Reason.com
New at Reason
Matt Welch gets the news straight from Voice of America: We're fighting the last propaganda war.
Most Popular Stories
- 5 Classic Teen Sex-and-Drug Freakouts: Rainbow Parties, Butt-Chugging, And So Much More (By Which We Mean Less) (5.27)
- Government Beneficiaries and Other Fairy Tales (5.26)
- Are We Headed for a Fight with China? (5.28)
- Lessons From the United Fruit Company (5.28)
- Do Organic Consumers Shop Exclusively at the Jerk Store? (5.26)
Reason RUPE: Public Opinion Survey
- Reason-Rupe: Wisconsinites Favor Increasing Public Union Retirement Contributions to Address Budget Deficit (5.25)
- Reason-Rupe Poll Finds Support for Public Union Reforms (5.25)
- New Poll: Obama Leads Romney In Wisconsin, But Gary Johnson Could Impact the Race (5.24)
- Wisconsin Recall: Walker Leads Barrett 50-42 Among Likely Voters (5.24)
- Reason-Rupe Poll: Walker Leads Barrett 50-42, Obama Leads Romney 46-36 (5.24)
advertisements
Reason on Facebook
Reason on Twitter
Reason on YouTube
Reason RSSGet Reason E-mail Updates!
Manage your Reason e-mail list subscriptionsSite comments/questions:
Media Inquiries and Reprint Permissions:
(310) 367-6109
Editorial & Production Offices:
3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd.
Suite 400
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 391-2245
Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment or disable your ability to comment for any reason at any time.
|2.27.06 @ 4:56PM|#
As an aside, could someone explain why, over a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the government is still funding Radio Free America/Europe? Excepting Belarus, it's not like people in Eastern Europe lack for private US media.
|2.27.06 @ 4:56PM|#
How about the propaganda that is pumped to us everyday by the AD Council whose motto is " effecting positive social change". About 40 to 50 times a day they tell you when and why to wipe your ass and don`t leave your children and small pets locked in the car when it`s 95 outside. I`d say Orwell`s nightmare is HERE.
|2.27.06 @ 6:17PM|#
�Muslims generally and Islamists specifically do not lack for reliable information." --Daniel Pipes.
Matt, what what does this mean? Does it mean that the most widely read and watched media in the ME provide reliable information (at least in Mr. Pipes' view), as opposed to, say CNN or the BBC? Somehow, I doubt it. From a Psy-Ops perspective, isn't the real issue here how to get the information to the audience? Who cares if a person could get the truth if they made the effort; what if they don't make the effort? Are Mr. Pipes (and you) saying we shouldn't try to reach them anyway?
You seem to be advancing two different arguments here. One, cold war style broadcasts by US funded entities won't work, and two, that it is wrong to pay off ME journalists to publish stories.
I think I buy the first argument: if a big chunk of the Arab public reads newspapers and watch television that supports their ideological point of view, who cares that they could watch the "Voice of America" and get the "right information", if they aren't interested?
I'm not sure where you are going with the second point. Given the extensive palm greasing that goes-on in the ME, why not pay for placement of stories in widely-read publications there? Sounds like a very smart and effective strategy to me. What is the downside, in your view?
|2.27.06 @ 6:29PM|#
"Given the extensive palm greasing that goes-on in the ME, why not pay for placement of stories in widely-read publications there? Sounds like a very smart and effective strategy to me. What is the downside, in your view?"
Well, first-off, two wrongs don't make a right. No matter how much "palm-greasing" goes on in the middle east (that's debateable), that doesn't make it okay for us to join in on the wrongness. Did you're mother ever say to you, "it's wrong to lie...unless others are lying too. Then it's ok." ? I doubt it. So, on a principled level, that's the downside.
Secondly, because the premise of our democracy is open and accountable government. And when the general populace of these countries finds out that we've been "greasing the palms" (which they inevitably will), it undermines whatever trust they may have had in our culture.
timekeeper|2.27.06 @ 6:31PM|#
The Bush administration is fighting the last propaganda war because its opponents (both the terrorists in Iraq and domestic opposition) are using the same tactics that were successful during the Vietnam War years. The difference this time is that the administration and its supporters are aware of the success of the opposition's tactics 30 years ago, and are not going to let the terrorists set the narrative in the media without a fight.
|2.27.06 @ 6:32PM|#
"it undermines whatever trust they may have had in our culture"
Arguably more importantly, it undermines trust in the free press.
|2.27.06 @ 7:48PM|#
Given the extensive palm greasing that goes-on in the ME, why not pay for placement of stories in widely-read publications there? Sounds like a very smart and effective strategy to me. What is the downside, in your view?
There's a huge difference between assisting journalists friendly to your point of view and planting blatantly false stories in the press.
|2.27.06 @ 8:14PM|#
The bottom line is that the only way to earn trust is to act in an open and transparent manner. Yeah, I know, they currently don't trust us, so in the short term they're unlikely to give much credence to news stories that are stamped "Made In America."
But we've been told by Our President that this is A Long Struggle. If you believe that we're in a long term conflict, isn't it better to take the long view and recognize that openness and transparency are the only way to earn respect? Not to mention that Our President has also said that the key to winning this struggle is the establishment of liberal regimes in the Middle East. Openness and transparency are generally considered key traits of liberal regimes.
Finally, some of the planted stories described in the article were pretty obviously planted propaganda. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Arabs are able to spot that bullshit from a mile away, given that they've probably been exposed to a bit of it. If so, then not only are pay-per-print articles a bad idea in the long term, they aren't even useful in the short term.
If we take the administration at its word concerning the duration of the conflict and the nature of our goals, then these paid articles are not the way to achive the goals. And even if we don't believe anything that they say, the paid articles are still a bad idea because they fail to achieve short term good, if we're foisting obvious propaganda on a jaded populace.
|2.27.06 @ 8:43PM|#
Matt Welch wasn't gone long! Welcome back Matt! We missed you!
Didya not pass that wizz test :)
|2.27.06 @ 9:26PM|#
"Given the extensive palm greasing that goes-on in the ME, why not pay for placement of stories" etc.
Isn't this precisely *why* pro-US media should avoid palm-greasing -- to establish themselves as a more credible source than the usual Middle Eastern media.
I once knew a Kuwaiti with various anti-West views (Rushdie had it coming, etc.) but who looked to *Western* sources to find out about the history of his region, because indigenous sources (so he thought) were unreliable.
If the point is for pro-US media to become just as unreliable and lacking in credibility as the anti-US media, then by all means the Bush administration should continue on its policy of under-the-table payments. But there's actually an opportunity for pro-US media to develop a superior reputation.
I'm thinking Fox News and other private American sources will be better able to built trust over there than indigenous publications whose pro-US slant will tend to get blamed on bribes. What a pity!
|2.27.06 @ 9:59PM|#
The difference this time is that the administration and its supporters are aware of the success of the opposition's tactics 30 years ago, and are not going to let the terrorists set the narrative in the media without a fight.
Let's see - in the late 60's the Johnson and Nixon Administrations lied to the American public about what they were doing, got caught at it, and thereby forfeited the media and public support that up until 1968 was generally forthcoming. Therefore, the Bush Administration will avoid that mistake by paying journalists to lie for it instead - brilliant!
|2.27.06 @ 11:00PM|#
Propaganda war? Is that in any way related to the civil war that we read about here and elsewhere last week? I'm guessing the answer is yes and no.
|2.27.06 @ 11:37PM|#
Matt, my condolences to you and your fellow LATimesees on Chandler's death.
|2.28.06 @ 7:19AM|#
For all of you who believe our government should not engage in propaganda as part of the "war on terrorism", and that it is ineffective, I recommend reading this for another point of view: http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htiw/articles/20060227.aspx
I don't necessarily disagree with the argument that progaganda (not necessarily false stories)is counter-productive, but generalized statements about its ineffectiveness, or its being inconsistent with a free press, are obvious and not what I am interested in knowing about. I want to hear more specifics about what our government is doing and whether it is effective or ineffective.
|2.28.06 @ 9:01AM|#
Ron-
I'm willing to consider the possibility that a skillfully executed propaganda campaign could produce short term results. The problems are:
1) Some of the paid articles seem to be fairly clumsy things that just scream "PAID SHILL! PAID SHILL!"
2) As I've pointed out, and as you seem to agree, in the long term this is not the way to build a liberal society with a free press and transparent institutions. If our long term security interests depend on the rise of such liberal societies in the Middle East, then paying under the table for press articles run counter to our lon term security interests.
|2.28.06 @ 9:55AM|#
Do they broadcast Iraq's Funniest Home Videos or the Home Shoplifting Channel?
|2.28.06 @ 10:51AM|#
Thoreau: Actually, I suspect that properly planted articles may be very effective in the Middle East, but I am not really in any position to have an opinion on that. What makes me open to the possibility that the strategy may have some validity is that the sophistication of the audience likely does not come remotely close to that of Western audiences, who seem to repeatedly fall for negative campaign ads in spite of all the different media outlets which reveal all of the distortions and outright lies they contain (or, if the ads don't work, there are a lot of very stupid campaign contributors and politicians out there--wait, what am I saying?). I am not saying that propaganda disguised as news is the same thing, but I think it says loads about the level of sophistication of the man in the street. Then, when you consider that in the Middle East it is not unheard of for 2 million people to live literally on top of an active garbage dump (near Cairo), I suspect that we are not talking about trying to reach the literati with these efforts.
The real issue, which Matt doesn't address directly, is what if the "planted news" campaign actually works, or could work, if managed properly? I know the press has made much of the planted false stories, but what about planted true stories, like the ones mentioned in the article I gave the link to above? I think most of the potential problems with publishing false stories are probably self-policed by the competitive press marketplace, as we have seen in the examples you mentioned. If the way to get your message to the man in the street in Damascus involves paying someone off, is it so profoundly immoral to disguise the source of the news that we are willing to give up our ability to pursue a potentially fruitful line of communication?
Since the CIA has apparently been doing this stuff for years, I would hope that they are getting better at it with all of the practice they have had, but who knows.