What it means to be an analyst

The New York Times ran an article over the weekend (here) describing efforts by the Pentagon and the Bush Administration to influence the opinions of military analysts, primarily retired military officers, who contribute to coverage of the Iraq War and other topics by newspapers and TV news programs.

(Credit: US Department of Defense)

The Times article claimed that the Pentagon's influence turned these analysts into sock puppets, a claim supported by this quote from Robert S. Bevelacqua-- a military analyst himself:

"It was them saying, 'We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you.'"

Now, the mere presence of such a quote from an analyst who was part of these Pentagon briefings should make it obvious to anyone that no amount of influence can turn every analyst into a puppet. The Times article was hopelessly, breathlessly hysterical over a simple fact of life... a fact that is familiar to everyone who deals with analysts in politics or the private sector.

The analyst business works the same way for all kinds of analysts-- military, political, financial, and (as in my case) technology analysts.

Within any community of analysts, there will be some who can be bought, some who can be brainwashed, and some who can be bamboozled. Any given analyst will have some ability to think clearly and independently; each analyst decides whether to exercise that ability or simply regurgitate the spin offered by his or her sources.

Analysts also bring in certain biases and preconceived ideas. I have my own, of course. I believe the companies I cover (or work for!) ought to do useful new work, respect the intellectual property of other companies, and deal honestly with its customers, partners, and competitors alike. I approve of technical monopolies-- those created when a company is first to develop a technology-- and I don't approve of monopolies created by predatory trade practices. That still leaves room for plenty of hard competition, and I approve of that, too.

There are similar biases among military analysts. For example, some believe Islamic extremism and anti-American terrorism ought to be met with military force. Some believe the US ought to reserve the military option for more immediate or substantial strategic threats. I don't even know any military analysts, but I can see their biases. Presumably military reporters at the New York Times see them too, and shouldn't pretend otherwise.

Sources-- whether in the public or private sectors-- have a very limited ability to influence these biases. Their best way to influence an analyst's opinions is to make sure the analyst is aware of all the facts that are favorable to the source's position. That's what the Times says the Pentagon did in this case. For example, in attempting to counteract bad publicity generated by criticism of the Guantánamo facility by Amnesty International:

On the flight to Cuba, for much of the day at Guantánamo and on the flight home that night, Pentagon officials briefed the 10 or so analysts on their key messages -- how much had been spent improving the facility, the abuse endured by guards, the extensive rights afforded detainees.

Does the New York Times really believe that this was inappropriate? The article doesn't attempt to claim that these briefings, or the opinions later voiced by the analysts, were misleading or wrong. Apparently the Times believes it's damning enough that the analysts accepted the Pentagon's claims. But I have seen few if any cases of outright deception in my experience with analyst briefings (literally hundreds of them over the years). More commonly, spin is applied by withholding unfavorable facts and by withholding briefings from analysts who hold fixed and unfavorable opinions.

A wise analyst is aware of these blind spots and simply refrains from offering opinions on them. For example, I doubt the Pentagon gave the analysts in the Times story any statistics on unauthorized corporal punishment of detainees by Guantánamo staff, and I doubt any of the analysts interpreted this lack of data as indicating such contact never happens. (I certainly have no idea whether it happens, so I'm not saying it does or doesn't.)

The Times article also suggests that it's inappropriate for analysts to try to help their sources craft their public messages. Given that analysts are paid to have opinions, it should come as no surprise to the Times or anyone else that analysts like to share these opinions with everyone around them-- sources as well as reporters. That's the difference between analysts and reporters, after all; analysts are held to have enough relevant experience to justify having and expressing opinions. Reporters are not.

And it usually doesn't even matter what opinions an individual analyst holds. Reporters simply find analysts who will deliver the kinds of opinions they want. This "quote shopping" is inevitable and ubiquitous, and I'm not even going to say it's wrong; reporters have to have this freedom. But it means that reporters-- including David Barstow, who wrote this piece for the Times-- are trying to influence their readers the same way this article claims the Pentagon is trying to influence military analysts. Barstow included dozens of quotes in his article to support his position, and only twice did he quote a military analyst defending his objectivity-- although I'm pretty sure most would have done so if Barstow had given them the chance.

Ultimately it has to be up to the reader to critically evaluate every line of every news story. Readers shouldn't assume analyst opinions are unbiased any more than they should assume that the facts in the story are complete or truly representative. But facts and opinions usually do have some basis in reality, and a critical reader can usually learn something about the truth of the matter in spite of all the biases that went into the story.

It's certainly useful for the Times to periodically remind us all of how analysts develop their opinions, but it isn't so useful to provide a view of the process that is as biased and misleading as this one.

(Thanks to my friend Elf Sternberg for bringing the Times story to my attention, although I don't think the story is anywhere near as significant as Elf does.)

[teddy_ballgame]

Not sure we read the same NYT article. Of course analysts in any field -- military, tech, financial, legal -- will bring personal and professional biases into their assessments. That's human and unavoidable. You'd have to be an incredibly naive reader or viewer to not be aware of these conflicts of interest.

But the degree to which the Pentagon orchestrated these "experts" to promote a war that has, so far, killed 4,000+ U.S. soldiers and thousands more Iraqis and destabilized the Middle East, is breathtaking. Analyst after analyst in the NYT piece admitted to not reporting bad news in Iraq for fear of damaging a military contract or falling out of favor in the Pentagon. This goes well beyond mere bias to become outright manipulation. Did you miss the part where analysts also admitted to giving their Pentagon contacts warnings about internal discussions at the network and what stories they were pursuing? It's ludicrous that you would shrug this off as bias.

Finally, the comparison between a tech analyst and a military analyst doesn't hold water. Sorry, but one industry has to do with the latest mobile phone or social networking device, the other with human lives and matters of national security. Hate to break it to you, but we should expect a bit more out of military analysts when such grave issues are at stake.

[carolinaheels08]

I believe your wholesale opinion that Barstow's article is biased and misleading, is unwarranted. This article is not the general process of how "ALL" analyst create their opinions. This article is very targeted to a subset of "military analyst" whose relationship with the pentagon is unethical at best. Barstow's use of documents and interviews clearly document conflicts of interest of said analyst. Your statement "The Times article also suggests that it's inappropriate for analysts to try to help their sources craft their public messages." is totally the opposite of Barstow's article. His article implies the sources systematically crafted the messages of the analyst, not the other way around. I have to agree with teddy_ballgame it's almost like you and I read different articles. You opinion of the article comes across as if you personally took offence to it. I didn't get from the article that Barstow has it out for analyst in general. To me this article, show a new facet of what is commonly referred to as the military industrial complex. It as if those who benefit from war created a PR firm of analysts who come across as if they are independent in their opinions. I fault the news organizations for not doing their homework and allowing these analyst to stating opinions that benefited their pockets instead of the truth.

[Peter N. Glaskowsky]

Teddy-- my point is that I don't see any evidence in the article that the Pentagon "orchestrated" any analyst opinions at all. Barstow doesn't even claim the Pentagon attempted to apply any inappropriate influence. He says the Pentagon gave facts to the analysts and threatened to withhold information from analysts who didn't seem to be paying adequate attention (in the Pentagon's view) to the information they were being given. I believe those are fully legitimate ways to influence analyst opinions. I've been the subject of both kinds of influence myself, many many times. Certainly, military policy is of greater personal and strategic importance than semiconductor technology, but the analyst's job is the same in both situations.

Carolina, I don't agree that the behaviors described in the Times article are unethical. Analysts have no duty of confidentiality toward their sources or their news organizations, except in those rare cases where there's a formal agreement to that effect. Nobody who works with analysts is confused on this point. Even when an analyst has a consulting relationship with some commercial partner, their only duty is to disclose the existence of that relationship. That's the rule CNET imposes on me, for example, and other than Montalvo I have no such relationships.

The bottom line for me is that Barstow showed no evidence that military analysts are any less objective than they ought to be because of how they work with the Pentagon or anyone else. It's as if Barstow wants analysts held to the same standards as reporters, who are basically required to act as if they know nothing before they start writing a story. Reporters need external sources for all the facts and opinions they publish. Analysts can be their own sources based on their relevant prior experience.

As I said in my piece, analysts can be bought, brainwashed, or bamboozled. That's true in the computer industry and in the military. But that isn't news. Barstow is making much too big a deal out of perfectly normal and reasonable practices.

[teddy_ballgame]

No evidence of orchestration by the Pentagon. I must ask again if we read the same piece. Your point that spin and biases are pervasive in the modern media landscape, especially w/r/t to analysts, is well-taken. However, this article describes a systematic effort by the military to win over the hearts and minds of the U.S. public once its views of the war in Iraq turned sour. In memos and emails -- look at the source materials on the NYT site -- Pentagon insiders refer to these generals and retired military men as "our analysts." Yet they were presented to the public by the networks -- who are also complicit in their inability to scrutinize the business and ideological interests of these same analysts -- as independent military experts. As one of the analysts admitted in the piece and in a meeting with Rumsfeld himself, positioning these experts as TV talking heads was an exercise in psyops. Yet you dismiss any evidence that the Pentagon coached these retired military men about what message to present to the American people. It's not that the Pentagon was paying or in other ways forcing these experts to stay on message; it's far more subtle than that. These analysts went to Gitmo, knew they were being snowed, and still expressed their support for Rumsfeld's war policies. Why? Because they had lucrative consulting and management ties to defense contractors who were reliant on their ability to gain access to the Pentagon brass. Paint a less than rosy picture and you lose your access which leads to lost contracts. Follow the money, Peter. I agree that analysts have their biases and can be bought. This is far more pervasive than seeking to influence a financial analyst with a company junket. This is the U.S. government using taxpayer dollars to launch a full-scale effort to groom military analysts to sell a war of choice over the airwaves. Only in a society so imbued with spin and Orwellian doublespeak can you brush these tactics off as "normal and reasonable practices" and claim with a straight face that "Barstow showed no evidence that military analysts are any less objective than they ought to be" because of their cozy relationships with military brass.

[Peter N. Glaskowsky]

I say again, there's no evidence that the Pentagon influenced analyst opinions in any way except by showing them facts and taking advantage of their own pre-existing biases. In what possible way can that be called "orchestration"? In an orchestra, the conductor tells the musicians exactly what to play, and when. There is no comparable control in this situation.

I think the difference between the pieces we read is that you read a lot more into it than I did. Really, I've seen every kind of influence described in this article applied to myself and the other analysts I know in the computer industry, and they simply don't have the effects claimed by Barstow.

And if anything, the military analysts Barstow mentions are likely to be far less vulnerable to these mild forms of influence than those in the computer industry, coming as they do from military backgrounds. The military tradition of honor-- which I have also experienced first-hand-- is far more powerful than anything Barstow describes.

[ANITA_INFORMED_YOU]

What honor? Wanton bloodshed???