News and How to Use It by Alan Rusbridger
Author:Alan Rusbridger
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781838851620
Publisher: Canongate Books
N
NATIONAL SECURITY
National security reporting is difficult in virtually every way â morally, ethically, editorially, legally, technically, politically . . . and more. Get it wrong and, at best, you may be accused of being unpatriotic (âDo you love this country?â the chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee asked the editor of the Guardian during the Snowden revelations). At worst, an editor may end up with blood on their hands, or in jail â or both.
In few other areas of reporting is so little material openly available. You are writing about people who, by the nature of their job, guard their secrets closely. The main intelligence agencies may choose to spoon-feed information to trusted journalists. An editor has few ways of independently verifying the work of a reporter. There are increasingly fearsome laws to deter any form of determined inquiry. Under some proposed laws the mere receipt of unauthorised information could place journalists in jeopardy.
And yet it is surely obvious that the world of intelligence and national security cannot be off-limits to scrutiny in any democratic society. These are agencies that, today, have untold powers to place millions of people under some form of surveillance. We donât need to re-read George Orwell to see what can happen when things go wrong: there are numerous examples of societies which take pride in their ability to keep a close watch on citizens.
Journalists covering the spy agencies in the UK, the US and other democracies do so in hugely different ways. At one end of the spectrum are reporters extremely close to the spy agencies. These are favourites, the trusted ones who can be relied on by the agencies to relay information to their readers and viewers largely unfiltered and unquestioned.
At the other end of the spectrum are reporters who see their job as holding the intelligence agencies to account. They work through victims, lawyers, human rights organisations, whistleblowers, disenchanted spies and a host of other alternative sources to document agency abuses, blunders, misinformation and outright lies. Such reporters tend to be contemptuous of their counterparts at the other end of the spectrum.
The rest fall somewhere in between, balancing access to the agencies while retaining a sense of scepticism. They see much to admire â from Bletchley Park in the past to foiling terrorist attacks at present â but do not hold back from documenting the dark side. Some of the biggest scandals in both the UK and US have involved the intelligence agencies.
UK reporters have three intelligence agencies to cover: the Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI6; the Security Service, MI5; and GCHQ. Covering the agencies is not usually a full-time job so they often combine it with covering defence. There is overlap with the work of crime correspondents, particularly in covering counter-terrorism.
Spies operate in a world where lies and black propaganda are commonplace. The agencies, by their nature, are secretive and want to stay that way. National security reporters, at least the less pliable ones, want to disclose â without putting lives or operations at risk â their secrets.
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