10/13/2007
What Media Strategy?
Thursday, as part of the course I'm currently taking, we had what they called a 'media panel,' featuring a reporter from a major US newspaper, a reporter from a major non-US satellite TV news network, and a reporter/writer from a think-tank type publication.
There was some interesting stuff, (including the laughable statement from the newspaper guy "I don't have opinions."), but the most interesting was from the satellite TV guy. He said that, since the start of the GWOT, not one single, solitary representative of the US government has gone on any of the Arabic language satellite networks -- al Jazeera, al Arabiya, etc -- to explain to that part of the world just what it is that America is doing and what we're trying to achieve. Not a single general, ambassador, or State Department official, not even a low level foreign service officer. Nobody from America has even tried to talk to the Arabs in their language.
Can anyone out there say "Gaping hole in the information strategy?" I'm just an O-4 with 12 months time in grade, and I can. And all the other O-4s in my class agree with me.
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