Journalism Covers a War Like No Other: It's Not Just in Ukraine

Surkov39s fiction describes the war of the future quotIt was the first nonlinear warquot he wrote quotIn the primitive wars of the 19th and 20th centuries it was common for just two sides to fight amp8230 Now four coalitions collided Not two against two or three against one No All against all And what coalitions Not like the ones you had before It was rare for whole countries to enter A few provinces would join one side a few others a different one One town or generation or gender would join yet another Then they could switch sides sometimes midbattle Their aims were quite different amp8230 Most understood the war to be part of a process Not necessarily its most important partquotThe story deserves attention as more than high concept Surkov turned his ideas into realworld weapons at home and abroad From helping suffocate Russian democracy to distorting the reality surrounding Moscow39s serial aggressions in its near abroad his accomplishments at Putin39s elbow speak for themselves So does his short story39s scarcely veiled description of the future of information at war Just ask Russia39s generals They paid attention and aren39t hiding their game Lt General Andrei Kartapolov put it this way in 2015 quotA classical waramp8230consisted usually of 80 percent violence and 20 percent propaganda New type wars consist of 8090 percent propaganda and 1020 percent violencequot Stay tuned for coming events in UkraineFor Americans who want to understand what Putin is up to the message from Russia39s media manipulators and military brass couldn39t be clearer When it comes to the role of information in the 21st century39s wars forget about oldfashioned differences between war and peace conventional and clandestine conflict the home front and the battle front and whether fighting is near or far away The distinctions are as quaint as castle moats cavalry charges and close order drills A new book by Phil Seib a professor of journalism and public diplomacy at the University of Southern California and an expert on the media and war explains why the world of information has fundamentally changed the business of war and much morequotInformation at war has always been a weapon in itself amp8230 that can influence the outcome of conflictsquot Seib writes in Information at War Journalism Disinformation and Modern Warfare Reflecting both his scholarship and journalist39s credentials the book provides exceptionally timely analysis and case studies as well as a solidly grounded history Seib traces the twinned evolution in technology and media describing the growing power of information in shaping the conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries Past is prologue and his examples are vivid Begin with Edward R Murrow39s radio broadcasts in 1940 as German bombs rained on London cut to television news turning Vietnam into the 1960s39 living room war and take a tight shot of US soldiers blogging on their way to Baghdad in 2003 The cases capture and help explain a century of turning points in the media and information39s wartime roleSeib is not just writing about the news quotA basic premisequot he explains quotis that if government wants to wage war it must control or at least influence the media ecosystemquot Seib makes the point by portraying how things have gone From feeding cable news vacuous content to meet its insatiable demand for imagery and embedding journalists who cheer led rather than covered the first Iraq war to failing to corral citizen journalists and crowdsourced outlets that reported on coverups torture and civilian casualties in the years that followed the implication is obvious Advancing technology in an increasingly connected world is steadily raising the bar for any government effort to manage the media in all its hydraheaded formsInformation at War is refreshingly free of abstruse academic theory social science jargon and media speak Seib writes clearly about complex subjects and lets facts do the talking His picture of the changing information landscape also portrays the growing challenges for governments as information39s potential as a weapon becomes even more pervasive For example compare the United States in 1921 when its 30 radio stations broadcast to the 60000 American households that had radios and 2020 when 60 percent of the world39s 78 billion people use the Web The impact of communications technology and information on political leaders as well as generals is impossible to missSeib offers neither reassurances nor dire warnings about the future His conclusions make clear the complexities in forecasting are simply too great Malignant social media the demise of professional news organizations as gatekeepers and the public39s civic as well as media illiteracy all cloud the crystal ball As vulnerabilities they39re also daunting to fix Indeed Seib39s description of the current national effort to confront information at war is understated quotIn most countriesquot he writes quotdefending against information attacks has not yet been accorded an appropriate level of coherent doctrinequot Considering the attacks Moscow Beijing Tehran and others are mounting here it39s fair to say his judgment is generous to say the leastCountering the threats posed by information at war is a monumental task The roster of adversaries and their attacks are growing as is the complexity of the media environment and the technological tools available to exploit Take what the government faces It must counter dis and misinformation cyberespionage to steal and leak secrets cybercriminals who subcontract to hostile intelligence services and oldfashioned propaganda dressed up as say Russian TV news that Tucker Carlson and other useful idiots in the commentariat parrot every night Moscow39s cup runneth over And the Russians aren39t aloneInformation at War doesn39t ignore journalism39s role or lack thereof in confronting the challenge quotCovering information at war is important and will require expertise that as of now too many news organizations lackquot Seib writes His line needs bold face To their credit new outlets such as ProPublica innovative investigative journalism projects such as Bellingcat and numerous think tanks research organizations and scholars like Seib have dug into and publicized for interested readers Russian and other information warfare Notwithstanding their hard work however to educate a mass audience that is the target of information at war it39s simply not enoughWith major print outlets that do serious investigative journalism shrunken to a handful cable news reduced to the low budget model of endlessly babbling studiobound panels and the entertainment giants that own broadcast news happy to air whatever fits in their profit centers39 nightly 30minutes as long as it doesn39t disturb their bottom lines the prospect that mainstream journalism will invest in what it takes to rise to the challenge is a long shot at best If public service matters in the boardrooms that oversee news networks and divisions elevating their reporting staffs and resources to cover the battle regularly and in depth is long overdueRussia39s latest information war surrounding Ukraine is the most immediate reason Phil Seib deserves attention But Information at War also merits a broad readership because it helps explain why the threats facing the country from disinformation misinformation and just plain lies aren39t only from abroad Or as Walt Kelly39s Pogo said some time ago on that score quotWe have met the enemy and he is usquotClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet

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Journalism Covers a War Like No Other: It's Not Just in Ukraine

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Kent M. Harrington

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