JORDAN FISCHER: “Journalist” isn’t really a dirty word

I had all intent to stay away from politics this week, until I read Donald Rumsfeld’s special column, which ran in Friday’s edition of the Greensburg Daily News. Rumsfeld, for those who can’t place the name, is the United States Secretary of Defense, and the title of his column was “War in the Information Age.” The gist of it was the lack of appropriate advances in American media presence across the seas. Agreeably, we do indeed, as a nation and power currently at war, need to focus more on fighting with the idea of freedom, rather than tanks. The thing I can’t buy into is the explanation Rumsfeld gives for our backwardness. Thus, we enter this week’s Think Tank.

“Our nation is engaged in what promises to be a long struggle in the global war on terror,” Rumsfeld begins. “In this war, some of the most critical battles may not be in the mountains of Afghanistan or the streets of Iraq, but in the newsrooms in New York, London, Cairo and elsewhere.”

“Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today’s media age, but for the most part we -- our government, the media or our society in general -- have not,” he continued.

A lot of words to say basically this: While we were building bombs, the terrorists learned how to use rhetoric.

Now, obviously it’s a great deal more complex than that, and we’ve been building more than bombs, such as planes to drop them from. I could explain the importance of media in war, but Rumsfeld did it reasonably well, so I’ll allow him to do it.

“Consider that violent extremists have established ‘media relations committees’ and have proved to be highly successful at manipulating opinion elites,” Rumsfeld wrote. “They plan and design their head-line grabbing attacks using every means of communication to break the collective will of free people.”

Roughly put, any actions terrorists commit find their way into the newspapers and television broadcasts because they have a strong focus on getting them there. Fair enough, logically the desire to spread terror would lend itself to the pursuit of mass media coverage. Here’s where it gets sticky.

“Our government is only beginning to adapt its operations for the 21st century,” Rumsfeld explained. “For the most part, it still functions as a five-and-dime store in an eBay world.”

So... America, compared to terrorist cells, is a mom-and-pop outfit trying to compete with a mega-mart. Something seems a bit off in this picture. Oh yeah, we’re the most powerful nation in the world, that may be it.

To me, it seems wrong that America cannot compete with small, fugitive terrorist organizations for the media markets of the world. However, Rumsfeld offers several explanations for this.

First, he recognizes that the standard U.S. government public affairs operation, “...operates for the most part on an eight-hour; five-days-a-week basis, while world events -- and our enemies -- are operating 24/7 across every time zone.” That’s comforting to know.

Next, “...military public affairs officials have had little communications training and little, if any, grounding in the importance of timing, rapid response and the realities of digital and broadcast media.”

Now, I really haven’t had any training in those fields either, but I think I can safely say that the “realities of digital and broadcast media” should be apparent to everyone by now. If terrorists attack, and the U.S. isn’t there to respond, the world sees it in real-time and we’re sunk. There’s the reality of broadcast media for you.

Third, and this is the one I picked up on quickest, being a guilty party I suppose, is the, “...explosion of critical media stories,” which, “causes all activity, all initiative, to stop.”

While I appreciate the nod to the power of journalism, Rumsfeld seems to stretch it a bit far. For all the articles written against the Patriot Act, it’s still going strong. I find it a bit hard to believe that a handful of journalists criticizing the government about anything would “cause all activity to stop.” Therein may lie the problem, though.

The Bush administration seems to view journalists as their enemies. Rightly so, to some degree I suppose, as it is the news media’s job to scrutinize those in power, regardless of party. Media should not ever be a detriment to the struggle against opression, however.

Rumsfeld hit on something powerful toward the end of his column when he said, “...it should be noted that we have an advantage as well. And that is, quite simply, that truth is on our side. Ultimately, truth wins out.”

No journalist should, for the slightest instant, question that statement. They’re in the wrong field otherwise. The truth for those of us who make our mark in ink and sound, is that we believe in America just as fiercely as anyone. Where else can we practice our art? Where else could I, a high school student in Greensburg, Indiana, write a column contrary to that of the United States Secretary of Defense?

Journalists need not function counter to the motives of American forces in foreign lands, in fact, we could be the greatest tool against our enemies. No one could make a better case for the ideals and dream of America than the people who daily exercise their rights, daily pursue the goals of freedom.

America should not be casting a frown at critical media, but instead, showing their fervor for this great nation and its ideals as an example of freedom to the world.

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