Wanted; Warrior Journalists and Citizen Spies
Far too many journalists are corporate shills plugging the party line of media bosses while the nitty gritty of good factual reporting set in right context gets lost in the noise.
Can’t stress this enough but we don’t need reporters to frame articles around their political biases, just present the facts accurately and we’ll form our own opinions thanks very much.
What’s needed is independent, committed journos prepared to follow the truth where ever it leads, supported by would-be whistle blowers in every field ready to step up to the plate.
Of course it’s risky but there is no option when the system is gamed in favor of vested interests because Lady Justice is blind to those who can pay their way out.
Plus if more people participated it would make it a lot less dangerous for the few.
Not to mention we need to direct money towards quality independent journalism as well as accommodate and protect whistle blowers.
Rumors of CIA Control of Media
Operation Mockingbird was an actual CIA program started in the 1950’s to manipulate news media for propaganda purposes and there is plenty of evidence of this reality.
Udo Ulfkotte, a top German editor of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung had this to say;
“I was bribed by billionaires; I was bribed by the Americans to report….. not exactly the truth.”
So we can deduce the CIA doesn’t only control the American Press but the foreign press as well.
You could say while reporters share their notebooks with the CIA, Editors share their staff.
In 1953, Joseph Alsop, one of America’s leading syndicated columnists went to the Philippines to cover an election, not at the request of his syndicate or the newspaper that published his articles, but the CIA.
It’s also known that fulltime CIA employees masquerade as journalists.
In 2014 Ulfkotte published a book, Bought Journalists, in which he maintained the CIA pays journalists to report a story in a certain light.
He accused the CIA and German Intelligence, BND, of bribing journalists to write pro NATO propaganda, with any journalist refusing to go along with the charade losing their job.
What’s interesting is that the book written in German and translated into English under the title; Journalists for hire: How the CIA buys the news, virtually disappeared from European and North American book outlets, with the original Canadian publisher of the English version scrubbing any reference to the work on its website.
Here comes another one just like the other one
You can be sure the CIA is not the only intelligence agency with a bad name, okay it may be the worst of its kind, but still.
There’s the FBI and oh, British intelligence M16.
An older article published in the New York Times titled; Journalists Who Are Spies unpacks the problem from a British perspective.
Identified in the British Press as “intelligence,” “security,” “Whitehall”, or “Home Office” these spooks are an enormous problem.
A former media specialist at The Telegraph, Roy Greenslade made this telling comment;
“Most tabloid newspapers — or even newspapers in general — are playthings of MI5.”
It’s been reported more than half of British foreign correspondents are on the M16 payroll.
And here’s the CIA connection again; in 1991, Richard Norton-Taylor revealed in the Guardian that 500 prominent Britons paid by the CIA and the now defunct Bank of Commerce and Credit International, included 90 journalists.
In fact the heart of the British secret state was identified as the security services, the cabinet office and upper echelons of the Home and Commonwealth Offices, the armed forces and Ministry of Defense, the nuclear power industry and its satellite ministries together a network of senior civil servants.
As “satellites” of the secret state, their list included “agents of influence in the media, ranging from actual agents of the security services, conduits of official leaks, to senior journalists merely lusting after official praise and, perhaps, a knighthood at the end of their career”.
Phillip Knightley, author of a seminal history of the intelligence services, has even claimed that at least one intelligence agent is working on every Fleet Street newspaper.
And this goes way back, in 1945, George Orwell became a war correspondent for the Observer — probably as a cover for intelligence work. Significantly, most of the men he met in Paris on his assignment, Freddie Ayer, Malcolm Muggeridge, Ernest Hemingway were either working for the intelligence services or had close links to them.
No less than spy novelist John le Carré, who worked for MI6 between 1960 and 1964, made the amazing statement that the British secret service then controlled large parts of the press — just as they may do today.
*And here’s an interesting aside; the western world’s best known hacker and spy, Julian Assange, is either one of two things depending on who is polled;
A real deal public spy, or a controlled ‘mocking bird’ spy working closely with the CIA and the Rothschild’s.
Journalism 101
Okay, there are 5 essential questions; otherwise known as the 5W’s every journalist worth their salt must ask to determine the facts of any given story.
The 5W’s is a formula using the following interrogative words;
Who — name the characters in the story and don’t use acronyms for organizations.
What — describe what happened
When — the date and time event happened
Where — the place it happened
Why — the reason it happened
Conclude this guideline adding the question ‘How’ — by what means — to the list of W’s to round it off nicely.
