03
Dec
Militainment Gone Amok
“America is a strange country. All of its best generals are journalists,” Defense Undersecretary Douglas J. Feith told the San Francisco Chronicle in recent interview.
Now the generals have their own cable channel.
As the Fourth Estate continues to morph into what General/Journalist Tommy Franks calls the “Fourth Front” in the ongoing and endless war on terror, and as the lines blur ever-further between military public affairs — disseminating accurate information to the media and the public — and psychological and information operations — using often-misleading information and propaganda to influence the outcome of a campaign or battle — the inevitable has finally happened.
The Military Channel.
How did it happen?
As the Hollywood Reporter aptly put it, “Discovery Wings Channel has been drafted.”
That’s right — Discovery Communications International (DCI), a media behemoth that boasts 60 networks representing 19 entertainment brands (including TLC, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, Discovery Health Channel, Discovery Kids, and, in partnership with the New York Times, the Discovery Times Channel) will “re-launch” its six year-old Discovery Wings cabler next month as the Military Channel, focusing on all aspects of the armed forces, military strategies and personnel throughout the ages.
“By covering all aspects of the military and the people who define it, we will extend the Discovery brand, create a service that appeals to our existing viewers and attract new viewers and sponsors,” said Billy Campbell, president of Discovery Networks US, who called military-related issues “a topic of fascination and relevance in our world.”
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In case you were unaware, the fairly obscure Discovery Wings, launched in July 1998, focused on aviation and related subjects. Now Discovery is partnering with the likes of the USO, the National D-Day Museum, the Military.com web site, and the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation to develop programming for the channel, along with educational campaigns and public service announcements.
Soon you too will be able to ‘go behind the lines” and undertake a “new mission” as Discovery offers what its press materials dub “a Broad Focus on All Aspects of the Military With a Wide Array of Programming About its People, Strategy, Technology and History.”
What kind of programming? The kind that will bring you “compelling, real-world stories of heroism, military strategy, technological breakthroughs and turning points in history.”
But wait — there’s more: “The Military Channel also provides access to military personnel and hardware, allowing viewers to experience and understand a world full of human drama, courage, innovation and long-held traditions.”
Judith A. McHale, President and CEO of Discovery Communications explains: “In an increasingly fragmented marketplace, the Military Channel will broaden Discovery Communications’ offerings and further differentiate our portfolio of emerging networks.”
Meanwhile, as the estimable Mark Mazzetti of The Los Angeles Times reported this week in a piece headlined “PR Meets Psy-Ops in War on Terror,” the use of misleading information as a military tool has begun sparking debate in the Pentagon — and putting Defense Department credibility to the test.
Here’s a case in point, as reported by Mazzetti:
“On the evening of Oct. 14, a young Marine spokesman near Fallujah appeared on CNN and made a dramatic announcement.
“‘Troops crossed the line of departure,’ 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert declared, using a common military expression signaling the start of a major campaign. ‘It’s going to be a long night.’ CNN, which had been alerted to expect a major news development, reported that the long-awaited offensive to retake the Iraqi city of Fallujah had begun.”
In fact, the Fallujah offensive would not kick off for another three weeks. Gilbert’s carefully worded announcement was an elaborate psychological operation — or “psy-op” — intended to dupe insurgents in Fallujah and allow U.S. commanders to see how guerrillas would react if they believed U.S. troops were entering the city, according to several Pentagon officials.
In the hours after the initial report, CNN’s Pentagon reporters were able to determine that the Fallujah operation had not, in fact, begun.
“As the story developed, we quickly made it clear to our viewers exactly what was going on in and around Fallujah,” CNN spokesman Matthew Furman said.”
Pentagon officials say the CNN incident was just part of a broad effort underway within the Bush administration to use information to its advantage in the war on terrorism.
It was not the first time — nor will it be the last.
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Although the Pentagon was forced to close its controversial Office of Strategic Influence two years ago following reports that it intended to plant false news stories in the international media, the reality is that much of its mission has merely been moved to other offices of the government. Most of the work remains classified, although officials say the emphasis to date has been on influencing how foreign media depict the United States.
“The movement of information has gone from the public affairs world to the psychological operations world,” one senior defense official told Mazzetti. “What’s at stake is the credibility of people in uniform.”
A recent decision by commanders in Iraq to combine public affairs, psychological operations and information operations into a “strategic communications” office caused such conflict and controversy within the Pentagon that Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Richard B. Myers distributed a letter to the Joint Chiefs and U.S. combat commanders in the field warning of the dangers.
But Myers’ concern is apparently not shared by many top civilians at the Pentagon and National Security Council, who believe the 24-hour news cycle and the influence of Arabic satellite television make it essential for U.S. military commanders and civilian officials made the control of information a key part of their battle plans.
“Information is part of the battlefield in a way that it’s never been before,” one senior Bush administration official told the L.A. Times. “We’d be foolish not to try to use it to our advantage.”
And a recent report by the Defense Science Board, a panel of outside experts that advises Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, concluded that a “crisis” in U.S. “strategic communications” had undermined American efforts to fight Islamic extremism worldwide.
The report cited polls in the Arab world revealing widespread hatred of the United States throughout the Middle East. 94 percent of Saudi Arabians now have an “unfavorable” view of the United States, for example. And in Egypt, the second largest recipient of U.S. aid, the figure is 98%.
Therefore, the Defense Science Board recommended a presidential directive to “coordinate all components of strategic communication including public diplomacy, public affairs, international broadcasting and military information operations.”
“Pretty soon, we’re going to have the 5 o’clock follies all over again, and it will take us another 30 years to restore our credibility,” one senior Defense official said, referring to the much-ridiculed daily media briefings in Saigon during the Vietnam War.
According to several Pentagon officials, the strategic communications programs at the Defense Department are being coordinated by — guess who? — Undersecretary of Defense for policy, Douglas J. Feith.
Mr. O’Connor,
I stumbled across your blurb and think you are totally missing the story here with some anti-military and conspiratorial spin.
The Military Channel by Discovery is the same concept as The Military Channel that was launched in the mid-90s based in Louisville, KY. The programming had NOTHING to do with the Penatagon’s spin on current affairs.
As a former employee of this independent privately-owned cable network, our programming was themed to “The Heroes, History and Hardware of the International Military.”
We didn’t do news and the political analysis that you are so worried about. We did developa powerful brand with start-up resources that has impressively carried enough cachet that Discovery channel filed a trademark on it last year, as it was abandoned by TMC who filed for bankruptcy back in 1999. The original concept was valid; look for Discovery to do more programming like The History Channel.
If you knew the history behoind this you’d realize you are chasing windmills on this.
Dominic Tassone
December 5th, 2004 at 10:26 amChicago, IL
I don’t think you’re missing the point at all.
But, I will say that in order to come to that realization I had to step back from the media a bit. I did that. Out of growing disgust with the growing corporate spin of what should be news reporting, I stepped away from mainstream news. Now I get virtually all of my news from a variety of sources on the web. Emphasis on variety.
Once you step away from the constant visual feed of war infotainment, it is a shock to step back into the stream.
I don’t know about where you live but here in Orlando we have a sub shop called Firehouse Subs. Great sandwiches but they always have Fox News on two tv screens in every shop. Most of the people there were eating and talking and not necassarily watching but the input is there nonetheless.
It is just one more example of how you move through your life with the subtext of war and violence always there right below the surface. And we aren’t even reacting to it anymore. Two years ago we all stood and watched because war was a shock. Now it’s a way of life for the forseeable future.
But only in the abstract.
December 6th, 2004 at 8:57 amI just realized I wasn’t very clear in my last post.
I was trying to say that we are moving through our lives now with a constant subtext of war and violence in the background from our tv’s. Like a realtime war movie. But it’s largely pro-government, pro-corporation propaganda. And our kids and the people of Iraq are paying the ultimate price while we are dulled by images on our tv sets.
So while the previous poster makes a valid point about presenting history on tv, I have a seventeen year old son with whom I am struggling to get to have a realistic understanding of what war really is versus what he sees presented to him on tv: with graphics and music and breathless talking heads who are safely tucked away in studios.
December 6th, 2004 at 9:18 amMs. Lopez perhaps you are dulled by living in a country where there hasn’t been a war on our soil since the Civil War…until 9/11.
Knee-jerk media pacifists need to wake up and smell the inherent brutality of the real world.
Terrorists want to kill you and your children, perferably here at home.
The purpose of the Military Channel was not to glorify organized violence. Far from it. It was to “Militainment” at all. And to suggest this reveals the ignorance of the author.
Military Channel was about educating the people about the realities of war and how and why. And not in a condescending manner.
It’s disturbing that both you and Mr. O’Connor took this inocuous news as fodder for some conspiracy theory.
Ms. Lopez, maybe you can rent some documentaries about warfare and watch them with your son while you dicuss the meaning of patriotism.
December 7th, 2004 at 9:02 pmLike ancient Rome, we love to be entertained by violence and military hoo ha but we personally don’t want to do it ourselves.
Also, the military stuff on TV is designed to lure people into going into war. I bet there will be no examination about the dangers of becoming ein Reich, ein Fuehrer like Germany did in the past and America is doing today.
December 8th, 2004 at 7:30 amNice to see a link from Buzzflash.
http://buzzflash.com/
December 9th, 2004 at 11:02 amUS Military Television Network
CONTACT: Lauren Kelly
Phone: 949-305-0020
Email: lkelly@usmilitary.tv
Website: www.usmilitary.tv
For immediate release
January 12, 2005
The Military Channel Wars Continue… and the Third One’s a Charm!
Orange County, CA
This week the Discovery Wings’ Military Channel and AETN’s The Military History Channel announced their launches, respectively. But what they didn’t know was that there is a third one on their “six” (a military aviation term meaning “aggressively coming up behind them”.) Their adversary is an unusual aggressor who is poised to capture the most important audience left behind.
The same viewer demographics which cling to hit shows like Fox’s The OC, are the very ones left out of the military channel wars. And that is exactly who U.S. Military Television Network (USMTV) is targeting. With programs like the game show that offers prizes such as 50,000 lbs of fuel to a winning squadron or a Zodiac boat to a special operations unit, to the show that sets current music to videos featuring the young crowd of today’s military doing what they do best – their jobs, USMTV is set to attract viewers the Pentagon would most like to reach.
Even with current assets from the guns of the two big network groups being fired into the TV viewing public, it’s not likely they will reach USMTV’s demographic nor match their lineup. U.S. Military Television Network, based in Southern California’s OC, is the brain child of CEO Lauren Kelly, a former entertainer in a U.S.O. type military entertainment troupe. “I’ve spent the last 15 years constructing this network from the ground up, and I am completely convinced that there is no other media outlet that has the knowledge and understanding of ‘who’ today’s military really is, and what our audience wants to see,” Kelly said in a statement on the heels of her rivals’ launch.
Kelly began creating her network after years of observing the military’s treatment by both the media and an uninformed public. “The only perception that the American public has of the U.S. Military is what has been fed to them by the media. Though the Gulf War in the early 1990s offered a glimpse into their lives, it was marred by reports – many of which were erroneous and skewed – of the Tailhook Scandal,” Kelly explained. “Even after embedding reporters with our units during Operation Iraqi Freedom, there was still more being reported about the lives of the embedded journalists than stories of military personnel actually fighting the war.” Kelly is confident that she has had the support of the military from the beginning because of her dedication to getting what she calls the real story out there. The military’s Public Affairs units are legally prohibited from promoting the military. But with a network like USMTV, Kelly can do it for them.
U.S. Military Television Network is set to launch in the fall of 2005. Funding for the planned 24 hour cable television network has delayed the long awaited launch of USMTV. But while the other two military-documentary-style networks battle over winning the 40 plus crowd, the third missile is about to be launched into the moshpit of generation X and beyond. Kelly boasted about her family of warriors, “The personnel that make up the U. S. Military are intelligent, funny and talented people. And now the rest of the world will see them up close and personal. Stand-by for launch!”
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January 12th, 2005 at 12:18 am