Commentary: Burying the Military-Media Hatchet

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The smoke has yet to dear from Operation Restore Hope, but it looks as though the military and the media finally may have buried the hatchet. Sure, camera lights turned the beach at Mogadishu into a media circus, and some have raised a traditional eyebrow at the unprecedented logistical support af­forded the fourth estate by U.S. armed forces. Others will say that only a shooting war can truly test the attitudes and performance of the two camps. Generally, however, news and operational reports all al­lude to an environment of access and cooperation.

Many factors, planned and oth­erwise, brought us this far, kinks notwithstanding:

^ The operation’s public affairs of­ficer was already there. Colonel Fred Peck, U.S. Marine Corps, had volunteered weeks before the op­eration to relieve Army Lieutenant Colonel Bob Donnelly as the Op­eration Provide Relief public affairs officer in Mombasa, Kenya, putting into practice his National War Col­lege travel and study that had fo­cused on East African affairs. He also was public affairs officer for Lieutenant General Robert B. John­son’s I Marine Expeditionary Force Headquarters at Camp Pendleton,

California.

^ Can you outrun CNN? No, and thankfully, common sense pre­vented stateside public affairs offi­cialdom from trying to verify every niinor iteration immediately while ¹¹ was being broadcast live. So far,

People seem to understand that the

best, most accurate news is in Somalia, with the news­people and the newsmakers.

^ While an ambitious public affairs plan (widely known ^as “Annex F” in military operation orders) allowed com­munication support to civilian media, today’s techno-age scribes were able to transmit initial reports by their own means. Following the plan, forces were prepared to as­sist news agencies in filing (including a Marine-evolved “Pony Express” technique used in Desert Storm) as the focus of media attention moved to the Somali hinterland. ► The U.S. Navy already has provided transmission equip­ment in helping civilian reporters send their stories. Re­ports fded from the USS Juneau (LPD-10) described land­ing operations at Kismayu and reached the Pentagon by message for immediate, follow-on transmission by fac­simile to news agencies. The system had been tested successfully by the Central Command Naval Forces’ pub­lic affairs officer, Lieutenant Commander Bruce Cole, U.S.

Navy, during the early days of Operation Southern Watch (policing the Iraqi “no-fly” zone).

► Support was by no means one-sided. CBS, for exam­ple, offered the combined task force public affairs offi­cer use of its generator to place a satellite call to the continental United States soon after the landing. By the beginning of Christmas week, both USA Today and The Los Angeles Times were faxing news to the troops in the

Pr

'oceedings / February 1993

13

form of summarized “Operation Restore Hope” editions.

►One retired public affairs officer called the command support for public affairs—backed up by logistics and per­sonnel—“a dream." Included was explicit four-star sup­port of the Defense Department’s nine military-media prin­ciples, priority air flow of public affairs specialists, sponsorship of civilian journalists by an unprecedented number of units, and a generous earmarking of vehicles and equipment for the media-assistance mission.

►                  Austere environment notwithstanding, the Pentagon em­ployed satellite and electronic resources to ensure timely delivery of news transcripts and the daily Department of Defense "Early Bird” news-clip compilation to keep everyone abreast.

► Public affairs planners have to get smarter about technical and logistical matters Patient technicians rendered on-the-job training in time

Commentary

IR

phased force deployment data, and overseas facsimile machine compatibility was at first a study in trial-and- error. Marine public affairs officers, accustomed to beg­ging, borrowing, and stealing, are learning from the Army the value of public affairs de­tachments—small teams that deploy fully equipped, with their own word processors and Humvees.

>      Money still drives the media train. Inevitably, smaller-market news agencies and specialty publications are shut out, as the television net­works gallop off to the next world crisis, fully loaded and fully funded. The fairly lib­eral unit-sponsorship/military- travel policy helped the shortfall this time. Positive results include morale-boosting hometown reports and the kind of successful familiarity enjoyed among some Marine units and reporters during Desert Storm (and elsewhere).

►  Time will tell if the stigma of public-affairs-officer-as- thought-police has diminished in the eyes of the media. The combined task force’s public affairs office referred to those in a media-assistance role as liaison (not escort) officers, squelching notions—real or imagined—of ma­nipulation or censorship.

>     An important modification to the operation’s classifi­cation guidance allowed public affairs briefers “to ac­knowledge that they have been alerted that they may de­ploy” after receipt of a “warning order or any other form of alert notice.” (On previous occasions, when units could not go public without deployment orders in hand, these people had been placed in the vulnerable position of denying the obvious, while the air crackled with mount- out activity.)

►  Following the particular success of Desert Storm, op­

erational briefings were conducted for the media by an operator. Colonel Mike Hagee, U.S. Marine Corps, most recently commanding officer of the 11th Marine Expedi- lU¹ tionary Unit, had been selected as briefer prior to de­ployment. The assignment met Central Command’s re­quirement to have a ranking operational officer face the press. Colonel Hagee made his debut 21 December on Nqv CNN, just about two years after Marine Brigadier Gen- ly, eral Butch Neal attained a level of notoriety for his tele­vised briefings from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.                          W

► Special operations forces may be following submariners Hcoli into the sunshine. The Annex F called these operations “unclassified and openly accessible . . . unless otherwise specified.” One command rightfully pointed out to its *®ni members that humanitarian missions were not new to 1I|q| them and that this was an “ex­cellent opportunity to tell [their] story.”

► The immediate surge of media interest called for ad­

Florida, as well as in-theater; 1. but within a couple weeks, it L * became clear in Somalia that jj_ey! a portion of the 55-person public affairs contingent was k|3, underemployed, and the Hing, phones had quieted at Central FNq\

ployment .activity was Camp l Pendleton, where members of L^U| the San Diego Chapter of the k? U.S. Marine Corps Combat |j_Jr Correspondents Association ^ answered telephones and ren- |L dered other assistance.      ttor

► Did previous contacts be- Hr tween reporters and com­manders help set the tone for p better media relations? Certainly. Troops (and journalists) 1. knew ahead of time who the good guys were among them. Next time out, those with reputations for profes- [ ¹ sionalism and fairness (again, on both sides) will have a I; leg up.           '

A few media representatives might regard some of the H Restore Hope public affairs initiatives as entirely new, \ or media-induced, or Pentagon-forced. They are wrong, L on all counts.

The current watch must accept responsibility for some |p of the things that inevitably go wrong in the information business; but credit belongs to those earlier commanders and public affairs officers who have for years been preach- 5sq ing the gospel of reasonable media access and adequate ^ public affairs resources. Maybe their day has come . . . at last.

Major Oliver is Chief of the Plans Division at U.S. Central Command Public Affairs; he was involved in the planning and execution of pub­lic affairs aspects for Operation Restore Hope.