NY Times Multimedia Report Dissects the Pentagon Propaganda Machine

The New York Times today published a really interesting story on how the Pentagon orchestrated an elaborate propaganda campaign aimed at dismissing calls for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation in 2006. RollingStone called it a story destined for a Pulitzer. I like this story for a number of reasons: 

• First, it's a good example of why so many people think poorly of public relations. When the media talks about ethically questionable Pentagon propaganda and refers to it as a "PR" campaign, that certainly doesn't help paint a favorable picture of the profession. Of course, the fact that the government is involved in this type of unethical behavior doesn't help either.

• Second, it's a great piece of investigative as well as interactive journalism and does a wonderful job illustrating the promises of online reporting. The NY Times article is accompanied by a multi-media feature which examines primary source documents related to the story and gives the reader a chance to examine those documents more closely. In other words, the reader gets to review the documents the journalist used to put together the story. Think about how different from traditional forms of journalism this is, where all the reader gets to see is the edited end-product. Think about how this is empowering readers to formulate more informed opinions about news stories. Case in point: After reading this story, I downloaded a 30 page transcript of a meeting between Rumsfeld and his military advisors, a 6 page analysis of the media coverage received by the propaganda campaign, and a series of memos - much more info than the media could convey in an 11 minute interactive video or a traditional feature story.

Although this Pentagon-sponsored propaganda campaign seems to have primarily relied on traditional media to gets its message across, the Pentagon has long noted the power of the Internet and social media technologies as a dissemination tool for its propaganda efforts. As Rumsfeld noted in the meeting with his military advisors: 

"This is the first war that's ever been run in the 21st Century in a time of 24 hour news and bloggers and internets and e-mails and digital cameras and Sony cams and God knows all this stuff, and wire transfers, all the electronic things that are going on, and it's a different world. We're not very skillful at it in terms of the media part of the new realities that we're living with. Every time we try to do something someone says it's illegal or immoral, there's nothing the press would rather write about then the press, we all know that. They fall in love with it. So every time someone tries to do some information operations for some public diplomacy or something, they say oh my goodness, it's multiple audiences and if you're talking to them, they're hearing you here as well and therefore that's propagandizing or something or it's not fair or it's not right. We don't have the right rules or the right understandings yet for this century."

It sounds like his frustration is referring to Pentagon infop initiatives such as the Magharebia.com project - a Pentagon-sponsored Internet news website aimed at the Maghreb region of North Africa, which was investigated for breaking a U.S. law that prohibits the government from exposing its citizens to propaganda. The problem was that although the site was aimed at the Maghreb region, it was a public website open to U.S. readers - readers who could therefore be exposed to government propaganda.

Another indication of the Pentagon's interest in new media technologies can be found in a report published in 2006 by the the Strategic Studies Department of the Joint Special Operations University. The report, entitled "Blogs and Military Information Strategy" suggests the military should clandestinely recruit or hire prominent bloggers (click here to download the report).

New Template for Social Media Releases

Since we just covered social media releases a few class periods ago and "attended" a webinar on The Evolving Social Media Release, I thought you might be interested to hear that SHIFT Communications just released an updated version of the SMR template we discussed. You can read about the template's new features on the PR Squared blog.

I know, I know, some of you who read this blog may taser me if I write another Twitter entry, but trust me, I have good reason. First, thanks to fellow Philly Blogger and Twitter friend Amy Z. Quinn for including me in a story about twitter that she filed for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

I know that companies big and small are still toeing the waters on connecting with people via CGM and social networks, having heard horror stories of bloggers and their readers that have criticized or bashed corporations online. That said, I recently had a personal experience with a major corporation actively participating in a social network so fluidly and helpfully, that I have to share the story.

Comcast, a major corporation that has taken a lump or two from unhappy customers online. (NOTE: Comcast is a client. However, I did not counsel or work on the tactic I am going to share with you. Comcast did not ask me to blog this. Nor did my employer.)

Recently, I learned that Comcast is actively using social media platforms to monitor mentions of their Brand online, when I read this incredible story by TechCrunch co-founder and blog mogul, Michael Arrington. In the blog post, (which you should read), Arrington explains how his comcast broadband went out, he called Comcast to find out what was going on, only to be told it was a California wide outage. However, when he spoke with other area friends with comcast, their cable was working, and Arrington ended up taking his laptop to work at a friend's place, which turned into a major distraction (read the story!). Frustrated, Arrington began tearing into Comcast on Twitter, and within 20 minutes of his first tweet, an executive from Comcast in Philadelphia, called him to sort out the problem.

It was, big business using social media to connect directly with customers and offer a better user experience. It is, essentially underheard of.

Since this modern day miracle last week, I have been following Comcast Customer Outreach guy Frank Eliason, the person behind the username ComcastCares on twitter. This guy is absolutely incredible. From answering questions to helping resolve appointment and billing issues, using only the 140 characters Twitter allows!, he is speaking with Comcast customers in the Twitter community promptly and like a real person. Comcast, is HEARING and RESPONDING TO, their customers by trusting one smart and reliable employee, to represent the brand and products in community. Even more incredible, is that Frank doesn't just twitter 9-5PM, he keeps the extended hours that many of use in the tech community keep, as we use the tool like our right hands.

This week, I had a comcast issue come up, but it was minor and I didn't want to bother Frank, as word has spread among the broadband-reliant community - many of whom are comcast customers and live in breathe in twitter, so speaking to comcast where they live and breathe is a dream come true. A twitter friend urged me to ask Frank about my problem and I heard back from him in under 10 minutes. He personally resolved my problem in under 24 hours, via 140 characters and a couple of follow up emails.

I applaud Comcast for being an example of how to be a valued Brand/Corp in community. You'll keep my business.