Operation Mockingbird
Operation Mockingbird was a stated large-scale program of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that began in the early 1950s and attempted to manipulate news media for propaganda purposes. It funded student and cultural organizations and magazines as front organizations. According to writer Deborah Davis, Operation Mockingbird recruited leading American journalists into a propaganda network and oversaw the operations of front groups.
A method was to place reports, developed from CIA-provided intelligence, with cooperating or unwitting reporters. Those reports would be repeated or cited by the recipient reporters and would then, in turn, be cited throughout the media wire services.
Wikipedia describes that program as "alleged", despite itself mentioning the 1976 Church Committee report, by U.S. Senate committee, which stated numerous covert CIA influences on mass media, both foreign and domestic.
The CIA is stated to have restricted its use of (some forms) of this, although Wikipedia only mentions certain restrictions on certain domestic media, not foreign media.
