Former NYT Reporter Discusses the 'Goal of the Disinformation Movement'

The fact that news rooms have embraced their new role as "disinformation police" shows we’ve entered a frightening new era in US history.

Nellie Bowles is someone whose work I began reading a few years ago. I don’t read every story she writes (who has time for that) but when I see her byline, I click.

A former reporter for the Guardian and the New York Times, Bowles struck out on her own (with partner and fellow reporter Bari Weiss) in 2021, creating what would become The Free Press. One of the first articles from The Free Press I read was Bowles’ piece on the decline and fall of San Francisco, a magnificent bit of journalism that was published in full on The Atlantic.

More recently, Bowles appeared on UnHerd to discuss her time at the New York Times and the corruption of news rooms. One of the first thing she discussed was “disinformation” campaigns.

"The goal of the disinformation movement was to label something disinfo, and then get it deplatformed," Bowles tells host Freddie Sayers; "it's a movement that pretends to be editorial but is extremely political. It's a very tangible goal. It wanted to get Prager [University] off Twitter, off Facebook, off Google, off YouTube, certainly.”

Bowles understands what “disinformation” is actually about. It’s agenda is not “the truth.” It’s not about protecting people from falsehoods. It’s about censoring ideas and opinions that run counter to government narratives.

Mockingbird … on Steroids?

Government manipulation of media is nothing new. Most of us have by now heard of Operation Mockingbird, the large-scale CIA program that began early in the Cold War that manipulated domestic US news media for propaganda purposes.

Mockingbird was revealed during the Church Committee hearings of the 1970s, and journalists like Carl Bernstein (of Watergate fame) wrote massive exposes describing how the government manipulated media organizations to do their bidding.

Bernstein described how the Agency seduced journalists:

“Often the CIA’s relationship with a journalist might begin informally with a lunch, a drink, a casual exchange of information. An Agency official might then offer a favor—for example, a trip to a country difficult to reach; in return, he would seek nothing more than the opportunity to debrief the reporter afterward. A few more lunches, a few more favors, and only then might there be a mention of a formal arrangement — ‘That came later,’ said a CIA official, ‘after you had the journalist on a string.’”

Legendary former CIA analyst Frank Snepp described in detail how the CIA would manipulate journalists to shape opinion and lie to the American public (even Congress) to push their agendas (usually war, but not always).

What’s chilling is that the government is no longer content with capturing journalists and news rooms to spread propaganda. They are now using their power to pressure social media and seduce news organizations to censor and chill speech. The Twitter Files revealed that both the FBI, CIA, DHS, and others are deeply involved in the “content moderation” business.

The fact that news rooms have embraced this new role shows we’ve entered a frightening new era in US history.