Educating the Media

Well, the blogosphere is a-twitter about the NY Time's article about retired military officers being "influenced" by officials in the Pentagon in an effort to shape television coverage about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.

Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military leaders, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters, records show. They have been taken on tours of Iraq and given access to classified intelligence. They have been briefed by officials from the White House, State Department and Justice Department, including Mr. Cheney, Alberto R. Gonzales and Stephen J. Hadley.

In turn, members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access.

The outraged bloggers include Glenn Greenwald, ThinkProgress, Phil Carter, and Fixer at Alternate Brain - the nicer comments they made were "puppets." I have to side with LTC Bob Bateman, however, and say that they - and the NY Times - are off base.

Any hope that there might critical thinking vanishes in a cotton-candy poof of intellectual smoke when one realizes that the Times is seriously contending that we readers should believe that these retired generals and other officers were swayed by, well, see it yourself: "In interviews, participants described a powerfully seductive environment — the uniformed escorts to Mr. Rumsfeld's private conference room, the best government china laid out, the embossed name cards, the blizzard of PowerPoints, the solicitations of advice and counsel..."

Wait a second…you mean that the “participants” called it “powerfully seductive”? No, look closer, that word “described” means something. It means that they said no such thing and that the reporter is interpreting the scene for us plebians because, you know, we’re not qualified on that count.

We should instead just take the reporter’s word for it that men who just spent several decades dealing with all that same stuff as a course of their normal daily lives (the General Officer’s mess in the Pentagon anyone?) are now suddenly "seduced" by "uniformed escorts" (ooooh, ahhhhh...such pretty uniforms, I am sooooo flattered), flatware and embossed cards. Oh, and I bet they were just bowled over by that new invention, the PowerPoint briefing. Bet none of them ever saw nuthin' like that.

Here's the thing. We're talking about general and flag officers with 35-plus years in their careers, who in many cases have friends and former subordinates still in the business and therefore access. In their retired lives, they have the opportunities to advise industry, academia, pretty much anyone they want on defense issues based upon their recognized talents (say what you will, four-star officers are not stupid - maybe arrogant or other descriptors). On the other side, OSD knows that they need good press, and they know that the television news media likes retired military officers to make points on their shows.

So of course these retired officers, when briefed by Pentagon officials on current military issues and when wooed by media managers to show up on their news hour, are going to appear as informed experts. This doesn't mean that they're misleading the media or the public, trying to build up business profits for themselves, or doing the bidding of OSD civilians. In many cases, they aren't even talking about the war. In fact, I'm sure that they could tell OSD to screw off if they didn't want to talk about the issues. And it's not like we can have active duty officers offer their opinions on television - they might be viewed as the real "puppets."

If there's any fault here at all, it isn't that of the general and flag officers. The media, in any forum, have the responsibility to vett their sources and to critically examine the facts. If they think that they're getting snowed by these retired officers, then they have the control and the power to inform the public of any potential conflicts of interest. But that would mean that the media would have to THINK objectively before taking a major news story about the war onto the air. And we all know they can't do that, based on past history. Hell, they don't even vet the political analysts and their connections to campaigns.

UPDATE: The D-Ring concurs.

Comments

[Fixer]

To me, this is behavior I'd expect from flag officers. It takes a lot of ass-kissing and soul-selling to make it to the flag ranks to begin with. I don't give a damn if they make money after their retirement, good on 'em, but when they're in a role of 'objective' or 'impartial' commentator to the American public, their relationship to those who would profit (on many levels) from such a 'war' should be disclosed. If I'm selling bullets and someone asks me whether it's a good thing to start a war, when in Hell you think I'm gonna say?

[James]

From the article:

"In turn, members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access."

and

"It was them saying, ‘We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you,’ ” Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst, said."

and

"As conditions in Iraq deteriorated, Mr. Allard recalled, he saw a yawning gap between what analysts were told in private briefings and what subsequent inquiries and books later revealed."

Sooooo...with decades of experience in dealing with Pentagon dog-and-pony shows, they listened intently to what they were being told, then marched down to the studios to repeat it verbatim to a public conditioned to feel awe in the presence of a trusted authority figure. But LTC Bateman doesn't think that's going to undermine public trust in military officers, even if many of those officers now acknowledge they suspected they were being lied to at the time but made no independent analysis of what they were being told, even though they were being introduced, quite literally, as analysts.

I'll admit the media is at fault for allowing themselves to be played, but I don't think we should absolve the players. This kind of insider back-scratching is corrosive. The media fails to do its job and the public begins to feel betrayed not just by the politicians, who are expendable, after all, but by the professionals who staff the military and other agencies of government. If a retired general presents himself as an independent analyst he compromises his reputation and those of his fellows by behaving as a shill.

[J. Tyler Ballance]

Flag Officers most often get to become Flag Officers because they are accomplished at parroting the Administration's line of bullshit. Whether the crap de jour is, "Women in Combat" "Diversity" or "Don't Ask Don't Tell" most of those who ascend to Flag rank have done so by showing themselves to be malleable to the winds of political change. Unfortunately, our system pushes the military politician to the top in place of those who exhibit the ability to win wars.

Few are accomplished truth tellers and even fewer are accomplished tactical or strategic leaders. When a fellow comes along who tells it like it is, like Admiral William "Fox" Fallon, the politicians quickly insist that he shut-up and retire, lest the public hear the truth.

[J.]

Yeah I knew I was going to take some flak on this. Look, let me make this real simple. I read the articles, I saw the interactive vid on NYT. It may amaze you that retired generals and admirals actually believe in the military institution, even as Rumsfeld tore it down and tried to rebuild it. Even as the war was an unjustified invasion and followed with a botched occupation, there is this desire by us former military persons that the US military suceed with its objectives (despite the inane political masters that we have to serve).

That said, I don't think that any one retired general "marched down to the studios to repeat it verbatim" in a desire to retain access to the Puzzle Palace and its Perfumed Princes. Maybe some of them did, who knows, but I think it's a mischaracterization to assume that they ALL did or that they ALL willfully drank the kool-aid.

No one stopped the media from calling on Zinni, Obom, Batiste, Newbold,MacGregor, or scores of other retired officers with known opinions contrary to the administration's position. This criticism of OSD's "campaign" to use retired general officers as spokespersons strikes me as disengenuous - what about when Newsweek hires Karl Rove as an "independent" political analyst or when CNN hires (shudder) Tony Snow as an "independent" political analyst? Certainly those appointments ought to be much more scandalous than this NYT "outing".

[James]

Well, I will agree that the NYT is definitely the pot calling the kettle black. But the practice of using ex-flag officers as in-house military analysts has long needed debunking. Their cachet and credibility is based upon presumptions of their experience, integrity, and insider credentials.

The heart of the story remains sound, in my opinion: their experience may not be applicable; their integrity may be compromised by unstated conflicts of interest; and their "inside sources" are often nothing more than the same daily briefings everyone else gets, but given in more elegant surroundings and salted with a few choice details to make them seem more knowledgeable on the air. It's all very clever and very deceptive. Exposing how that machinery works is crucial to educating the media, so that future editors and producers do a better job of vetting their analysts.