Comments on: What it means to be an analyst

Glaskowsky shoots down a biased and breathlessly over-hyped article in the New York Times, and explains the proper roles of analysts and reporters in covering stories-- both political and commercial.

[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???