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Embedding the Analysts: Modern-Day Propaganda?
Commentary by Bill Berkowitz | May 8, 2008
PRA Right Web rightweb.irc-
Embedding the Analysts: Modern-Day Propaganda?Over the course of the
Iraq War, the Pentagon has used hand-picked retired military officers
as "message force multipliers" to shape public opinion, a New York
Times investigation revealed last month.1 According to the report,
which was the product of a two-year battle with the Pentagon over the
release of some 8,000 pages of documents, briefers gave talking points
to the retired military men, who were then frequently showcased as
experts on war matters by various media that did not make viewers aware
of the experts' administration connections.
were generally unaware that the analysts had received administration
briefings. From the administration, these analysts received access to
top-level officials (as well as tours of Iraq and Guantanamo Bay and
the accompanying insider knowledge), which some of them then parlayed
into business advantages, for example for defense contractors for whom
they worked. From media outlets, they sometimes received payments for
their contributions. These serious conflicts of interest were not
revealed until the Times' investigation.
For this display of media manipulation, former Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Public Affairs Victoria C. "Torie" Clarke deserves the
lion's share of credit. While Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, who as
Information Minister of Iraq epitomized the clueless propagandist (he
proclaimed that Baghdad was not under attack, as images of U.S. troops
on the outskirts of the city played on a television screen behind him),
Clarke exemplifies the sophisticated, savvy operative dedicated to
spinning the war favorably for the Bush administration.
"Clarke was the Pentagon mastermind for the selling of the war and
management of the media," John Stauber, executive director of the
Center for Media and Democracy, told me. "She invented the Pentagon's
'twin towers of propaganda' that proved so effective: embedding news
media with the troops, and embedding military propagandists into the TV
media, as exposed recently by the New York Times."3
Clarke came to her post in the George W. Bush administration in May
2001, after working in the private sector as a public relations
specialist and after having served as a staffer in both the Ronald
Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. Her biography on the
website of the Harry Walker Agency, whose clients include a who's who
list of Democratic and Republican Party bigwigs, trumpets, "From the
Pentagon to the private sector, Victoria Clarke has been at the center
of some of the most historic events in the United States in recent
years." (E-mail requests for an interview with Clarke were unanswered
at the time of publication.
In her pre-Pentagon career, Clarke was president of Bozell Eskew
Advertising, an issue-advocacy and corporate communications firm; vice
president of the National Cable Telecommunications Association; and the
Washington-office director for Hill & Knowlton, the public relations
firm heavily involved in Gulf War I. She also served as the press
secretary to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), and after leaving her Pentagon
post wrote Lipstick on a Pig: Winning In the No-Spin Era by Someone Who
Knows the Game.
When she joined the George W. Bush administration as part of Donald
Rumsfeld's Pentagon, Clarke came "to her job with distinct ideas about
achieving what she called 'information dominance,'" the New York Times
reported.4
She spearheaded the idea of embedding of reporters with troops during
the U.S. invasion of Iraq. In a February 2003 memo prepared for the
National Security Council, Clarke-with Rumsfeld on board-argued that
allowing journalists to report from the front lines would give
Americans the opportunity to get the story, both "good or bad-before
others seed the media with disinformation and distortions, as they most
certainly will continue to do. Our people in the field need to tell our
story. Only commanders can ensure the media get to the story alongside
the troops. We must organize for and facilitate access of national and
international media to our forces, including those forces engaged in
ground operations." 5
But given the opportunity, Clarke demonstrated that she would prefer to
altogether circumvent reporters, who after all are generally expected
to maintain independence, objectivity, and critical thinking in their
work. Instead, she would use the military analysts to spread the Bush
message. As the New York Times reported, "Other administrations had
made sporadic, small-scale attempts to build relationships with the
occasional military analyst. But these were trifling compared with what
Ms. Clarke's team had in mind. Don Meyer, an aide to Ms. Clarke, said a
strategic decision was made in 2002 to make the analysts the main focus
of the public relations push to construct a case for war. Journalists
were secondary. 'We didn't want to rely on them to be our primary
vehicle to get information out,' Mr. Meyer said."6
Anyone who watched television news during the run-up to the invasion,
its initial phases, and the first few years of the occupation of Iraq,
was probably struck by the many retired military officers who were
given huge chunks of airtime. But no one-other than Pentagon
officials-knew that these new media favorites on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC,
ABC, CBS, and NBC had often been thoroughly briefed and armed with
talking points by the Pentagon, State Department, White House, or other
officials. The retired officers provided explanations of the action
taking place on the ground, offered justifications for administration
strategies, pointed out the hot spots in-country, and often led the
pro-war cheerleading. And whenever there was an anti-war outcry that
threatened to gain momentum-for example, in 2006 when former generals
came forward en masse to criticize Rumsfeld and his handling of the
war-the Pentagon public relations machinery would kick into gear,
briefing the analysts, giving them material with which to rebut
criticisms, and then keeping tabs on the analysts' on-air
performances.
Setbacks in Iraq-like the generals' revolt, the Abu Ghraib scandal, and
the growing insurgency-brought pushback from the Pentagon by way of a
new set of talking points for the well-schooled retirees.
Given the Bush administration'
and manage the media-buying favorable coverage for its various programs
through payments to well-known sympathetic columnists, trying to skirt
the mainstream media by giving interviews and special access to
supportive local news outlets, paying for favorable coverage in Iraqi
newspapers-one might expect that it would develop major league
messaging capabilities. But it is surprising disappointing to see the
military retirees used in this fashion.
The analysts were a group of men who were respected, knowledgeable, and
had long service records, who could reach a broad audience and
influence policy. "In a spin-saturated news culture, [Clarke] argued,
opinion is swayed most by voices perceived as authoritative and utterly
independent. And so even before Sept. 11, she built a system within the
Pentagon to recruit 'key influentials'
walks who with the proper ministrations might be counted on to generate
support for Mr. Rumsfeld's priorities."
It's difficult to know exactly what drove these men to regurgitate
misinformation and disinformation to the American public, even while
some suspected they were being used. Were the secret Pentagon meetings
with Rumsfeld the major draw? Was it the first-class trips on
government aircraft and cushy hotel stays that drew them in? Perhaps it
was the contracts that these former military officers realized they
could get for the defense companies they lobbied for, and the
consulting firms they headed? Maybe it was ego, the garnering of fame
via television face time, or maybe it was the extra cash.
One of the things that made Clarke-who left the administration in 2003
and now works at ABC, one of the networks hoodwinked by Clarke's team
of retired military officers-an effective media spokesperson is that
she is a likable mom. She isn't shrill, and she manages to maintain a
rather disarming demeanor, which was on display during her televised
press briefings while with the administration, and on such television
programs as 60 Minutes, Good Morning America, and The Daily Show with
Jon Stewart. She "revolutionized the Defense Department's relationship
with the media, humanizing the Bush administration'
and restoring respect for people in uniform," Manuel Miranda, former
counsel to the Republican former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist,
told me. "A different person in her role at the Defense Department
might have led to very different result at a critical time."8
Clarke also may have indirectly brought about a "revolution" in the way
the Pentagon does business during the remainder of the Bush presidency.
Shortly after its groundbreaking investigative report appeared, the New
York Times reported that Robert Hastings, principal deputy assistant
secretary of defense for public affairs, decided to indefinitely
suspend its briefings program "pending an internal review."9
Bill Berkowitz is a contributor to PRA's Right Web
(http://rightweb.
Sources
1. David Barstow, "The Message Machine: Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's
Hidden Hand," New York Times, April 20, 2008. 2. The Defense Department
has made available on its website all of the documents released to the
New York Times; the materials are available at
http://www.dod.
Media and Democracy, personal communication (e-mail) with the author,
April 23, 2008. 4. Barstow, "The Message Machine: Behind TV Analysts,
Pentagon's Hidden Hand." 5. Victoria Clarke, Office of the Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, "Public Affairs Guidance (PAG)
on Embedding Media during Possible Future Operations/Deployme
U.S. Central Commands (Centcom) Area of Responsibility (AOR)," February
2003, http://www.defensel
Barstow, "The Message Machine: Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden
Hand." 7. Barstow, "The Message Machine: Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's
Hidden Hand." 8. Manual Miranda, former counsel to Sen. Bill Frist
(R-TN), personal communication (e-mail) with the author, April 23,
2008. 9. David Barstow, "Pentagon Suspends Briefing for Analysts," New
York Times, April 26, 2008.
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