As part of the public opinion war, the Pentagon has been reaching out to the Arab Street and Main Street. Soldiers based in Qatar have been chatting with radio talk shows in their hometowns and joining Internet chats on Web sites from oprah.com to bbcnews.com. It’s a strategy Franks’s communications director, Jim Wilkinson, helped develop at the White House, where he worked until recently: take your message straight to the people.
But that hardly means reporters are being ignored. The White House briefing room is famously dilapidated, but CENTCOM has invested $250,000 in its press setup: plasma screens that show high-tech battle-damage-assessment graphics and a backdrop created by a set designer. While some reporters watch the war from their plush seats, more than 500 others have been “embedded” with troops, and the Pentagon is looking for more. Plans are already in the works to embed reporters with troops after the “liberation” of Basra. Even a reporter from Al-Jazeera–the Arabic TV news channel–has been given an embed with troops, though he is being held up by the Kuwaiti government. The brass are hoping their aggressive media strategy will translate into good news.
