Washington holds war council with Hollywood studios

By ANDREW GUMBEL

LOS ANGELES - Brunch in Beverly Hills may seem like an odd stopping-off point in United States President George W. Bush's war against terrorism, but then we were told from the start that this conflict would be different.

Yesterday, the President's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, met about 40 of Hollywood's top executives at the Peninsula Hotel, one of Los Angeles' more recent celebrity hangouts.

Their agenda: to discuss ways in which the entertainment industry could help the war effort.

Don't expect a return to Second World War-style propaganda, in which top film-makers spent months overseas to produce patriotic documentaries about "our boys" and movie theatres were bombarded with feel-good newsreels and updates from the front.

All sides acknowledge that times have changed drastically, and that news, information and even the Hollywood system simply do not work like that any more.

But exactly what was on the agenda, is rather less clear.

The closed meeting was attended by the likes of Rupert Murdoch in his capacity as head of the Fox media empire, Sumner Redstone, chief executive of Viacom, and Jack Valenti, the president of the Motion Picture Association of America and Hollywood's top lobbyist in Washington.

It was expected to discuss such issues as public service announcements and the possibility of sending movie and television stars overseas to entertain troops.

It was also hoped that other ideas would crop up in the course of the discussion.

Valenti, who has bristled in the past at Government attempts to control Hollywood, said before the meeting that altering films to meet the Bush Administration's requirements was out of the question.

Nonetheless, as the White House belatedly tries to put together a propaganda strategy to sell America's war overseas, there is a feeling that the country's most visible export - entertainment - can make a difference.

"This is Washington-inspired, but not Government-directed," an adviser to Mr Bush, Mark McKinnon, said last week.

"We believe freedom is our greatest export and that Hollywood is our greatest exporter."

The fact that Hollywood studios are now part of vast international media conglomerates makes it easier for senior executives to control what they market and distribute.

But control over television and film production itself is much looser than it was in the 1940s.

Content does not move the senior executives nearly as much as base bottom-line considerations of profit and loss.

The entertainment industry has already pitched in since the terrorist attacks on September 11, organising a celebrity telethon that went out on just about every major channel and donating millions of dollars to the New York relief fund.

There have, however, been some signs of wavering.

When Bush made what was billed by the White House as a major national address last week, only one of the major television networks bothered to carry it live.

Discussions have been going on for a few weeks as part of the broader propaganda effort now being coordinated by the likes of Alastair Campbell, British Prime Minister Tony Blair's press secretary, and Charlotte Beers, the one-time "Queen of Madison Avenue".

Beers has been drafted by the US State Department as UnderSecretary of Public Diplomacy to brand, package and sell America abroad.

Rove has an abiding personal interest in Government-sponsored media overseas.

He fought vigorously against the dismemberment of Radio Free Europe in the early 1990s, and was instrumental in Congress' approval last week of a Radio Free Afghanistan to present the US point of view on local airwaves in local languages.

Story archives:

Terror in America - the Sept 11 attacks

Bioterrorism

War against terrorism

Links: Terror in America - the Sept 11 attacks

Timeline: Major events since the Sept 11 attacks