The media is so important that terrorist groups plan attacks with consideration of how media coverage will strengthen their message, said a top NATO press official Friday afternoon.
Jamie Shea, NATO's director of information and press, delivered this year's James B. Ewing Lecture on Ethics in Journalism Friday afternoon at the Sanford Institute of Public Policy. He addressed the relationship between the press and the government in times of crisis, capping a day of workshops organized by public policy studies faculty and the United States Institute of Peace.
"It's very easy in today's media warfare for our adversaries to use our media," said Shea, who argued that conventional warfare between nation-states is growing increasingly obsolete.
Shea said the Sept. 11 attacks were an example of a weaker party using the media to amplify its cause. He added that al Qaeda meant not just to kill 3,000 victims in New York and Washington, but to scare 3 billion people around the world through the powerful images of the act itself. "[The attack was] designed as a media event... a media, Hollywood spectacular," he said.
However, he added, the power of the press cuts both ways and the press and the government are mutually dependent, even though their attitude toward each other may often be confrontational.
"The press has to reflect on its new power," he said, noting that it was impossible for the government to execute its agenda without an adequate media campaign. "The press today increasingly sets the agenda."
For instance, NATO and the U.S. government relied on media images of the Jan. 1999 massacre of rebels in southern Kosovo to show the public why intervention was necessary.
Especially in times of crisis, Shea said, the manner in which the government works with the media is significant.
"The less certain public opinion is, the more important media handling is," he said. He noted, however, that a country's government and its press are not always on the same page. Pointing to a series of ideological differences, Shea said the government concentrates on the long-term picture, while the press is more concentrated on making instant judgments. He also said that both sides sometimes exaggerate a story's significance--the government often trumpets the positive angle, while the press is more willing to highlight the negative.
Journalism, Shea acknowledged, plays an important role in holding the government accountable for its actions, and he pointed to instances in which media pressure has spurred the government to action.
Shea, however, also offered a series of cautions to the press. "It's the job of the press to expose spin, but the media can also spin. The media should have a culture of self-analysis," he said. "I would ask the media never to lose sight of the context. [The media must] educate, not merely inform.... To the media, what is news is often more important than what's [really] important."
Sanford Institute Director Bruce Jentleson applauded Shea's analysis, which drew a crowd of about fifty people, mostly faculty members and sponsors.
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