October 29, 2006

Fighting Media Misinformation

The U.S. Department of Defense is using the Internet to make public its requested media corrections and any refusals to correct, reports StrategyPage.com. The goal: pressure the news media to make corrections when it gets things wrong.

Of course, it isn't just in coverage of the war on terror where the media gets things wrong. The media - national and local - gets things wrong unceasingly, and you don't have to be the Department of Defense to use the Internet to push back against media error and media bias. Anyone or any business or organization can wage an effective campaign to expose media error and media bias by using the Internet to get the facts out. I help companies learn how to more effectively do that. Contact me via the email address on this website, or here.

Here's more on the Defense Department's efforts to counteract media misinformation...

The DoD has set up a website, For the Record, where it publicly calls for corrections from major media outlets when warranted, and even notes when the media outlets refuse to make corrections or publish letters to the editor. Earlier this week the DoD published a letter to the editor that the New York Times refused to run, a letter from five top generals leading the war on terror. The letter, which rebutted an NYT editorial, has been picked up by a number of bloggers across the country, effectively evading the NYT's roadblock on the information.

StrategyPage.com continues:

The Defense Department has been dealing with a number of misleading stories. From Newsweek's misreporting of a Koran-flushing incident (caused by a detainee, not guards as reported by Newsweek), to claims of prisoner mistreatment (often without context, including one instance where a detainee spat on an interrogator), to a massive rewriting of an embedded reporter's report on the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment's efforts in Tal Afar, by editors of Time magazine, to the revelations about NSA efforts, the DOD has been barraged by numerous stories, many of which were followed by angry editorials.

The DOD is pushing back, not only putting out requests to correct the record (with the refusals published as well), but also citing stories of heroes that the media has failed to cover - usually two or three a week. Among these are accounts of those who have been awarded medals for battlefield bravery, like Navy Cross recipients Robert J. Mitchell Jr. and Bradley A. Kasal, as well as Silver Star recipients Juan M. Rubio, Sarun Sar, Jeremy Church, and Leigh Ann Hester. The DOD has also followed CENTCOM's lead in running pieces on what terrorists actually say – another item largely ignored by the mainstream media.

Says StrategyPage.com:

Such a scenario is less likely now, largely due to the presence of the Internet (including blogs), talk radio, and other news networks - and the Department of Defense is taking advantage of alternative ways to get around the mainstream media.