January 21st 2021
I attended the virtual presentation on U.S. International Media in the Era of Disinformation. It was hosted by the American Foreign and Military Policy Research Cluster and they brought in Jeffrey Trimble to talk about the challenges facing the U.S. government-funded international media. Jeffrey Trimble is a lecturer at the Ohio State School of Communication, but he previously worked as Acting President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Deputy Director of the federal agency that oversees U.S. international media.
Jeffrey Trimble talked about how public diplomacy and the media are types of soft power that governments use to convey their message to the world. Furthermore, he talked about the role of propaganda and said how different organizations that he has been a part of have been used to inform and engage people about freedom and democracy. He said that people go into journalism because they want to make a difference, not because they are happy with the status quo. That last phrase really stuck with me.
One part I found particularly interesting was when he talked about current events. The radio show that he is a part of wanted to talk about the troops around the Capitol in Washington, D.C. around the Inauguration, and how it looks like the green zone of Baghdad. He wanted to interview people that had experience in Iraq and ask them what they thought about what was going on in D.C. during this time. I remember watching the news and they made the same point about how our Capitol streets now looked like a war-zone.
This event is related to IA because the United States is arguably the most powerful country in the world and how we use the media to project that image is extremely important.