9. The Mockingbird
We’re not referring to the Hunger Games now, although that might have been a nicer topic. Instead we’re talking about a top secret project of the CIA, called Operation Mockingbird. For a very long time, starting in the late 1940s, conspiracy theorists believed there was something fishy in the media. It turns out that those ideas weren’t far from the truth.
In fact, the CIA had put journalists and reporters on their payroll and planted them in various newsrooms, including major publications. The CIA was looking to use news organizations and journalists as spies and, perhaps more disturbing, tools for their propaganda.
ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Associated Press and more were targeted, which made the entire media untrustworthy to a point since you couldn’t know who was being paid by the CIA. Tens of thousands of operatives were infiltrated in businesses, media, and even universities.
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