Abstract

‘Wag the Dog’ is a film about media manipulation. Though the movie was quiteprescient in its central scandal( a president charged with sexual misconduct),

the movie effectively chronicles the many ways in which the News media ismanipulated. In the first section of the paper, some relatively unknown‘Wagthe Dog’ cases are explored.. In the second section, the complicity and lackof vigilance of the Media in regards to manipulation is discussed. In the

final section, the paper assesses the impact of both the manipulation of themedia by government and the media’s own complicity in such manipulation.

Far from Fiction: ‘Wag the Dog’ and the News Media in Wartime

‘Wag the Dog’ is a film about media manipulation. Though the

movie was quite prescient in its central scandal( a president

charged with sexual misconduct), the movie effectively chronicles

the many ways in which the News media is manipulated. Two weeks

before election, the president in Wag the Dog has allegedly had

sex with a minor. In order to divert attention from this scandal,

and increase support for the president, Conrad Bream, a sort of

Public relations professional, (played brilliantly by Robert

Deniro) invents a war with the country of Albania. Bream hires

the services of a Hollywood producer and the movie is a sustained

focus on their sustained manipulation of the media. Among the

many manipulations the two devise are the in studio creation of a

war–digitally creating a ‘poor village’ of Albania ransacked by

the war; staged ceremonial events congratulating the president on

his efforts in Albania; anonymous leaks to the press;, and

finally a public relations campaign used to engender sympathy for

a ‘lost soldier’ when the fictionalized war is abruptly put to an

end by the CIA. Initially, many of ‘Wag the Dog’s” scenarios seem

to be ludicrous but in closer reflection many of the tactics used

in the film are quite real.

In the first section of the paper, some relatively

unknown‘Wag the Dog’ cases are explored.. In the second section,

the complicity and lack of vigilance of the Media in regards to

manipulation is discussed. In the final section, the paper

assesses the impact of both the manipulation of the media by

government and the media’s own complicity in such manipulation.

‘Wag the Dog’ Cases

While the relationship between media and military have never

been amiable, after Vietnam a new adversarial relationship was

developed. Convinced that the media portrayal of the Vietnam War

significantly contributed to its negative perception by the

public, military officials sought new ways to suppress negative

press coverage. The new set of rules were first implemented in

the U.S. invasion of Grenada, 1983. The Grenada invasion is the

first war cited by Conrad Bream, as an example of media

distraction. When asked, how the appearance of a war will distract

attention Bream says:

“During Reagan’s administration, 240 Marines killed in

Beirut.24 hours later we invade Grenada. That was

their M.O. Change the story, change the lead. Its not a

new concept.”

Bream, of course, maybe taken to imply that the Grenada invasion

was specifically intended to distract media attention by

“changing the story, changing the lead.” While it is doubtful

that the Grenada invasion was undertaken specifically to distract

attention from the Beirut killings( the decision to invade was

made three days before the bombing), it is hard to imagine that

the its political benefits did not play a part in its role. The

Grenada invasion took place (as Bream says) just 24 hours after

more than 200 marines were killed by a suicide bombing in Beirut.

In his Book, On Bended Knee, Mark Hertsgaard, states that the

marines death had the potential to be a political disaster for

President Reagan because of widespread fear in the public that

Reagan could take the country to war. In fact, the war became a

political triumphant. Public opinions polls rose sharply after

the war, spurred on by Reagan’s own explanation of the war as an

example of American power(Hertsgaard,1988).

It is here that we see many parallels with ‘Wag the Dog.’ In

the days leading up to the invasion, information was leaked to

the press about the invasion. When asked about the possibility of

invasion, officials declared that the idea was “preposterous.”

The decision to lie was not an isolated incident by war planners

but a directive from the highest offices to mislead the press.

The invasion was not known to the White House press offices or

the pentagon until one hour after the attack had already begun.

Further plans were made to organized that day–such as a speech on

the Today show. One reporter managed to make it to the island but

was detained on a U.S. navy vessel.

The press was further subverted by the government by barring

reporters from going to Grenada to report on the invasion. As a

result, most of the pictures and video of the war came from the

government. The shot footage was carefully selected: the

government videos consisted of paratroopers dropping on the

island and shots of students kissing the ground as they returned

to America. When reporters finally allowed access to the island,

the claim, (having been tenaciously repeated by the all major

news outlets) that Grenadian warehouses were full of Soviet

missiles and old weapons were refuted. One rational for the war

was, thus defeated. A second rational for the war was to “rescue

American students” but Hertsgaard asks the interesting question

“were the American students in need of rescue before or after

because of U.S. started combat.” Substantial evidence was there

that the Americans could have safely returned without military

rescue(Hertsgaard, 1988). Thus, another war rational was refuted.

Nevertheless, the Grenada invasion was a political victory

because the administration lied to the press, barred reporters

from entering Grenada, and provided news outlets with their

decidedly ‘sanitized’ and favorable images of the war.

In the book, Toxic Sludge is Good For You, authors John Stauber and

Sheldon Rampton, state that after being shut-out of the Grenada

War, journalists raised enough controversy which led to the

creation of bi-partisan committee that tried to best balance the

media and press in wartime. The idea of a media pool was

developed. The idea of a media pool faced its first real

challenge, in 1989 invasion of Panama to oust General Manuel

Noriega. Ostensibly, the pool was to provide journalists with

quick and easy access to the military and war but quickly turned

out to be yet another way to subvert the role of reporters. Media

Pool members arrived on the island late, after being delayed tow

hours by the Pentagon. When the reporters got to the island, they

were detained on a U.S. military base another five hours, and

therefore, missed all the major combat actions which took place

during this time. Moreover, the Media Pool was fed outdated

information by the U.S. embassy instead of being taken into

combat–military personnel refused to take journalists into the

combat zone. Overcoming technical difficulties( with a fax

machine in the Pentagon), the first pictures of the war surfaced

four days later— most of which were taken by the government. The

pictures and videos were of parachuting U.S. troops and the

reports mostly consisted of U.S. casualties, reporting nothing on

the battlefield.

However, media manipulation was not regulated to these

“lighting wars.” In the 1980's, The Reagan administration

secretly tried to overthrow the Sandinista government of

Nicaragua, which in 1979 had ousted the American-friendly

dictatorship of Anatasia Somoza. In order to win public support

for U.S. actions against Nicaragua( trade and economic actions)

the Reagan administration, in January 1983, directed CIA director

William Casey to set up a office of “Public diplomacy” described

as “a set of domestic political operations comparable to what the

CIA conducts against hostile forces abroad. Only this time, they

were turned against the three key institutions of American

democracy: Congress, the press and an informed electorate....the

administration built an unprecedented bureaucracy in the

[National Security Council] and the State department designed to

keep the news media in line and to restrict conflicting

information from reaching the American public.”( Stauber &

Rampton, 1995).

Following the advice, of the then leading Public Relations

professionals, the White House created a “communications

function,” of which the the Office of Public Diplomacy(OPD) was

primary to discredit the Sandinistas government in the eyes of

the American people. Bream, after find out that the president as

been charged with sexual misconduct with a minor hatches his

first plan to subvert the story: he tells his aides to leak a

story about a B-3 bomber so his press office can deny press that

there is B-3 bomber. Such denial means he’s not lying.

Bream: Why is the president in China?

Aide: Trade Relations

Bream: You goddamn right and Its got nothing to do

with the B-3 bomber.

Aide: There is no B-3 bomber

Bream: I just said that. There is no B-3 bomber

and I don’t know why these rumors get started.

Bream cleverly concocts a diversion. Since the president is in

China for trade relations, it is imperative that he stay there

for a few more days in order to avoid having to answer to the

allegations made against him. However, in order for it not to

seem like the president is extending his stay in China because he

does not want to face the allegations, he must give the press

something to think about–a crisis involving a B-3 bomber. Bream

instructs his aides to “let it slip” to a Washington reporter “I

hope this [the president being in China] won’t screw up the B-B-3

program.” Of course, the reporter will ask “What B-3 program and

why should it screw it up?” to which his aide will reply “to

avert the crisis.” At this point in the film, Bream does not know

what the ‘crisis’ is but leaking the story buys enough time to

allow him to create it.

When told by one of his aides that the “story won’t prove

out” Bream responds “ It doesnt have to prove out. We just have

to distract them.”

Predictably, the reporters in the film, instead of

skeptically addressing the bomber story, spend most of the time

asking if the president’s stay in China has anything to do with

the B-3 bomber and rumors of an “Albanian Ops center.” This

allows the press office to deny knowledge of any B-3 bomber which

only furthers speculation. One reporter asks:

“ Is the situation in Albania in anyway related to the

Muslim fundamentalist anti-American Uprising?”

To which Bream, watching the press conference on television,

happily responds:

“Now they get it. There you go. There’s a little help.”

In other words, all that needs to be done is leak a false story

and enable the curious journalists to expand on it, in the

process ignoring allegations against the president. After all,

“Muslim fundamentalists” and “anti-American Uprisings” present a

threat to national security and ‘The American Way of life” which

are much graver than the sexual misconduct of the president. The

attempt to divert attention, is thus complete.

While the obvious comparison is the President Clinton/Monica

Lewinsky scandal, the Nicaraguan example is more apt since no

actual action was taken as in the film. Following directives to

find “exploitable themes and trends”, the Office of Public

Diplomacy, in the Reagan administration leaked uncorroborated

stories purporting to show the military threat Nicaragua posed to

the U.S. One such story was the 1984 “MIGS crisis.” The White

House leaked information to the press that claimed Nicaragua was

on the verge of receiving Soviet Fighter planes. Later research

showed that the story did not “prove out” but the story served

its purpose. Television news frequently played the story of the

MIGS crisis, to the extent that regular news programs were

interrupted to give “special bulletins” about the crisis.

Moreover, the story diverted attention from the Nicaraguan

election, which was held that week, and in which the Sandinista

government—the one Reagan was trying to overthrow won by a large

margin. In fact, the election was the first “free” Nicaraguan

election though it was soon dismissed by Reagan as a “sham.”

Perhaps the most insidious form of media manipulation stems

from the use of Prepackaged news, or video news releases. In the

article, Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged Television News, David Barstow

and Robin Stein detail the expansion of pre-packaged news in the

last decade. Pre-packaged news are news segments specifically

produced to be indistinguishable from regular Network TV news,

complete with scripts, interviews, and suggested lead ins. While

pre-packaged news existed in the time of the Grenada and Panama

wars, in the form of favorable or ‘sanitized’ video footage, the

use video news releases have grown exponentially since and have

become much more sophisticated. These videos feature “reporters”

who report on an issue, just have it were regular news. Public

relations professionals are careful to not overtly push a message

though the segments don’t ever feature criticisms of their

positions. The segments are distributed to various media outlets

and pl subsequently played to millions of viewers. Networks

regularly edit these video news releases, by for example, cutting

the paid government employee out, and using their own reporters

to read the Government written or Public relations written

script( Barstow &Stein, 2005).

Another carefully orchestrated plan of media manipulation in

the film ‘Wag the Dog’ remarkably resembles the use of Video News

releases to enjoin certain sentiments in the public. In light of

the president return from China, Bream stages a ceremonial event–

An Albanian young girl and her grandmother thank the president

for his help in the country of Albania. Thus, the segment

broadcasted live in the movie serves to rationalize the fictional

war to the American public by showing the good fortune its bring.

This deliberate act of manipulation is virtually identical in the

first case the New York Times article acites, in which a jubilant

Iraqi-American says “Thank you, Bush. Thank you, U.S.A.” to a

camera crew in Kansas City for a segment about reaction to the

fall of Baghdad. The segment was produced by the U.S. State

Department.

However, the war on terrorism began before the war in Iraq

in Afghanistan and the Administration used video news releases to

justify and support the war in Afghanistan. A total of 59

segments, according to the Times article, were produced,

‘reporting’ how successful the U.S. war on Afghanistan had been.

The video news releases explained that a result of U.S. action,

Afghan women were ‘liberated,’ now being free to go to school and

participate in their country’s politics. One such video, featured

reporter Tish Clark who later learned that the segment was

government produced. Clark, following standard industry practice,

had edited the tape and read the script giving the segment the

reality of ‘real news.’ The segment was broadcast to millions of

viewers who were not made aware that the segment was a product of

the government. The effective blurring of the lines between ‘real

news’ and government or PR produced news, through censorship and

media complicity has lead to marriage between the media and the

government, in which the government is the greater benefactor.

The Complicity of the Media

In any marriage, one expects to find some storming an

shouting. But how much storming and shouting did the press do?

While each of the wars from Grenada to the Gulf elicited enough

anger from various journalists that new committees were formed,

with the expressed purpose to better accommodate the demands of

journalists in Wartime, Journalists consistently complied with

prima facie cases of military censorship rather than vigorously

challenge them..

The Grenada Invasion is case in point. A day before the

Grenada invasion, two ABC reporters captured footage of U.S. navy

jets and Marine helicopters on the neighboring island of

Barbados. The airplanes landed, transferring soldiers and

equipment to helicopters, and men in business suits to the Jets.

Sharon Sacks, one of the reporter called the U.S Embassy wanting

to find ou if the event was signal of invasion but was told it

was an evacuation of students(later shown to be false). When

this story was filed to ABC News, editor Robert Fyre declined to

run the story citing Washington stories that the prospective

invasion of Grenada was “preposterous.” Further comments from

Washington suggested that a U.S. carrier in the region was there

to ferry stranded foreigners, not prepare for invasion. All of

these were lies. Yet, the press did not run, lead with. or

featured this curious case of Government censorship and

deliberate misinformation in its newscasts (Hertsgaard, 1988).

John MacArthur, in the book, Second Front details many of the

cases in which top newspapers and Tv editors simply conceded to

the military, showing a nascent lack of vigilance in pursuit of

news and complicity with government censorship. After the failure

in of the National Media Pool system in the Grenada and Panama

invasions, another committee was created to address the problems

of the press and military in wartime. The compromise was to be

tried in the Gulf war but failed miserably. Journalists were

confined to hotels and could not independently report, a military

escort was necessary on each report; journalists in pools could

not choose stories and were instead assigned “slots” by the

Pentagon; Journalists stories had to undergo a “security review”

before they could be filed which essentially censorship. As a

result of rules Journalists agreed to in going into th Gulf War,

they were effectively prevented from reporting any other news

other than what the Pentagon wanted. Popular stories of the war

praised th accuracy of U.S. bombs, and exaggerated the might and

quantity of the Iraqi army. However, just as pre-

packaged news represent the most insidious ways of media

manipulation so does the conventional acceptance and use of Video

News releases in the Journalism industry is its most unsettling.

In a country that receives over 80 percent of its news from

television, what is one to make of the fact that much of what

seems like ‘news’ produced by the stations are, in fact VNR’S

produced by the government PR professionals? Are we to naively

assume that the seamless blending of sponsored news and ‘real

news’ has negligible impact? The specific purpose of Vnr’s is the

promotion of a product or ideology. The news media’s ostensibly

purpose is to report on different products whether they be

products or ideologies. As such, a primary feature of actual

journalism is criticism. In order to fulfill its function as an

informer, the journalist must be wary of promoting different

ideologies, either by short shifting an idea or lacking

vigilance in their reporting. The producers of VNR’s have a

decidedly different objective: the promotion of a product which

precludes criticism. Thus, there exists an essential tension

between the VNR’S and the practice of journalism.

But if VNR’S are common, then their must be reason for its

use. The primary argument for the use of VNR’S are its financial

benefits to stations: News Networks have radically downsized

while expanding coverage. The use of VNR’S is thus a cost-saving

measure that allows news organizations to gather footage that

would either be too expensive too be produced or what they cannot

afford at all. Unfortunately, while the argument explains the

widespread and conventional use, it says nothing about ethical

questions. There are in no Media Code of Ethics articulated any

standards for the use of VNR’S. While some codes state that, work

not produced by news organizations should be clearly labeled,

this can hardly be a sufficient. VNR’S still expound. not report

on or critique products or ideologies. As a result, the public is

still being fed a particular ideology by a news organization. Should

the government produced events of happy Afghan women be

accompanied by anything? Is merely noting that is a product of

the government sufficient curb the ideology produced( ‘the War is

good. Look at all the good’)? correcting falsities stated in

VNR’s sufficient? It is impossible to determine precisely how

images and videos affect audience perception but that they can

should give us caution in thinking that merely labeling

uncritical reporting is sufficient to prevent propagandizing.

The Impact of ‘Wag the Dog’ Cases

In ‘Wag the Dog,’ the result of media manipulation is

decidedly bleak: the Hollywood producer mysteriously ends up dead

and there remains public permanently deceived about non-existent

war. In real life, the consequences are not so different though

the casualty is the ability of the public to discern the truth.

In the film, some characters express worry that the public will

know or find out about the deception but Bream, who refuses to

assert the truth or falsity of any statement in the film gives a

devastating response to such naive sentiments:

“You watched The Gulf War. What do you see day after

day? The one smart bomb falling down a chimney. The

truth? I was in the building when we shot that shot. We

shot it in a studio in Falls Church, Virginia.1/10

scale model of a building.”

When asked sardonically asked if the above is true, Bream

responds:

“How the fuck do we know. You take my point?”

This is the crippling skepticism that results when the lines of

‘real news’ and government sponsored or public relations are

mixed. The ‘point’ is that the Gulf War images fed to journalists

could have been easily been faked by the government. Bream has

outlined a possible scenario in which the bombing could have been

fictionalize, asserts it as “truth” but resorts to agnosticism

when asked if what he asserts as true is indeed so. That is, how

can you tell the difference? We simply don’t know!

Moreover, Bream, argues in the film: it is the visceral

impact of the images that matter not there truth or falsity.

While the News media prides itself on its ability to issue public

statements correcting mistakes, by the time the media has

corrected misleading visual images, the point has already been

made. Says Bream:

“‘54, 40, or fight.’ What does that mean? ...’Remember

the Maine’ ‘Tippcecanoe and Tyler, too. They’re war

slogans. We remember the slogans but we can’t remember

the war...The Gulf War, smart bomb falling down a

chimney. 2,500 missions a day, 100 days. One video of

one bomb. The American People bought that War. War is

show business.”

And if there is no images? No memory such as the Grenadian

Invasion. How many people know of that War? Or remember it? The

point is that visual images, whether they communicate truth or

not have lasting impact. These facts were demonstrated in the

previous ‘Wag the Dog’ cases.

But of course this conclusion isn’t too distressing? After

all, the lesson, at least, for the public is to develop a

‘healthy skepticism” toward the Media itself. However, this

argument misses a crucial point: Journalists are supposed to be

the skeptics. Can the public be expected to have the same time to

do as much research as assumed of journalists? Can the public,

for instance, be expected to research reports from overseas? It

can easily be replied that a “healthy skepticism” simply entails

a suspension of judgment and compels the public to do no more

than acquiesce in the face of news. However, this is

insufficient. Journalists report information that is supposed to

inform the public: this information can then be used by the

public to act. Journalists do not present their work in a vacuum

of which there is no effect on public attention. Thus, the

concept of a “healthy skepticism,” while a valuable concept

ignores the demand this will put on a public now expected to

critically research the reports of those who are supposed to be

its critical researchers. Though it is unacceptable for the

public to take the media simply at face value, it is equally

unacceptable that Journalist could not be trusted enough to give

fair accounts in the absence of individual research.