Reporting for Duty
HeavyHanded understands the use of propaganda. (The mainstreet media uses it all the time to prop up the Democratic party, but I digress).
In the early stages of Iraqi Freedom, after the fall of Baghdad, we were losing the propaganda war badly, in large part because of Al Jazeera, but not exclusively them. Broadcasts from Iran for example, also spreading propaganda, was hurtful to our cause. I thought then we were making a big mistake by not implementing our own "defensive" propaganda campaign. Much of the talk then from all the "experts" was about "winning the hearts and minds " of the Iraqi people. Yet, we were losing this propaganda war, simply because we were not making any effort to get our message out through a media channel.
Recently, a big deal was made of a story.....a non-story actually (we seem to be getting a lot of these kinds of non-stories from our mainstream media these days, fluffed up to something it is not) about "positive" articles being written by U.S. service personnel and published in Iraqi papers. And, supposedly, "we" paid for them. My response to this was "So?"
Well, there is an excellent piece in today's, Dec. 19th Opinion Journal by John R. Guardiano. Mr. Guardiano served in Iraq in 2003 as a field radio operator with the Marine Corps Reserve's Fourth Civil Affairs Group and is now a journalist.
Mr. Guardiano's piece, The U.S. military tells Iraqis the truth, and some call it a "scandal." takes on the 'non-story' of the stories being written and published in Iraqi papers by our service personnel. Go read it; for it is good.
In the early stages of Iraqi Freedom, after the fall of Baghdad, we were losing the propaganda war badly, in large part because of Al Jazeera, but not exclusively them. Broadcasts from Iran for example, also spreading propaganda, was hurtful to our cause. I thought then we were making a big mistake by not implementing our own "defensive" propaganda campaign. Much of the talk then from all the "experts" was about "winning the hearts and minds " of the Iraqi people. Yet, we were losing this propaganda war, simply because we were not making any effort to get our message out through a media channel.
Recently, a big deal was made of a story.....a non-story actually (we seem to be getting a lot of these kinds of non-stories from our mainstream media these days, fluffed up to something it is not) about "positive" articles being written by U.S. service personnel and published in Iraqi papers. And, supposedly, "we" paid for them. My response to this was "So?"
Well, there is an excellent piece in today's, Dec. 19th Opinion Journal by John R. Guardiano. Mr. Guardiano served in Iraq in 2003 as a field radio operator with the Marine Corps Reserve's Fourth Civil Affairs Group and is now a journalist.
Mr. Guardiano's piece, The U.S. military tells Iraqis the truth, and some call it a "scandal." takes on the 'non-story' of the stories being written and published in Iraqi papers by our service personnel. Go read it; for it is good.
posted by HeavyHanded at
9:45 PM
2 Comments:
Great article H-H. It is not that we 'pay' to have positive stories published in Iragi papers that troubles the MSM so much as it is that the stories are positive toward the U.S. As Mr Guardiano points out "What is won on the battlefield today can be lost in the media tomorrow." and our media understand that very well. A soldier who paid to have his anti-U.S. article published in an Iraqi paper would be hailed by the MSM as creative and couragious and only lament that the poor soul had to use his own money to 'get the truth out". Perhaps the MSM should just think of it as advertising the same way as they accept money from companies to say positive things about those companies products.
(My condolences to you and Mrs H-H on your loss)
By
Anonymous, at 10:14 AM
Thanks, anotmo. Glad to hear from you, as always. You make some valid points; had the stories been of an anti-American pont of view, it would have been a completely different response from MSM.
(Thanks for the condolences.)
By
HeavyHanded, at 10:27 AM
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