CIA media relations, per John Kiriakou, no longer requires the kind of covert infiltration associated with Operation Mockingbird. Kiriakou says he agrees with journalist Glenn Greenwald’s assessment that the CIA doesn’t need such a program anymore, because corporate media now recites CIA messaging willingly, without pressure or infiltration.[1] In his description, most journalists now simply call the CIA’s Office of Public Affairs, receive an emailed statement, and rewrite — “gist” — that statement into an article, a practice he attributes in part to the disappearance of funding for investigative journalism.[2]
Pressure on journalists
Kiriakou describes a FOIA release that surfaced an angry letter from the CIA to a journalist, threatening that he would never be invited to the CIA Christmas party again and would never receive another interview if he published a particular article — an article that, in the end, was never published.[3]
Alleged algorithm manipulation and podcast messaging
Kiriakou believes the CIA runs a program to promote pro-agency messaging through podcasts, and manipulates platform algorithms — including on YouTube — to spread its point of view to a wide audience.[4]