February 14, 2026 - Without identifying individuals ... fifty journalists who had official, but secret, relationships with the CIA. In a 1977 Rolling Stone magazine article, "The CIA and the Media," reporter Carl Bernstein expanded upon the Church Committee's report and wrote that more than 400 US press members ...

June 18, 2022 - He noted that “journalists provided a full range of clandestine services — from simple intelligence gathering to serving as go-betweens with spies in Communist countries. Reporters shared their notebooks with the CIA. Editors shared their staffs.” · A December 26, 1977, investigative report in the New York Times described the scope of the CIA’s global campaign to influence opinion through media manipulation.

April 15, 2025 - In its investigation of U.S. foreign ... Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho) – found that more than 50 American journalists had worked clandestinely as CIA agents during the Cold War era....

February 1, 2003 - A month before his capture, Editor and Publisher speculated about whether CIA agents were “covering” as journalists in Afghanistan after a Taliban defector told the Washington Post that he was approached by intelligence agents in journalist guise. Such events invoke a decades-old history of federal agents masquerading as the very people who should be watching them and the several accounts of foreign reporters imprisoned because they were believed to be spies. ... Media manipulation by the CIA and FBI came to the forefront of public attention with the admission of the practices by Congressional intelligence committees in early 1976.

December 12, 2020 - They included executives at CBS, ABC, NBC, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, and the New York Times. In some cases, journalists were actually on the CIA payroll; in others, they acted as agents of influence out of loyalty to the Agency and the country.

November 19, 2020 - It is well documented that the CIA uses the media to spread disinformation. After 1945, the agency, in what is known as “Operation Mockingbird,” recruited journalists in major U.S. media to promote its Cold War anti-Communist perspective.

2 weeks ago - The remaining individuals are ... and media representatives abroad ... More than a dozen United States news organizations and commercial publishing houses formerly provided cover for CIA agents abroad. A few of these organizations were unaware that they provided this cover. The Church report stated that prior to the report's completion, the CIA had already begun restricting its use of journalists...

S.4615 | May 20, 2026 · Public Law 119-60 | Dec 18, 2025

CIA'S USE OF JOURNALISTS AND CLERGY · IN INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS · WEDNESDAY, JULY · 17, 1996 · Printed · for the use of the Select Committee on · Intelligence · f'*+:Hii^lWWOFO0iiIP^ EPiiSITORI' ./< iC · U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE · 27-623 CC · WASHINGTON ·

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has paid journalists, used information from unpaid journalists, owned foreign media outlets, planted stories, and put the lid on other stories throughout its 30-year history. Journalism makes a good cover for agents because journalists can ask questions ...

Answer (1 of 9): * The CIA has an explicit working relation with the owner of every major US media outlet, the only exceptions being Rolling Stone, Playboy, and The Village Voice. When in 1975 there were major leaks about the CIA, these are the only publications that printed them in whole, witho...

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February 18, 2020 - In the field, journalists were used to help recruit and handle foreigners as agents; to acquire and evaluate information, and to plant false information with officials of foreign governments.

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February 18, 2020 - In the field, journalists were used to help recruit and handle foreigners as agents; to acquire and evaluate information, and to plant false information with officials of foreign governments.

Browse the Collections | Advanced Search | Search Help · Welcome to the Central Intelligence Agency's Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room

The same could apply in Canada but would we ever find out? The CIA used more than 400 journalists from 1953 to 1977. “Some of these journalists’ relationships with the agency were tacit; some were explicit,” Bernstein reports. “There was co-operation, accommodation and overlap.

Answer (1 of 7): This is one of the cardinal rules of US spycraft (some countries have no such compunctions), is that we do not place agents in news organizations. There are multiple reasons for this. 1. It affects the credibility of the news organization. If a spy was discovered as a reporter ...

1 month ago - During a PBS Frontline investigation, DEA field agent Hector Berrellez said, "I believe that elements working for the CIA were involved in bringing drugs into the country ... I know specifically that some of the CIA contract workers, meaning some of the pilots, in fact were bringing drugs into the U.S. and landing some of these drugs in government military air bases. And I know so because I was told by some of these pilots that in fact they had done that." Several journalists state that the CIA used Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport in Arkansas to smuggle weapons and ammunition to the Contr