Establishment journalists have often worked closely with intelligence, military officials
While it’s strange that anyone claiming to be a journalist would boast about working with the intelligence agency of a foreign state, National Post columnist Adam Zivo is certainly not the first international correspondent to have flouted journalism ethics by directly engaging in counterintelligence operations while on the job.
On August 9, Zivo claimed on X that in 2022 he had organized a sting operation with the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, the country’s spy agency. Zivo said someone he noticed “speaking English loudly” at a mall in Odessa seemed suspicious and so he invited Ukrainian intelligence operatives to observe a dinner he later organized with the individual and his wife. Little came of the undercover op in which Zivo wore a wire to catch the suspected Chinese spy.
PressProgress Editor Luke LeBrun asked the National Post about the matter, but the paper’s representatives ignored his inquiries, seemingly indifferent to one of their staffer’s admitted collaboration with the spy agency of a country from which he’s submitted dozens of articles since Russia’s invasion in February 2022 (Zivo was sanctioned by the Kremlin that same year).
People are dunking on this tweet but this actually happened to me in Odesa in early 2023 with a guy who seemed to be a Chinese spy. I ended up organizing a small sting operation with two Ukrainian intelligence officers to figure out what his deal was. https://t.co/UtyFcpVCZo
— Adam Zivo (@ZivoAdam) August 10, 2024
The ‘Zivo affair’ is an odd tale, but it’s not unheard of for Canadian war correspondents to have ties to intelligence agencies, as I detailed in my 2016 book, A Propaganda System. In 1976 a US Senate Intelligence Committee documented close links between the CIA and journalists, showing how agents wrote Associated Press stories and conducted journalism training. (more...)
Working with spies makes you a propagandist, not a journalist
No comments:
Post a Comment