It was 2010-something (I just watched a “The Goldbergs” episode, don’t judge me) and I‘d finished a year long study of painkiller use across European football. I had a minimum of 10 professional footballers answering anonymous surveys from each of 9 top flight leagues including England, Germany and Russia. In total almost 200 responded and it was very clear, painkillers were being abused and the health effects were going to be long term. I put everything into a spreadsheet with a brief. I thought, this is it, I’ve been writing about it but now I have quantitative proof. I went to a journalist I believed I could rely on to do something with it. I even told him I’d show him the email responses and who I’d sent them to. And as a dessert, I had 1 footballer who would go on the record.
I didn’t hear back from him for some time, then he floostered and blustered around, saying he’d return to it once time allowed. I smelled a rat, this was a gamechanger. A backpage headline and interview with one of the respondents to boot. He moved on and a few years later, still with Associated Press (AP), he published a poor piece about abuse of painkillers in sports. It was poor as he had out of date information and only 10% of the (now updated) full study. I was glad to have held back the full amount. It was the 3rd time unlucky interaction with the news agency and I gave up, even when they made contact regarding a commission that would have made one Christmas a lot more festive. This year I’ve noticed the AP logo in some of the worst news stories, especially related to Russia. One recent sleepless night in Dublin I left the room to let Tim snore his brains out and spent 2 horus in the kitchen to do a very, very brief survey. It was worse than I thought.
On November 15th, AP pushed a story of Russia firing a missile into Poland and killing 2 civilians. When I saw the story I knew something was wrong. The Russian missiles would have their work cut out going that far into Poland and it seemed more likely that it was a Polish mistake, a Russian missile deflected or a Ukrainian defence missile went haywire. In any case, we all knew NATO were tracking all aerial movements. Russian media immediately stated it was not one of theirs and that there were no operations in that part of Ukraine. Baltic nations began to scream and in Poland began to worry. Joe Biden, in Indonesia, played a blinder and rubbished the story. Meanwhile Zelensky and the Kiev party crew were calling for NATO to join in the hellscape. They continued even AFTER the AP retracted the story! A week on and the reporter was fired., but the editors and management remained. The clowns who allowed a WW3 inducing story are still there, despite knowing the story was fake.
Now this is the same AP who along with America’s PBS have set out to watch “War Crimes” in Ukraine. A very brief look shows it only began after February 24th and has an overwhelming bias against Russia. Worryingly the “head count” is partnered with, and funded by, organisations directly/indirectly financed by security services:
Centre for Information Resilience - run by current and former serving CIA, MI5/6 officers including Cindy Otis and the dangerous Mo Hussein
Bellingcat - Fronted by security service favourite Eliot Higgins and oddly without a single “Controversy” on their Wikipedia
The Reckoning Project - Staffed again by current and former secret service ghouls, plus Anne Applebaum, the wife of MI6 officer Radoslaw Sikorski (the clown who celebrated the largest ever human caused release of methane in history)
The International Parthership for Human Rights - Run by Georgians who were once in Tbilisi under US patronage and is funded to 75% by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the NED is the CIA spelled differently
The Ukrainian Healthcare Center - an NED funded entity
Physicians for Human Rights - A genuine groundbreaker in the ‘80s but now financed by and staffed with CIA personnel.
Given the absolute no-touch quality control on AP stories, you would think the Public Broadcast Service and legacy media would think twice about being involved in such a venture. But given they also receive funding from NED, the organisation whose goal is to “promote democracy in other countries” and is led by Damon Wilson, they are also vulnerable to “persuasion”.
Damon is former Deputy Director of the NATO Secretary General’s office and when Executive VP of the far right Atlantic Council, told a US Senate hearing he sees Russia and China as “the main geopolitical challenge of the 21st century,” and that “there is no possible successful strategy to confront Putin’s aggression without a strong NATO.” Damon, called “Mali Hitler” (little Hitler) by Croatian politicians, is in charge of spreading democracy and feeding information to the Associated Press.
Almost all the most disturbing, headline grabbing tales from Ukraine are put out by AP. I tracked the “AP” or their logo in the photo/text of mainstream outlets, including the BBC and RTE. As I am subscribed to their news service, I have seen all their original stories belch forth in real time and they are republished without editorial rigour or checking by their clients. AP correspondents in Ukraine are largely Ukrainian stringers from the the Kiev Independent meat factory or one of the other NED funded media outlets. So that from the very odd tales of Bucha, the Mariupol theatre and maternity hospital; the border crossing that was shelled from behind Ukrainian lines killing Russian-speakers fleeing to safety to the Crimea bridge explosion; to the Daria Dugina murder and Nordstream attacks , AP are 1st on the scene and first to publish. Almost like a PR agency. The maternity hospital being a case in point where their cameraman was on the scene apparently with troops based there and forced the shaken civilians to go on camera against their wishes. AP put out then quickly deleted the initial video, preferring still images which told a story different to the one of the survivors.
However, their ethics were long known to and affected me on a personal level. Russian news agencies are are ruthless in their squandering of the truth and pr’ing for the government, why shouldn’t a part-government funded outfit like AP be the same.
My previous issues with AP stretch back many years. The first was a story they ran on a former tennis player I managed. When she (in a silly pique of temper having thrown away a golden chance to make the 2nd Rd at Wimbledon) refused to speak with an AP reporter. She explained to me that she was going into the changing room, holding back tears, when he put a hand on her shoulder and blocked her way. A Wimbledon official pushed the man aside and she called him in Russian “Durak!” (idiot). Looking at the photos and reading the text, written by a man who wouldn’t know a tennis ball if it hit him in the face, caused uproar in our company and in Tennis Ireland. The sneering article intimated that Vitalia had been doping in Dublin and the responsible person was the Head Coach (and Davis Cup Captain) of Ireland. After a call to a, then, Mail contact, they ran a story the following day showing how Vitalia actually looked.
Vitalia, God bless, had less muscle than a poorly stocked seafood stall and Gary, her coach, was extremely anti-doping. However AP surpassed themselves in underhanded reporting and I was on my guard later that year when I was approached to write a story for them. I offered a commission to flesh out my other articles on doping in Russia. They wanted a biggie and I had the Rodchenkov story. Having handed in my interviews and notes, and refusing payment, I then saw the story appear in British media with huge, convenient chunks missing. I called my AP contact as soon as I read it and he invited me to a coffee meeting. He sat in a Stari Arbat cafe with one of the UK “diplomats” who subsequently left Russia when he recruited the wrong person (a counter-spy from Russia).
He told me that I was wrong not to take the commission and that I’d at least have gotten “a mention in dispatches”. He did say it was above his head and London sold the story to the Mail and they did their own work based on some sources I provided. He paid for my coffee, the “diplomat”, silent throughout the entire 15 minute meeting, told me that it’s better I wasn’t “seen”. He meant that in a nice way. That I shouldn’t report on Russian doping. The AP guy, as we said goodbye, told me not to worry. He’d look after me. He set up his own “shop” on the side, working in PR with different sports organisations. A mutual friend of ours contacted met me in Paris with an offer frmo Qatar, the rest, I consigned to history.
Hillsborough 96. The SUN All lies and governments
Alan photo shop in the wrong hands has a wonderful way to make people look strange,,,,, A man here in USA has said for years "fake new" and MSM ,,, Missing salient Moments I say,,,