By Paul Reynolds
World affairs correspondent, BBC News website

Can more spin turn this around?

The Pentagon’s new effort to influence media coverage of the war in Iraq is an example of how governments react when a war is not going too well.

They begin to think it is not the war that is the problem, but the presentation of it.

The media, being the messengers, get the blame, not the message itself.

The plan, detailed in a memo seen by the Associated Press news agency, is for a rapid response unit that would “correct the record” in the 24/7 news cycle that exists today - including, crucially, on the internet. One aim, AP says, seems to be to deflect criticism of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld himself.
Full story at BBCNews

It is on the internet that blogs and other sites rapidly spread information, sometimes as fact and sometimes as rumour, and build up pressure points of opinion. These are then reflected in the mainstream media.

There would also be a list of favourite speakers or “surrogates” who would be offered to broadcast media, especially to the US talk shows, where fast appearances and faster opinions matter.

Whether this will make much difference is open to question.

One question……how much is this propaganda program costing us? Now we’re spending our money to make people like Rumsfeld?

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