May 16-17

PDPBR ABRIGDED EDITION FOR  MAY 17

"Search engines are presenting more and more structured data in search results."

--Jon Swartz, "Google unveils Knowledge Graph search overhaul," USA Today

BOOK REVIEW

The Dissent Papers [The Dissent Papers: The Voices of Diplomats in the Cold War and Beyond

by Hannah Gurman, New York: Columbia University Press, 2012] - Book review by John Brown, American Diplomacy.  Image from

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Want to Mingle With Ambassadors? - mediabistro.com: "Here in Washington the lucky among us gets to rub elbows with powerful lawmakers and bigwig ambassadors, all for the sake of namedropping and humblebragging to friends and loved ones until they can hardly stand us. Sounds fun, right? If nothing else, at this event there’s a 'light breakfast' involved. On the morning of May 17, Fleishman-Hillard, an international communications firm, and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace are convening the Peruvian and Mexican Ambassadors with Social Media reps from Facebook and the office of Sec. of State Hillary Clinton for a brief hour and a half program entitled 'Digital Diplomacy: A New Era of Advancing Policy.' The description of the events is as follows: 'In a world of likes and hashtags, governments are using social media tools to reach beyond traditional diplomacy. Ministries and embassies are adopting new strategies for the digital age and exploring innovative ways to reach and engage domestic and foreign constituencies. Please join the leading thinkers in diplomacy and communications for a discussion on the evolution of public diplomacy and the ways visionary diplomats are using these powerful new tools to connect cultures, increase awareness, and advocate policy positions.' Register to attend here."

Public Diplomacy, Branding, and the Image of Nations, Part III: A Pair of Aces? - Daryl Copeland, PD News–CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy: "Public diplomacy and branding are innovative, evolutionary additions to the diplomatic wardrobe, but they are not cure-alls suitable for all circumstances. While very useful, there are real limits to what can be achieved with either.

Good public diplomacy can’t compensate for bad policy, and the most sophisticated branding campaign will come up short if unaccompanied by facts and behavior supportive of the brand. ... [A]ny gap between what a country says and what it does can be terminal. Embedded in each are also a number of inherent contradictions, or, to be charitable, paradoxes." Copeland image from article

Maryland, My Maryland - Paul Rockower, Levantine: "I had a nice chat ... with Mary Jeffers, a Senior Public Diplomacy Fellow at GW's Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communications. We chatted about Morocco, where she had been a Public Affairs Counselor. Interestingly, when I introduced myself, she knew my work. Apparently, she had assigned something I previously wrote to her class some three weeks prior. I like the GW PD program all the more."

RELATED ITEMS

ACLU: State Department Violates Van Buren’s Constitutional Rights - Peter Van Buren, We Meant Well: "The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), in a letter to the Department of State, said today that the Department’s actions against my book and this blog are unconstitutional, that State’s actions “constitute a violation of Van Buren’s constitutional rights.” Straight up, no qualifiers.  The ACLU reminds the State Department that the Courts have said that “Speech concerning public affairs is more than self-expression, it is the essence of self-government” and citing the numerous legal challenges the State Department has willfully ignored that grant government employees the same First Amendment rights all Americans enjoy. Which is what we’ve been saying all along, here, in the New York Times, on NPR, CNN and elsewhere. After reviewing the State Department’s policies and regulations, the ACLU states that “The State Department’s pre-publication review process, as it applies to blogs and articles raises serious Constitutional questions,”then goes on to detail those questions. The ACLU notes that State’s actions toward me are but one example of its unconstitutional actions and apply to other employees as well. They conclude that “it is highly unlikely that the State Department could sustain its burden of demonstrating that its policy is constitutional… There is no justification for such expansive prior restraint on State Department employees’ speech."

Pakistan blew its chance for security -  David Ignatius, Washington Post: America begins to pull back its troops from Afghanistan, one consequence gets little notice but is likely to have lasting impact: Pakistan is losing the best chance in its history to gain political control over all of its territory — including the warlike tribal areas along the frontier.

Total Sanctions Might Stop Iran: The regime is hurting. Fully cutting off its access to international business, especially banking and shipping, could be the solution to its bomb program [subscription] - Meir Dagan, August Hanning, R. James Woolsey, Charles Guthrie, Kristen Silverberg and Mark D. Wallace, Wall Street Journal

Ahead of NATO's Chicago summit, members eye the Afghan exits: The election of French President Francois Hollande is just one factor in the fraying troop commitments in the unpopular war - Paul Richter, latimes.com: Image from article, with caption: In advance of this weekend's summit in Chicago, the Obama administration and senior North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials have been scrambling to ensure that alliance members remain committed to keeping troops in Afghanistan until the end of 2014, and to paying billions of dollars after that to prop up the Afghan government.

ONE MORE QUOTATION FOR THE DAY

"Governments make terrible programmes because they are interested in themselves not the audience."

--Digital storyteller Jonathan Marks