The information gap
Sharon Hobson, Canadian Correspondent for the authoritative Jane's Defence Weekly, Fellow of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, and winner of the 2004 Ross Munro Media Award for Canadian military journalism, has just put out a fascinating paper entitled "The Information Gap: Why the Canadian Public Doesn't Know More About Its Military" (pdf).
To those who would dismiss this effort as nothing more than a navel-gazing affair (as opposed to Ms. Hobson's regular gig: naval-gazing! Hey, you don't like my jokes, write your own...), I say that the weak link in any funding battle or overseas deployment these days is more likely to be public support than military need or proficiency. That is to say, winning the domestic "hearts and minds" campaign is critical to winning any other campaign the CF undertakes. The issue of how the military interacts with the media is therefore of prime importance, like it or not.
I suspect most Canadian soldiers wouldn't like it at all, but would admit that it's true if pressed hard enough.
Need I tell you that the entire paper is worth reading?
Some sections did stand out from the rest, though: thoughts on the embed program and why it hasn't achieved everything both journalists and soldiers hoped it would, observations about what the military should and shouldn't be talking about, a lament about the general level of familiarity with things martial of the Canadian public and the repercussions of that lack of context for the understanding of current events involving the military, and conclusions about the need to bridge the gap between the professionals on both sides of this issue - military and media.
First, an assessment of the negatives and positives of the embed program:
Educating the media is a force-multiplier, and while you can't lose sight of the end goal (an informed electorate), focusing on the end to the exclusion of the best means would be shortsighted. Thank goodness some in Public Affairs understand that.
Capt Doug MacNair, the officer in charge of the embed program, had some cogent observations about who's really driving the coverage of the CF, and one of the big reasons that coverage is lacking:
We've discussed this problem at length here at The Torch: just as thousands of commuters safely using highway 401 to commute to and from work every day in Toronto isn't news, but one big accident that kills five of them is, the steady but boring incremental progress our troops are achieving in Afghanistan isn't considered newsworthy by the suits back home. The reporters on the ground might grow to understand what's important and what isn't on the ground in Kandahar, but their bosses all too often don't.
That same problem has further consequences in terms of Canadians' general knowledge of the CF:
As Hobson notes, covering the CF isn't an easy task. It's an entire world of its own, with specialized jargon, intimidating equipment, a foreign social hierarchy, and a mandate that is so very different than that of any other organization. I've dealt with this issue too, albeit in a more casual tone than Ms. Hobson:
Of course, this is improving, as one of the side-benefits of the embed program starts to bear fruit: the education of the media on military matters. But it's not improving quickly enough, or with enough of the editors and producers who make the bigger decisions about what information gets through their filter to the public.
Some of the messaging coming out of the CF doesn't help, since in arguing the 'why' of the mission, the soldiers are seen by some of the more cynical in the media to be taking sides in a political decision about which missions are worth taking on:
The problem with pulling the average soldier out of the justification for the mission is that the average soldier can tell more compelling stories about the good work they're doing than the government can. Who will win more Canadian hearts and minds, the dusty soldier handing a soccer ball to a child and then standing up and saying into the camera "This is what makes it worth leaving my wife and kids - to be able to make a difference over here," or some faceless, grey bureaucrat spouting statistics on economic growth and percentage changes in vaccination rates at an Ottawa press conference? Unfortunately, the one way to diminish the soldier's credibility in the long-term is to tap that well too often in the short term. A nice little Catch-22, that.
Ms. Hobson sums up the crux of the problem quite nicely:
"A well-informed public..." I wonder if any of the parties involved are willing to make the investment of time and resources needed to make that reality? I have my doubts, but continue to tilt at that personal windmill here and in my everyday conversations. Whether it's a realistic goal or not, it's an important one, and so we keep trying every day...
To those who would dismiss this effort as nothing more than a navel-gazing affair (as opposed to Ms. Hobson's regular gig: naval-gazing! Hey, you don't like my jokes, write your own...), I say that the weak link in any funding battle or overseas deployment these days is more likely to be public support than military need or proficiency. That is to say, winning the domestic "hearts and minds" campaign is critical to winning any other campaign the CF undertakes. The issue of how the military interacts with the media is therefore of prime importance, like it or not.
I suspect most Canadian soldiers wouldn't like it at all, but would admit that it's true if pressed hard enough.
Need I tell you that the entire paper is worth reading?
Some sections did stand out from the rest, though: thoughts on the embed program and why it hasn't achieved everything both journalists and soldiers hoped it would, observations about what the military should and shouldn't be talking about, a lament about the general level of familiarity with things martial of the Canadian public and the repercussions of that lack of context for the understanding of current events involving the military, and conclusions about the need to bridge the gap between the professionals on both sides of this issue - military and media.
First, an assessment of the negatives and positives of the embed program:
Embedding must be recognized for what it is: an intense, narrow focus on a single aspect of a wide ranging mission. Unfortunately, media outlets too often feel they have covered the Afghan question if they have an embedded reporter filing regular reports. And the military seems to think that if it has an embedding program, it reduces the need to keep the Canadian-based media informed.
....
But even if the larger issues about CF capabilities and Afghanistan prospects were not covered in any great depth, the public affairs officers dealing with the embedding program were happy with what they had accomplished. One public affairs officer (PAffO) commented that embedding created a pro-military bias and positive news stories. But as he also noted, “measuring embedding on the basis of press clippings is an error. The real success is the growth of understanding in the media.”
Educating the media is a force-multiplier, and while you can't lose sight of the end goal (an informed electorate), focusing on the end to the exclusion of the best means would be shortsighted. Thank goodness some in Public Affairs understand that.
Capt Doug MacNair, the officer in charge of the embed program, had some cogent observations about who's really driving the coverage of the CF, and one of the big reasons that coverage is lacking:
Captain Doug MacNair, a public affairs officer with the CEFCOM, says that after the Canadian troops arrived and began operations in February 2006, "we started to offer journalists opportunities to go outside the wire, and they declined them, particularly when the casualties started to occur.” He says the reporters told him that their editors wanted them to stay at KAF "in case another person gets killed so I can cover the ramp ceremony." The reporters could keep an eye on all events from KAF because everything would filter through there, he says. If an incident occurred in the field, "the media event and the briefing and the information on what happened is all collated at a tactical operations centre at Kandahar Air Field. That's where the wounded are brought back, where the dead are returned to, where briefings happen, that's where a clear picture of what happened develops. So media became reticent to leave Kandahar Air Field." MacNair says initially he blamed the reporters for this, but he came to realize it was the editors and the outlets in Canada, "the people who decide what stories get covered and what don't."
...
MacNair says that "the biggest military-media relationship challenge we have is...the fact that reporters are just a small cog in a big machine. And they are asking people in Canada [news editors], most of who have either never been to Afghanistan or have not been there recently, or have no meaningful understanding of what's really going on there right now, and they say, 'no, that's not a story. Don't cover that'." He says this is frustrating for both the military and the reporters.
"Early in 2006, our senior public affairs officer...reported back that he was getting concerned about the development of what he called a 'bureau mentality'," says MacNair. "He was saying that this is the Kandahar bureau for these guys. They have an office, they have phones, they have Internet, and they're sitting around declining opportunities to go outside the wire in the company of soldiers and develop an understanding of what's really going on'." [Babbler's emphasis]
We've discussed this problem at length here at The Torch: just as thousands of commuters safely using highway 401 to commute to and from work every day in Toronto isn't news, but one big accident that kills five of them is, the steady but boring incremental progress our troops are achieving in Afghanistan isn't considered newsworthy by the suits back home. The reporters on the ground might grow to understand what's important and what isn't on the ground in Kandahar, but their bosses all too often don't.
Major Couture says that "a lot of the media coverage was incident driven. It gives an impression that the whole place is falling apart, and it is total hell over there, and there's no progress being made. So the main focus was always the bloody stories, the sad stories, and the negative stories." He says, "It makes you wonder, is it all worth it?"
That same problem has further consequences in terms of Canadians' general knowledge of the CF:
The public needs more than reports from journalists in Afghanistan to understand the wide-ranging impact of the mission. It needs media outlets to pull together other information such as analyses of Afghanistan's geographic and political importance, its economic prospects, and its international connections. The public needs information on military strategy and tactics, the different approaches that different armed forces take to the mission,71 and the importance of air power, as well as maps to be able to locate places such as Kandahar, Kabul, Howz-E-Madad, and Sablaghai. It needs information on the Canadian Forces as a whole, and the less obvious aspects of the mission, such as sustainment and training, and the roles performed by the navy and the air force.
...
The Canadian public certainly has a thirst for military information, as Major-General (ret.) Lewis MacKenzie discovered during the Kosovo bombing campaign in 1999. "I wrote an article a day for the Citizen from my reporting location for CTV in Belgrade. Of all the articles written, one received more favourable comment than all the others put together. It was titled 'Army 101' and explained in easily understood terms for you civilians how an army is organized and what rank commands what sized organization." MacKenzie's observation suggests the media could be doing a much better job of covering the basics of military operations and setting the context for stories. Reporters and editors who focus on little but funerals and roadside bombs transform the mission into a caricature and do the public a real disservice. By the same token, if the military wants to see its mission and its future receive serious, nuanced treatment in the media, then it must be willing to impart more information. Exactly how much more will always be a balancing act. [Babbler's emphasis]
As Hobson notes, covering the CF isn't an easy task. It's an entire world of its own, with specialized jargon, intimidating equipment, a foreign social hierarchy, and a mandate that is so very different than that of any other organization. I've dealt with this issue too, albeit in a more casual tone than Ms. Hobson:
For me, taking in the current coverage of the war in the Levant is like watching a hockey game on TV where the cameramen don't know how to follow the action; where the play-by-play and colour commentators don't know the players, the objective of the game, or how to keep score; and where accordingly, the entire focus of the broadcast is on how cold the people in the bleachers are growing as the game wears on and on, suffering without purpose as pucks fly randomly into the stands, and the crash of bodychecks shatter the fragile tranquility of the stands.
Of course, this is improving, as one of the side-benefits of the embed program starts to bear fruit: the education of the media on military matters. But it's not improving quickly enough, or with enough of the editors and producers who make the bigger decisions about what information gets through their filter to the public.
Some of the messaging coming out of the CF doesn't help, since in arguing the 'why' of the mission, the soldiers are seen by some of the more cynical in the media to be taking sides in a political decision about which missions are worth taking on:
Some of the public's confusion over exactly what the military does and what it is trying to accomplish, stems from the military involving itself too much in the “why” of military commitments and not enough in the “how.” Supporting the Canadian government's decision to support the Afghanistan government and rid the country of the Taliban is one thing, but actively engaging in speaking tours to promote the policy is confusing to the public. The government should not be relying on the military to “sell” the mission. It ties the military up in politics, resulting in accusations that Canada's involvement in Afghanistan is “Hillier's war,” and it foments fear that the military is aggressive and just wants to engage in battle. If the military wants Canadians to understand the broader outlines of what it is doing, it must be prepared to describe its activities and explain exactly how that will accomplish the objectives.
The problem with pulling the average soldier out of the justification for the mission is that the average soldier can tell more compelling stories about the good work they're doing than the government can. Who will win more Canadian hearts and minds, the dusty soldier handing a soccer ball to a child and then standing up and saying into the camera "This is what makes it worth leaving my wife and kids - to be able to make a difference over here," or some faceless, grey bureaucrat spouting statistics on economic growth and percentage changes in vaccination rates at an Ottawa press conference? Unfortunately, the one way to diminish the soldier's credibility in the long-term is to tap that well too often in the short term. A nice little Catch-22, that.
Ms. Hobson sums up the crux of the problem quite nicely:
Both professions need to re-assess. The Afghanistan mission is a huge undertaking with long-term repercussions. It reaches beyond the immediate deaths or the inadequate equipment into the future structure of the Canadian Forces. It has sucked up resources and refocused planning beyond what anyone expected five years ago. The military needs the media, and through them, the public, to understand the choices that are being made and still need to be made. The media needs to continue to question those choices in order to make sure the public gets the whole story.
...
What is needed is more imagination, both in the way potential stories are developed and in how the military responds to demands for information. Inevitably there will be mistakes, both in interpreting information and knowing whom to trust. The greater good, however, is a well-informed public.
"A well-informed public..." I wonder if any of the parties involved are willing to make the investment of time and resources needed to make that reality? I have my doubts, but continue to tilt at that personal windmill here and in my everyday conversations. Whether it's a realistic goal or not, it's an important one, and so we keep trying every day...
posted by Babbling Brooks at 5:50 p.m.
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