BLOG: The Army is waging one of its toughest battles in the media

The music industry and film industry are the same, though even they, with all their glamour and talent, cannot dominate the news agenda like politics - the T-Rex of news sources for the media industry.
To be relevant and credible in today's world you need a well-managed high profile in the media. You need to know how to dovetail with topical issues, promote your news and manage negative news. This is as much the case for the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury as it is for Gordon Brown and David Cameron.
The media is the prism for how people form their ideas and perceptions for better or worse. And getting coverage in the battleground of the media is ferociously competitive, so it is vital to deploy maximum effort and skill to implementing your PR strategy.
There is one media campaign today that is of the utmost importance to our country and perhaps to all our futures. And that is the PR campaign to win public support for the war in Afghanistan. T
he war, which began in 2001, is entering a critical phase, 43 servicemen have been killed since July, including very sadly five today and one last weekend, taking the total to 227. Public support is consequently being badly strained.
As a result the media campaign is ramping up. Twice in the last month the Daily Telegraph has carried front page stories from the Army warning about the dangers posed by Afghanistan. The purpose is clear, the Army is desperate to steel the public's resolve for the war. It knows it is nowhere near over. So the tone of the messaging is becoming distinctly more alarming.
The head of the British Army Gen Sir David Richards, told the Telegraph: "It is no co-incidence that since the mission began al-Qaeda has been unable to plan or orchestrate any further atrocities against the West from within Afghanistan's borders."
And then he hit readers with a stark and compelling message of why it remains important: "Nor should we overlook the impact of failure on the stability of the region. In particular there would be a severe risk to the security of nuclear-armed Pakistan."
He concludes with an appeal to politicians to sell the war to the public: "It has been a struggle to persuade the British public about all of this and we need to do better."
So there are four clear core campaign messages.
The first two are familiar: 1. The war has kept us safe 2. The war must continue to stop al-Qaeda using Afghanistan as its safe-haven.
The next two are newer and strike worrying notes: 3. There is a nuclear threat. 4. We need a higher profile campaign to win greater public support otherwise we have a huge problem on our hands - like Vietnam. Though no-one will dare mention the V word.
I believe we will be hearing, seeing and reading these messages a lot in the months ahead. With no clear timeline for the conflict to end and 9000 British troops already there, with a further 500 about to join them, we are clearly in this for the long haul.
Only this weekend the war was brought closer to home when Liverpool welcomed parading soldiers from 2nd Battalion 2 RIFLES who had completed their Afghanistan tour of duty.
The difficulty is connecting Afghanistan with the threat on our doorstep. And in this sense the Afghanistan media campaign will need to communicate constantly and effectively to make that link now and through-out 2010. And that positive publicity needs to persistently emphasize the achievements and goals of the mission, so we are understand why we are there. Otherwise the media only reports it when things go wrong, which erodes public support.
The PR campaign further needs to paint a portrait of the human stories behind the war, of the soldiers and the Afghan communities, so the public can relate to it better. Moreover finding hard evidence of al-Qaeda activity will be essential to keeping and winning public support.
All this has been happening to a point but the Army clearly fears it is not enough - more Government support and campaigning is needed. But the fact remains, whatever the Whitehall politics, that the media campaign is one of the toughest and most important battles in this war. And it is a battle the Army can, and must, win.

Ben Pinnington is a director of Artemis, a Birkenhead based PR firm.