Losing in the media battle space
James Lewis:
One of the problems is that Israel and to some extent the US refuse to engaged in the battle space that the enemy has declared is half the war, the media. The blogs in the US that had little at stake in the Hezballah war did a better job of exposing Hezballah media fraud and the media assistance given Israel's enemy.
In Iraq, the US has never done a consistent job of countering the enemy script that much of the media uses in describing their attacks. The media rarely mentions that the attacks are war crimes and violations of the Geneva Conventions. The same failure occurred in the Hezballah war.
There is more.Democracies can win fierce battles against totalitarian killers, and still lose on the domestic front --- via the information war. We've seen it happen in Vietnam, when millions of Cambodians and Vietnamese lost their lives as a result. And our suborned media are working overtime to make it happen again in Iraq.So it is important to understand why Israel performed so poorly in explaining its position, and the facts of the war, in the international media. The blogosphere easily out-performed Israel's public relations effort. EUreferendum has now performed one of its impressively balanced and thoughtful analyses of the problem --- which is also the Bush Administration's PR problem on a smaller scale.The answer is shockingly simple: sheer, unvarnished incompetence. The person in charge of IDF media relations does not speak English, has no experience with the international media, and apparently saw her main mission as getting the Chief of Staff's picture into the Israeli press. Strengthening the home front is a legitimate mission, but not to the detriment of getting out the international message. Israel is constantly under attack in the international press and among the transnational New Class. That is why Kofi Annan allowed himself to be photographed in front of a Middle East map with a significant omission: No Israel. So getting accurate facts out fast in response to Hezbo propaganda is hardly a luxury.
...
One of the problems is that Israel and to some extent the US refuse to engaged in the battle space that the enemy has declared is half the war, the media. The blogs in the US that had little at stake in the Hezballah war did a better job of exposing Hezballah media fraud and the media assistance given Israel's enemy.
In Iraq, the US has never done a consistent job of countering the enemy script that much of the media uses in describing their attacks. The media rarely mentions that the attacks are war crimes and violations of the Geneva Conventions. The same failure occurred in the Hezballah war.
Comments
Post a Comment