Military journalism in the United States

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According to JP 1-02, [1] United States Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, a military journalist is "A US Service member or Department of Defense civilian employee providing photographic, print, radio, or television command information [2] for military internal audiences. See also command information. (JP 3-61)" [3]

Contents

Definition

Military journalists are part Public Affairs, defined by JP 1-02 as "Those public information, command information, and community relations activities directed toward both the external and internal publics with interest in the Department of Defense."

Command information, therefore, is just one of the responsibilities of Public Affairs set by Department of Defense policy. DoDD 5122.5 [4] sets forth these Principles of Information: [5]

E2.1. INFORMATION It is DoD policy to make available timely and accurate information so that the public, the Congress, and the news media may assess and understand the facts about national security and defense strategy. Requests for information from organizations and private citizens shall be answered quickly.

In carrying out that DoD policy, the following principles of information shall apply:

E2.1.1. Information shall be made fully and readily available, consistent with statutory requirements, unless its release is precluded by national security constraints or valid statutory mandates or exceptions. The "Freedom of Information Act" will be supported in both letter and spirit.

E2.1.2. A free flow of general and military information shall be made available, without censorship or propaganda, to the men and women of the Armed Forces and their dependents.

E2.1.3. Information will not be classified or otherwise withheld to protect the Government from criticism or embarrassment.

E2.1.4. Information shall be withheld when disclosure would adversely affect national security, threaten the safety or privacy of U.S. Government personnel or their families, violate the privacy of the citizens of the United States, or be contrary to law.

E2.1.5. The Department of Defense's obligation to provide the public with information on DoD major programs may require detailed Public Affairs (PA) planning and coordination in the Department of Defense and with the other Government Agencies. Such activity is to expedite the flow of information to the public; propaganda has no place in DoD public affairs programs. DODD 5122.5, Sep. 27, 2000

JP 1-02 defines propaganda as "Any form of communication in support of national objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of any group in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly."

The effort to counter enemy propaganda, therefore, both directly and indirectly benefits the sponsor. It has been a function of Psychological Operations (PSYOP) and not Public Affairs. JP 1-02 defines Counterpropaganda Operations as "Those psychological operations (PSYOP) activities that identify adversary propaganda, contribute to situational awareness, and serve to expose adversary attempts to influence friendly populations and military forces. (JP 3-53)" [6]

Each branch of service has regulations that further define the roles of military journalists, but in a time of war, for example, Doctrine for Public Affairs in Joint Operations (JP 3-61 [3] ) "provides joint doctrine for public affairs support during joint operations and US military support to news media in conjunction with military operations."

JP 3-61 [3] states, "PA must be aware of the practice of PSYOP, but should have no role in planning or executing these operations."

The responsibilities of Public Affairs vs PSYOP are, therefore, fundamentally different.

JP 3-61 of May 14, 1997 [7] contained no references to adversary propaganda. [8] JP 3-61 [3] was updated May 9, 2005 to include 16 references to adversary propaganda, [9] which includes this revision:

"Public affairs [9] counters [10] propaganda and disinformation by providing a continuous flow of credible, reliable, timely, and accurate information to military members, their families, the media, and the public. This capability allows PA to help defeat adversary efforts to diminish national will, degrade morale, and turn world opinion against friendly operations. PA must be engaged in operational planning, have visibility into domestic and international press reports, as well as relevant intelligence, understand common adversary propaganda techniques, and be very aggressive by anticipating and countering adversary propaganda—putting accurate, complete information out first so that friendly forces gain the initiative and remain the preferred source of information. Gaining and maintaining the information initiative in a conflict can help discredit and undermine adversary propaganda. ... PA operations keep military members and their families informed about operations, events, and issues to counter adversary propaganda efforts, and reduce stress and uncertainty, and other factors that may undermine mission accomplishment."

The impact of this conflicting update means that the military journalist is required by doctrine to never "influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of any group in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly" while at the same time "help defeat adversary efforts to diminish national will, degrade morale, and turn world opinion against friendly operations" and "to counter adversary propaganda efforts, and reduce stress and uncertainty, and other factors that may undermine mission accomplishment".

The military journalist is required by doctrine to participate in counter propaganda efforts, even though the same doctrine defines those efforts as a function of PSYOP, which is something Public Affairs should never execute, according to the same doctrine.

Military journalists must rely on the Combatant Commander's responsibility, IAW JP 3-61, [3] to "Ensure planned ground rules for releasing information to civilian media apply equally to military journalists and broadcasters."

Then military journalists are unable to release information until it is cleared by a designated release authority, a Public Affairs Officer, whose responsibility is to coordinate and synchronize efforts with PSYOP. Despite the information being releasable according to the DOD Principles of Information, [11] the official policy of "Maximum disclosure with minimum delay", and does not violate Operations Security (OPSEC) or threaten national security, any number of subjective factors arising from public perception cause a military journalist's information to be withheld from public release, some of which are detailed in DODI 5230.29. [12] According to which, "All information submitted for review to OSR must first be coordinated within the originating DoD Component to ensure that it reflects the organization’s policy position."

An additional contradiction in doctrine then arises when news does not reflect "the organization’s policy position." Added to which, all news that is released must reflect the organization's policy position, despite doctrine prohibiting information "in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly" and other doctrine encouraging the "free flow of information."

The Army's policy for military journalists is further clarified in FM 46-1: [13] "Not all news is good news ... the Army and its operations will be both positive and negative. ... PAOs cannot control media coverage or guarantee positive media products. DoD policy is that information will not be classified or otherwise withheld to protect the government from criticism or embarrassment. Information can only be withheld when its disclosure would adversely affect national and operations security or threaten the safety or privacy of members of the military community. ... It is DoD and Army policy to take an active approach to providing information. The Army will practice the principle of "maximum disclosure with minimum delay", even though this will sometimes result in the publication of stories which are not favorable to the command. ... Because the Army is an agency of the U.S. government, its internal audiences, local community members, and members of the American public as a whole, have a right to know about its operations. More importantly, the Army has an obligation to keep these audiences informed. ... Public affairs operations should employ an active approach. PAOs must take the lead in contributing to accurate, credible, and balanced coverage by practicing maximum disclosure with minimum delay."

Yet the same doctrine states, "Public affairs operations should be planned and executed to influence the presentation of information about the force by providing truthful, complete, and timely information that communicates the Army perspective", despite conflicting doctrine that denounces propaganda to "influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of any group in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly".

In other Army doctrine explaining an Information Operations Estimate, FM 3–13, [14] "IO-cell members—especially the PSYOP, civil-military operations, and public affairs (PA) representatives—identify how best to influence the attitudes and actions of the civilian populace..." and in a Commander's Guidance example, "Use PA to favorably influence the population in the AO and worldwide. Emphasize the lead role of the ASA and tell the truth: that we are here to assist a well-trained army accomplish a worthwhile mission." The Public Affairs Officer must help, "ensure an integrated strategy and a unified effort to communicate the Army’s perspective and to favorably portray tactical and operational objectives."

One distinctly effective way (of many) that suppresses military journalism in conflict with this "perspective" or "organizational policy" is taught outside of official, high-level, DoD policy at the Defense Information School, where military journalists and Public Affairs Officers are trained:

Command Messages: [15] "plain or secret language" that "communicate the command's position in everything we do" which are designed for informing and "persuading – through accurately provided information – those publics to support and accept the action." This is a "Command Message (your organization's policy or position)"

Another distinctly effective way that suppresses civilian journalism in conflict with these "command messages" is to employ:

Media ground rules: Guidelines that media must adhere to if they want to continue getting support from the military. One of 20 media ground rules, [16] as of October 15, 2009, that applies equally to civilian and military journalists in the CJTF-82's Area of Operations (AO) in Afghanistan, for example, is "During interviews, no questions will be asked about the politics of the military. (e.g. Iraq war, equipment, readiness, funding, etc.)" Most ground rules are justified by Operations Security. Funding?

These policies remain despite the Commander in Chief, Barack Obama's Open Government Directive that conveys the, "Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing." [17]

The U.S. military journalist, therefore, is a journalist whose job, at the highest level of accountability, is defined by an obligation to fully inform the public without design to directly or indirectly benefit the military, but who must also fight subjective policy, ambiguous definitions, and conflicting doctrine designed to deceive the public with hidden political agendas.

The military has been increasingly spending billions to do so, in which Sheldon Rampton, research director for the Committee on Media and Democracy, calls a "massive apparatus selling the military to us." [18]

See also

Related Research Articles

Military doctrine is the expression of how military forces contribute to campaigns, major operations, battles, and engagements.

The Office of Strategic Influence, or OSI, was a department created by the United States Department of Defense on October 30, 2001, to support the War on Terrorism through psychological operations in targeted countries, which did not include the United States because the Pentagon is barred from PSYOPs in the U.S. However, BBC noted that "there is nothing to stop an American newspaper picking up a story carried abroad" in cases of news stories that were "black propaganda" with deliberately "misleading" information planted by the Pentagon under OSI.

Information warfare (IW) is a concept involving the battlespace use and management of information and communication technology (ICT) in pursuit of a competitive advantage over an opponent. Information warfare is the manipulation of information trusted by a target without the target's awareness so that the target will make decisions against their interest but in the interest of the one conducting information warfare. As a result, it is not clear when information warfare begins, ends, and how strong or destructive it is. Information warfare may involve the collection of tactical information, assurance(s) that one's information is valid, spreading of propaganda or disinformation to demoralize or manipulate the enemy and the public, undermining the quality of the opposing force's information and denial of information-collection opportunities to opposing forces. Information warfare is closely linked to psychological warfare.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Psychological warfare</span> Information operations to assist military objectives

Psychological warfare (PSYWAR), or the basic aspects of modern psychological operations (PsyOp), have been known by many other names or terms, including Military Information Support Operations (MISO), Psy Ops, political warfare, "Hearts and Minds", and propaganda. The term is used "to denote any action which is practiced mainly by psychological methods with the aim of evoking a planned psychological reaction in other people".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Counterintelligence</span> Offensive measures using enemy information

Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or other intelligence activities conducted by, for, or on behalf of foreign powers, organizations or persons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States Army Special Operations Command</span> Military unit

The United States Army Special Operations Command (Airborne) is the command charged with overseeing the various special operations forces of the United States Army. Headquartered at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, it is the largest component of the United States Special Operations Command. It is an Army Service Component Command. Its mission is to organize, train, educate, man, equip, fund, administer, mobilize, deploy and sustain Army special operations forces to successfully conduct worldwide special operations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command</span> Military unit

The United States Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (Airborne), USACAPOC(A), or CAPOC was founded in 1985 and is headquartered at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. USACAPOC(A) is composed mostly of U.S. Army Reserve Soldiers in units throughout the United States. The size of the Command is nearly 13,500 Soldiers, which is 76% of the Department of Defense's Civil Affairs forces and 63% of Psychological Operations forces. The current Commanding General is Major General Isaac Johnson Jr., who assumed command in August 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operations security</span> Counterespionage safety procedures and practices

Operations security (OPSEC) is a process that identifies critical information to determine if friendly actions can be observed by enemy intelligence, determines if information obtained by adversaries could be interpreted to be useful to them, and then executes selected measures that eliminate or reduce adversary exploitation of friendly critical information.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul E. Vallely</span> American Army general

Paul E. Vallely is a retired U.S. Army major general and senior military analyst for Fox News. He served in the Vietnam War and retired in 1993 as deputy commanding general, Pacific Command. In 2004, together with retired Air Force lieutenant general Thomas McInerney, Vallely co-authored the book Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror. Vallely currently serves as the military committee chairman for the Center for Security Policy.

The Information Operations Roadmap is a document commissioned by the Pentagon in 2003 and declassified in January 2006. The document was personally approved by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and describes the United States Military's approach to Information operations, with an emphasis on the Internet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Psychological operations (United States)</span> Military unit

Psychological operations (PSYOP) are operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.

Effects-based operations (EBO) is a United States military concept that emerged during the Persian Gulf War for the planning and conduct of operations combining military and non-military methods to achieve a particular effect. An effects-based approach to operations was first applied in modern times in the design and execution of the Desert Storm air campaign of 1991. The principal author of the daily attack plans—then Lt Colonel, now retired Lt General David A. Deptula—used an effects-based approach in building the actual Desert Storm air campaign targeting plan. Deptula describes the background, rationale, and provides an example of how an effects-based approach to targeting was conducted in Desert Storm in the publication, "Effects-Based Operations: Change in the Nature of Warfare." The doctrine was developed with an aim of putting desired strategic effects first and then planning from the desired strategic objective back to the possible tactical level actions that could be taken to achieve the desired effect. Contrary to conventional military approaches of force-on-force application that focused on attrition and annihilation, EBO focused on desired outcomes attempting to use a minimum of force. The approach was enabled by advancements in weaponry—particularly stealth and precision weapons—in conjunction with a planning approach based on specific effects rather than absolute destruction. Deptula, speaking at the Gulf War Air Campaign Tenth Anniversary Retrospective, on 17 January 2001 on One Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, defined the goal of EBO; "If we focus on effects, the end of strategy, rather than force-on-force the traditional means to achieve it militarily, that enables us to consider different and perhaps more effective ways to accomplish the same goal quicker than in the past, with fewer resources and most importantly with fewer casualties." Others have postulated that EBO could be interpreted as an emerging understanding that attacking a second-order target may have first order consequences for a variety of objectives, wherein the Commander's intent can be satisfied with a minimum of collateral damage or risk to his own forces.

National intelligence programs, and, by extension, the overall defenses of nations, are vulnerable to attack. It is the role of intelligence cycle security to protect the process embodied in the intelligence cycle, and that which it defends. A number of disciplines go into protecting the intelligence cycle. One of the challenges is there are a wide range of potential threats, so threat assessment, if complete, is a complex task. Governments try to protect three things:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Foreign internal defense</span> Approach to combating actual or threatened insurgency

Foreign internal defense (FID) is a term used by the military in several countries, including the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, to describe an integrated, and possibly multi-country, approach to combating actual or threatened insurgency in a foreign state. This foreign state is known as the Host Nation (HN) under the US doctrine. The term counter-insurgency is more commonly used worldwide than FID.

Irregular warfare (IW) is defined in United States joint doctrine as "a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations." Concepts associated with irregular warfare are older than the term itself.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs</span>

The Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, or ATSD (PA), is the principal staff advisor and assistant to the Secretary of Defense and Deputy Secretary of Defense for public information, internal information, community relations, information training, and audiovisual matters in support of Department of Defense activities, leading a worldwide public affairs community of some 3,800 military and civilian personnel. The Assistant to the Secretary follows the Secretary's Principles of Information in providing Defense Department information to the public, the United States Congress and the media.

Informatized warfare of China is the implementation of information warfare (IW) within the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and other organizations of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Laid out in the Chinese Defence White Paper of 2008, informatized warfare includes the utilization of information-based weapons and forces, including battlefield management systems, precision-strike capabilities, and technology-assisted command and control (C4ISR). However, some media and analyst report also uses the term to describe the political and espionage effort from the Chinese state.

Information Operations is a category of direct and indirect support operations for the United States Military. By definition in Joint Publication 3-13, "IO are described as the integrated employment of electronic warfare (EW), computer network operations (CNO), psychological operations (PSYOP), military deception (MILDEC), and operations security (OPSEC), in concert with specified supporting and related capabilities, to influence, disrupt, corrupt or usurp adversarial human and automated decision making while protecting our own." Information Operations (IO) are actions taken to affect adversary information and information systems while defending one's own information and information systems. In the U.S. Navy, information operations are often supervised by a Navy Information Operations Command (NIOC), for example in the United States Tenth Fleet which has several NIOCs.

Strategic Communication is the "coordinated actions, messages, images, and other forms of signaling or engagement intended to inform, influence, or persuade selected audiences in support of national objectives." There is often debate and discussion concerning what makes strategic communication. Regarding definition, psychological operations, public or civil affairs, information operations and public diplomacy are seemingly the least contested components of U.S. strategic communication. With those components, the most important factor that separates strategic communication from other types of communication is the synchronization and coordination of U.S. efforts. For example, in the National Strategy for Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication, all strategic communication efforts activities should:

Political warfare Use of political means to compel an opponent with hostile intent

Political warfare is the use of political means to compel an opponent to do one's will, based on hostile intent. The term political describes the calculated interaction between a government and a target audience, including another state's government, military, and/or general population. Governments use a variety of techniques to coerce certain actions, thereby gaining relative advantage over an opponent. The techniques include propaganda and psychological operations ("PsyOps"), which service national and military objectives respectively. Propaganda has many aspects and a hostile and coercive political purpose. Psychological operations are for strategic and tactical military objectives and may be intended for hostile military and civilian populations.

References

  1. ↑ "DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms". Archived from the original on 2016-10-10. Retrieved 2010-01-18.
  2. ↑ "command information".
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 JP 3-61
  4. ↑ "Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs (ASD(PA))" (PDF). September 5, 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 4, 2011.
  5. ↑ "Principles of Information". Archived from the original on December 31, 2002.
  6. ↑ JP 3-53
  7. ↑ "Doctrine for Public Affairs in Joint Operations" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-28.
  8. ↑ "what are information operations".
  9. 1 2 "Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs - OASD(PA)". Archived from the original on June 24, 2003.
  10. ↑ THOM SHANKER; ERIC SCHMITT (December 16, 2002). "Pentagon Debates Propaganda Push in Allied Nations". The New York Times. Archived from the original on August 9, 2016. Retrieved September 25, 2016.
  11. ↑ "Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs (ASD(PA))" (PDF). September 27, 2000. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 4, 2011. Retrieved September 25, 2016.
  12. ↑ "Security and Policy Review of DoD Information for Public Release" (PDF). August 6, 1999. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 4, 2008.
  13. ↑ "Public Affairs Operations" (PDF). May 30, 1997. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 28, 2011. Retrieved September 25, 2016.
  14. ↑ "Information Operations: Doctrine, Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures" (PDF). November 2003. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 24, 2004. Retrieved September 25, 2016.
  15. ↑ "Command Message Development" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 16, 2011.
  16. ↑ "Regional Command East Media Ground Rules" (PDF). October 15, 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 4, 2010.
  17. ↑ Peter R. Orszag (December 8, 2009). "Open Government Directive m10-06" (PDF). Office of Management and Budget . Executive Office of the President . Retrieved June 15, 2016.
  18. ↑ "Pentagon sets sights on public opinion". NBC News . AP. Feb 5, 2009. Retrieved June 15, 2016.
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