Media is a powerful communication device that can either be used for educating and informing people or can be exploited for diverse intelligence activities and operations. At the same time, intelligence agencies make use and exploit the media for its various operations. Whether this would be true or not, it remains clear that the media has a significant role in the game of disinformation and defines the basic relation between intelligence and the media today. It is a widely held fact that some intelligence agencies make use of the media to run disinformation operations for different purposes, such as drawing attention to certain topics and using false information to cause a desired reaction among the target audience, or rather provoke a reaction that will serve the initiator of the disinformation’s interests.
Intelligence agencies work on the principle of “networking”, coordinating, developing relations and connections, and the spy agencies seem to be doing this really well. It is always been said that the lesser an intelligence agency is in limelight and is discreet, the more efficient it is. Intelligence agencies are excellent in Technical Intelligence (TECHINT), Human Intelligence (HUMINT), Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), Communications Intelligence (COMINT) and Electronic Intelligence (ELINT). But still even today, one cannot underestimate the role of HUMINT, the source of human derived intelligence – the agent.
The question is: do journalists work hand in glove with the intelligence agencies and why? The answer has now been provided by the leading newspapers of national media itself. Journalists secretly carry out assignments for the Intelligence Agency. Some of these journalists’ relationships with the Agencies are tacit and some are explicit. There is cooperation, accommodation and overlap. Journalists provide a full range of clandestine services, from simple intelligence gathering to serving as go‑between with the case officer and the subject. Reporters share their notebooks with the Agencies. Editors share their staffs and some of the distinguished TV anchors who consider themselves Tsars of media find that their association with the Agencies helped their work. In some instances, Agencies documents show, journalists were engaged to perform tasks for the Agencies with the consent of the managements of the leading media and news organizations.
The history of the Agencies’ involvement with the press continues to be shrouded by the favoured policy of obfuscation and deception principle for the simple reason that the use of journalists has been among the most productive means of intelligence gathering. Operation Mockingbird was a secret campaign by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to influence media. Begun in the 1950s, it was initially organized by Cord Meyer and Allen W. Dulles, and was later led by Frank Wisner after Dulles became the head of the CIA. The organization recruited leading American journalists into a network to help present the CIA’s views, and funded some student and cultural organizations, and magazines as fronts. As it progressed, it also worked to influence foreign media and political campaigns, in addition to activities by other operating units of the CIA.
There are well known columnists and TV anchors whose relationships with the Intelligence Agencies go far beyond those normally maintained between reporters and their sources. Foreign countries also invest in journalists to keep them on their side in this fourth generation warfare (4GW). This is a game of control with fatal conclusions. This is dangerous and is called media manipulation.
In the old days, few were afraid to fear when it came to media manipulation and little was known about the level of threat between the propagandist and the hustling publicist. They were still serious threats but mindfulness worked as a clear and simple defense. Today news media has evolved itself as the most powerful and influential political force. With a plethora of TV talk shows and web driven media cycle, nothing can escape exaggeration, distortion, fabrication and simplification. More convincing than truth, media manipulation currently shapes everything one reads or views on TV screens.
To deal with these manipulations, we must change the incentive. These journalists fight a moral war against their own fraternity and profession and it is not just a matter of who is manipulating the journalist; it is much graver than that. It has direct implications on the ethics of their profession. Critics acknowledge, however, that such contracts will persist as long as the Intelligence Agencies continue to use journalistic cover and maintain covert affiliations with individuals in the profession. But even an absolute prohibition against Intelligence Agency use of journalists would not free reporters from suspicion.