The media takes up our quarrel, on behalf of the foe.

[Rescue Randy]

The most powerful weapon that the CF has in this fight for the support of the Canadian public is not Public Affairs, it is the men and women of the CF.  Not the leaders, not the bureaucrats, but the ones who are at the coalface.  The only problem is, you have to have the courage to let them speak, knowing that from time to time they will say something that may cause embarrassment to their leaders.  When we were in the dark days of the mid 90s, and we could not get a positive media story regardless of what we did, we worked our way back by having troops at the front line, in SAR, disaster response, and peacemaking, tell their story.  The public will listen to them.
The problem is that the leadership has just muzzled the troops by restrictions on communications.  I have no quarrel with the need for OPSEC, but we need to let these folks talk - they will overpower the MSM leftist bent.

 

[mainerjohnthomas]

It is our job as citizens to hold the media to task about its reporting, and to ask the questions that it has chosen to overlook.  Many times I have read the slanted editorial pieces in our own Vancouver Sun and Province, and replied with letters to the editor.  Several times these letters have been published.  The media likes to pretend that all problems can be solved with a "dialog" and that casualties (on either side) represent "horrible mistakes that someone should investigate", and that all political and military objectives can/should be met without a shot fired.  We are not police, we do not arrest insurgents and investigate the childhood traumas that led them astray before giving them a big hug and parole, we are soldiers.  The problems we face in Afghanistan require deadly force, administered with the care and precision that only a well trained, superbly disciplined force can achieve.  The public can understand the truth if it is given them.
      If the media cannot see it on their own, then they can reprint the words of others.  Those of us who know, must speak, or the public will have only the media's misconceptions to base their opinions on.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Lotsa good media/political analysis here...

Kirkhill - Bang on, at least based on my experience, although I think if the politicians were out there more often, it would increase the chances of being heard.  In my limited experience, the media appear to have a harder time ignoring what a Minister says (or see him/her as a higher-value target) than what a bureaucratic comm drone has to say.

Re:  the PAff ideas/political climate, Rescue Randy summed up the calculus exactly.  My guess is that in a minority gov't, the political comms-meisters WAY UP HIGH would prefer having nothing get out there than the wrong thing, hence the apparent messaging risk aversion (as per probum non poenitet's highlight). 

As for the politics of the AFG campaign, as frustrating as it is, in a democracy, the elected officials are gonna think about what anything they do will mean for voters.  As much as it may lead to decisions I don't like from time to time, I'm not comfortable with the alternative.

mainerjohnthomas - As for letters to the editor, notice how many cabinet ministers have been using them to get their message out there more than in the past, say, 3-4 months?  Say, like this?