Mass Media: A Key to Public Support of Strategic Goals

摘要

The strategic planner faces the difficult task in a free society of gaining and maintaining public support for strategies which are in the national interest. His most effective means of communicating with the public is through the mass media of the nation: newspapers, news magazines, radio, and television. In carrying out the first mission of the Department of Defense, preparing the war, the planner must seek to educate those who work in the media on what the national interests are and how they are to be served. The second mission of DOD is to wage war. The conduit of information from the battlefield is the war correspondent. An appreciation of the role of the war correspondent and the relationship he has had with the U.S. military from the Civil War forward is helpful to the planner who must determine, depending upon the intensity of conflict, whether the war correspondent will approach his job with the attitude of cheerleader or cynic. that attitude may in large part affect the national resolve to see a military goal attained. Research material comes from publications relating to the subject, interviews with those who have worked in this area and the author's personal experience. (Author)