Are Journalists Spies?

A friend of mine from the Afghanistan once laughed in my face when I told him that I thought journalists report the truth—or at least try to. He is a polite and respectful guy, but he could not help himself. This one really made him guffaw. I gathered that he saw journalists as, at best, under the thumb of the government where they worked, but more likely agents of their regime. 

I realized his concept of journalist as mouthpiece was not so unlike the view of some of my fellow Americans (and friends) who see fake news everywhere. Journalists say what they say, no matter the medium, basically to make a buck. One way or another, journalists must be on the take, perhaps from a corporation paying for reporting that amounts to advertising, maybe through a revenue grab forged in clickbait, perhaps in a sophisticated scheme disguising a direct kickback or gift from a nonprofit or lobbying outfit in exchange for a certain story or angle.  

A version of this narrative is that foreign correspondents must be spies. Any journalists out there gathering information about what is happening in a faraway land couldn’t be taking those risks for the sake of public knowledge. They must really be doing so on behalf of their governments.

As a fiction writer, I’ll say it is fun to play with this conspiracy theory—or should I simply say “idea”? Being a journalist seems like it could be a good cover. Journalists have an excuse to be anywhere. They ask a lot of questions, go to the front lines, observe events, develop sources, meet powerful people—a lot of things that a spy does.  

The truth is there have been journalists, including high-profile ones, who were spies. Take Pablo Gonzalez, a Spanish (Basque) journalist who also speaks accent-free Russian. Poland detained him om 2022 as a Russian spy, a claim that he denied, but that eventually seemed pretty possible after Russian President Vladimir Putin greeted him personally on the tarmac when he returned to Russia in a 2024 prisoner swap. (See: Journalist or Russian spy? The strange case of Pablo González | Espionage | The Guardian.) The book Bureau of Spies: The Secret Connections Between Espionage and Journalism in Washington, by Steven T. Usdin, chronicles many instances of journalists as spies, especially during World War II. More recently, in another example, there have been Chinese spies who didn’t even bother to walk the walk; they just stole the identities of real Taiwanese journalists and impersonated them, as described in this report from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists: Phony whistleblowers, fake journalists and cyber spies: ICIJ network targeted after China Targets probe  - ICIJ www.icij.org/investigations/china-targets/fake-journalists-cyber-spies-china-targets-reporters/.

In my experience as a journalist, I have bumped into colleagues who I thought were spies. The most obvious candidates were reporters from governments that were not democracies. I also had journalist friends who were contacted by their government’s intelligence services to “share” information. As far as I knew, they declined to participate.  

Still, I believe the vast majority of journalists are just that—journalists. Most journalists really do work hard to report what is actually happening —and by “journalists,” I mean people who track down and report news, as distinct from individuals who comment on or analyze events that have been reported by others. This concept of journalist would include people who report for the legacy news organizations, magazines, and newspapers as well as newer, independent citizen journalists with blogs, columns, or video channels. Most of them believe the free flow of information is necessary for a functioning democracy, and they want people to be able to make their own choices based on a solid foundation of knowledge. They care about getting to the bottom of things, and are motivated by things like maintaining the rule of law, exposing corruption, and being fair.

Journalists have industry standards, and they follow them. Venerable news organizations like the Associated Press (the AP) and the British Broadcasting Corp. (the BBC) instruct reporters on everything from how to be impartial, accurate, fair, unbiased, quick, careful, and balanced; to how to protect sources who are in danger, such as witnesses to crimes; and how to avoid conflicts of interest in gathering the news. (Read the guidelines here and here, respectively.) Smaller and lesser-known news organizations around the world strive to meet these standards as well. This is for real.

Besides upholding ideals, journalists also have an economic incentive to tell the truth, that is, to report the real news. They need to make a living, after all, which means they need to retain the trust of their editors, readers and/or followers. As a journalist, if you spew nonsense and lies, you will lose your job or your followers pretty quickly, and in turn your income. The spies who are using it as a cover are few and far between.