Customer Reviews

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

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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.