By 1976 the CIA had taken over the world's English language media and were expanding into other languages

If you remember one thing from reading this, blog please let it be former CIA man John Stockwell testifying to the Church Commission in 1976 that the CIA had taken over the English speaking media and were on their way to completing the takeover of French and Spanish speaking media. 

That includes mainstream left-wing papers.

I was always sure whenever I bother to read Con Coughlin, the executive foreign editor of the Daily Telegraph, that I was listening direct to the voice of MI6. 

I now discover that this has been admitted by the Telegraph in evidence in court.

Wikipedia quotes Britain's security services and journalists: the secret story, by David Leigh, British Journalism Review Vol. 11, No. 2, 2000, pages 21-26. It sounds a book worth reading.

'The paper was unable to back up its suggestion that Gadafy junior might have been linked to a fraud, but pleaded, in effect, that it had been supplied with the material by the Government. In a long and detailed statement, which entered the public domain in the course of a judgment given in an interlocutory appeal on 28 October 1998, the paper described how, under Charles Moore's editorship, a lunch had been arranged with the then Conservative foreign secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, at which Con Coughlin had been present. Told by Rifkind that countries such as Iran were trying to get hold of hard currency to beat sanctions, Coughlin was later briefed by an MI6 man, his regular contact. Some weeks afterward, he was introduced to a second MI6 man, who spent several hours with him and handed over extensive details of the story about Gadafy's son. Although Coughlin asked for evidence, and was shown purported bank statements, the pleadings make clear that he was dependent on MI6 for the discreditable details about the alleged counterfeiting scam. He was required to keep the source strictly confidential.'

There is much more here. 

Owen Jones is usually someone I simply can't stand but his anti-American, anti-British establishment bias means he takes an interest in things in foreign affairs that less left-wing journalists do not notice, or at least do not mention.

I suspect that MI6 keeps stories of Ukrainian corruption out of the press. This is Patrick Cockburn in the i newspaper on 24 February.