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🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/Military science, technology, and theory 🔗 Politics 🔗 Media 🔗 Journalism

Atrocity propaganda is the spreading of information about the crimes committed by an enemy, which can be factual, but often includes or features deliberate fabrications or exaggerations. This can involve photographs, videos, illustrations, interviews, and other forms of information presentation or reporting.

The inherently violent nature of war means that exaggeration and invention of atrocities often becomes the main staple of propaganda. Patriotism is often not enough to make people hate the enemy, and propaganda is also necessary. "So great are the psychological resistances to war in modern nations", wrote Harold Lasswell, "that every war must appear to be a war of defense against a menacing, murderous aggressor. There must be no ambiguity about who the public is to hate." Human testimony may be unreliable even in ordinary circumstances, but in wartime, it can be further muddled by bias, sentiment, and misguided patriotism.

According to Paul Linebarger, atrocity propaganda leads to real atrocities, as it incites the enemy into committing more atrocities, and, by heating up passions, it increases the chances of one's own side committing atrocities, in revenge for the ones reported in propaganda. Atrocity propaganda might also lead the public to mistrust reports of actual atrocities. In January 1944, Arthur Koestler wrote of his frustration at trying to communicate what he had witnessed in Nazi-occupied Europe: the legacy of anti-German stories during World War I, many of which were debunked in the postwar years, meant that these reports were received with considerable amounts of skepticism.

Like propaganda, atrocity rumors detailing exaggerated or invented crimes perpetrated by enemies are also circulated to vilify the opposing side. The application of atrocity propaganda is not limited to times of conflict but can be implemented to sway public opinion and create a Casus belli to declare war.

🔗 Biography 🔗 Women writers 🔗 Biography/arts and entertainment 🔗 Journalism 🔗 Malta

Daphne Anne Caruana Galizia (née Vella; 26 August 1964 – 16 October 2017) was a Maltese writer, journalist, blogger and anti-corruption activist, who reported on political events in Malta. In particular, she focused on investigative journalism, reporting on government corruption, nepotism, patronage, allegations of money laundering, links between Malta's online gambling industry and organized crime, Malta's citizenship-by-investment scheme, and payments from the government of Azerbaijan. Caruana Galizia's national and international reputation was built on her regular reporting of misconduct by Maltese politicians and politically exposed persons.

Caruana Galizia continued to publish articles for decades, despite intimidation and threats, libel suits and other lawsuits. She was arrested by the Malta Police Force on two occasions. Caruana Galizia's investigations were published via her personal blog Running Commentary, which she set up in 2008. She was a regular columnist with The Sunday Times of Malta and later The Malta Independent. Her blog consisted of investigative reporting and commentary, some of which was regarded as personal attacks on individuals, leading to a series of legal battles. In 2016 and 2017, she revealed controversially sensitive information and allegations relating to a number of Maltese politicians and the Panama Papers scandal.

On 16 October 2017, Caruana Galizia was killed close to her home when a car bomb was detonated inside her vehicle, attracting widespread local and international condemnation of the attack. In December 2017, three men were arrested in connection with the car bomb attack. Police arrested Yorgen Fenech, the owner of the Dubai-based company 17 Black, on his yacht on 20 November 2019 in connection with her murder.

In April 2018, an international consortium of 45 journalists published The Daphne Project, a collaboration to complete her investigative work. The GUE/NGL Award for Journalists, Whistleblowers & Defenders of the Right to Information was established in 2018 in honour of Galizia.

🔗 Biography 🔗 Systems 🔗 Biography/science and academia 🔗 Journalism 🔗 Systems/Visualization

Clifford Alan Pickover (born August 15, 1957) is an American author, editor, and columnist in the fields of science, mathematics, science fiction, innovation, and creativity. For many years, he was employed at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown, New York where he was Editor-in-Chief of the IBM Journal of Research and Development. He has been granted more than 500 U.S. patents, is an elected Fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and is author of more than 50 books, translated into more than a dozen languages.

🔗 Biography 🔗 Politics 🔗 Tennessee 🔗 Biography/arts and entertainment 🔗 Biography/politics and government 🔗 Journalism 🔗 Georgia (U.S. state) 🔗 Conservatism

Herman Cain (born December 13, 1945) is an American politician, business executive, syndicated columnist, and Tea Party activist.

Cain grew up in Georgia and graduated from Morehouse College with a bachelor's degree in mathematics. He then graduated with a master's degree in computer science at Purdue University, while also working full-time for the U.S. Department of the Navy. In 1977, he joined the Pillsbury Company where he later became vice president. During the 1980s, Cain's success as a business executive at Burger King prompted Pillsbury to appoint him as chairman and CEO of Godfather's Pizza, in which capacity he served from 1986 to 1996.

Cain was chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Omaha Branch from 1989 to 1991. He was deputy chairman, from 1992 to 1994, and then chairman until 1996, of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. In 1995, he was appointed to the Kemp Commission, and in 1996, he served as a senior economic adviser to Bob Dole's presidential campaign. From 1996 to 1999, Cain served as president and CEO of the National Restaurant Association.

In May 2011, Cain announced his presidential candidacy. By the fall, his proposed 9–9–9 tax plan and debating performances had made him a serious contender for the Republican nomination. In November, however, his campaign faced allegations of sexual misconduct—all denied by Cain—and he announced its suspension on December 3.

🔗 Journalism 🔗 Scientology 🔗 Crime and Criminal Biography

Operation Freakout, also known as Operation PC Freakout, was a Church of Scientology covert plan intended to have the U.S. author and journalist Paulette Cooper imprisoned or committed to a psychiatric hospital. The plan, undertaken in 1976 following years of church-initiated lawsuits and covert harassment, was meant to eliminate the perceived threat that Cooper posed to the church and obtain revenge for her publication in 1971 of a highly critical book, The Scandal of Scientology. The Federal Bureau of Investigation discovered documentary evidence of the plot and the preceding campaign of harassment during an investigation into the Church of Scientology in 1977, eventually leading to the church compensating Cooper in an out-of-court settlement.

🔗 United States 🔗 International relations 🔗 Soviet Union 🔗 Russia 🔗 Politics 🔗 Media 🔗 Journalism

Whataboutism, also known as whataboutery, is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument. It is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda. When criticisms were leveled at the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the Soviet response would often be "What about..." followed by an event in the Western world. As Garry Kasparov noted, it is a word that was coined to describe the frequent use of a rhetorical diversion by Soviet apologists and dictators, who would counter charges of their oppression, "massacres, gulags, and forced deportations" by invoking American slavery, racism, lynchings, etc. It has been adopted by other politicians and countries.

🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/Intelligence 🔗 Journalism

Circular reporting, or false confirmation, is a situation in source criticism where a piece of information appears to come from multiple independent sources, but in reality comes from only one source. In many cases, the problem happens mistakenly through sloppy reporting or intelligence-gathering. However, the situation can also be intentionally contrived by the source or reporter as a way of reinforcing the widespread belief in its information.

This problem occurs in a variety of fields, including intelligence gathering, journalism, and scholarly research. It is of particular concern in military intelligence because the original source has a higher likelihood of wanting to pass on misinformation, and because the chain of reporting is more prone to being obscured. It is also a problem in journalism and the development of conspiracy theories, in which the primary goal of a source spreading unlikely or hard-to-believe information is to make it appear to be widely known.

The case of the 2002 Niger uranium forgeries was a classic instance of circular reporting by intelligence agencies.

🔗 Biography 🔗 Science Fiction 🔗 Biography/arts and entertainment 🔗 Journalism

Jerry Eugene Pournelle (; August 7, 1933 – September 8, 2017) was an American polymath: scientist in the area of operations research and human factors research, science fiction writer, essayist, journalist, and one of the first bloggers. In the 1960s and early 1970s, he worked in the aerospace industry, but eventually focused on his writing career. In an obituary in gizmodo, he is described as "a tireless ambassador for the future."

Pournelle is particularly known for writing hard science fiction, and received multiple awards for his writing. In addition to his solo writing, he wrote several novels with collaborators, most notably Larry Niven. Pournelle served a term as President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

Pournelle's journalism focused primarily on the computer industry, astronomy, and space exploration. From the 1970s until the early 1990s, he contributed to the computer magazine Byte, writing from the viewpoint of an intelligent user, with the oft-cited credo, “We do this stuff so you won’t have to.” He created one of the first blogs, entitled "Chaos Manor", which included commentary about politics, computer technology, space technology, and science fiction.

Pournelle was also known for his paleoconservative political views, which were sometimes expressed in his fiction. He was one of the founders of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy, which developed some of the Reagan Administration's space initiatives, including the earliest versions of what would become the Strategic Defense Initiative.

🔗 Russia 🔗 Russia/mass media in Russia 🔗 Crime 🔗 Death 🔗 Lists 🔗 Freedom of speech 🔗 Journalism 🔗 Russia/politics and law of Russia

The dangers to journalists in Russia have been well known since the early 1990s but concern over the number of unsolved killings soared after Anna Politkovskaya's murder in Moscow on 7 October 2006. While international monitors mentioned a dozen deaths, some sources within Russia talked of over two hundred fatalities. The evidence has since been examined and documented in two reports, published in Russian and English, by international organizations. These revealed a basic confusion in terminology that explained the seemingly enormous numerical discrepancy: statistics of premature death among journalists (from work accidents, crossfire incidents, and purely criminal or domestic cases of manslaughter) were repeatedly equated with the much smaller number of targeted (contract) killings or work-related murders. The Remembrance Day of Journalists Killed in the Line of Duty in Russia is observed on 15 December every year.

🔗 United States/U.S. Government 🔗 United States 🔗 Biography 🔗 California 🔗 Politics 🔗 Biography/arts and entertainment 🔗 Politics/American politics 🔗 Journalism 🔗 California/Southern California 🔗 California/Inland Empire

Gary Stephen Webb (August 31, 1955 – December 10, 2004) was an American investigative journalist.

He began his career working for newspapers in Kentucky and Ohio, winning numerous awards, and building a reputation for investigative writing. Hired by the San Jose Mercury News, Webb contributed to the paper's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake.

Webb is best known for his "Dark Alliance" series, which appeared in The Mercury News in 1996. The series examined the origins of the crack cocaine trade in Los Angeles and claimed that members of the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua had played a major role in creating the trade, using cocaine profits to finance their fight against the government in Nicaragua. It also stated that the Contras may have acted with the knowledge and protection of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The series provoked outrage, particularly in the Los Angeles African-American community, and led to four major investigations of its charges.

The Los Angeles Times and other major papers published articles suggesting the "Dark Alliance" claims were overstated and, in November 1996, Jerome Ceppos, the executive editor at Mercury News, wrote about being "in the eye of the storm". In May 1997, after an internal review, Ceppos stated that, although the story was correct on many important points, there were shortcomings in the writing, editing, and production of the series. He wrote that the series likely "oversimplified" the crack epidemic in America and the supposed "critical role" the dealers written about in the series played in it. Webb disagreed with this conclusion.

Webb resigned from The Mercury News in December 1997. He became an investigator for the California State Legislature, published a book based on the "Dark Alliance" series in 1998, and did freelance investigative reporting. He died by suicide on December 10, 2004.

The "Dark Alliance" series remains controversial. Critics view the series' claims as inaccurate or overstated, while supporters point to the results of a later CIA investigation as vindicating the series. The follow-up reporting in the Los Angeles Times and other papers has been criticised for focusing on problems in the series rather than re-examining the earlier CIA-Contra claims.