The relationship between mass media and secret intelligence

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MASS MEDIA AND SECRET
INTELLIGENCE

ANUSH SARKISIAN
(MA International Relations (Hons), Donetsk National University)

A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR
THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE

2013
1


Declaration

I hereby declare that the thesis is my original work and it has been written by me in its
entirely. I have duly acknowledged all the sources of information which have been used in
the thesis.

This thesis has not also been submitted for any degree in any university previously.

Anush Sarkisian
20 August 2013
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………………………………4

Summary……………………………………………………………………………….................5
List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………………..6
List of Abbreviations……………………………………………………………………………..7
Chapter I. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………8
Chapter II. The Media…………………………………………………………………………...21
Chapter III. The Intelligence…………………………………………………………………….35
Chapter IV. Media-Intelligence Relationship…………………………………………………...45
Chapter V. Media-Intelligence Relationship in the Russian Federation………………………...60
Chapter VI. Media-Intelligence Relationship in the United Kingdom………………………….78
Chapter VII. Conclusions………………………………………………………………………..95

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Acknowledgements
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor, Professor Karen Jane
Winzoski, for her valuable comments, guidance and warm encouragement throughout the
research. Without her help, this project would not have been possible. I also thoroughly enjoyed
working with my professors at NUS and thank them for widening my horizons. I also would like
to thank Mr. Andrei Soldatov for sharing his insightful thoughts during the interview, which was
indispensable for this project.
Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to my family and my friend Michelle for their 24/7 love
and support that helped me not to give up during this academic journey.

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SUMMARY
Both intelligence and the media operate in the industry of information collection, analysis
and dissemination. Therefore some amount of interaction between two actors is inevitable. The

inherent problem with this relationship is the tension around the intelligence agencies’ need for
secrecy and the citizens’ right to know, which the media aims to fulfill.
This study establishes a framework within which the media-intelligence interactions in a
given state may be analyzed. A fundamental question is raised: Under which conditions and in
whose favor the point of contact between two institutions occurs? Is it the regime type that
determines the nature of their relations, as the prevailing literature suggests? I propose that the
factors that define the tone of these interactions are the levels of autonomy and penetration of the
intelligence services and the media outlets’ commitment to investigative reporting. Based on this
assertion, I adopt six models of media-intelligence relationship.
The findings are further applied to the case-studies of the United Kingdom and the
Russian Federation, which represent a variety of scenarios of the media-intelligence encounter.

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Press Freedom in Democracies and Autocracies, 1980 – 2008………………………. 23
Table 2. Typology of Security Intelligence Agencies…………………………………………. 42
Table 3. Models of Media-Intelligence Interaction……………………………………………. 47

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
BND – Bundesnachrichtendiens
CIA – Central Intelligence Agency
DA Notice – Defence Advisory Notice
DIB – Domestic Intelligence Bureau
DIS – Defence Intelligence Staff
FBI – Federal Investigation Bureau

FSB – Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti
GCHQ – Government Communications Headquarters
IRGC – Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps
ISC – Intelligence Security Committee
ISS – Independent and Security State
JIC – Joint Intelligence Committee
JTAC – Joint Terrorism Analysis Center
KGB – Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti
NSA – National Security Agency
MEK – People’s Mujahedin of Iran
MIT – Turkish National Intelligence Organization
MI5 – Security Service
MI6 – Secret Intelligence Service
MOIS – Ministry of Intelligence and Security
PP – Political Police
SIGNIT – Signals Intelligence
SRI – Romanian Intelligence Service
TECHINT – Technical Intelligence
VEVAK - Vezarat-e Ettela'atvaAmniyat-e Keshvar
WMD – Weapons of Mass Destruction

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CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION
The term ‘information age’ with its 24-hour news cycle on TV and Internet has gained
much momentum during the last two decades. Regularly updated news websites, ‘No comments’
channels and the burgeoning ‘new media’ have created an environment, in which the consumers’
demand for a new publication is no less than his need for freshly baked bread. Media companies,
whether big or small, printed or online, are involved in a cut-throat competition to be first in

information delivery. In such conditions, journalists resort to anything to reveal the most
unknown and unique information to their consumers.
The media have always been attracted to intelligence issues. Mostly because intelligence
services are generally perceived to be mystical and exotic, news reports on this subject are
always worthy of public attention. However, media-intelligence interactions are not restricted to
just an ‘uncovering the covered’ type of relationship. Intelligence services strategically provide
media with secret information to shape public opinion, as well as to reveal some inside
information about their activities to prove their political usefulness. On the other side, the media
can serve as a powerful instrument of external oversight over the intelligence services’ activities,
pointing out on their wrongdoings, failures and perspectives for democratization.
My purpose in this study is to establish a framework with which the relationship between the
media and intelligence services in a given state may be analyzed. While my initial assumption
was that the ‘regime type’ played a major role in determining the nature of this relationship, my
preliminary research has revealed that even the categorization of a given state as a ‘democracy’
or ‘autocracy’ does not fully explain how media and intelligence in these regimes interact and
manage their power relations. Empirical data reveals that in two states of same political regime
type media-intelligence relationships may be structured differently. Conversely, political regime
transformations within a given state, for example from autocracy to democracy, may not
essentially bring about substantial changes in the way the two actors relate to each other. One
reason for this is that even after regime transformations, in most of the cases both intelligence
services and media communities remain in their old frames, with the same personnel and
institutional arrangements.

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Therefore, to build a more flexible theory, which is not limited to particular nominal
regime types, we will analyze both institutions of the media and intelligence services, the ways
they perceive each other and, hence, the relationship they are likely to develop with each other.
My argument suggests that it is the level of intelligence services autonomy and penetration,

which is not the simple product of the regime type that largely determines the character of the
relationship with the media. As for the media, its behavior takes mostly the form of ‘reaction’
rather than ‘action’, and it is the level of journalists’ commitment to investigative reporting that
determines the nature of the media’ response to intelligence services’ activities. Accordingly, the
inherent problem with their interaction is the tension around the intelligence agencies’ need for
secrecy and the citizens’ right to be informed, which the media aims to fulfill. This study hopes
to explain under which conditions and in whose favor the point of contact between two actors
occurs.

A.

Hypotheses
In this research I will test two hypotheses, which evaluate the nature of the media-

intelligence relationship:
H1: Media-intelligence relations are based on the qualitative characteristics of both actors
H2: Media-intelligence relations are based on factors other than the qualitative characteristics
of both actors
B.

Methodology

This study is mainly theory-testing and policy-evaluative. It is based on a literature
review of books, academic journal articles, newspaper reports and electronic sources, which
offer a general context and necessary insights into the topic. For the purpose of this project, I
have also conducted an interview with a journalist Mr. Andrei Soldatov who offered me valuable
insights for my case study of Russia. My research contributes to the theory of media-intelligence
9

interactions, which has been previously focused mostly on liberal democracies, and has not
offered a general theory applicable for a variety of security intelligence agencies and types of
media organizations. While I do not intend to build a policy-prescriptive and predictive study,
the summary of findings will nevertheless propose explanations to understand the nature of
media-intelligence interactions likely to occur in a given set of circumstances. Two main cases
of the Russian Federation and the United Kingdom with a number of examples from other
countries will illustrate the practical application of our theory.

C.

Case Selection
On the basis of diverse case selection method1 the cases of the United Kingdom and the
Russian Federation, representing two extremes of intelligence openness, are selected to
demonstrate the variety of the outcomes of media and intelligence involvement with each other
and capture the contrasts addressed by my theory. At the same time, both types of the media are
represented in our cases. This will allow me to observe how media behavior varies depending on
their interaction with different intelligence services.

D.

Literature Review
The initial impetus and inspiration for current project was given by Robert Dover and
Michael Goodman’s Spinning Intelligence2, which consists of a series of essays by experts from
government, media and academia, which demonstrate that relationships between mass-media
and intelligence services are far too complex to be given an apparent characterization. The
authors view these relationships from vastly different angles. For example, Corera and Bowen
analyze the Open Source Intelligence strategy, according to which media and intelligence
services cooperate in the battlefield of an ‘information war’ against terrorism and in the context
of nuclear non-proliferation. Recently, this model of relationships has become even more
relevant, as “the information technology revolution continues to present new data storage, search

1

Seawright , Jason, and John Gerring. "Case Selection Techniques in Case Selection Research: A Menu of
Qualitative and Quantitative Options." Political Research Quarterly 62, no. 2, p. 300.
2
Dover, Robert, and Michael S. Goodman. Spinning Intelligence: Why Intelligence Needs the Media, Why the
Media Needs Intelligence. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.

10


and information retrieval options,”3 such as social networks, Internet blogs, and mobile news
apps with instant access to new information.
In the same volume, Richard Aldrich describes how intelligence agencies, which he
depicts as being concerned with public perceptions of intelligence work, use the press to reduce
the generally suspicious and adverse public attitude toward secret government bodies. Aldrich
argues, “Much of what we know about modern intelligence agencies has in fact been placed in
the public domain deliberately by the agencies themselves, or through other government
departments.”4 For example, the US intelligence services have always enjoyed quite close
relationships with its journalist community, which partly explains the remarkable transparency
of the American intelligence agencies: “The fact that we know more about the American
intelligence community than almost any other is commonly assumed to reflect a written
constitution that provides journalists wishing to write about intelligence with a remarkable
degree of formal constitutional protection.”5 This exposes perhaps the most common
misperception concerning modern intelligence services as hiding from the media and living in
the shadows. The actual situation is different. “Over more than fifty years, intelligence agencies
have been concerned to shape public perceptions of intelligence, partly because they have
substantial budgets to defend.”6 Another reason why the intelligence services maintain a close
relationship with the media is the need to keep the latter on the ‘right track’ during times when
there is a substantial threat to national security. Aldrich uses the case of the 9/11 attacks to

illustrate this relationship. In this situation, the media, perceiving the state of emergency,
“adopted a so-called war mentality that was largely supportive of government.”7 This is an
important point for our study as well, as we assume that though the media by its nature is a
hunter for newsworthy knowledge, it might find it ethically inappropriate to disclose sensitive
information in the name of public security.
By contrast, as an investigative journalist in the security and defense field in the United
Kingdom, Chapman Pincher tells a different story based on his personal experience. Pincher
makes reference to a number of reports of false leaks provided by the British intelligence and
intended to misinform its enemies. Reflecting on his reporting of intelligence and security issues,
3

Ibid, p 104
Ibid, p. 18
5
Ibid
6
Ibid
7
Ibid, p. 28
4

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Pincher accepts that “the most cherished professional compliment” he ever received, is that he
was known as a “public urinal where Ministers and officials queued up to leak.”8 In a retrospect,
Pincher’s example is a classic illustration of the ‘partial’ media and the DIB relationships, which
I will elaborate on in later chapters.
Rear Admiral Nicholas Wilkinson shows how the media and intelligence can utilize a
balancing strategy, such as the DA-Notice Committee, which exists “to provide advice to the

media and officials in the United Kingdom about the publication of national security matters.” 9
Wilkinson admits that this balance operates in a ‘gray area’, facing a number of crosscutting
issues related to national security: “the right and duty of the media to publish information about
what is being done by government in the name of the public, versus the right and duty of the
government to conceal pro them certain sensitive information for the protection of the public.”10
However, Wilkinson provides two case-studies of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to illustrate
how the balance over this ‘gray area’ was achieved. I, in turn, will use the case of the DA-notice
system to explain the ‘gentlemen’s relationship’ between the media and intelligence, which I call
‘self-regulation’ in this study.
In sum, the editors of the volume come to a common conclusion that in the era of
‘information age’, thinking of spies and journalists as “blood brothers, separated at birth”11
allows a more extended examination of interaction between them. Both the media and
intelligence agencies are knowledge producers. Normally, they operate without consent from
people or other actors they are searching information about and they produce knowledge for
their own distinct aims.12 This is a crucial insight to understand why the nature of these
relationships can be shifted from conflict to cooperation and vice versa.
To understand what constitutes the core of the relationship between these two
communities and how they work together, I turn to Christopher Andrew’s edited volume “Secret
Intelligence.”13 The volume develops a solid discussion on the definitional aspect of
intelligence. According to Vernon Walters, “intelligence is information, not always available in
the public domain, relating to the strength, resources, capabilities and intentions of a foreign
8

Ibid, p. 152
Ibid, p.133
10
Ibid, p.140
11
Ibid, p. 7
12

Ibid
13
Andrew, Christopher M., Richard J. Aldrich, and Wesley K. Wark. Secret Intelligence: A Reader. London:
Routledge, 2009
9

12


country that can affect our lives and the safety of our people.” 14 Lyman Kirkpatrick adds the
following: “Intelligence is the knowledge – and, ideally, foreknowledge – sought by nations in
response to external threats and to protect their vital interests, especially the well-being of their
own people.”15 A study of the American intelligence establishment commissioned by the Council
on Foreign Relations defines intelligence as “information not publicly available, or analysis
based at least in part on such information that has been prepared for policymakers or other actors
inside the government.”16
As one can see, these definitions stress the ‘informational’ aspect of the term and
sometimes equate ‘information’ and ‘intelligence’. However, such an interpretation is vague and
incomplete, as it “does not say who needs information, or what makes the information needed in
the first place,”17 i.e. excludes the ‘actor’ from it. This is important for my study, as information
is also a key aspect of mass media and the nature of its relationships with intelligence.
Lowenthal18 goes further, arguing that intelligence is something more complex than
information. It can be also thought of as a process, activity, product and organization. The
informational component here is related to “important national security issues”, which are
monitored, analyzed and provided to its consumers – policymakers. Nevertheless, Lowenthal’s
interpretation may include more areas related to national security or the military, but not
essentially mean intelligence activity. “The number of American males of age to bear arms, the
weather conditions in Asia, and the age of Politburo member” may also be evaluated as military
issues, but not be related to intelligence. 19
The ‘missing ingredient’, which distinguishes intelligence from other intellectual and

organizational activities, is presented by Abram Shulsky in his book “Silent Warfare.”20
According to the author, secrecy is what makes intelligence distinct from other governmental
and non-government agencies. Secrecy is also the essential component driving mediaintelligence liaisons, either motivating journalists to report intelligence activities, or compelling
the latter to intentionally leak a certain amount of secrets in mass media as part of their strategy.
14

ibid, p. 5
Ibid
16
Ibid
17
Ibid, p 7
18
Lowenthal, Mark M. Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2000.
19
Andrew, Aldrich, p. 6
20
Shulsky, Abram . Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of Intelligence. Washington: Brassey's (US),
1991
15

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Shulsky briefly analyzes some of these secrecy strategies, utilizing the example of Russian
intelligence services operations in Japan and their use of propaganda and spread of
misinformation to convey certain messages to the target audience.
Two models of intelligence services’ media strategies are presented by the former
Director of the Israeli Government Ministries Security Unit Shlomo Shpiro in his article ‘The
Media Strategies of Intelligence Services.’21 The models of ‘Defensive Openness’ and

‘Controlled Exclusion’ are analyzed within the contexts of Germany and Israel, respectively.
The models vary based on the “development of each country’s intelligence community, as well
as the level and form of its media freedoms.”22 Thus, the model of ‘Defensive Openness’ means
a “limited amount of openness to be maintained toward the media in order to influence media
content.”23 In the case of Germany, this strategy was applied in four main directions:
“continuous in-house media monitoring; proportionality of response; balancing denial with
providing information, and rewarding journalists rather than threatening.”24 This type of
relationships falls within my category of ‘symbiotic benefit’, which I explain later in this study. I
borrow Shpiro’s insight that within this model intelligence services allow the journalists to
receive a certain portion of classified information to influence the media content and when
necessary to keep certain issues out of their sight.
In contrast, the model of ‘Controlled Exclusion’ presupposes inherent and absolute
secrecy of intelligence activities. “According to this view, because intelligence work depends on
secrecy for its success, it should be kept out of the media entirely.”25 This model is mainly based
on three elements: “suppressing operational revelations, threatening or punishing uncooperative
media outlets, and using the media for building up deterrence.”26 Any media coverage of Israeli
Intelligence operations is estimated to limit its operational functions, taking into account the
regional security conditions in which it operates. The Israeli case supports my argument that the
political regime itself does not give a full account of the nature of the relationship between the
media and intelligence. A similar case, where this model appears, is that of in Russia, which is

21

Shpiro, Shlomo. "The Media Strategies of Intelligence Services." International Journal of Intelligence and
Counterintelligence (2001).
22
Ibid, 499
23
Ibid, 487
24

Ibid, p. 488
25
Ibid, p. 494
26
Ibid, p. 495

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one of the two case studies in this paper. In a similar manner, Russian intelligence agencies often
set an ‘iron curtain’ to block any kind of media coverage of their activities.
Glen Hastedt in his article ‘Public Intelligence: Leaks as Policy Instruments. The Iraqi
War’27 analyzes the use of intentional leaks to the media by intelligence services as part of their
considered strategy. Hastedt explains that purposeful leaks of secret information to the press can
be motivated by a wish “either to draw attention to oneself or to a policy problem, or to defend
or distance oneself from a policy failure.” 28 Hastedt distinguishes between four patterns of media
leaks which are: promotional, orchestrated, warring, and entrepreneurial, depending on “whether
the leaked intelligence emerges in a sustained or episodic fashion and whether or not it is
contested [by opponents].”29
Promotional intelligence means that classified information is disclosed in an episodic
manner and is not contested by other sources. In this pattern, secret intelligence becomes public
without facing any significant barriers, such as alternative information. The initial aim of
promotional intelligence leaks is to focus public attention to a certain problem, or “or to defend
or distance oneself from a policy failure.”30
Entrepreneurial intelligence leaks happen when secret intelligence becomes public and is
contested by other parties, which also use intelligence information to convince the respective
audience (policy makers) that their information is strategically more important or relevant than
the one offered by their opponent.
Orchestrated intelligence leaks emerge when secret intelligence is uncovered on a regular
basis and is not contested by other parties. “More often than not orchestrated public intelligence

will emanate from the executive branch. It has greater access to the products of the intelligence
community and it is responsible for the selection and execution of foreign policy.”31
Finally, warring intelligence leaks are carried out on systematic and contested basis.
“Here the opposing sides are involved in a siege in which the objective is to wear challengers
down to the point where their opposition is no longer politically significant.”32 The primary

27

Hastedt, Glenn. "Public intelligence: Leaks as policy instruments–the case of the Iraq war." Intelligence &
National Security (2005)
28
Ibid, p. 421
29
Ibid
30
Ibid
31
Ibid, p. 423
32
Ibid, p. 425

15


example here is the long episode of Soviet - US warring intelligence competitions during the
Cold War.
Regardless the dimension the mentioned leaks take, the media side is depicted as a
passive actor of the process, the ‘projector’ through which a message is being sent. Naturally, in
such conditions reporters do not have any noticeable weight in framing the relationship.
Nevertheless, this categorization is important for our study, because it demonstrates that there is

no single pattern of intelligence leaks in the media, as different conditions drive them.
More power to the media as a political actor is given, or at leastiswished to be given, by
Timothy E. Cook in his Governing the News.33 Cook creates a “new model of the reporter as a
key participant in decision-making and policy making and of the news media as a central
political force in government.”34 Media strategies, according to Cook, are generally used by state
authorities to counter the weaknesses of their institutions. Through the press, officials promote
ideas quickly and directly to their target audiences. While “politicians dictate conditions and
rules of access, and designate certain events and issues as important by providing an arena for
them, journalists, in turn, decide whether something is interesting enough to cover, the context in
which to place it, and the prominence the story receives.”35
A peculiar type of relationship between the media and intelligence occurs when media
reports on intelligence failures. In his article ‘Reports, Politics and Intelligence Failures’36
Robert Jervis brings up the example of American and British intelligence services’ failure
concerning Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Intelligence failure is understood as a
mismatch between the services’ expectations and what actually was found out during the
operation.37 When it was revealed that intelligence estimates did not coincide with the reality
faced by US forces in Iraq, the US government found it necessary to feed the public hunger for
explanations and clarify the reasons for intelligence failure in the press. Interestingly, while the
official reports stressed organizational failures in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) - such
as ‘groupthink’ dynamic, excessive consensus and analytical errors - the media reports have
blamed the post 9/11 environment of high risks of new threats, which forced policymakers to
33

Cook, Timothy E. Governing with the News: The News Media As a Political Institution. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1998
34
Ibid, p. 3
35
Ibid, p. 12
36

Jervis, Robert. "Reports, politics, and intelligence failures: The case of Iraq." Journal of Strategic Studies (2006)
37
Ibid, p. 10

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take preventive deterrence measures without conducting additional cross-checking.38 Thus, the
press highlighted the problem of politicization of intelligence, defined as the manipulation and
misinterpretation of intelligence information by policymakers to reflect their preferences. We
will return to the issue of intelligence manipulation in the case study of the United Kingdom.
Intelligence failures and the subsequent reports in the media are also analyzed in Peter
Gill’s Intelligence in an Insecure World.39 In Gill’s opinion, in such situations, intelligence
agencies tend to minimize their contacts with the press, “apart from planting stories with friendly
journalists.”40 Thus, suitable liaisons with media allow intelligence to reveal selective
knowledge, draw public attention to a particular agenda or justify its failures in a way that
minimizes public dissatisfaction.
In Policing Politics: Security Intelligence and the Liberal Democratic State,41 Gill
focuses on the issue of the oversight and control of intelligence activities. He uses the Gore Tex
state model to categorize the intelligence agencies. His typology, which I later use in this study
as well, is based on the level of autonomy of the intelligence service from the rest of the state
machine, and its level of penetration into society. Gill proposes three ideal types of intelligence
services: Independent Security State (ISS), Political Police (PP), and Domestic Intelligence
Bureau (DIB). The main reason I apply this typology is that it illustrates how the intelligence
apparatus is positioned within a state and a society and at the same time is not a simple product
of regime type. Gill himself sees the ideal security agency as the DIB, which has a statutory
mandate and strong institutions of oversight ensuring that the agencies maintain respect for
human rights. Though there is some extent of idealization in this category, I will apply this
category to my understanding of British intelligence.
Important insights on the democratic control of intelligence through a number of

effective measures are also provided in Thomas Bruneau’s and Steven Boraz’s volume
Reforming Intelligence. Obstacles to Democratic Control and Effectiveness.42 The contributors
to the book offer a number of means to control intelligence, which is summed up in three basic
38

Badie , Dina. "Groupthink, Iraq, and the War on Terror: Explaining US Policy Shift toward Iraq." Foreign Policy
Analysis 6 (2010):
39
Gill, Peter, and Mark Phythian. Intelligence in an Insecure World. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2006
40
Ibid, p. 93
41
Gill, Peter. Policing Politics: Security Intelligence and the Liberal Democratic State. London: F. Cass, 1994
42
Bruneau, Thomas C., and Steven C. Boraz. Reforming Intelligence: Obstacles to Democratic Control and
Effectiveness. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007

17


mechanisms: executive, legislative and judicial oversight. The cases of the intelligence practices
in the United States, United Kingdom, and France, Brazil, Taiwan, Argentina, and Russia are
brought into the framework. Mykhail Tsypkin’s chapter on the case of Russia addresses the issue
of the civilian control of Russian security services, including the role of the media in keeping the
agencies accountable. Tsypkin explains the factors behind the current state of affairs, which
reveal how the weak institutions of intelligence oversight let the intelligence community grow
into a ‘state within a state’ having minimum legal and public accountability.
Another valuable source of information on the Russian case is the book by Andrei
Soldatov and Irina Borogan The New Nobility. Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the
Enduring legacy of the KGB,43 which is a detailed investigation of Russian security services and

their activities both at home and overseas. The authors show the dynamic of the agencies’
prestige and legitimacy accumulation since the collapse of the USSR and the rise to power of
famous KGB ex-agent Vladimir Putin to the Office of President/Prime Minister of the Russian
Federation. The book is even more interesting for me, as it is largely based on the authors’
experience as journalists, who have spent over a decade reporting on Russian security forces,
and shed a light on the nature of relationships between the agencies and the media.
To sum up, one can observe an increasing attention of scholars to intelligence issues,
especially to the aspect of its oversight and democratic control. After the years of academic
‘blackout’ during the Cold War and early 1990-s, intelligence is no longer considered a ‘missing
dimension.’44 However, its relationship with the media is still an under-theorized topic in the
academia. Certainly, some aspects of it have been given an account, particularly those related to
‘leak scandals’ and revelations of sensitive information by reporters. Another issue area, which
receives a growing consideration, is the journalists’ ability to scrutinize intelligence activities
and keep them accountable. It is usually discussed in the wider context of intelligence activities
in liberal democracies. Yet, there still has not been a systematic account of media-intelligence
relationship which would explain under which conditions these actors come into contact and
how their relationships are developed, regardless the political regime and the type of
43

Soldatov, Andrei, and Irina Borogan. The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia's Security State and the
Enduring Legacy of the KGB. New York: Public Affairs, 2010.
44
Andrew, Christopher M., and David Dilks. The Missing Dimension: Governments and Intelligence Communities
in the Twentieth Century. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984.

18


government. The problem with existing literature on intelligence is not just in their ‘center shift’
on liberal democracies (this is understandable, considering that most of the scholarship on

intelligence is coming from British and American schools of social sciences; two prominent
journals of the intelligence studies: International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence
and Intelligence and National Security are US based). The main fallacy, in my opinion, is in
understanding of the intelligence service as an extension of a state, while in fact it can have its
own political agenda in relation with the public sector and the media, in particular. My study will
fill this gap, offering an analysis of media-intelligence relationship based on the characteristics
of both actors and the factors which make them behave the way they do.

Organization of the Study
In order to understand what the possible scenarios of the media and the intelligence
interaction are, I analyze the nature of both actors in the Chapters II and III. First, I will focus on
the conditions which allow/make the media perform its investigative function (watchdog media)
or carry out a biased coverage of intelligence issues (partial media). I argue that while the media
freedom largely depends on the type of the government, its ability to scrutinize the intelligence
activity is driven by a number of other factors, which do not depend on regime type. That is why
I expect different types of media to exist in the same country. In the chapter on intelligence
organizations I provide a framework to understand the intelligence as an institution with fixed
functions and activity. I am particularly interested in power relationships across the nexus of
state, intelligence and society. Depending on the degree of its autonomy and penetration, three
types of the intelligence apparatus (DIB, PP, ISS) are applied.
Chapter IV shows how the two types of media behavior and three types of the
intelligence interact and proposes six scenarios in which the relationships between these actors
are expected to result.
In Chapters V and VI I address the nature of the relationship between the intelligence and
the domestic media in Russia and the United Kingdom respectively. Analyzing the time period
after 1991, I suggest that Russian intelligence can be categorized as ISS, and therefore its
19


interactions with the media result in the ‘media spinning’ (in regards to partial media outlets)

and ‘criticism-punishment’ and ‘iron curtain’ (with the watchdog media outlets). In the UK case
I cover the same period with a particular focus on the events of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Using
the categories offered above, I suggest that British intelligence is best categorized as a DIB and
enters into three types of relationship with the media: ‘symbiotic benefit’ and ‘self-regulation’
with the partial media, and ‘media criticism’ when encountering with the watchdog media.

20


CHAPTER II : THE MEDIA
Imagine prisoners who have been chained since childhood deep inside a cave. Not only
are their limbs immobilized by the chains, their heads are chained as well so that their eyes are
fixed on a wall. Behind the prisoners is an enormous fire, and between the fire and the prisoners
there is a raised walkway, along which shapes of various animals, plants, and other things are
carried. The shapes cast shadows on the wall, which occupy the prisoners' attention. Also, when
one of the shape-carriers speaks, an echo against the wall causes the prisoners to believe that the
words come from the shadows. This, however, is the only reality that they know, even though
they are seeing merely shadows of images.45
This passage is taken from Plato’s famous myth of the cave, in which he compares
people with the prisoners who are looking at the shadows on the wall, naively believing that
these images necessarily reflect the reality they live in, and having no clue that somewhere
outside the cave there is an alternate world.
This classic allegory is often read in terms of the modern information age with its floods
of imagery that our minds cannot resist. Whether these shadows reflect reality or just a skewed
image of it enormously depends on those who direct the images. Talking in modern terms, the
fundamental questions here are: Who in fact broadcasts the information we receive every day?
When are the media powerful enough to hold opinion without external interference? In contrast,
when is it a mere projector, whose reports serve the interests of other agents (in this case, the
intelligence service)? In this chapter, I will first figure out what motivates the media to monitor
and criticize government agencies and officials, in other words to act as a ‘watchdog.’ In the

second part I will inquire into the conditions under which voluntary or involuntary media bias
occurs.
A. Watchdog Media

Although the idea of the media as the ‘watchdog’ of the society is an old one, it is still
hard to give a precise definition to it. Jenifer Whitten-Wooding and Patrick James define a
45

Plato. The Republic, With an English Translation by Paul Shorey. London: W. Heinemann, 1946. P. 272
(book VII)

21


‘watchdog’ “as the degree to which the news media take the initiative to scrutinize and report
critically about government behavior.”46 In this definition, the monitoring role of the media
refers to ‘investigative journalism’. Hereby, ‘watchdogging’ is conceptualized as the “extent to
which the news media engage in investigative reporting.”47 Mark Hunter, in turn, defines
‘investigative journalism’ as a type of reporting that “involves exposing to the public matters
that are concealed – either deliberately by someone in a position of power, or accidentally,
behind a chaotic mass of facts and circumstances that obscure understanding. It requires using
both secret and open sources and documents.”48
Lance Bennett and William Serrin define ‘watchdog journalism’ as “independent
scrutiny by the press on the activities of government, business, and other public institutions, with
an aim toward documenting, questioning, and investigating those activities, in order to provide
the public and officials with timely information on issues of public concern.” 49 This process
often includes combining both open and closed source information, archive data, official
statements and press releases, and conducting interviews and polls, resulting in original analyses
that reveal and highlight certain problems to attract public attention to them. It is for this reason
that the watchdog role is considered to be the most important contribution of the press to society.

In this project, I do not differentiate the media by the means it uses to broadcast
information, i.e. the print newspapers, the Internet, TV, radio, etc. The more important aspect
here is the reporters’ ability to report without bias, stay impartial and remain dedicated to
uncovering hidden information, because only when the media performs as the watchdog of
society, when it is able to act as a platform for political debate, it becomes impossible for the
officials to hide their wrongdoings.
Turning to the preconditions that allow the media to perform its watchdogging function,
it would be safe to hypothesize that the higher the democracy-index of a given state, the more
the engagement of the press in investigating reporting. This is based on a general axiom that the
media is capable to critically report on its government when democratic institutions are present
46

Whitten-Woodring, Jenifer, and Patrick James. "Fourth Estate or Mouthpiece? A Formal Model of Media, Protest,
and Government Repression." Political Communication (2012). P. 120
47
Ibid
48
Hunter, Marke Lee. "Story-based Inquiry: A Manual for Investigative Journalists." Les Publishers. UNESCO
(2009). P. 8.
49
Overholser, Geneva, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. The Press. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. P.
327

22


in a state.
In her research, Jenifer Whitten-Woodring50 matches media freedom and regime type:
Table 1. Press Freedom in Democracies and Autocracies, 1980 – 200851

Her findings show that “the most common combinations of media and regime type are
government-controlled media in autocratic countries, and free media in democratic countries.”52
This brings us to a simple and predictable graph, showing that the higher the level of
democracy (D), the more freedom (F) the media enjoys.
F

0
D
However, before we proceed further, it is necessary to elaborate how media freedom is
measured in this study. Freedom House generates an index of press freedom, which takes into
account a variety of factors affecting the media. “The criteria which are considered for a free
media are: constitutional aspects protecting freedom of the press and freedom of information; the
enforcement of the constitutional aspects; whether laws restricting reporting are absent or not;
whether the media outlets are free to determine their own content or not; free access to official
and unofficial resources by the media; lack of official censorship and journalist self-censorship;
freedom of the media from economic control both from the government and private ownership;
50

Whitten-Woodring, Jenifer. "Watchdog or Lapdog? Media Freedom, Regime Type, and Government Respect for
Human Rights." International Studies Quarterly (2009) P. 602.
51
Ibid
52
Ibid.

23


and freedom from economic manipulation.”53
Reporters without Borders takes into considerations additional factors affecting media

freedom, such as the use or threat of use of violence against journalists. It also includes the level
of self-censorship and the journalists’ ability to oversee and openly criticize. “Reporters without
Borders have taken into account not only the abuses attributable to the state, but also those by
armed militias, clandestine organizations and pressure groups.”54
Hence, there is a positive function between free media (F) and its watchdog behavior
(W). Press independence from both the government and commercial pressures increases the
degree to which news media act as watchdogs, because in such environments media becomes
truly investigative, and has a public-service focus rather than profit-maximizing goals.
W

0
F
Combining two previous graphs, we presume that there is a positive correlation between
the level of democracy and the media’s ability to perform as a watchdog:

W

0
53

Ibid, p. 598.
Popescu G, Bogdan. “Press Freedom in Non-Democratic Regimes.” Paper presented at the ECPR Graduate
Conference in Dublin in 2010. P. 5
54

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D
However, if we go back to the Table 1, we can observe that there are a percentage of

states, both democratic and autocratic, that do not fit with the general pattern democracy →
freedom of the press → watchdog journalism. That means that the presence of democratic
institutions and media freedom do not always result in the media that perform a watchdog role.
Similarly, the low index of media freedom does not exclude the possibility of the press
criticizing government activities.
Indeed, Whitten-Woodring’s empirical studies have found that there are some instances
when autocratic regimes would create institutions that allow media freedom and tolerate an
independent news media. There are also a few cases where the media in democratic states are
unable to function freely or criticize its government. Whitten-Woodring uses the examples of
Uganda and Mexico to illustrate the first case, and Greece and Portugal from 1981 to 1995 in the
second case. The very existence of such outliers prevents us from arguing that a watchdog media
is a feature of democracies only, or that the press in democratic states will necessarily investigate
and report on its government. This again supports my earlier point that we need to find out
additional reasons that make the media and intelligence communities behave the way they do. It
compels us to consider the factors – be these characteristics exhibited by government or the
media – that make watchdog reporting possible across different regime types.
In exploring those exceptions, Whitten-Woodring suggests that “autocratic leaders might
allow some media freedom for the very same reason that they sometimes hold elections: because
they want to establish or maintain a facade of legitimacy.” 55 Another explanation to this is that
some “dictators might permit media freedom in order to remain informed about the performance
of lower level bureaucrats in remote regions.”

56

Whitten-Woodring and James also posit that

“watchdog journalism is influenced by whether there is a need for it.” 57 My case studies will
suggest that the degree to which the media acts as a watchdog is affected by the degree to which
governments are perceived to keep their activities in secrecy, for the forbidden fruit is sweet, the
obscured is intriguing. If governments are hiding a large portion of their intelligence activities,

watchdogs become suspicious and more motivated to find out the truth. Their motivation is
strengthened further by the ‘newsworthiness’ of intelligence stories, which are perceived to be
55

Whitten-Woodring,and James, p. 119
Ibid, p. 118
57
Ibid, p. 120
56

25