Could a government-requested press blackout happen today?

In My Humble Opinion
1

In World War II, the Japanese launched a series of bomb-carrying balloons to the U.S. to try to cause random damage. Many such balloons were found, some causing minor damage, except for one that killed a woman and five children who came across it during a picnic.

The government requested the press to keep quiet about any balloon incidents, so as not to give the Japanese the idea that there was any degree of success.

As it turns out this was a successful strategy–for lack of evidence of any effectiveness, the Japanese halted the program.

Today’s press is entirely different than 1945; then the government contacted newspapers and radio stations and that about covered it. Today there are countless news outlets. If there were information critical to a national security effort that the government wanted to suppress for the sake of their strategy, assuming it would actually be a good thing to do this, would it be possible?

I doubt the government could get that kind of cooperation for two reasons:

News media are now too numerous and too decentralized to expect the media to act as a unit

News is money. If the majority of outlets suppressed the information, opportunists would seize upon it as an exclusive, even if it put U.S. citizens and residents in danger.

2

Anybody with a smartphone and a Facebook account can post anything any time from anywhere, and it can spread amazingly fast. It’s a different world…

3

The government could orchestrate a barrage of fake news, hoping the truth gets buried in the avalanche of crapola. But even a benign conspiracy of silence? Today? Nah.

4

The UK has the DA-notice system.

5

Agreed; while the recognized press may hold off reporting an item of interest at gov’t request word would still get around via social media. That’s why the internet gets shut down during elections and other significant events in countries where the gov’t already controls the news and tv.

When Prince Harry served in combat a few years back the press was asked to hold off reporting that information; they all did until one outlet thought others were going to break it and then they all wanted to scoop the story. Harry had to redeploy earlier than they’d hoped due to their reporting.

6

It’d depend on what exactly we’re talking about “blacking out” & other factors surrounding that.

News directors do, at least in most cases, have a conscience. They also have a remarkable sense of self preservation.

If news agencies somehow caught wind of the Seal Team 6/OBL mission in advance, most would voluntarily keep their mouth shut to avoid spooking him and spoiling the operation.

Those who didn’t would likely be the type willing to make a trade off with the press secretary to keep it quiet–a few minutes with the president, access to this, that, or the other, etc. work wonders. There’s a reason that they’re consistently used as plot devices in shows like “The West Wing”, “Madam Secretary”, & “Designated Survivor”.

We actually have had minor (quasi-voluntary) press blackouts in recent history. The most well known was GWB’s Thanksgiving trip to Iraq. The news agencies themselves could’ve technically reported it anytime they wanted to, but they complied with the request. The reporters were under stricter scrutiny, but, as I recall, only 1 even tried to report earlier and it was because they didn’t grasp the severity of the situation.

On a less formal level, there’s a concept called an “embargo”, which is where the person sending the press release or doing the interview requests that it not be disseminated until a specific time. The government is a prolific user of these (I get major POTUS speeches in my email hours before they’re delivered with a notice that they’re embargoed until the president finishes the delivery), and news agencies generally respect these, lest they lose all access (I want to say Gawker Media’s Kotaku found themselves in that position after releasing embargoed game reviews early to beat the competition).

Similarly, there are also interviews conducted on what’s called “deep background”, where the interview content is off-limits to be reported, but it allows the reporter to gain a deeper understanding of the concept at hand. Like embargoes, these are generally respected for the sake of self-preservation.

To sum up, with regard to the government, news agencies know how to play ball. They know that one story, no matter how big, generally isn’t worth the nearly universal, practically eternal, blacklist they’d find themselves on. The others are generally also the ones who don’t have mainstream credibility anyway.

If, however, the event or object is witnessed by the public, they’re out of luck. They have nothing to trade in those cases and, thus, no way to stop the spread.

7

I think we’re about to enter an era of total lack of transparency at the highest levels. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if just about everything is covered up, especially the ubiquitous screw-ups.

8

Yes, it’s a very different world now - the Govt can’t suppress news, but it can get access to the online activities of any person it wants.

If your phone is on, it is trivially easy to find your location.

Also from WWII: with all the reporters and photographers covering the war, it was 1943 before civilians in the US saw a photo showing a dead GI.

Now: during the Vietnam non-war, the public saw a whole bunch of US Govt coffins with flags being unloaded from cargo planes at Andrews AFB. Starting with Iraq, Chap I, no photographers are allowed on Andrews (where dead GIs continue to be unloaded from cargo planes).

Anybody know this one? Do the pics your cell phone take get visible/hidden date/time/lat/long stamps?
I saw a DSLR described as having the ability to stamp lat/long, if desired. I suspect the option was really “do you want to be able to see the stamp?”.

9

AIUI, all remains are transferred w/ dignity at and through Dover AFB. There have many, many photos of this process published in the last 15 years, though W’s administration did their best to keep that # at a minimum; that was before widespread camera phones.

Lat/Long can be turned off and on for nearly every phone camera, much less a DSLR. The user can choose a time and date themselves and keep it by not allowing the phone to update time or date automatically.

10

Short answer — not a chance.

11

Duh! I have no idea why I came up with Andrews.
Thanks for the correction.

As for the invasive properties of the technology that has “freed” us from various “you can’t see/say that” rules, it scares me how much we take for granted.

Want a ride? Pull up Uber - they know who you are, where/when you left, where/when you arrived, and even what route you took.
And, for “Safety’s sake” the camera on the dashboard recorded your face the entire ride.

A police investigator’s wet dream come true.

And also the dreams of some folks not as trustworthy as the police*.

    • why yes, that CAN be read in several ways, can’t it? :dubious:
12

The Government cannot stop a determined guy. The can incentivise compliance. They cannot (practically) mandate it.

And in Twitter, FB, YouTube era with easy communication across borders? Sure you might be able to get journalists of your own country to toe the line by appealing to their sense of patriotism, but foreigners? Not a chance.

13

They kinda tried something similar in Köln almost a year ago, to avoid getting people angry at migrants. It backfired horribly when the stories hit social media first, warped/incomplete information and all, leading to a massive loss of trust in the German media.

14

In the past people in general were empathetic and cared about other people…

These days selfishness rules and people could care less about anyone else. I imagine there are a good number of these people now working for various news agencies.

With that said, no way would they do what was in the best interest of the country! (I’m glad I’m old is all I can say…)

15

And then it came out that similar incidents had been unreported in Sweden, compounding the distrust.