A couple of weeks ago a rather negative article featured in the The Economist and its online edition, Economist.com, about the British Army and how it had lost its way while fighting “unglorious” wars in two far away countries. In it the article claims that the American military is losing confidence in the Brits and is beginning to see them as a liability which, given the British Army’s history of peacekeeping and counter-insurgency, is quite a scandalous accusation.
Reading it myself I was shocked at the negativity of the article. I mean SAS anyone? One can’t comment on the author because, like most Economist articles, he or she is anonymous. This anonymity has something to do with the publication’s long held belief that no journalist should be bigger than the news they’re providing.
The following week, as I was reading the hardcopy edition, I noticed in the Letters page a response to the article by Chief of the Defence Staff at the Ministry of Defence, Sir Jock Stirrup, which, as you would expect, ridiculed the article to be nothing more than “utter nonsense” written by “armchair commentators [who] unwisely and without the benefit of strategic insight [choose] to snipe at the commitment and worth of the British contribution.”
As one might expect the response is a well worded reply that defends the complicated role British servicemen are playing alongside the Americans and other allies. However, like blogs, all Economist.com articles have the ability to comment on them and you will often find heated discussions on all types of articles from people around the world.
This particular article is no different and at time of writing it has 62 comments with the most recent being a couple of days ago. Having scanned through each of the comments, however, I can’t see any official response by the Ministry of Defence. This is a cause for concern as it’s very likely that more people will read the article online than in the newspaper edition due to the online version being global, free, accessible and around forever. The dead tree version has a limited shelf life.
Luckily Economist.com also publishes the Letters pages too so the MoD’s response is available online. The problem is though it’s not on the same page as the actual article so the chances that those who read the article via the website will also read the response are slim.
The MoD PR team should have advised on using The Economist’s online edition as well as the hardcopy edition. In fact I would argue that it is more beneficial to add a response in the comments than in the Letters page (obviously you should be doing both) as it provides readers with an official counter-argument alongside the article and thus providing more context.
Quite worrying when it seems the MoD PR team don’t have a grasp of basic online tactics. Unless of course there was an actual reason why no official statement was given in the comment section of the article?
Stephen is a communications consultant based out of the UK. You can connect with him on Twitter or check out his LinkedIn profile. | Email Stephen
Stumble it
Digg it
Deli.icio.us
Tweet this
anne
Perhaps it’s more about the nature of comments as opposed to a single letter. When commenting, one can become drawn into a conversation. Yes, one can choose not to respond any further, but sometimes that’s more damning than a poorly chosen response!
Interesting though. It seems that much of the world thinks internet = informal = ignore
Camilla
At what stage should someone enter these debates? I am always extremely worried about entering these conversations because once you’re in it’s often hard to get out.
These is a really big deal and perhaps something that the MoD doesn’t want to openly fight out in the comments section of the Economist. Perhaps a better approach would be to ask for a right to reply, which can be posted online.
I just think it’s really difficult knowing which battles to fight without being drawn in to futile tit-for-tat arguments.
You also need to consider the subject matter. This isn’t someone slating your product/service – it’s a serious issue that deserves to be dealt with in a measured way.
defenceheadquarters
Stephen,
You (and your commenters) raise some interesting issues here, perhaps I can shed some light on MOD’s thinking.
The MOD routinely responds to criticism online and “at source” – we’ve been doing it for almost two years. Here’s an example from today:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1146167/Soldiers-banned-using-MySpace-Facebook–case-breach-national-security.html
The first comment in response (from “DH”) is from us. The Mail have chosen to edit our comment, which is why we always put a parallel copy on our own site at http://www.blogs.mod.uk
We can’t respond to every criticism everywhere – coverage of defence issues, offline and online, can run to many thousands of articles per day. And of course we don’t want to get into an entirely combative discussion.
So we choose our battles carefully – tending to focus on the biggest channels and audiences, on the cases where articles are factually most wrong, and on cases where we can respond quickly enough to influence coverage elsewhere (for example, by getting on the front page of the comments). Our response to the Mail today is a good example.
In the particular case you raise, we published Sir Jock’s letter on our own blog as soon as it was available (and some days before the Economist), addressing not only the original article but also downstream coverage of his interview, in The Times and elsewhere. See:
http://www.blogs.mod.uk/defence_news/2009/01/defence-in-the-media-30-january-2009.html
Perhaps we could have done more, as you suggest, but by this time things had moved on; there’s a balance to be struck.
Thanks for your interest in our online activities – be sure to susbscribe to our blog, and to our twitter news updates at twitter.com/defencehq
Robin Riley
Defence Public Relations
Ministry of Defence
This was posted by the Ministry of Defence. You can find a copy at http://www.blogs.mod.uk
Peter I.
This issue seems to come up a lot. To respond or not respond? And if we do respond, where should we respond?
For something like the Economist, I think it justifies a response in the comments that links to a larger response on your site or on your blog. When trackbacks are published in the original post, then I think it’s always best to respond on your own platform and let people come to your domain to hear what you have to say.
In many cases, the reach of the media in question doesn’t justify direct response on their platform and in these cases I’m a firm believer in not throwing fuel on the fire. Should every public company respond to every loon who posts nonsense on the Yahoo forum attached to their stock? Obviously not. Of course, if activity like this becomes more of a trend or a correction is in order, I think it’s a good idea to post on your own platform and link to each claim you’re refuting (but I wouldn’t trackback in these cases).
Stephen
@Anne @Camilla @Peter
Thanks for the comments. I wasn’t saying the MoD should get involved in the comments *discussion* (in fact, if it were my client, I’d probably advise against it) but my point is that if you’re going to make an official statement then why not add it to the prime place were people will see and make sense of it most?
@Robin
Thanks for you comment also. I wasn’t aware that you had procedures in place. In fact I wasn’t aware the MoD had a blog or used Twitter so kudos to you for that.
I feel that the letter (which I agree with btw) would have been put to better use in the comments directed specifically at the article’s author. That said, it’s easy for me to say as a commenter and I realise that handling this in the ‘real world’ brings along issues much more complex than ’shall we or sharn’t we’.