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VIEWS:
BEN VENZKE
Abandoned in America, The Death of
Awareness
© Ben N. Venzke 2008
[July 18 2008]
I fear the morning is coming when we will wake
up in America to thousands of dead and a public that has drifted into such a
mind-numbing ignorant bliss to the degree that when it happens it will have
devastating effects. However, even more than this, I fear how this
misinformed and ignorant public will whip back in such an intense emotional
state with politicians driving along that knee-jerk, sound bite solutions
will destroy years of progress within the counterterrorism community and not
only not help to make the country safer but simply create illusions of
safety when there is in fact none.
There is much I don't know but there is one thing I do and that is
terrorism. It has consumed the past 15 years or so of my professional life.
I also know a little about journalism having spent a brief stint in the
print world and having spent the last 12 years working with and providing
materials to just about every wire service, newspaper, magazine and network
around the world.
The average American has been abandoned. Journalism in this country has
always held a privileged role and rightfully so. There was a reason why a
newspaper had certain rights and privileges that do not exist for a comic
book publisher or a Hollywood studio or the people that make soap. It was a
sacred duty of the media to inform the public. Something now only
conveniently bandied about when a catchy scandal is breaking and "news"
organizations sue to get access to government documents or say Paris Hilton,
Michael Jackson or the Runaway Bride have an upcoming court appearance and
well, the ratings on streaming that live...
Here's the question though. Where is an average American able to learn about
how much of a threat al-Qaeda or FARC or Ansar al-Islam or any other major
terrorist organization poses to this country? Does not a news organization
in the US have a duty to, under its privileged status, make sure the public
is informed on issues of such consequence? Or is the sole measure of what
gets air time and resources and one of ratings and clicks.
Watch CNN, MSNBC and Fox for enough hours and priorities become clear. A
horse or worker stuck in a trench, a high-speed chase or a Paris Hilton and
her ilk rule the day, only to be superseded by that favorite national news
past time of "gotcha sound bites". Funny though, these things never seem to
drive coverage on France24 or al-Arabiyah. They seem to be hopelessly lost
in covering such things as an attack on the US Consulate in Turkey, or
developments in Afghanistan or even far flung places like Mauritania, which
yes I understand poses a real challenge for Americans who don't even know
which continent to look for it in.
I could recount endlessly major terrorist attacks the world over, many
involving American targets, that got little or no coverage in the US but did
get covered everywhere else. One of the deadliest bombings in the world
against tourists in Egypt a number of years ago wasn't even cause for CNN to
switch away from a Larry King interview of Tammy Faye Baker. It's no wonder
American's are either completely ignorant or horrifically misinformed about
world events and why self-promoting, book-selling talking heads who claim
there is no more al-Qaeda are seen as credible.
The majority of Americans continue on in ignorant bliss of the shifts and
changes in the world around them. They watch in glee as "reality tv" bleeds
its way into the broadcast news networks with their "iReports" and celebrity
gossip coverage. I can recall just a month or so ago when a headline on
CNN's website proclaimed that iReporters were having trouble buying food,
apparently they have not formed a union yet or realized they are just a
cheap way to avoid sending crews out. Those Americans who know better are
aware there is more going on in the world but if the news is not going to
deliver it to them then where do they go? In the broadcast world, if they
are lucky they can get France24, BBC News 24 or even CNN International.
However, that is a role of the cable/satellite programming dice. I can get
one out of three where I live and I have both satellite and cable.
It brings me back to the remarks of CNN's Miles O'Brien a number of years
ago when the news media in a summer slump decided to coin an average number
of shark attacks into a media event dubbed the "summer of the shark". Miles
ruminating on air about the disturbing turn the collective American
conscience had taken since 9-11 commented how before 9-11 "news" coverage
had drifted into a world of how to better seal your windows to save on air
conditioning, get better gas mileage or pay down your credit cards. He
carried the thought through to how when 9-11 happened Americans were
blindsided because no one had been bothering to do the story and how between
the sharks and a lost boy scout in the woods (the other big media event of
the moment) we appear to have already drifted right back into the same
place.
We love to use that phrase "Never Forget" in America and we speak it with
deep impassioned sincerity but oh how quickly we do. It is both our strength
and greatest curse. We move on like perhaps no other society, however, in
doing so we fail miserably at retaining any of the lessons learned of the
past. Immediately after 9-11 news organization after news organization held
endless public hand-wringing sessions on how we need to do more, send more
reporters around the world, more international coverage, etc. etc. and for a
bit it happened. However, month by month, year by year, the public and media
turned away. 9-11 was a historic event. Al-Qaeda was over in some place
called Afghanistan and Iraq and well if they could attack us here they would
have by now so therefore they obviously and quite logically cannot. So the
sharks and the boy scouts and home improvement and Paris Hilton and workers
stuck in trenches came back in droves and all those who trusted that if
something important was going on in the world, it would of course be on CNN
or MSNBC or Fox, went soundly back to sleep.
The problem, however, is that complicated, nuanced stories that leave people
feeling uneasy and require thought will never, ever draw the ratings of the
bear in Circuit City or the shark jumping behind the surf board. Spoon fed
adjective laced fluff and gossip does. You can dress the terrorism issues up
in a political fist fight with battling talking points or a sexy government
investigation, then sure it will hold its own for a bit more but by that
point you have gutted all the fact and context for a snappy headline
designed to get more clicks than actually inform and there is the rub.
Are you a news channel or entertainment? It is a simple black and white
question only made gray by those who want the ratings of the entertainment
world while trying to play under the guise of credibility and status
afforded to a news organization. For my two cents I don't understand why
everyone does not just stop playing around and go straight to porn. You
could lay off just about everyone, shoot it on the cheap and ratings would
be through the roof. Heck you could even have iReporters shoot it and then
you would not even need to have cameramen. I have little doubt there would
not be droves of volunteers. If it is just about return on investment and
clicks then instead of showing clips of the Victoria's Secret fashion show
on endless loop for days as Fox News did a few years back while talking
about how horrible it is that this was aired on one of the major networks
when kids could watch (apparently kids don't watch Fox News), why not just
leap ahead to the inevitable conclusion.
The 24-hour network news channels in America right now have more in common
with TMZ, arguing radio talk show hosts, CourtTV, Jerry Springer and 5th
grade level debate between political hacks spitting out talking points that
are as predictable as the sun rising in the morning, then they do news
organizations.
From my perspective this is not the fault of many of the top old-school
correspondents, producers and anchors who work tirelessly with little
resources and fight endless battles just to eke out a minute here or there
to try and heroically explain something that can't humanly be done in less
than 10 minutes. Many of you are on this list and I know the situation you
face. The problem lies deeper within the
evolving culture and revenue driven model of what's passing for a news
organization today.
The painfully short major network news heavyweights at NBC, CBS and ABC
still hold to a higher standard but in a changing media market and different
lifestyle schedules many people simply do not happen to find themselves
sitting in front of the TV and tuned to the same channel as they once did 15
or 20 years ago and even when they do, the extremely short time spans these
shows have to inform their viewers of all the key events in the world makes
it impossible to get all the high profile stories in, let alone do them
justice in two minutes. However, I have watched in amazement as people like
Lisa Myers and others do just that under what seem to me to be impossible
constraints.
There are also other true hardcore journalists still out there who can get
air time to share just a small fraction of what they know. Michael Ware at
CNN is one of those people. It's balanced, well-researched, insightful and
informative reporting. The catchy headline takes second seat to
actually informing the viewer and helping them walk away smarter on an issue
than they were 10 minutes before. It's reporting like that which we so
desperately need more of in the States. Either that or France24 needs to
increase its profile here.
Making all of this worse is that the problems are not limited to broadcast.
Shrinking budgets, staff and resources at major newspapers, magazines and
wire services are only further complicating things. As old business models
are turned on their heads and the all-mighty click metric rules the day.
Wire services like AP, AFP and Reuters are the staple of life when it comes
to knowing what is going on in the world. Should a push to do more
entertainment or resource cutbacks begin to impact coverage in certain
areas, it would quite literally be as if those places ceased to exist in
many ways for those who read the news but for now their reporters strewn
around the world continue to fight the good fight and provide that one
reliable outlet. AP reporting from Afghanistan and Pakistan and elsewhere
has been terrific and showed a depth of knowledge and source development
that is what real journalism is about. The problem here though is not that
the stories are not being done but rather how many people are seeing the
stories if they do not get picked up.
On the newspaper side there still is no one that can hold a match to the
in-depth reporting that is done by papers like the Washington Post when they
really get behind a story. The Washington Post's two multimedia features in
recent years on al-Qaeda and most recently the IED issue were a more solid
and informative treatment then I have seen in any American media and not
just on those issues but on almost any terrorist issue. They are an example
of what can really be done when the appropriate time, resources and space
are allocated to allow the journalists to do their job and the reader to be
informed. All is not well in the newspaper world though and the changing
landscape is bearing down heavily on the old models. Much of this was
captured in the final season of David Simon's brilliant insight into urban
life in America on HBO, "The Wire", when he focused the spotlight on The
Baltimore Sun.
Despite these two last bastions, I'm deeply worried. It's simply not enough.
As a print person it pains me to say it but in today's day and age, if it is
not on TV, more often than not, it did not happen. Whether in the circles of
government or in the mind of the public, the morning paper may still often
set the news cycle but it is the 24-hour news networks that determine
whether or not it grows legs. Even as an intelligence professional, myself
and my colleagues often find ourselves running in circles because someone
saw something utterly insignificant and unimportant on TV and well of course
then it must be urgent and so emails get dispatched and everyone stops what
they are doing to answer the questions of the customer who happened to flip
on a TV. Give the same person a critical intelligence report on something
they do not get and that is not on TV and you are lucky if they bother to
read it in some cases.
This brings me back to one simple question. If all the news powerhouses in
this country are not going to buckle down and decide that ratings or not, in
the post 9-11 world it's important to educate and inform Americans on these
issues, then who will? Also, informing does not mean taking one out of
hundreds of FBI bulletins that leak removing all context and common sense
and flashing them across the screen as breaking news. More of this tired
practice is not needed. What is needed is knowledge and context and real
reporting.
At IntelCenter we just released a wall chart with the logos from 39
different active terrorist groups. How many Americans do you think could
even think of the names of say five or more groups? Similarly there are more
than 50 groups actively operating in Iraq right now. I'd put money down that
if you were to walk the street and ask Americans to name just one group
other than al-Qaeda they could not. Yet these groups are killing Americans
on a regular basis. If we cannot name the groups who threaten us, how can we
even begin to understand the nature of the threat and the challenges that
face us.
My small part in this battle is to give tens of thousands of dollars every
year in free books, DVDs, intelligence reports and video licenses to every
news organization and documentary crew doing real reporting on this stuff
but beyond that informing the public is outside of our scope and
responsibility. Our products are simply too
expensive and technical to be able to fill that role. Schools cannot help
because well most of us are long done with them. Think tanks and other
questionable organizations often only serve to spin the data to serve their
political objectives or agenda. They are not beholden to the ethics and
professional practices of an intelligence analyst or a journalist. Academics
are often too far removed from practical concerns to significantly
contribute and they do not have the profile or exposure to reach people on a
regular basis. As for the government, some more information coming out of
DHS might help but that is trickier than it sounds for a whole host of
reasons and the role of a quasi news agency is not one it should be serving.
So I ask, if the news organizations that serve the American people do not
step up to the plate and say on this issue, ratings be damned, this is our
responsibility and duty, well then... we're just fucked.
That morning will come and for weeks on weeks following, questions will be
asked, "Did you see this coming? Were you surprised?"
And we will all say "Never Again" as we slap billion dollar overnight sound
bite feel good fixes into place that will not be sustained.
Until of course we forget yet again...
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BEN VENZKE
Ben N. Venzke is the founder and CEO of
IntelCenter which provides
intelligence support to the intelligence, law enforcement, military and
security communities. He has been working for the past 15 years to create
professional-level intelligence products that place timely, actionable
intelligence into the hands of those who need it, whether it is an operator
prepping to perform an entry, an analyst sitting at Langley, or a chief of
police attempting to assess the threat to his or her city.
Venzke has co-authored "The al-Qaeda Threat:
An Analytical Guide to al-Qaeda's Tactics & Targets", which has provided
readers for the first time in a publicly available format the ability to see
what al-Qaeda has said in its own words about targets and tactics.
While running IntelCenter and its sister company Tempest Publishing, Venzke
has managed intelligence products at Jane's Information Group where he
worked as an Editor and iDEFENSE where he was the Director
of Intelligence Special Projects. He also spent two years as Pinkerton
Global Intelligence Service's senior consultant for the Middle East and
Africa.
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