Colin Wallace, a former psychological warfare officer for the British Army and British intelligence services, has taken a Court action against his former employer the British Ministry of Defence. Wallace’s job included briefing journalists and being a “source” that would feed them, in the words of the Belfast Telegraph, “stories both true and fabricated.” This did not just restrict itself to Republican groups but also to politicians in Britain’s own government:  “This was not what I had signed up for,” said Mr Wallace. “I had no difficulty in disseminating disinformation about paramilitary organisations who were killing people, but to do so about politicians was entirely different. It was subverting democracy.

It may seem hard to fathom that the intelligence services would try to undermine their own governments, yet that is seemingly what has happened in to our nearest neighbour, not once but twice in recent history. Clockwork Orange was a purported plot by sections of Mi5 to drive the incumbent Labour party from government in the 1970s which ultimately took down Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister at the time.

Peter Wright, a former Mi5 intelligence officer offers an overview of what transpired: “Feelings had run high inside MI5 during 1968. There had been an effort to try to stir up trouble for Wilson then, largely because the Daily Mirror tycoon, Cecil King, who was a longtime agent of ours, made it clear that he would publish anything MI5 might care to leak in his direction. It was all part of Cecil King’s “coup,” which he was convinced would bring down the Labour Government and replace it with a coalition led by Lord Mountbatten.

But the approach in 1974 was altogether more serious. The plan was simple. In the run-up to the election which, given the level of instability in Parliament, must be due within a matter of months, MI5 would arrange for selective details of the intelligence about leading Labour Party figures, but especially Wilson, to be leaked to sympathetic pressmen. Using our contacts in the press and among union officials, word of the material contained in MI5 files and the fact that Wilson was considered a security risk would be passed around.

Soundings in the office had already been taken, and up to thirty officers had given their approval to the scheme. Facsimile copies of some files were to be made and distributed to overseas newspapers, and the matter was to be raised in Parliament for maximum effect. It was a carbon copy of the Zinoviev letter, which had done so much to destroy the first Ramsay MacDonald Government in 1924.

What must be understood is not simply that the intelligence agencies act in a manner both deceptive and underhanded (which is the name of the game for intelligence agencies), but that their stooges in the media were usually willing participants.

These participants are themselves partisan actors with autonomy and have occasionally taken political witch-hunting unto themselves.

Roger Scruton was one of the most prominent names in recent history to suffer the fate of an overzealous, politically-motivated media. In 2019 Scruton lost a job and suffered serious detriment to his credibility following the malicious editing of an interview he gave to the New Statesman magazine. The magazine was forced to row back and offer an apology to the late Scruton, and so too did the Minister for Housing, James Brokenshire.

Not all mistakes have malicious intent, however. 

For example, the Sunday World recently ran an article mistakenly stating that Gerry McGeough claimed membership of Síol na hÉireann. Mr. McGeough confirmed to the Burkean that he is not affiliated with any groups outside of local pro-life organisations and believes that reporters mistook what he was saying.

An IPSOS MRBI poll in March 2021 found that only 45% of Irish people trust journalists – which may be indicative not of them believing journalists to be malicious actors, but (more likely in my view) to think that they’re simply incompetent. A study in Britain found that journalists’ brains operated below average due to self-medication and unhealthy lifestyle and consumption choices.

One must be careful not to be accused of spreading disinformation or to distrust the media out of hand, there are times when the media does uncover and report and seek to find the truth, such as Zapponegate.

But it is important to keep in mind that what can be reported is subject to interpretation, or misinterpretation, by the author – deliberate or accidental as the case may be.

As such it is always necessary to verify what it is that you’re reading and not merely to take it at face value.

Posted by Eoin Corcoran

One Comment

  1. The Ancient Fianna of Finn Uí Thairsig 04/10/2021 at 1:30 pm

    I will never ever trust the lamestream media about anything. They have no ‘investigative journalistic standards’ regarding globalist dictates/agendas, that they are pushing into peoples neurons 24/7, in particular the scamdemic, and the climate hoax. GIVE IT A FUCKING REST, already.

    CASE-DEMIC combined with lava, forest fires, summer weather, floods, the world is ending, save the earth. It is mad shit, what they are pushing on the box. They have really ramped it up too. The programming of the mind to believe in the narratives is off the CHARTS. To step out of the metaphorical MATRIX, people need to see through the lamestream. Whom is it they serve?

    The lamestream are parrots for globalist institutions such as WHO, UN and the EU. The irish lamestream media reads from the given script. They won’t fool me with their” incompetent gutter level so-called journalism. Fact checkers. HAHA. Don’t insult my intelligence. Subtle manipulation, mind control, BIAS, you won’t brainwash me with that shit.

    They are not the fact checkers that they like to think they are, as facts are open to interpretations. Not all facts are 100% truth, or can paint a full picture regarding a particular subject matter.

    There are no facts, only interpretations. ― Friedrich Nietzsche

    As a wise man once said.

    They don’t question, just blindly believe, and obey the narrative they are told to report. I bet some would be sacked, and out of pocket for going against the grain. Many so-called journos know full well that they are limited in what they can publish. In essense, it is not real journalism, it is repeating of the same narratives consistently with a massive bias inherent in the given script. It is nauseating horseshit.

    To even get a modicum of real investigative journalism, you have to look for it, it is not easy to find because of communist censorship being imposed by “private, globalist, social media communist systems of restrictions, being egged on by political incompetents in the arena of politics.

    The way certain politicans call out for more censorship from social media platforms regarding climate cult criticisms, lockdown criticisms, clot-shot death rates is seriously fucking disgusting.

    The CHEEK of person (A) who recieved a clot-shot in the VAXXINATION CAMP, to say that person (B) should take a clot-shot too for the safety of (A) is some of the most STUPID shit i have ever had to listen to as a human being on this EARTH. If (A) believes in the scamdemic, and believes an injection from big pharma protects its health, Then leave (B) alone, to get on with their lives, and fuck off with the CULTISM and coercing others to join in the “Certificate Of Vaxxination ID AI – covid 19 CULT.
    _______________________________________________________________________________

    I do not see the zapponegate incident as good journalism at all. The whole thing was made to be about the scamdemic, to criticise politicans who were seen in social events in public, during a lockdown. The whole narrative was made to be about politicans endangering public health, which ultimately pushes the narrative that the scamdemic is something to be believed, and real, and that lockdowns are justified, ALL UTTER HORSESHIT! Which is to be expected from the lamestream media.

    The CASE-DEMIC is flawed science. It is psuedoscience!

    Kary Mullis (PCR test inventor) basically said, that the PCR test should not be used, to test for any notions of a so-called infectious disease. He died before the scamdemic started. Where is the lamestream reporting of those facts?

    Lamestream media and their scaremongering horseshit went all in during the SCAMDEMIC, it did not care if they held up political officials to account for engaging in social activity during the BIG BAD SCARE-DEMIC!

    It is PATHETHIC journalism in my opinion.

    A SCARE-DEMIC that they made out to be the APOCALYPSE, END IS NIGH. CASE-DEMIC nondsense, scaring the crap out of people who know nothing about AGENDA 2030-2050. Thousands of deaths from clot-shots etc.

    Lining up to the vaxxination camps and running into sheep pens dancing to music. 90% uptake, a direct correlation with irelands low IQ levels and flouridation of the water.

    ANIMAL FARM springs to mind.

    Peace.

    Reply

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