At first blush, the idea of a $20 million-public relations contract for the Middle East doesn’t sound like a bad idea. The United States’ image in the region is … well, let’s just say there’s room for improvement.<\/p>\n
But the closer one looks at the details<\/a>, the less encouraging the proposal sounds.<\/p>\n U.S. military leaders in Baghdad have put out for bid a two-year, $20 million public relations contract that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq.<\/p>\n The contract calls for assembling a database of selected news stories and assessing their tone as part of a program to provide “public relations products” that would improve coverage of the military command’s performance, according to a statement of work attached to the proposal. […]<\/p>\n The proposal, which calls in part for extensive monitoring and analysis of Iraqi, Middle Eastern and American media, is designed to help the coalition forces understand “the communications environment.” Its goal is to “develop communication strategies and tactics, identify opportunities, and execute events . . . to effectively communicate Iraqi government and coalition’s goals, and build support among our strategic audiences in achieving these goals,” according to the statement of work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n What’s a “public relations product”? Well, in 2003, the State Department produced an Arab-language monthly magazine called Hi<\/i>, which pitched America<\/a> as a “gee-whiz futuristic society whose consumers are obsessed with the latest gadgets and peculiar dating strategies.” For some reason, the Pentagon seems to believe we can do better. I suspect they’re probably right.<\/p>\n This is not to say, however, that this $20 million contract is a good idea. Monitors are to select stories that deal with specific issues, such as security, reconstruction activities, “high profile” coalition force activities and events in which Iraqi security forces are “in the lead.” The monitors are to analyze stories to determine the “dissemination of key themes and messages” along with whether the “tone” is positive, neutral or negative.<\/p>\n The media outlets would be monitored for how they present coalition or anti-Iraqi force operations. That part of the proposal could reflect Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s often-stated concern that the media does not cover positive aspects of Iraq.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Keep in mind, we’re not just talking about Middle Eastern press outlets; the U.S. is seeking bids on a $20 million contract that would also “monitor” domestic media, “track” news outlets, and “analyze” whether their coverage of the war in Iraq is positive or not.<\/p>\n What, exactly, would Donald Rumsfeld do with this information? And why would it cost $20 million? And if the administration is so concerned about public perceptions regarding Iraq and the progress of the war, shouldn’t officials start concentrating more on actually creating good news for the media to report?<\/p>\n Given the administration’s track record on media research<\/a> and public-relations contracts<\/a>, I’m not at all encouraged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At first blush, the idea of a $20 million-public relations contract for the Middle East doesn’t sound like a bad idea. The United States’ image in the region is … well, let’s just say there’s room for improvement. But the closer one looks at the details, the less encouraging the proposal sounds. U.S. military leaders […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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