Posted on 04/01/2008 7:04:03 PM PDT by kristinn
An unclassified 2006 report by the Strategic Studies Department of the U.S. military's Joint Special Operations University relates the story of how Freepers, followed by others in the blogosphere, took down Dan Rather over the forged Killian memos as a way to demonstrate the growing ability of individuals using the Internet to influence the world at large.
The report also discusses the feasibility of "clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers" for information warfare and of the reticence the military has toward using the Internet for disinformation campaigns.
The report was authored by Maj. James Kinniburgh and Dr. Dorothy Denning. The authors demonstrate an incomplete knowledge of the facts in some areas of the report (to put it gently), but they are reasonably accurate in the telling of how Free Republic exposed Rathergate.
Link to PDF file of 50 page report at City Pages.
If you prefer to download it from a DOD server, that can be done here.
Link to City Pages article on report.
Link to Wired.com article on report.
The first mention of this report was found on Blogger News Network last Friday. Curiously, that article has been pulled. However, it can be found in Google cache.
The moonbats are starting to howl, of course.
Wired.com's Danger Room is faslely getting credited with breaking this story. Blogger News Network's pulled story appeared three days before Wired noticed it. (Note: I saw the Blogger News network story the day it came out. Computer problems prevented me from posting about it then.)
The introduction to the report:
September, 2004: The 2004 presidential campaign is in full swing and the producers of the television news show 60 Minutes Wednesday, at CBS, have received a memo purporting to show that the sitting President, George W. Bush, had used his family connections to avoid his service obligations. The story, given the controversy and ratings it will generate, is just too good not to run. On cursory inspection, the documents and their source appear legitimate. On September 8th, 60 Minutes producer Mary Mapes and anchorman Dan Rather decide to air it …
Within minutes of airtime, posted discussion participants at the conservative Web site FreeRepublic.com posited that the documents were faked. Bloggers at Power Line1 and Little Green Footballs (littlegreenfootballs.com) picked up these comments and posted them and their associated hyperlinks on their own blogs. The clues to the now infamous Killian memo forgeries, the bloggers pointed out, were the superscript ‘th’ and the Times New Roman font; both indicated the use of modern word-processing programs rather than a 1972-era typewriter. The signatures on at least two of the documents appeared to have been forged, and some with experience called into question the very format of the memo, purported to show orders issued to then-Lieutenant Bush. The story was given even greater attention after noted pundit, Matt Drudge, posted a link to the Free Republic thread on his own Web site, The Drudge Report (www.drudgereport.com).,
What followed initially was what is known as a “blogswarm,” where the story was carried on multiple blogs, and then later a “mediaswarm.” As a result of these phenomena and CBS’ inability to authenticate the documents, several CBS employees, including producer Mary Mapes, were asked to resign. Within a month, Dan Rather announced his own retirement.
What garnered considerable interest afterward was how a group of nonprofessional journalists was able to outperform and “bring down” two icons of the traditional media, CBS and Dan Rather. CBS executive Jonathan Klein said of the bloggers, “You couldn’t have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances (at 60 Minutes) and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing.” 2
Some columnists, like Corey Pein at the Colombia Journalism Review, explained the spread of the story (a.k.a., “Memogate,” or “Rathergate”) as the result of journalistic haste and the rapid coalescence of popular opinion, supported and enhanced by a blogging network of Republican story spinners.3
CBS offered its own explanations for the problems surrounding the story in its final report on the matter. The CBS reviewers found four major factors that contributed to the incident: weak or cursory efforts to establish the documents’ source and credibility, failed efforts to determine the document’s authenticity, nominal efforts at provenance, and excessive competitive zeal (the rush to air).4
Despite the fact that the initial questions about the CBS story were posted on a discussion forum instead of a blog, the partially erroneous attribution of the entire “Memogate” incident, and other stories that followed, to “bloggers” likely increased public awareness of blogs and blogging, and their potential power to influence. Governments have noticed this potential, and many authoritarian governments censor blogs believed to threaten their regimes. Iran has imprisoned bloggers who offended the ruling mullahs. At the same time, however, Iranian officials recognized the value of blogs to information strategy, holding the Revolutionary Bloggers Conference to promote pro-regime blogs in February 2006.5
The rise of military bloggers from deployed areas such as Iraq has raised concerns with U.S. Department of Defense officials that information posted in a blog could compromise operations security (OPSEC). Stars and Stripes, a newspaper that caters to the overseas military personnel, quoted a recent memo from the Army Chief of Staff, General Peter Schoomaker:
“The enemy aggressively ‘reads’ our open source and continues to exploit such information for use against our forces,” he wrote. “Some soldiers continue to post sensitive information to Internet Web sites and blogs. … Such OPSEC violations needlessly place lives at risk and degrade the effectiveness of our operations.” 6
This paper explores the possibility of incorporating blogs and blogging into military information strategy, primarily as a tool for influence. Towards that end, we examine the value of blogs as targets of and/or platforms for military influence operations and supporting intelligence operations. Influence operations are a subset of information operations (IO) that includes the core capabilities of Psychological Operations (PSYOP) and Military Deception (MILDEC), and the related capabilities of Public Affairs (PA), Military Support to Public Diplomacy (PD) and Civil Affairs/Civil-Military Operations (CA/CMO). To evaluate the IO potential for blogs, we seek answers to two questions:
1. Are blogs truly influential, and if so, in what manner?
2. Does the information environment support blogging as part of an information campaign?
Before addressing these questions, however, we first review the nature and structure of the blogosphere.
A warning for many.
Personally, I think there are more traitors working for the New York Slimes and the Washington Compost or other print media exposing "sensitive information to the enemy" than all the US Military personnel.
When I saw those two pictures, my first thought was "Look at that &*^%$&^ bi+**."
They don’t need to run influence operations on bloggers - the bloggers have a position, and argue it every day, and this influences public debate. As if Wretchard and Bill Roggio and Michael Yon (1) needed prompting to support the war effort and (2) could be manipulated in any event.
Hear, Hear!The perspective of Associated Press journalism is entirely predictable - journalism consistently promotes itself by criticizing and second guessing everyone who takes responsibility to get things done. That is why it so consistently undermines military, police, and business.
That leftist bias is why FR and conservative blogs are motivated to add perspective to the resulting information/disinformation stream. We are just not the place to look for someone to run a disinformation campaign; we aren't even able to do that. We are in fact a challenge to any disinformation program.
BTTT
Agreed and bump.
Thanks very much for the ping c_I_c. Thanks to all posters.
OUTSTANDING THREAD!
BUMP-TO-THE-TRUTH!
Loose lips sink ships.
before I post a comment, and the DBM can and does say anything they want that the ememy can use against us. Maybe they should have the same warning.
This is a great article. Big Media is dead, but...they simply do no know it yet.
Like a chicken with its head cut off, they lumber around and give the appearance of animation, all the while oblivious to their fate.
They want to change with the times, but will be unable to, in my opinion.
(BTW...good to see you last week...keep up the good work!)
And obsequious ones at that, who tend to give those above them what they want to hear. Some check and balance.
THAT is an excellent observation. Good job.
Sounds spooky!
The Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006: The Media as a Weapon in Asymmetrical Conflict
By Marvin Kalb
...
The upshot is a new kind of populist journalism, which strongly influences the story that is being covered. Indeed, the journalist or, in this new age, the commentator, often becomes part of the story.
During the Lebanon War, for example, the bloggers had more influence over the flow of the story than they had had during any other war. Ravi Nessman, the senior Jerusalem correspondent of the Associated Press, thought the influence of the bloggers, especially in the United States, was "unprecedented." When the bloggers [in the U.S.] discovered that photographs had been doctored, "the credibility of the bloggers ... skyrocketed and our credibility plummeted." Nessman added, "After that everything that we did was suspect. And that makes it very difficult to cover a war, to have honest people who are trying, who are not doctoring photographs, who are not taking one side or the other, but who are trying to present the truth of what is going on there, and have everything we say be examined, which is fair, but basically be questioned as a lie, and starting with that premise that the media is lying."
No doubt.
We’ll never forget this!!
Good graphic Phil.
bingo...
You nailed who we are quite nicely..
This is the source list of over 1100 MilBlogs I generally use for a quick search when I'm after one. There are a couple of other good compilations, several specific by service, locale or activity/MOS, and numerous blogs not listed or spring up or dying out with new deployments, but it's a real good starting point.
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