Markos Kounalakis > Quotes

“Western news organizations are increasingly turning away from foreign affairs.”
― Markos Kounalakis, Spin Wars and Spy Games: Global Media and Intelligence Gathering

“The long-form analytical piece is disappearing in direct correlation to the disappearance of resources from the profession, and the “news hole” is being filled with sensationalism.”
― Markos Kounalakis, Spin Wars and Spy Games: Global Media and Intelligence Gathering

“Russia31 and China approach Western INGOs with the assumption that their performance and work product are directed by and directly serve the state. This assumption matches the assumption in the West that non-Western NGOs are surely engaged in state-sponsored and underwritten activities, and nearly always include intelligence gathering in their operations.”
― Markos Kounalakis, Spin Wars and Spy Games: Global Media and Intelligence Gathering

“Politics has become a contest of competitive credibility. The world of traditional power politics is typically about whose military or economy wins. Politics in an information age ‘may ultimately be about whose story wins.”
― Markos Kounalakis, Spin Wars and Spy Games: Global Media and Intelligence Gathering

“In fact, according to the Columbia Journalism Review, the Chinese government has already “built the world’s largest news organization,” with funding estimated at “19 times the annual budget of BBC.”32 In fact, the BBC warned in 2015 that it would soon be marginalized by non-Western GNNs unless its budget cuts are reversed. “China, Russia and Qatar are investing in their international channels in ways that we cannot match, but none has our values and our ability to investigate any story no matter how difficult,” the BBC wrote in its report.”
― Markos Kounalakis, Spin Wars and Spy Games: Global Media and Intelligence Gathering

“New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman (who regularly met with former president Barack Obama) has great access around the world. He is one of the few with some authority to exchange messages at every level.”
― Markos Kounalakis, Spin Wars and Spy Games: Global Media and Intelligence Gathering

“Fully defined, soft power is the ability to affect others through the co-optive means of framing the agenda, persuading, and eliciting positive attraction in order to obtain preferred outcomes.”
― Markos Kounalakis, Spin Wars and Spy Games: Global Media and Intelligence Gathering

“Of course, in wartime, journalists, like other citizens, often have a legal responsibility to protect—and at times support—the efforts of their government. For journalists, regardless of their nationality, this usually takes the negative form of restrictions on reporting and dissemination of information, primarily on activities that would be construed or judicially interpreted as aiding or abetting an enemy.63 These restrictions include adhering to rules of engagement, not reporting troop movements, and following other strictures as determined by law and custom.”
― Markos Kounalakis, Spin Wars and Spy Games: Global Media and Intelligence Gathering

“policy makers often see the media agenda as a proxy for the public agenda and media content as their best insight into public opinion.”
― Markos Kounalakis, Spin Wars and Spy Games: Global Media and Intelligence Gathering

“Foreign sovereigns usually regard any agent or flag bearer,36 whether an industry or a news organization, as representing the interests of the nation in which it is incorporated or where it has its headquarters, regardless of whether a formal or financial relationship exists.”
― Markos Kounalakis, Spin Wars and Spy Games: Global Media and Intelligence Gathering

“The Chinese state currently expends considerable resources to establish Confucius Institutes worldwide. Africa is no exception. These government-funded institutions promote Chinese language, culture, and understanding and serve as centers for outreach to local media, with the first Confucius Institute established in Kenya in 2005 at the University of Nairobi. These institutes resemble Western nonprofit educational institutions and find their homes within academic institutions, but they are funded and managed by the Chinese state. Confucius Institute personnel and instructors are selected and paid by the Chinese state.”
― Markos Kounalakis, Spin Wars and Spy Games: Global Media and Intelligence Gathering

“A wide variety of defense and intelligence organizations continue to engage directly with scholars,37 including the US Department of Defense’s Minerva Initiative.”
― Markos Kounalakis, Spin Wars and Spy Games: Global Media and Intelligence Gathering