Reuters, BBC, and Bellingcat participated in covert UK Foreign Office-funded programs to "weaken Russia," leaked docs reveal | The Grayzone
thegrayzone.com
New leaked documents show Reuters’ and the BBC’s involvement in covert UK FCO programs to effect “attitudinal change” and “weaken the Russian state’s influence,” alongside intel contractors and Bellingcat. The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) have sponsored Reuters and the BBC to conduct a series of covert programs aimed at promoting regime change inside Russia and undermining its government across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, according to a series of leaked documents. The leaked materials show the Thomson Reuters […]
    • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      He should stop working for CIA funded outlets and parroting a state department like foreign policy line on Bolivia then.

      • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
        ·
        4 years ago

        His actual takes (like his bad one on Bolivia) seem more relevant than who signs his checks, and those takes are as consistent with "useful for the State Department" as they are with "directly representing State Department interests." "Useful for the State Department" covers basically any leftist with bad foreign policy takes, and those people can be brought around. "Directly representing State Department interests" is a much more serious problem that raises bigger questions about whether the guy can ever be trusted.

        Remember, the media critique outlined in Inventing Reality and Manufacturing Consent doesn't claim that any journalist with any sort of monetary link to any organ of the government is effectively a federal employee parroting the State Department line. The critique is that:

        1. News outlets can't be too critical, too often of the groups that pay the bills. If they are, they'll lose funding and be unable to do their jobs.
        2. Journalists who rely on access to organizations can't be too critical, too often of those organizations. If they are, they'll lose access and be unable to do their jobs.

        Bellingcat receives a portion of its funding for the National Endowment for Democracy, but not all of its funding. Evans receives a portion of his income from Bellingcat, but not all of his income. I'm sure he relies on institutional access to some extent in his reporting, but it's almost certainly a much smaller extent than, say, a reporter who lives in D.C. and gets all their information from press conferences and whatever government officials will talk to them. All of this (and all of Evans' good reporting) makes me think he's probably a leftist with bad foreign policy takes, and probably not printing stuff the State Department emails him.

    • MolotovHalfEmpty [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      I think his relative rise to prominence over the summer and his pretty sus foreign policy takes while being attached to a NATO propaganda factory whilst lots of less critical leftists and radlibs online fall head over heels for him is a mixture that's guaranteed to get backlash from this community and rightly so.

      I do think it's become a bit of a one upmanship meme almost randomly dropped in to some posts though.

      :geordi-no: Dodgy regime change fueled foreign policy articles.

      :geordi-yes: Domestic work exposing white supremacist organisations.

      :cat-com: Com-cats over Bellingcats.

      • Audeamus [any]
        ·
        4 years ago

        relative rise to prominence over the summer

        If you paid attention to the wars in East Ukraine or Syria - he's been plenty prominent for years. Many people would anonymously contribute opensource info they found on the conflicts (especially geolocation). Then a few decided they'd make a career out of it. And still fewer got state funding or media recognition - and you know what it takes to get that.

        • MolotovHalfEmpty [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Agreed, I meant more the causal Twitter gathering around him mostly from his podcasts and Twitter coverage of the protests and counter-violence from the right.