Spinning Intelligence: Why Intelligence Needs the Media, Why the Media Needs Intelligence (Columbia/Hurst) [Hardcover]

Michael S Goodman (Editor), Robert Dover (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 3, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0231701144 | ISBN-13: 978-0231701143

In Spinning Intelligence, contributors heralding from government, journalism, and academia confront the complementary yet often tense relationship between intelligence-gathering organizations and the media. Addressing high-level strategic issues all the way down to the operation of individual committees and departments, this anthology is not just for students of government and politics, but for anyone interested in the relationship between reporting and espionage.

Essays from the perspective of the journalist trace the evolving relationship between news media outlets and the government, especially with regards to advances in technology. Essays from the perspective of the political institution explain governmental oversight of intelligence agencies, the operation of clandestine information units, and the laws that govern the control of information.

Additional contributions investigate the exploitation of the globalized media by intelligence agencies; the CIA's reliance on open sources for intelligence purposes; the real-world use of open source intelligence in rolling back Libya's nuclear program; and the depiction of intelligence in popular culture, from films to popular fiction, which helped facilitate rendition and torture and has conditioned our responses to both. A final essay focuses on cultural representations of the war on terror and their implications for issues of national security.

(May 2010)

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Not everything we learn about intelligence from the media is true, but some of it is. If you want to know why this is so and also where links between government, intelligence, and the press can potentially work against the public interest, you should read this book. Robert Dover and Michael S. Goodman's well-chosen team of academics, journalists, and government insiders provides an exceptionally stimulating commentary on a crucial and important relationship that bridges (as the editors put it) 'the gap between the unknown and the known.'

(Keith Jeffrey, Queen's University Belfast )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Columbia University Press (September 3, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0231701144
• ISBN-13: 978-0231701143
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,832,255 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3.0 out of 5 stars The web of information, April 23, 2010

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Pamela Robinson (Long Island) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spinning Intelligence: Why Intelligence Needs the Media, Why the Media Needs Intelligence (Columbia/Hurst) (Hardcover)

Though focused primarily on issues in Britain "Spinning Intelligence: Why Intelligence Needs the Media, Why the Media Needs Intelligence (Columbia/Hurst)" provides lessons for anyone, anywhere, who wants to learn about espionage, media reporting and what citizens need to know.

A series of essays by representatives of media, government and intelligence-gathering agencies reveals the linkages and tensions that exist as information is gathered, withheld, selectively leaked or reported to the world at large. It is how that information reaches the public--its veracity, its completeness or limitations, the exploitation of propaganda presented as objective reporting--that shapes public perception and policy and so becomes important to the general public.

"In every part of society, and in all our social interactions," intelligence has a role to play in conditioning the political and social environments in which we live," the editors note.

Essays treat such issues as the veil of secrecy that previously shielded Britain's spy agencies, but note that, as terror has come to Britain's shores, and people's day-to-day lives are affected by interaction with law enforcement, privacy has declined. Warnings about terror polots bring, not surprisingly, attention to intelligence gathering, and the role of media in spreading those warnings, or reporting on possible threats, comes under scrutiny.

The move toward more openness, in fact, began collapsing in the United States even before Sept.11, with the advent of the Bush administration which almost immediately began reclassifying materials that had become public, including material referring to policy failures immediately preceding the Korean War. The Sept.11 attacks led to a huge clampdown on publicly released information that continues, rather unabated, today. Combined with the financial crisis at many media organizations that no longer pursue Freedom of Information requests or don't want to challenge the government, the essayists find a growing governmental denial of transparency.

Fascinating and unexpected bits of commentary pop up in these essays. There's an extensive discussion of Alfred Hitchcock and his espionage-centered movies, a look at TV's "24" and its message, the use of open-source information to track threats, an analysis of asymmetrical warfare going back to medieval times, and more.

This is an informative collection, detailed but not so scholarly as to be out of the reach of ordinary readers who need to know how to read between the lines.