Winning the Communications Battle - Defence, the Media and 'Fake News'

The Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Carter delivered his annual lecture to the RUSI last week. In a wide ranging speech he explored what the British armed forces have been doing over the past year, and set this in the context of a changing global environment where the tools of political warfare is increasingly driving the operational world.

The speech is lengthy and worth reading in full. As a timely reminder of the scale of UK military operations, and the reach of our interests it sets the scene well. It also explores in depth the increasing focus on NATO commitments, and the direct challenges posed to national security by Russia and other competitors.

Finally the speech recognises that much of the security threats facing the UK comes not just from traditional military organisations, but also from issues like cyber crime intellectual property theft and ‘fake news’ among other challenges.

Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

It is on this issue that Humphrey wants to focus – namely the relationship between defence and the media, and how to handle it appropriately. In unusually strong language the General directly attacked defence coverage in the Sunday Times in recent weeks, saying:

“I think our own media has a really important role to play in setting up a well-informed public debate as well as protecting our democracy. And I hope we can avoid unfounded speculation as we’ve seen in the last two editions of a certain Sunday paper - where I learned that myself and the CGS were at “daggers drawn” over the future shape and size of the Army, with reductions to under 65,000 being contemplated; I learned we were mothballing one of our aircraft carriers; and that my tenure was about to expire. Whether this is fantasy journalism, wishful thinking or fake news from one of our authoritarian opponents - I leave you to judge”

To call out one of the most significant papers in the country for its reporting in this way is significant because it visibly represents frustration at the plethora of stories that have emerged in recent weeks.

While the article from a few weeks ago was probably nothing more than a compilation of very early ‘if the budget looks really bad for us then we could do this’ type thinking leaked in a completely inappropriate way, it is fascinating to see the reach that this article has gained. To get the head of the British Armed Forces willing to go so forcefully on the record to rebut it, and accuse the paper of publishing fake news is an extremely strong reaction.

The problem though is that no matter how frustrated CDS may be at these reports, the stories will continue for as long as there is a leaking culture in Defence. The Armed Forces provide a wealth of good stories for journalists hungry for headlines – ranging from the soft ‘ship returns home’ story or the classic ‘hometown story of local child who has done well’ through to salacious gossip, foolish pranks and finally acts of extreme bravery.

All of this makes for good interesting material depending on your audience, and regularly gets covered. The challenge though is when individuals inside Defence feel that the papers can be used as a weapon to fight their own private battles.

Time and again in recent years we’ve seen the steady drip drip drip of leaking options papers, or ‘senior military sources’ whispering that the Parachute Regiment may be merged with the Royal Marines, or the Red Arrows scrapped. The latest iteration of this came only last week when some papers reported that exactly these options were under consideration – impressive going considering the SDSR hasn’t begun and no one has a clue what the financial headroom is to operate in.

The idea that you can magically predict that any of these outcomes will occur ahead of the review even starting is nonsensical, yet it rightly gets published because it provides a good story. The challenge though is that these stories, which are almost certainly propagated by people in, or very close to, Defence is that it does more harm than good. 

Reputationally for the Royal Navy, a week which should have focused on the fact that both carriers are in Portsmouth instead has seen plenty of rumours around whether one of them will be sold or leased – a story that has come out of nowhere, probably from nothing more substantial than some utterly hypothetical and in confidence ‘back of a fag packet costings’ by a junior team and now turned into part of the strategic narrative.

People who leak to the press doubtless think they are doing so for noble reasons -a desire to protect their Service from harm, or to protect a cause close to their hearts. It is possible that someone, driven by a desire to protect the carrier force did this because they felt it was a way to force change.

The reality though is these leaks rarely achieve this effect – rather they normalise the discussion and make it acceptable to think about. This means that Ministers may be tempted to take an option on the grounds that if its already out there, then politically they’ve taken a lot of flak for it already, so its less harmful than doing something else.

Secondly, where a leaked option arouses strong popular support, it can make it harder for the rest of Defence. For example in the Army every time reforms are considered around infantry cap badges, leaks follow that lead to angry backbench MPs and pressure to avoid taking a long hard look at whether the current structures work. This often means that cuts fall disproportionately on areas that perhaps lack the glamour or the campaigners, but without whom those in the front line would struggle.

At the risk of sounding dangerously close to a staff college lecture, in Clausewitz terms, the UK’s centre of gravity in peacetime is probably the will of the people. Public opinion can be moulded, shaped or modified, but once put into a negative frame of mind, can be very hard to turn around.

In the case of defence leakers, they may think they are supporting their cause, but in fact they are undermining the very centre of gravity that they profess to wanting to protect. A cursory glance at social media pages shows stories about cuts do land and create a negative mindset –it is likely that no matter how untrue it may be, the ‘one carrier leased to the Americans’ line is now going to infect every narrative on the future of the Carrier force for years to come.

Leakers need to understand that their actions inflict real harm on the people they work with and damage the support needed from the British public. More widely leaking hurts the culture of trust that is necessary in Defence to think and have the space to look at painful but revolutionary options, or to create the debate around what change looks like.

Part of the challenge of being a genuinely world class military is the need to constantly evolve and change to stay on top of trends and emerging technologies. Sometimes this means difficult decisions need to be looked at, not to be taken but to be understood about where to invest or cut to help keep on the very cutting edge of capability.

But if the culture exists where people feel that they cannot think freely for fear of leaking, or that they cannot take risks because to do so will see their work end up in the weekend papers, then this harms the ability of Defence to think and evolve. Your desire to get a quick headline could have tactical, operational and strategic ramifications far beyond what you thoughts possible – and often in a negative way.

More widely CDS used his speech to call for better use of data to help protect truth and rebut fake news. He said:

“To harness such a collective effort, we will need some strategic aiming marks to work towards. These might be to focus the functions where ethical application of Artificial Intelligence and autonomy could bring advantage, enabling platforms to be smaller, lighter and, perhaps, greener. And to value data as a strategic asset, rapidly detecting, attributing and rebutting ‘fake news’, and transforming the battlespace and the business – watch out the Sunday papers …

In other words he wants to make Defence far better at responding quickly (dare one say in a more ‘agile’ manner) to the stories that are breaking and counter this with an effective narrative.

The challenge though is how to do this in a manner which is credible and works. It takes seconds to tweet a story, which if picked up can rapidly propagate around the globe. Once a story is out, the ability to recall it is lost if it turns out to be false – rather like a Trident missile, once fired, there is no going back.

For Defence though the challenge is spotting these stories as they break and being able to rebut it quickly enough to kill it. If you look at the case of a ‘fake news’ story, by the time media teams have spotted it, identified that the story isn’t true and then alerted the chain of command, precious minutes may have gone by. Meanwhile the story could be multiplying like a virus and being retweeted.

By the time the facts of the case have been confirmed,  the people involved spoken to and a form of words provided to respond (and if needs be other government departments brought in for their views), hours could well have gone by – hours in which the fake news has total freedom to dominate the information narrative and shape peoples opinions.

How does defence counter this more effectively? Perhaps part of the solution is investing on more AI to help spot potential false stories, or alternatively to identify and deploy holding responses that flag up a story as being possibly fake pending holding replies.

Another solution is to improve how Defence shares information, in a complex global business which operates in so many areas, so many continents and with so many people, finding the right experts and bringing them in to offer credible views and robust responses can take time – time that is often in short supply. Improving the means to get experts out there quickly and offer a credible rebuttal as quickly as possible could prove vital.

The challenge in getting this sort of rapid robust response mechanism though is that it requires Defence to do two things that are likely to prove culturally challenging. Firstly, it will need to delegate downwards to the lowest practical level the permission to respond promptly and effectively – in other words much like a military commander will have delegated rules of engagement, so to do future twitter warriors.

These individuals need to be trusted to respond quickly, accurately and in sufficient time to prevent breaking stories gaining traction in target audiences. In some ways this could be described as ‘calling for social media fires’ to help solve a problem. But in an organisation where control over the central narrative is closely held, and where close work is required with government partners to deconflict and ensure the messages issued are joined up and aligned, does the necessary agility and flexibility needed to be a ‘call for twitter fires’ force exist, or will it be bogged down in a chain of approvals, authorisations, redrafts and submissions?

Secondly, to develop a truly agile information culture means reaching out across the multitude of channels that exist to effectively deliver coherent messages on them. Unlike 30 years ago where the vast bulk of audiences that Defence wanted to influence would read papers, listen to the radio and watch TV, todays audience has an almost overwhelming array of channels to seek their information.

The risk is that people in positions of authority to deliver messages either stick to their comfort zones (e.g. focusing briefing efforts on people and channels they understand), or lack the credibility to deliver a message to some channels. For instance, would a middle-aged military officer have the credibility in the eyes of the audiences on snapchat or TikTok to put the right message across?

To adequately communicate to the diverse range of audiences out there needs people who instinctively understand what the message is, and how the message will land well with the audience. This is fine in the civilian world where you can hire and empower people, but if you need someone who may only be 18 or 19 to be an influencer, how do you get them taken seriously in a system where rank, and experience is everything?

A real issue that Defence is going to need to work out how to handle in the coming years is balancing off the need to influence on different channels, and in different ways, with the hierarchical nature of the organisation? A form of reverse empowerment is needed where junior soldiers are trusted to deliver messages using their instinct, and more importantly, are listened to and their advice acted on when it comes to working out what to do.

This may be really hard – particularly for a military system where a private is the most junior person going, but we’ll know progress has been made when junior troops are brought in to offer advice, which is then acted on directly. This may sound quite a risky approach to what, at times, is a very risk averse organisation, but it may be essential to keep pushing the message out.

The bigger risk is that Defence finds itself left behind – sitting in a comfort zone of long articles in the print media and the odd piece to film, there may be missed channels of engagement that could have a bigger impact. For example, is there an argument to bring in Twitter, Instagram, snapchat and other ‘influencers’ in some way to be briefed on defence issues in a way that helps spread the word more widely?

At present engagement feels very much at times like it is done primarily through the print and broadcast media and specialist correspondents many of whom do outstanding work to raise the profile of military activity with a wide audience. But, are they reaching the next generation of recruits and tax payers, and are they the right channel to spread the word about the opportunities in the modern military and its operations?

There absolutely is a long-term future for defence correspondents, but we are possibly approaching a fascinating tipping point when engagement moves from just about issuing a press release or holding a media briefing day, to instead looking at every channel of engagement and angle.

For example, would it make sense at the next Army firepower demonstration day to invite a wide range of snapchat, TikTok and Instagram users who are seen as influencers by the target demographic audience for recruiting and engagement? E.g. the people who could join, and the people who will as the next generation of taxpayers fund the military, could be targeted in a manner that may otherwise be missed by reliance on more traditional forms of media.

 There was a strong negative reaction in many serving and older quarters to the ‘Snowflakes’ recruiting campaign, yet it generated hugely impressive results and was one of the most successful recruiting campaigns ever. Building on this success and taking forward this sort of targeted audience engagement is going to be essential in future information campaigns.

The challenge ahead is one which also requires a move away from the culture of selective leaking for the benefit of ones own capbadge, and a realisation by mid ranking staff officers who should have the common sense to know better that to leak speculative options ahead of a Defence Review hurts, not helps, the Armed Forces as a whole.

This is not going to be easy – there are too many people out there who sadly think nothing of leaking sensitive information that then forms the narrative, regardless of whether it is true or not. This makes it harder for the MOD to cry foul about ‘fake news’ as was the case in this speech if it’s clear that the news is generated by the activities of its own staff.

The irony is that the same staff who loudly profess their support for Queen and Country, and who are prepared to lay down their lives in Service or would recoil at the notion of handing sensitive documents over to hostile powers seem to have no problem reconciling this with the act of willingly leaking material to the media to protect their own cause. It is deeply frustrating behaviour because it makes life harder for Defence as a whole.

The biggest risk perhaps to Defence of being truly agile and responsive in handling data and fake news is going to be reconciling the speed of action required to nip a fake news story in the bud with the desire to maintain a chain of command that respects authority.

The days when embargoes can be put in force to try to prevent publication of images are pretty much gone. Its almost a dead certainty now that images or news will quickly seep out and need support. Insisting on holding to an embargo deadline means missing the social media bus, and potentially losing control of the story.

But, trying to be responsive while meeting the many challenges of delivering an ‘on message’ government response is hard. When you look at where Defence is often involved in delivering difficult messages, the variety of other areas who may be stakeholders in this is considerable, and requires a lot of balancing. The real challenge as society moves forward will be trying to move at the speed of digital news, while ensuring that the facts and truths, and maintenance of the core messages is not lost in the hurry to respond.

The challenge ahead is to think carefully about messaging, the use of data and how Defence responds to emerging incidents and does so in a manner that supports wider Government objectives. This is an extremely complicated area to handle – the methods of communication are changing constantly, and the only thing we can be certain of is that the channels the next generation of recruits and target audiences will be fluent in probably haven’t been invented yet.