Military To Spend $20 Mil On Outsourced Propaganda

Not surprisingly, the military and the Bush Administration is not happy about the bad press they've been getting these days. So they are outsourcing publica relations professionals to create a database of the news and create "products" to get the "official" story out.
It's an old game called "propaganda" or psychological warfare, what's new is that they are outsourcing to professionals. The problem of convincing a reluctant public that war is right and just is still as big a problem as it was in the Vietnam era. How do you convince people what is wrong it their eyes is actually right? By slanting and selectively withholding and misinforming the public until their choices are moot.
WaPo

U.S. military leaders in Baghdad have put out for bid a two-year, $20 million public relations contract that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq. The contract calls for assembling a database of selected news stories and assessing their tone as part of a program to provide "public relations products" that would improve coverage of the military command's performance, according to a statement of work attached to the proposal.


The request for bids comes at a time when Bush administration officials are publicly criticizing media coverage of the war in Iraq. The proposal, which calls in part for extensive monitoring and analysis of Iraqi, Middle Eastern and American media, is designed to help the coalition forces understand "the communications environment." Its goal is to "develop communication strategies and tactics, identify opportunities, and execute events . . . to effectively communicate Iraqi government and coalition's goals, and build support among our strategic audiences in achieving these goals," according to the statement of work that is publicly available through the Web site http://www.fbodaily.com .


A public relations practitioner who asked for anonymity because he may be involved in a bid on the contract said that military commanders "are overwhelmed by the media out there and are trying to understand how to get their information out. "They want it [news] to be received by audiences as it is transmitted [by them], but they don't like how it turns out," he said. As an example, he said, there are complaints that reports from Iraq sometimes quote Shiite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr more than military commanders.