Spies, Spin and the Fourth Estate

British Intelligence and the Media

Paul Lashmar

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Year: 2020
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781474443098
• Subtopic: Intelligence & Espionage
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Combining his expertise as a national security correspondent and research academic, Paul Lashmar reveals how and why the media became more critical in its reporting of the Secret State. He explores a series of major case studies including Snowden, WikiLeaks, Spycatcher, rendition and torture, and MI5's vetting of the BBC – most of which he reported on as they happened. He discusses the issues that news coverage raises for democracy and gives you a deeper understanding of how intelligence and the media function, interact and fit into structures of power and knowledge.

Table of contents

• Spies, Spin and the Fourth Estate
• Contents
• Preface
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• Introduction
• 1 Setting the Scene
• 2 The Great War
• 3 The Interwar Years and the Dark Arts
• 4 The Second World War
• 5 The ‘Era of Trust’
• 6 Cold War Warriors
• 7 Agitprop
• 8 1968 and All That
• 9 1975: The Year of Intelligence
• 10 The Thatcher Years
• 11 Spycatcher
• 12 The Wall Comes Down 
• 13 The ‘War on Terror’
• 14 Citizenfour
• 15 Lives at Risk
• 16 Ostriches, Cheerleaders, Lemonsuckers and Guardians
• 17 Reflections on Forty Years of Spy Watching
• REFERENCES
• INDEX