| Number 462 | September 2, 2010 |
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This Week: Internalized Public Relations
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Greetings, It's another double issue this week. For those of you who are new to the Notes, I try to make each issue come out to about 2,000 words, which means that the paper edition is just 4 pages long. The issues that I call "double" issues come to about six pages. It's a double issue this week because this idea of Internalized Public Relations took me a while to sort out in my head. Hopefully it is sorted out enough that it makes sense to you! I've been on a Propaganda and Public Relations theme for a few issues now. I think this may be the end of it for a while. Although, in a sense, I'm always talking about Propaganda, since I'm so interested in how mind control works in a democracy. For example, how come people have such crazy ideas about Social Security? I think a discussion of that vibrant and healthy program is about due. (Yes, I said vibrant and healthy!) Stay tuned for more on that subject. Happy September. I'm hoping that the fall brings time to catch up on things. Busily yours, Nygaard |
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There are five factors in the current information environment that together constitute a sort of Perfect Storm for the promotion of certain ideas that serve the interests of powerful people and institutions. That is, they make for a Perfect Storm for the rise of Propaganda. The five factors are: 1. Shrinking Resources for Journalism. I'll go over each of them in turn. 1. Shrinking Resources for Journalism. Between 2001 and 2009 it is estimated that approximately 25 percent of newsroom staffs at the nation's newspapers were eliminated. I focus on newspapers because "most of what the public learns is still overwhelmingly driven by traditional media—particularly newspapers." That's according to the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ). 2. Power Shifting to Elite Journalists. As newsrooms continue to shrink, fewer and fewer newspapers can afford to send reporters out to see things for themselves. Former New Orleans Times-Picayune reporter Bill Walsh reported last year that "daily papers in every major American city have scaled back their Washington bureaus or closed them altogether." Walsh adds that "To save money, newspapers fill their pages with stories from subscription wire services such as The Associated Press and Reuters." In addition to wire services, many newspapers now save money by subscribing to one of the news syndicates run by the major papers, such as The New York Times Syndicate, Tribune Media Services, the Washington Post Writers Group, and so forth. For example, on the day I am writing these words, every non-local story in my local newspaper the Star Tribune comes from the Associated Press, the Washington Post, the LA Times, or simply "news services." This is a typical day, and it's most likely the same in your town. So national and international news events are now mostly reported from the point of view of the "big boys" at the big papers. Or, as former New York Times columnist Russell Baker calls them, "top-drawer newspeople." I quoted Baker a few years ago in these pages on the subject of class and its effects on journalism. He wrote in The New York Review of Books in 2003: "Today's top-drawer Washington newspeople are part of a highly educated, upper-middle-class elite; they belong to the culture for which the American political system works exceedingly well. Which is to say, they are, in the pure sense of the word, extremely conservative... This is not a background likely to produce angry reporters and aggressive editors... the capacity for outrage had been bred out of them." I have also reported in these pages on the difficulty in finding out what "top-drawer newspeople" are paid, but the minimum salary for a "top" reporter at the NY Times this year is estimated to be about $93,000.00. That puts them in the top 10 percent of income earners in the United States. In contrast, a top reporter at the Lexington (Kentucky) Herald-Leader makes just $36,000, somewhat below the median income in the United States. I'm not talking only about income, but more broadly I'm talking about the somewhat-difficult-to-measure issue of social class. Press critic David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun puts it simply, saying that "the upper strata of the Washington press corps has always come from the prep-school-Ivy-league circuit, the sons and daughters of America's ruling class." When these "sons and daughters" receive information from other members of their class, they are naturally inclined to believe them. People tend to more readily believe people who are "just like them." That's why we so often see news reports that claim to tell us what "Democrats believe," or "Republicans believe." Reporters don't know what these people "believe," they only know what they say they believe. But "top-drawer" reporters are not skeptical of their powerful sources, so they report their statements as fact. 3. Power Shifting to Official Sources. Elite journalists may still be on the job, but they, too, are being forced to work with fewer resources. With less and less time available to gather information, reporters increasingly rely on people to feed it to them. The problem is, most of the time it is fed to them by powerful, non-journalistic actors who see and/or portray events from a certain self-interested point of view. PEJ puts it this way: "Shrinking newsrooms are asking their remaining ranks to produce first accounts more quickly and feed multiple platforms [blogs, websites, etc]. This is focusing more time on disseminating information and somewhat less on gathering it, making news people more reactive and less proactive." This, in turn is "leading to a phenomenon in which the first account from newsmakers—their press conferences and press releases—make their way to the public often in a less vetted form, sometimes close to verbatim. Those first accounts, sculpted by official sources, then can rapidly spread more widely now through the power of the Web to disseminate, gaining a velocity they once lacked. That is followed quickly by commentary. What is squeezed is the supplemental reporting that would unearth more facts and context about events." What they mean by "supplemental reporting" is sometimes referred to as "enterprise reporting." In the journalism world, this is defined as "stories not based on press releases or news conferences." There is a cost associated with "enterprise reporting"—that is, what we used to call "journalism"—so we have less and less of it, and more and more of the "verbatim" passing along of what is sometimes called "spin," and which I call Public Relations. 4. Individualism as a Way of Seeing the World. Individualism is a central part of the U.S. way of seeing the world. In the realm of journalism, this leads to a number of outcomes. For one thing, it justifies and explains why reporters are so dependent on interviews with and press conferences by the people "making the news." The best sources for serious challenges to the groupthink of institutions is the workers, soldiers, and lower-level functionaries that have less at stake in the outcomes (and who more closely see what is really going on). And the best way to understand institutions and the systems of which they are a part is to de-focus on the individuals within them and observe outcomes and patterns over time. U.S. journalists rarely do these things, as they are trained to zero in on whichever individuals happen to be speaking for the institutions the reporters are covering. As a result, what we get are endless debates about who is to blame for something, or which executive can "turn things around," or who is a "strong leader." What we almost never get—due in large part to this unconscious bias towards the individual—is a serious discussion of how systems and institutions work, and how they have a life of their own. When reporters spend most or all of their time listening to and looking at individuals speaking about their personal role in events, or that of their superiors, they come to see things through the eyes of the individuals. What's wrong with that? Well... 5. Individual Identity and Psychology. Every person wants to believe they are a good/worthy/competent person. Thus, when confronted with evidence of "negative" behavior (behavior expected to meet with disapproval), most of us will take a defensive posture in the interest of retaining our idea of ourselves as good people. Within the individual, this need to be "good" requires that one's mission, agency, administration, or party maintain a positive identity, first of all with oneself. But secondly, one's public identity must be protected. And here we really get into the realm of Public Relations. No matter how heinous or criminal someone's behavior may be, if you ask them directly about it, they will almost invariably have some reason why it wasn't so bad. Maybe we tell ourselves that what we did was done in the interests of the greater good ("We had to torture those people in order to keep ourselves safe.") Or it wasn't our fault ("It was such a huge hurricane we couldn't have known that the levees would break.") Or it was out of anyone's control ("No one could have seen the housing bubble.") When reporters spend most of their time speaking with individuals who not only have this universal tendency, but also share many of their ABCs (Attitudes, Beliefs, and Conceptions of how the world works), it becomes more difficult to question the basic rationale of a policy. After all, they are being repeatedly told that the failure is due to a lack of resources, or obstruction by the other party, or the cunning enemy, or bad intelligence, or... whatever the official spokesperson is paid to say. Or actually believes. The official spokespeople, or their anonymous cronies who are so often quoted in the media, most likely do believe what they are saying. That's partly why they are there instead of someone less invested in the PR. But it doesn't really matter if they believe it, or if it's just a snow job. Either way they will spend as much time as necessary in order to maintain a positive self-identity, and to maintain their good reputation with the public. In summary, then, here is how the Perfect Storm for Propaganda works: Everyone needs to see themselves as a good person. When reporters talk to representatives of institutions that sometimes do horrible things, they thus hear these "good people's" rationalizations. Reporters resemble and relate to these people, so they easily accept the rationalizations. Socialized to see things individualistically, they think these individual perspectives are not only valid, but are the best source for "truth" about what is going on. Less well-socialized reporters might challenge these sources, but since they have failed to rise to the top of their profession (in part because they are less well-socialized), they have fallen victim to budget cuts and are out of the picture. What remains is a group of elite, well-socialized reporters relying for their (and our) information on other elite, well-socialized spokespeople and leaders whose job, and inclination, is to put their behavior in the best light possible. The predicable result? Propaganda. |
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I said in the previous article that official spokespeople, when confronted with evidence of wrongdoing, will typically engage in Public Relations, attempting to convince journalists (and thus the public) that their failure was caused by some external factor, or bad luck, or acts of God, or something—ANYTHING—that preserves the reputation of the institution under examination. This is typically accomplished by deployment of a number of fairly standard "PR Points," such as the idea that the problem is due to a lack of resources, or is due to obstruction by another party, or is attributable to an especially cunning enemy, or is due to bad intelligence, or... whatever the official spokesperson is paid to say. How much easier it would be for the Propagandist if journalists had so thoroughly internalized the desired positive attitude that they would decide on their own to make the excuses—without even being asked to do so! That is, if journalists had internalized the public relations function and carried it in their heads already. That is exactly what we often see, for the reasons outlined in the previous article. I call this syndrome "Internalized Public Relations," and the recent leak of documents about the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan offers a perfect illustration how it works. Leaking Documents, Reporting the Spin On July 26th the whistleblower website WikiLeaks released almost 100,000 secret military documents concerning the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan. The documents contain an unbelievable number of details about various crimes, failures, illegal uses of force, weird deployments of U.S. power, etc. It's pretty damning stuff. The thing to note here is that these documents were leaked, and thus were not provided by a Propagandist. Had it been an official release, major efforts would have been made to convince journalists that, as bad as the evidence may be, the military itself is good, so journalists should not take this evidence in the wrong way. In this case, in an indication of the degree to which elite journalists have internalized the needed Public Relations lessons, they took it upon themselves to make some major PR Points on their own, which can be clearly seen in the coverage during the first few days after the leaks were published. The New York Times was the only U.S. news organization offered direct access to the documents before their official release, and the Times went out of its way to imply that no one should lose faith in the military and its good intentions. (It's worth noting here that most of the reporters assigned by the Times to analyze the documents had previously been embedded with U.S. troops, either in Iraq or Afghanistan. Embedding is a relatively new PR tactic, aimed at reinforcing the desired attitudes of journalists toward the troops and their mission.) Here are a few examples of some of the major PR Points voluntarily supplied by the Times. First you'll see the PR Point, immediately followed by an exact quotation from the Times' 13,000-word report on the day of the release, July 26th. Emphasis in each quotation has been added by Nygaard. PR Point #1: A Lack of Resources. "The secret documents, released on the Internet by an organization called WikiLeaks, are a daily diary of an American-led force often starved for resources and attention as it struggled against an insurgency that grew larger, better coordinated and more deadly each year." PR Point #2: Our Allies Are No Good. "The reports paint a disheartening picture of the Afghan police and soldiers at the center of the American exit strategy. PR Point #3: Good Intentions, Bewildering Problems, Not Our Fault. "The documents show how the best intentions of Americans to help rebuild Afghanistan through provincial reconstruction teams ran up against a bewildering array of problems—from corruption to cultural misunderstandings—as they tried to win over the public by helping repair dams and bridges, build schools and train local authorities." PR Point #4: They Don't Understand Us. The Times quotes a "civil affairs official" who recommends "a public information program to educate Afghans about democracy." PR Point #5: Tragic Accidents in the Fog of War. "The reports reveal several instances of allied forces accidentally firing on one another or on Afghan forces in the fog of war, often with tragic consequences." PR Point #6: The Cunning Enemy "Documents in the Afghan archive capture the strange nature of the drone war in Afghanistan: missile-firing robots killing shovel-wielding insurgents, a remote-controlled war against a low-tech but resilient insurgency." PR Point #7: Sure, We Make Mistakes, But... "JUNE 17, 2007 PAKTIKA PROVINCE INCIDENT REPORT: Botched Night Raid" PR Point #8: It's a Heroic Effort, and It's Working "Ten members of the Green Berets would receive Silver Stars for their actions during the battle [April 6, 2008 Nuristan Province], the highest number given to Special Forces soldiers for a single battle since the Vietnam War. By Army estimates, 150 to 200 militants were killed in the battle." PR Point #9 : Whom Do You Trust? "Much of the information ... cannot be verified and likely comes from sources aligned with Afghan intelligence, which considers Pakistan an enemy, and paid informants... But many of the reports rely on sources that the military rated as reliable." (See above on "Army estimates") One other point, about U.S. "war strategy," deserves special attention, and I will turn to that now. |
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One PR Point made in the NY Times' coverage of the WikiLeaks documents story is sufficiently convoluted as to require a little explaining. Here are the words the Times wrote: "The shifting tactics of the Americans can be seen as well in the reports, as the war strategy veered from freely using force to trying to minimize civilian casualties. But as the documents make clear, each approach has its frustrations for the American effort." This paragraph makes no sense at all as far as I can tell, but let's take it apart to see if we can at least come up with a good guess as to what encoded message might be deciphered. First of all, it appears that the reporter expects readers to accept that "minimizing civilian casualties" is a "war strategy." It's not, for a couple of reasons. First of all, what the U.S. military is doing in Afghanistan is not a "war." A better word is "occupation," although it's a modified, 21st-Century kind of occupation. According to international law (The Hague Convention of 1907, Article 42) "Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army." Since Afghanistan is not directly under the authority of the U.S. army, it's not a classic, by-the-book occupation. So, who is the authority in Afghanistan? In an independent country, the population is under the authority of the police. Yet here's what the Times says that the Wikileaks documents tell us about the Afghan police: "[T]he police have proved to be an especially risky investment and are often described as distrusted, even loathed, by Afghan civilians. The reports recount episodes of police brutality, corruption petty and large, extortion and kidnapping. Some police officers defect to the Taliban. Others are accused of collaborating with insurgents, arms smugglers and highway bandits. Afghan police officers defect with trucks or weapons, items captured during successful ambushes or raids." The first reason, then, that "minimizing civilian casualties" is not a "war strategy" is that it's not a war. The second reason is that "minimizing civilian casualties" is not a "strategy." The famous military theoretician Carl von Clausewitz said that "Tactics is the art of using troops in battle; strategy is the art of using battles to win the war." So the decision to rein in the troops so they don't kill so many innocents is a tactic, not a strategy. What is the strategy, then? What is the victory that the troops are being deployed to "win"? The answer was given by the Times, in the quote above about the "risky investment." The strategy is for the United States to attempt to dominate this strategically-placed country without having to permanently occupy it. U.S. planners apparently think that this can be done by "investing" in local police, military, and intelligence forces with the understanding that they, as key institutions in a strategically important area, will accept U.S. authority while appearing to be accountable to the government of Afghanistan, and not to the Empire. (In an August 25th story, for example, the Times reported without comment that "From 2002 until just last year, the C.I.A. paid the entire budget of Afghanistan's spy service, the National Directorate of Security.") What we have in Afghanistan is a hugely corrupt administration, supported by the United States, with laws enforced by a security infrastructure that is "distrusted, even loathed" by the population but is also supported by the United States. So I think we can see the real "war strategy": To have a compliant client state in the region that accepts its role as a part of the U.S. world system. To make the point that "the war strategy" is "to minimize civilian casualties" is so implausible—irrational, really—that it's hard to believe the reporters came up with it on their own. The most positive interpretation here would be that the attempts to "minimize" the killing of innocents is a tactic in service of something that might really be understood to be a strategy. That is, military leaders can see that the mission—an ongoing occupation of a nation in the interests of creating a subservient client state in a strategically important part of the world—is hampered when innocent people are slaughtered and their deaths with a cavalier disregard for the victims (whose numbers are not even tallied by the occupying forces). While tactics in Afghanistan may have to be changed "from freely using force to trying to minimize civilian casualties," the "war strategy" remains what it has always been: To use the world's most powerful military to maintain a global Empire. |
