and back off to one degree or another. In the mean time, Air Force PAOs will be forced to struggle through the roadblocks facing them making little progress in communicating through new media as they watch their Army brethren steadily rolling along.
Always leave them wanting more February 26, 2008
Posted by Truth Be Told in Military and the Media.Tags: Air Force bloggers, Army bloggers, Marine bloggers, Military and the Media, Military bloggers, military in Afghanistan, military in Iraq, Military Spokesman, Navy bloggers, Public Affairs, Soldier blogs
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It’s an iconic phrase in the entertainment industry encouraging the performer to never fully satisfy the audience less, he have nothing more to offer in the future. That phrase does not work as well when describing Army Doctrine. In an era where the tenants of warfare are changing at a breakneck pace and we are threatened with our own obsolescence if we don’t create, practice and validate Army doctrine that works not only for this current conflict, but for the next, and next and next conflict down the road, we want and need clear, tangible, unambiguous doctrine that will resonate throughout our Army. “Close but no cigar,” also comes to mind.
Field Manual 3-0 “Operations” is out in approved final draft with a planned publication date of February 28, 2008. For those non-Army readers, FM 3-0 is in a sense the “Owners Manual” for how-to operate your United States Army. In broad terms, this manual provides the fundamental “how to” for the Army to train, equip and fight our nation’s adversaries in the 21st century. The 217 page volume is undoubtedly a good publication, (I’ve only had time to concentrate on Chapter 7 as it relates to public affairs) the Army has invested a lot of gray matter into developing a road map that keeps the Army relevant in our national defense into the next millennium. Chapter 7, Information Superiority, is also well thought out and, I dare say, more congruent than earlier draft versions I have read. Truth be Told, some of the Army’s proponents, with an investment in the information fight, had been trying to hoard as much of the Information Superiority pie as they could grab and that was reflected in previous draft versions. The Army got it about right in this chapter. Well, almost…
Missed it by that much – Maxwell Smart
For all the 217 pages of sage doctrine within FM 3-0, my angst might seem inconsequential since it boils down to the ambiguity of merely two sentences in two separate paragraphs. But what these two sentences lack in word count in respect to the entire FM, speaks volumes to the unresolved issue. In the descriptive paragraph defining what Public Affairs brings to the Information Superiority fight, paragraph 7-14 states, … “Specifically, public affairs facilitates the commanders obligation to support informed U.S. citizenry, U.S. Government decision makers, and as operational requirements may dictate, non-U.S. audiences.”
In the very next section regarding the mission of Psychological Operations, paragraph 7-16 directs, …”Commanders focus psychological operations efforts toward adversaries, their supporters and their potential supporters.”
OK, here’s the rub. Abbott and Costello’s legendary baseball routine exemplifies the quagmire imposed by ambiguous definitions where the receiver (Costello) simply cannot comprehend the sender’s (Abbott) team line up because the players names are misunderstood as common words, “Who, What, Why, I don’t know”. So here’s my dilemma…
Who are the non-U.S. audiences as apposed to our adversary’s potential supporters?
What differentiates a non-U.S. audience receiving public affairs messages in a Global Information Environment (GIE) from an adversary’s “potential” supporters being targeted with PSYOP messages?
Why couldn’t we resolve the fundamental point of contention between Public Affairs and Information/Psychological Operations?
I don’t know – “Third Base!”
We, PAOs, IOs, PYSOPs, Effects Coordinators, and all the other cats and dogs that have a finger in the Information Pie will continue to wrestle with the ambiguity of this one, most important point, vying to define it on their own terms. I’m no less opinionated.
Public Affairs is responsible for all non-U.S. audiences communicated through traditional media and new media forums to include, what many military leaders like to think of as, “local media”. Period. Whether they be friendly, or the adversary’s supporters/potential supporters, if they are communicated with through any forum of open source, public domain medium, the responsibility falls on public affairs. Unfortunately, that is not the practice in much of both theaters of operation.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, Information Operations staffers and PSYOP members are directly interfacing with host nation media and in many cases representing the Army as the “official liaison,” unrestricted by the DoD Principles of Information that ensures the Army’s credibility. The IO guys believe they should own host nation media so they can have access to those “potential supporters” they have the authority to influence with, less than completely truthful, material.
Truth be Told, converse to the adage all politics are local, all media is strategic. Every message that reaches the public domain has the potential to reach all audiences. Do we want or need PSYOP messages injected in an Anbar newspaper reappearing on FOX’s Family & Friends? The PYSOP message injected Today (“Catcher”) in a supposed local media becomes Tomorrow’s (“Pitcher”) news fact for American consumption. The media discovers the untruth and demand to find out Who’s (“on First”) to blame, What’s (“on Second”) going to be done about it. I don’t know – “Third Base!”
FM 3-0 is a good document and much needed as our Army enters 21st Century warfare. This one ambiguous point however will continue to hamper our grasp of the Information fight. I charge all public affairs professionals with the task to stand up and be counted in this debate to bring it to its proper resolution.
I’ll have made Field Manual 3-0 Operations, available as of March 13, 2008.
The mystical Editorial Board February 10, 2008
Posted by Truth Be Told in Military and the Media.Tags: Air Force bloggers, Army bloggers, Editorial Board, key publics, Marine bloggers, Military and the Media, Military bloggers, military in Afghanistan, military in Iraq, Military Spokesman, Navy bloggers, Op-Ed, PAO, PRWeek, Public Affairs, Soldier blogs
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Fourteen years as an Army Public Affairs Officer and Editorial Boards have always been an enigma to me. Truth be Told, until recently, I didn’t realize how much I did not know about Editorial Boards. Last October I attended my first Public Relations Society of America conference, Philadelphia, PA. Among the dozens of first-rate seminars, the Editorial Board panel was the most eye opening.
As a former student of the Defense Information School http://www.dinfos.osd.mil/ and now a faculty member, I know for a fact that we don’t teach soon-to-be public affairs officers how to navigate the Ed Board beyond defining what it is. Although I believe myself to be well versed as a PAO, I have never pitched an Ed Board myself. More enlightening was that when I polled some of the most senior military public affairs officers in search of Editorial Board examples for inclusion in new curriculum, I found that Ed Board experience was more the exception than the rule.
The article in the January 7th issue of PRWeek, the professional weekly for the Public Relations Industry, offers some good tools the PAO might use in the endeavor to get published in the editorial page of the major newspaper in your market.
How can you and I leverage the editorial page? First we have to narrow our commander’s bucket full of good ideas and key messages to a topic that can find roots in the Op-Ed page. Good news stories are for the news pages. Editorials have to delve deeper, go beyond the command messages and self-promoting themes. Pick a topic that the public and the newspaper have developed an interest in through previous “news” coverage and then find the issue that is both important to your command and relevant to the public. If you intend to pitch the topic to the Editorial Staff for one of them to write about your issue, then your command must be prepared to open the back door and let the writer, like one of the family. If you choose to present the Ed Board with a submission, you must choose the right messenger and detail the message.
Ed Boards frown on PR guys writing copy. Although military PAOs are not usually looked upon with the same suspicion, we’re still too close to being the ‘fox in the hen house’ for most Ed Boards to happily print our bi-line on their Ed page. Employing a senior leader is a solid approach. He/she carries the credentials of representing your command and a certain amount of influence on the board merely by their position. However, the best opportunity may lie in engaging the support of a key figure in the community to write your Editorial. We all have them. Local influential people we refer to as our “key publics”. They are not only friends of the fort/post/base, they are also recognized members of the community and likely know, and/or are known by, the Editorial Board. These people might just be our franchise Designated Hitters that we can call to the plate when we really need that RBI.
One word of caution. Don’t let your commander confuse the difference between editorial content and opinion. Truth be Told, I’ve had several commanders wanting to submit articles the newspaper attributed to the commander or perhaps me, but those can be almost always categorized as “opinion” submissions. Everybody has an opinion (if you’re familiar with the old adage), but editorials are opinion based on merit. I recommend PAOs ply the editorial trade and share their outcomes with others. It’s a realm few of us are adept at. So, get out there and break new ground.
Shooting ourselves in the foot February 5, 2008
Posted by Truth Be Told in Military and the Media.Tags: Air Force bloggers, Army bloggers, Bronze Star, Marine bloggers, Medal of Honor, Military and the Media, Military bloggers, military in Afghanistan, military in Iraq, Military Spokesman, Miltary decorations, Navy bloggers, Pat Tillman, Public Affairs, Silver Star, Soldier blogs
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Lt. Col. Robert Bateman is an Infantry Officer and a former Military Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies as well as a former professor of History at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Although not a PAO, I’m happy to see him asking solid public affairs or rather public information policy questions of our Army.
His article posted December 17, 2007, “Is this any way to win a war” http://www.concernedjournalists.org/any-way-win-war asks such a simple question that the current Army policy seems to defy any semblance of common sense in answering.
Bateman refers to the current Army policy that blocks the release of “Narratives” for soldiers who have received the Silver Star and similarly other awards for bravery and heroism. Narratives are the detailed chain of events that occurred during combat that explains, to the individuals in the approval chain for a particular award, those acts and actions taken by that soldier warranting him/her recognition for such award. Only the upper tier of awards require a descriptive narrative, Bronze Star (for Valor), Silver Star, Medal of Honor.
the Army out of step
Other services transparently provide narratives for awards of valor, but the Army singularly restricts this information to the point of denying Freedom of Information Act requests. (see David Wood, Baltimore Sun, Dec. 9, 2007 http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-te.silverstar09dec09,0,5160472.story) What’s the deal here? How can we as a service, complain the media are not telling “our” story when we refuse access to the stories of our greatest American heroes?
you want to know what I think?
Army senior leadership still stings from debacles like Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman. Both were officially portrayed as great American heroes, puffed up bigger-than-life, one for the notoriety of being a woman the other to mitigate the public relations fallout that Army Special Forces let their famous NFL player, turned Army Ranger, get killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan. The fallout from the unscrupulous leveraging of falsified acts of heroism has been endured by the Army as an institution rather than punishing the few individuals within our institution for their sins. To further protect and insulate those individuals responsible for the above debacles and presumably for the discretions yet to come, the Army forbids access to narratives. Why? Obviously, to protect those responsible for compiling and approving those false narratives up the chain of command. Not to protect the privacy of the award nominee or those he/she risked, and in some cases, sacrificed their lives for.
Face it. We have screwed up in the past on recommendations for awards of heroism. But those are few and far between and I would envision, are limited to high profile individuals, like Tillman, that a misguided few believed PR spin is more important than the truth. I’m confident that there is no motivation to falsify narratives compiled for the average soldier whose superiors have recommended such an award purely on the basis of the heroism he/she displayed under fire. Let’s take our lumps and move on.
stand up and be counted
Bateman asks a lot of questions of our Public Affairs community, but we only deserve a fraction of the blame. It’s not PAOs who inflicted the black-eyes the Army has suffered from these spin-fiascos. It is however, our fault for not being heard at the table where these superfluous policies are made and maintained. All the uniformed services are doing their part in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the Army puts more men and women in harms way everyday, than all the other services combined. Army men & women, husbands & wives, sons & daughters, fathers & mothers are at the point of the spear by the tens of thousands 24/7, 365. Hundreds of selfless acts of heroism are preformed for every one soldier that is justly recognized for their bravery. When one of those countless acts of self-sacrifice has been ratified in an award for heroism, shouldn’t their story have the chance to be told?
What are you doing to fix it?
Snowflakes can obsure your vision November 30, 2007
Posted by Truth Be Told in Military and the Media.Tags: Air Force bloggers, Army bloggers, Donald Rumsfeld, Marine bloggers, Military and the Media, Military bloggers, military in Afghanistan, military in Iraq, Military Spokesman, Navy bloggers, Pentagon, Public Affairs, Secretary Rumsfeld, snowflake memos, Soldier blogs
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Snowflakes can obscure your vision
Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was a master in the art of deflecting, dodging and manipulating the media for his own gains. Rumsfeld’s nach for saying only what he wanted to say and propensity for browbeating journalists out of getting the answers they sought is a talent you either have and can pull off or you don’t. However, Mr. Rumsfeld’s tight grip on the media, as well as the Department of Defense, may have helped to taint the relationship the armed services have with the media. Rumsfeld’s impact on the media climate can be gleamed through some of the internal memos released earlier in November.
The memos, referred to by Defense Department staff as “snowflakes” because Rumsfeld was known to produce so many, (20-60 per day), often blanketed the inboxes of Pentagon staff like a never-ending Nor’easter. In these memos, Rumsfeld often acknowledged his distain for media criticism and an unrelenting drive to reshape the public’s view on the war in Iraq.
Rumsfeld often publicly chided the media for getting it wrong or pandering to sensationalism during news conferences held at the Pentagon, attempting to strong arm the media into seeing his view of the world. His drive to manipulate public perception extended into every facet of the Defense Department’s interaction with the media. In a series of snowflakes he directed his staff to “keep elevating the threat”, “link Iraq to Iran” and “Talk about Somalia, the Philippines, etc… Make the American people realize they are surrounded in the world by violent extremists.” Though these memos were produced over time and appear not related to any master communications campaign, they seem to reveal Rumsfeld’s will to create the perception that we are so threatened by extremists terrorism (the wolf being at the door) that the Iraq war is directly linked to our own national survival. Truth be told, there were no global terrorists in Iraq prior to the adventure we call, Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Rumsfeld’s dislike of a media institution free to disagree with his view of the world was well known and documented in many snowflakes. “I think you ought to get a letter off about Ralph Peters’ op-ed in the New York Post. It is terrible,” he wrote on Feb. 6, 2006. Later in March he ordered a point-by-point analysis and written response to the seven “mistakes” (in Rumsfeld’s opinion) columnist Trudy Rubin, Philadelphia Inquire, made in her essay contending that the Iraq war had “gone sour”. It is, of course, important to correct the record when errors in fact are made. It is a different matter altogether to pursue a course to restrict opinion or limit alternate views.
I knew colleagues in the Pentagon serving across the Department of Defense as well as within the Office of the Secretary of Defense during Mr. Rumsfeld’s tenure. Secretary Rumsfeld’s ‘snowflakes’ were both unrelenting and un-negotiable. An unrivaled workaholic, Rumsfeld wielded power standing behind a desk elevated to waist level since he rarely sits down. His memory, as active as his feet, seemed incapable of forgetting any of the hundreds of tasks he directed weekly. The Pentagon spun like a tornado throughout his tenure. Unfortunately, the vortex may have drawn so many eyes and ears into the heart of the funnel that they couldn’t see the potential pitfalls in trying to strong-arm both American and international media in order to control public perception.
As military Public Affairs Officers, it’s completely within our scope of activity to aggressively present our mission and service in the best possible light, promote the missions and objectives of our leaders and support our national defense strategy. However, we must resist the temptation to recreate circumstances, reorder events or cherry pick selected facts in order to manufacture a perception, however favorable, that is an adulteration of the truth.
Clear and definitive guidance from the top is required for any organization to run effectively. Too much guidance however, can be as troublesome to the operation of an organization, as too little guidance. The swirling vortex born and perpetuated, in part, by former Secretary Rumsfeld’s ‘snowflakes’, coupled with his desire to create and manage public perception may have contributed to the undercurrent driving military commanders to press their Public Affairs, Information Operations and Psychological Operations to manipulate the media and influence reporting that is pro-American to a fault, both inside Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a slippery slope that many leaders don’t recognize they are already sliding down to a perilous bottom. The loss of public’s confidence in the integrity of the Army and armed services is not something we can afford to mortgage. Although the Military remains the most trusted institution in American society, according to a June 2007 Gallup Poll, we must open our eyes to the risk we take in maintaining the public trust if we accept the proposition that perception of the world around us (in particularly the Global War on Terror) can and should be shaped unquestionably by the military fighting the conflict.
Making “up” the news November 20, 2007
Posted by Truth Be Told in Military and the Media.Tags: Air Force bloggers, Army bloggers, Califonia Wildfires, fake press conference, FEMA, GIE, Global Information Environment, Harvey Johnson, John Philbin, Lyle Gilbert, Marine bloggers, Military and the Media, Military bloggers, military in Afghanistan, military in Iraq, Military Spokesman, Navy bloggers, Public Affairs, Soldier blogs, those who don't know history are destined to repeat it
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Making “up” the news
Although the subject of my blog One Truth Be Told is focused on the collective assurance that the U.S. Army communicates effectively and truthfully to the American public, significant events in other government sectors, in this case FEMA, are worth examining less my Army falls subject to the same egregious errors in judgment. An important lesson should be learned from FEMA’s latest folly. “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it,” (Edmund Burke, 18th century political theorist and philosopher)
In today’s global information environment (GIE) featuring instant and disposable news, October’s FEMA faux-pas has already been relegated to ‘history’ even before the true facts of this travesty have come to light. FEMA is counting on the public’s inability to retain an issue in their frontal lobe so they can quietly let this event slip below the surface of the public’s consciousness.
In case you missed it or has already faded from short term memory, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, ravenous to capitalize on their reasonably competent response to the California wild fires, called a press conference Oct. 23 to tout their improvements over their debacle of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Only problem was, no media attended the press conference. No media, no problem. FEMA Deputy Administrator Harvey Johnson kicked off the press conference on time and FEMA staffers role-played journalists asking Harvey questions during the Q&A. This ruse duped both the media industry and the American public for the better part of 48 hours until reporters and news agencies started asking each other, if we didn’t make it to the press conference on time, who did?
You will always get caught
Journalists are appropriately likened to pack animals. So long as everyone gets access to a story, the “pack” retains its social order, but no one likes to be left out. After the FEMA press conference was aired by several TV news outlets and print articles were published by reporters only allowed to listen in on a one-way phone line, the “pack” jealously began asking around to find out just who was deft enough to make it to the press conference in person. By Oct. 25 it was apparent that nobody had actually attended the press conference and the news reports published by the media had actually been spoon fed, one way messaging by FEMA staff. When a foreign government issues one sided, government controlled messages, it’s most often categorized as propaganda. Hmmm. Once FEMA was ‘outed’ by the press, the excuses began flooding the air waves, all of which were caveat with ‘there was no intention to deceive the public’. Unacceptable! Deception permeated the press conference itself and continued through the failure to correct the media’s misperception of the news coverage until FEMA got caught.
Although the dissection of this train wreck has not yet been (and may never be) released, the explanations of what went wrong are so amateurish that I simply cannot fathom all those FEMA public affairs staffers involved didn’t see the error of their ways in time to stop it.
The media advisory was emailed or posted only 17 minutes before the press conference was to begin. This short notice announcement made it virtually impossible for reporters to get to FEMA headquarters before the start of the press conference.
Please pardon my ignorance
Excuse: John Philbin, Director of External Affairs and in charge of the press conference said he “thought” the advisory had gone out early enough. You were in the room John! It was obvious no reporters were present and the reporters’ seats were filled with your own public affairs staff!
Excuse: “I should have cancelled it quickly. I did not have good situational awareness of what was happening,” Philbin said. John, it doesn’t matter if you walked in at the last minute. Your staff was there during the set up and knew no reporters were present. FEMA Press Secretary Aaron Walker went through the ground rules and introduced Johnson following the standard script to reporters preceding the start of a press conference when he knew the only people in attendance were FEMA staff.
Excuse: Deputy Johnson didn’t realize he was addressing staffers and not reporters according to Philbin. Johnson called on at least one staff member by name and seemed to acknowledge knowing several others. Philbin himself asked a “reporter” question off camera that Johnson responded to.
Excuse? “No Excuse”!
Doesn’t matter how FEMA got to the fork in the road, the decision to take the path they did and perpetrate a phony press conference and pass it off as legitimate is plainly un-American. There were several other courses they could have taken.
Delay the start until news media could arrive.
Disclose to the live camera feed and those journalists that were allowed to listen, but not ask questions on an open phone line, that since no journalists were present, Deputy Johnson would give a brief statement but take questions
Cancel thing entirely because the public affairs staff screwed up the planning.
Any of these courses could have been taken to make thing right, but weren’t. Somebody in that room knew what was about to happen before it happened and they didn’t stop it. No excuse! FEMA staff clearly misrepresented themselves as reporters by sitting in those chairs (PA Staff never sit with journalists, they hover in the back) and participating in Q&A like a reporter. By allowing the news industry to carry and subsequently report on the press conference without disclosing that staffers stood in for journalists, they perpetrated and extended the lie until they were discovered.
There is no place in American society for any government agency to knowingly lie to the media or falsify an event with the intention or knowledge that those events will be falsely published by the media. Unfortunately, truth be told, our armed forces have been party to similar conduct.
Marine lieutenant Lyle Gilbert appeared on CNN Oct. 14, 2004 to discuss “significant” combat operations in Fallujah, Iraq, which were reported by CNN and other news outlets, as the beginning of the long awaited major offensive to take back the city from insurgents. The media soon accused the military of duping them in serving as a surrogate to a physiological operation since the real offensive would not start for another three weeks. Gilbert and the Marine Corps have since contended that they were in fact announcing a smaller operation as a precursor to the offensive on Fallujah, but remained vague on specifics sighting operational security. Was it a ruse or merely an unfortunate, unintended consequence that for several news cycles the media falsely reported a major operation not only to a friendly audience, but to the enemy as well? Regardless of the intent, the result was erroneous reporting of tactical benefit to the military by deceiving the enemy.
I don’t fault Lt. Gilbert, although an 18 year enlisted veteran of the Marine Corps, his junior rank left him susceptible to potential corruption by senior leadership. To his command, Gilbert could be perceived as expendable pawn. The fall guy if things didn’t work out. I have not met Lt. Gilbert, but these events are used as a case study here at the Defense Information School, where military Public Affairs Officers are trained. He has addressed the case study and has always contended that the media’s perception of a major attack on Fallujah was unintentional. I take the man for his word. I believe he did not knowingly participate in a deception campaign, however if the command did hope to use the media to push the enemy into a reaction, I do fault the officer(s) who would concoct such a truly un-American scheme. Gilbert now serves the Marine Corps in a recruiting command. His 18 year career as a PAO, over. If there was truly an intent to deceive the media, the real perpetrators are likely enjoying promotion and upward mobility. One could be a future Commandant of the Marine Corps or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The thought should make George Washington tremble in the grave.
The take-away is that FEMA’s latest debacle was intolerable, but unfortunately not an isolated incident. The responsibility of a government to be truthful and accountable to its public cannot be sidelined for convenience or expediency. Pressures to sway public opinion for short term goals threaten to erode the foundation of trust and confidence a people have in their leadership. Those of us in uniform must recognize the missteps of others and refuse the temptation to repeat them. Truth be told, it all boils down to one simple conviction, “do the right thing.”
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