This week we focus on the timeless overlap between espionage and journalism. We’ll show how top investigative journalists use the same techniques and technologies as top spies - from recruiting sources and building trust to acquiring secret intelligence and hidden information to turn it into profound, life-changing stories.
Africa's masked vigilante
Ghana’s most feared investigator Anas Aremeyaw Anas is part journalist, part spy. He usually works undercover, wearing beads in public appearances to disguise his identity. He infiltrated a dangerous psychiatric hospital, exposed a murderous witch doctor, and rooted out corruption at the highest level of FIFA, but Anas doesn’t just find evidence. He turns his intel into articles, testifies in court, and enjoys seeing his targets end up in prison.
When ex-Philippines President Duterte declared a war on drugs, extrajudicial murders soared. Exact figures were hard to pinpoint, however, so the media turned to the disruptive site Rappler run by Filipino-American journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa. Rappler investigated a suspected government killing campaign by dispatching reporters to the barrios to gather eye-witness accounts, highlighted inconsistent ‘official’ figures, and used social media to call out disinformation.
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CNN producer Peter Bergen was researching the Middle East in the ‘90s long before the world’s most famous terrorist became a household name. Bergen had his heart set on interviewing Osama bin Laden no matter how dangerous it might get, but how? Much like an intelligence targeting officer, Bergen began identifying the people, relationships, and groups that could grant access. After several months, he was close but Bergen still needed to close the deal.
Russian editor Dmitry Muratov has spent decades overseeing big data exposés and exposing corruption in a country often accused of assassinating journalists. He’s head of Novaya Gazeta, where six of his journalists have died pursuing stories. Muratov has been threatened while covering military aggression, assaulted, and his newspaper license was revoked in early September, but he’s not leaving Russia: "We will work here until the cold gun barrel touches our hot foreheads."
Using technology and spy tradecraft, four AP journalists helped free 2,000 slaves. In an investigation that found humans held captive in cages, four brave and intrepid female journalists followed ships and stalked refrigerated trucks to expose abusive practices in Southeast Asia’s fishing industry. They traced the seafood caught by slaves to supermarkets and pet food providers across the US. What they found will shock you.
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Bulgarian journalist Christo Grozev is a modern-day Sherlock Holmes. True Spies host Vanessa Kirby caught up with Bellingcat’s lead Russia investigator as he tracked down the suspects in the most audacious assassination attempt of the 21st century - the poisoning of retired Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal, hospitalized by a mysterious nerve agent on British soil.
