Friday, November 17, 2006

"Information" Operations

Last night, I noticed that "journalist" Con Coughlin has a blog at the Telegraph. His latest post references the "Iran is taking over al-Qaeda - nuclear armageddon - we're all going to die!!" article which he wrote and which appeared on the front page of the Telegraph the other day.

Strangely, my comment didn't get past the moderators even though I went out of my way to be polite (not always an easy task for a gruff Scotsman but I'm pretty sure I managed on this occasion). Even more strangely, other comments, including one saying Con "sounds like an idiot", did make it past the censors so criticisms are obviously acceptable in some cases. And another comment has been accepted which was submitted after mine last night so it's not like it's stuck in a queue.

Perhaps I'm jumping the gun here but it seems that the Telegraph might not be overly keen on its readers knowing about Coughlin's long standing relationship with MI6 or the fact that he was taken to court after he participated (perhaps unintentionally) in one of their disinformation campaigns and (knowingly) falsely described his source as a "British banking official". It's not altogether beyond the bounds of possibilities.

Anyone else want to have a go at a comment? He apparently only writes one post a week so this one will be around for a few days yet.

On a similar vein, the article which reveals Coughlin's links to MI6 is currently result five in a "G" search for his name. I'm no expert but I'm wondering whether a few like minded bloggers might be able to improve even on that. Because it seems to me that more people really ought to know a bit more about Con Coughlin. Join me do if you're so inclined.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think a legitimate question would be: why are the intelligence services propagandising to the British people? How does that serve our democracy?

Martin said...

The question of Coughling having links to MI6 was investigated by the Guardian as long ago as 2000

Read this -

http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/2006/05/recantation-of-con-coughlin.html

Anonymous said...

Have a look at David Leppard...

Sunday Times investigative reporter.