On the battlefield of public information "the goal" says Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, "is to confuse. It is to make more difficult. It is to add cost. It is to frighten." But is it just Bin laden who's the target of this obfuscation offensive?
The Pentagon releases videos and information about a raid inside Afghanistan. All, it is said, went well on that mission. No hacks witnessed the attack, there is no press pool being organized, and the frontlines are not so clear. This war, as Secretary Rumsfeld keeps reminding people "is so different from previous ones." Polls show the public is currently comfortable having editorial decisions made in the Pentagon , and the media is puzzling through its role in a time of a new kind of national crisis.
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Marvin Kalb, Executive Director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy in Washington, DC
Jack Cushman, Washington Editor of The New York Times
Andrew Kohut, Director of The Pew Center for the People and the Press
Torie Clarke, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs at the Pentagon.
