As You Post, So Shall You Reap
Last year, I worked on a training project with Canadian ground troops. They were set up in a camp less than a kilometer from what was supposedly a village in some far-0ff land. The scenario involved insurgents, a crisis, demands by the locals, patrols through the village, suspicion on both sides (the villagers - men and women - were exceptionally believable) and a TV crew: us. It was cold, windy, dirty, barren. My job was to push the buttons of the mission commander and his officers by being both a friendly journalist and a not so friendly journalist. I made some double-sided press badges - so I could flip from one role to the other. We did interviews, went on patrol, wandered around the camp looking for interesting footage.
And then produced a pair of completely contradictory TV news stories...
Those are all the details of the project that I can share, or I'd have to kill you.
The point being that no matter what you say, if there's a confrontation of any kind that I can get on video, I can generally go into the edit suite and spin it any way from Sunday. Text and audio are as easy to fake as Photoshopping photographs.
I'd like to show you the two reports - they're so similar and yet so opposite and, as a result, pander to expectations rather than reveal any broad truth - but they weren't intended for public viewing for a whole lot of reasons.
Seeing is believing. The camera never lies. If you buy that, I have some waterfront properly you'll love. And that's not really a swamp. Just a high water table.
Anyway, the point is that even if you're being totally honest and forthright and you're well trained and well led, you're not immune to spin. Whether for good or ill, by your friends or your enemies.
- G
