As the Russian football team stands on the brink of qualification for the World Cup knockout rounds for the first time since the Soviet era, Western media begrudgingly grants them some credit. However, there is no sign of any apology for the years-long propaganda campaign that pre-emptively branded the Russian ...
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For the last few weeks I've been working a research project on how the Pentagon's entertainment liaison offices deal with the subjects of military mental health and suicide.  Today the fruits of that research were published by Insurge Intelligence, a crowdfunded journalism platform run by Nafeez Ahmed, who also published ...
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A year ago I published the book National Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood.  On this month's subscriber podcast I reflect on the success of the book, its impact on media coverage of the topic of government influence on entertainment and the plans for a ...
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Information recently obtained under FOIA has revealed that up to 200 Home Office staff have liaised with TV and Film producers about the content of their products, usually without any kind of contract in place governing their behaviour.  While they are refusing to release exact details, this is confirmation that ...
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The entertainment highlight of the Trump-Kim negotiations is undoubtedly the fake movie trailer for A Story of Opportunity that the White House showed to North Korean officials and displayed before Trump's press conference in Singapore.  Perhaps the most interesting aspect to the Trump trailer fiasco is how commentators and critics ...
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In 1995 the Pentagon supported an episode of the popular sitcom Home Improvement, where Tim and Jill get to drive tanks at a Marine base. This week we take a deep dive into this episode, its feminist subtext, and the DOD’s political censorship of the script, courtesy of a file ...
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For decades the Eurovision Song Contest has been a platform for projecting soft power and engaging in cultural warfare.  In this month's subscriber-only podcast I look at how Eurovision entries have been used for propaganda and have been subject to political censorship. I discuss this year's winning entry - which ...
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On March 4th Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in the sleepy British city of Salisbury, by forces currently unknown. The British government immediately blamed Russian intelligence, leading to weeks of accusations and counter-accusations, diplomatic expulsions and lots of conspiracy theories about who really did this, and why ...
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