Salocin

Fake letters from US soldiers

US Soldiers have been sending form letters written by US Army staff in an attempt to circumvent what the White House refers to as "the filter" of more traditional news outlets. The Washington Post reports that in some cases, the soldiers themselves did not even know the letters had been sent. BBC News reports that some of the letters were sent to people's homes, and were shared (in good faith) with the local news media by their family. So let me get this straight - the US Army is doing this to circumvent the filter of the media? Somebody tell me I'm dreaming please?

I'm desperately trying to understand this from every single point of view. I'm sure there's at least one point of view held by one person in the world somewhere where this doesn't appear to be brutal and blatant manipulation of the press.

They send fake - forged - letters to people's parents, making them believe that the letters are genuine and come from their children in the field, and let the parents send these letters, in good faith, to local newspapers. These then print the letters, and somehow this is a good thing?

The Washington Post implies it's part of a campaign to communicate directly with the country :

The form letter from the troops, like the Bush interviews with local media outlets, stems from a frustration with the national media and a desire to circumvent what the administration views as unfairly negative coverage of the Iraq conflict.

It's a blatant corruption of the freedom of the press, tricking the local media into publishing the army's message with an individual soldier's name on it. It probably classifies as identity theft and it leaves me queasy just to think about it.

I'm desperate to understand how it's all right for the country that pretty much runs the show these days to do things like this. Again from the Washington Post...

In one interview, with Hearst-Argyle, he [Bush] said, "I'm mindful of the filter through which some news travels, and somehow you just got to go over the heads of the filter and speak directly to the people."

And this somehow includes misrepresenting the source of the information and getting people to believe it by making it come from some sucker who doesn't even know he's sent it? I thought I understood simple ethics, now I'm confused.

Further information on the media filter (admittedly from a somewhat biased website).

Posted by nlvp at October 14, 2003 06:52 PM