Managing the narrative

Organized efforts to shape what the public, the press or researchers say about a product, policy or institution.

Information and Perception

Finding INF-2.1

Primary record The Committee on Public Information's 1920 report says it directed 76,000 Four Minute speakers who gave 755,190 speeches, made its Division of News the "sole medium for the issuance of official war information," and supervised voluntary censorship of the press.

Finding INF-2.2

Primary record Executive Order 9182 of 13 June 1942 created the Office of War Information to run information programs "at home and abroad," and Congress on 12 July 1943 limited its Domestic Operations Branch to $2,750,000 of $33,222,504 and barred it from publishing literature for distribution to the public within the United States.

Finding INF-2.3

Primary record The 1948 Smith-Mundt Act authorizes information activity abroad and contains no ban on domestic distribution; the ban is section 208 of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 16 August 1985, which Public Law 112-239 rewrote on 2 January 2013 to permit material made for foreign audiences to be made available in the United States.

Finding INF-2.4

Primary record The Defense Department's Information Operations Roadmap of 30 October 2003 states that information intended for foreign audiences, "including public diplomacy and PSYOP, increasingly is consumed by our domestic audience and vice-versa."

Finding INF-2.5

Primary record A Top Secret draft paper by Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton dated 10 March 1965 lists U.S. aims in Vietnam as 70 percent "To avoid a humiliating US defeat," 20 percent to keep South Vietnam and adjacent territory from Chinese hands, and 10 percent to permit the people of South Vietnam a better, freer way of life.

Finding INF-2.6

Primary record National Security Action Memorandum 328 of 6 April 1965 approved two more Marine battalions and a change of mission for Marine battalions in Vietnam and stated that the President desired the movements "be understood as being gradual and wholly consistent with existing policy"; on 21 October 1964 President Johnson had said "we are not about to send American boys 9 or 10,000 miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves."

Finding INF-2.7

Primary record The Army's official history of Vietnam public affairs says the Johnson administration judged "a low profile, achieved through restraints on the press at the scene of conflict" the safer course, records that correspondents called the nightly MACV briefings "The Five O'Clock Follies," and records their final session on 27 January 1973.

Finding INF-2.8

Primary record Congress appropriated $1.225 billion for the Office of National Drug Control Policy's youth anti-drug media campaign for fiscal years 1998 through 2004, and GAO reported in 2006 that "the evaluation provides credible evidence that the campaign was not effective in reducing youth drug use."

Finding INF-2.9

Primary record The CIA Inspector General's Volume II report, unclassified on 8 October 1998, found "No information has been found to indicate that CIA as an organization or its employees conspired with, or assisted, Contra-related organizations or individuals in drug trafficking to raise funds for the Contras or for any other purpose," and Volume I found no CIA relationship with Ricky Ross, Danilo Blandon or Norwin Meneses.

Finding INF-2.10

Primary record The same Inspector General reported that "CIA acted inconsistently in handling allegations or information indicating that Contra-related organizations and individuals were involved in drug trafficking," and told the House Intelligence Committee on 16 March 1998 that there were instances where CIA did not "in an expeditious or consistent fashion, cut off relationships" with individuals supporting the Contra program who were alleged to have engaged in drug trafficking.

Finding INF-2.11

Primary record An article by a CIA Directorate of Intelligence officer in the Agency's own journal says "a ground base of already productive relations with journalists" and the Public Affairs Staff's response "helped prevent this story from becoming an unmitigated disaster," and describes sending critical stories to reporters and counting skeptical and negative stories.

Finding INF-2.12

Primary record GAO found in B-229069 on 30 September 1987 that the State Department's Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean arranged articles presented as the work of persons not associated with the government, that they "were misleading as to their origin," and that they violated the publicity-or-propaganda restriction.

Finding INF-2.13

Primary record The Defense Department Inspector General told the House Oversight Committee on 24 April 2007 that the Army's three investigations of Corporal Pat Tillman's death were deficient and that officials submitted a Silver Star recommendation "that included inaccurate information and a misleading citation that implied Corporal Tillman died by enemy fire."

Finding INF-2.14

Primary record The Defense Department Inspector General reported on 9 February 2007 that the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy developed, produced and disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq-al Qaida relationship, and called the actions "not illegal or unauthorized" and "inappropriate."

Finding INF-3.10

Primary record Volunteer editors banned Wiki-PR on 25 October 2013, and counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation wrote to the firm on 19 November 2013 that undisclosed paid advocacy editing violates the Terms of Use. The Foundation amended the Terms of Use on 16 June 2014 to require paid editors to disclose their affiliation, and on 31 August 2015 it reported that volunteer editors had blocked 381 accounts and deleted 210 articles in the Orangemoody investigation of undisclosed paid advocacy.

Finding INF-3.11

Primary record On 16 June 2021 the Arbitration Committee replaced community sanctions on COVID-19 articles with discretionary sanctions by an 8-1-1 motion that contains no findings of fact and no ruling on which sources count.

Finding INF-4.1

Primary record FBI, DHS and ODNI officials met regularly with platform staff about election content from 2017 and 2018, under the Trump administration, and the meetings continued through the 2022 midterms under the Biden administration.

Finding INF-4.2

Primary record The FBI agent who ran the Bureau's platform contacts testified, from recollection, that about half of the items the FBI flagged led a platform to act under its terms of service. Twitter told a court in 2023 that its employees reviewed the FBI's flagged tweets independently.

Finding INF-4.3

Primary record CISA's head of its misinformation team testified that CISA forwarded election officials' reports about posts to platforms in the 2020 election, and the record differs on whether it did so in 2022. The district court wrote in 2023 that no evidence produced in the case tied the Trump administration to the switchboarding, and a 2025 Senate Commerce majority report dates DHS's election-disinformation task force to March 2018.

Finding INF-4.4

Primary record Twitter's chief executive told the Senate Judiciary Committee on 17 November 2020 that Twitter's 2018 hacked-materials policy was informed by conversations with the U.S. government. Twitter's head of Site Integrity stated in a declaration to the Federal Election Commission that Twitter's Trust and Safety leadership decided on 14 October 2020 to enforce the policy against the New York Post articles.

Finding INF-4.5

Primary record Meta (26 August 2024) and Alphabet (23 September 2025) each wrote to the House Judiciary Committee that senior Biden administration officials pressed them in 2021 over COVID-19 content, and each wrote that the company made its own decisions on removal and enforcement.

Finding INF-4.8

Primary record Texas and Florida enacted laws in 2021 limiting platforms' removal decisions. In Moody v. NetChoice (1 July 2024) the Supreme Court vacated both judgments on facial-challenge grounds and wrote that a state may not interfere with private actors' speech to advance its own vision of ideological balance.

Finding INF-4.9

Primary record California's Office of Elections Cybersecurity stated that it flagged nearly 300 posts to Facebook and Twitter after the 2020 election and that 98 percent were promptly removed for violating the platforms' community standards. The Ninth Circuit held in 2023 that Twitter's compliance with such a flag was optional, and held in 2024 that the content-category reporting provisions of California's AB 587 likely violate the First Amendment.

Finding INF-4.10

Primary record On 12 August 2024 Commissioner Breton wrote to X's owner that the European Commission would not hesitate to make full use of its toolbox, including interim measures, and on 18 February 2025 the Commission wrote that the Digital Services Act does not regulate speech. The Commission's first non-compliance decision under the Act, against X on 5 December 2025, fined X 120 million euros for blue-checkmark design, its advertising repository and researcher data access, and did not concern the removal of any post.

Finding INF-4.11

Primary record Justice Alexandre de Moraes of Brazil's Supreme Federal Tribunal ordered X suspended in Brazil on 30 August 2024 until X complied with the Court's orders, paid fines and named a legal representative in Brazil.

Finding INF-4.12

Primary record Executive Order 13925 (Trump, 28 May 2020) was revoked by Executive Order 14029 (Biden, 14 May 2021). Executive Order 14149 (Trump, 20 January 2025) directs that no federal officer, employee or agent engage in or facilitate conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.

Finding INF-5.1

Primary record CIA Dispatch 1035-960 suggests that addressees describe critics of the Warren Report as "wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in," "politically interested," "financially interested," "hasty and inaccurate," or "infatuated with their own theories," and asks them to "single out Epstein's theory for attack."

Finding INF-5.2

Reported The Washington Post (4 October 1996) and the Los Angeles Times (20 to 22 October 1996) answered the August 1996 San Jose Mercury News series on Contra-linked cocaine sales within two months. The Times wrote that the crack epidemic "was not orchestrated by the Contras or the CIA or any single drug ring" and that it was "unclear what, if anything, the U.S. government may have known about this trade."

Finding INF-5.3

Primary record Volume I of the CIA Inspector General's 1998 report found no information that any CIA employee or anyone acting for the CIA had "any direct or indirect dealing with Ricky Ross, Oscar Danilo Blandon or Juan Norwin Meneses." Volume II found that the CIA "acted inconsistently in handling allegations or information" that Contra-related individuals and organizations were involved in drug trafficking, and that it did not inform Congress of eight of ten Contra-related individuals during the fiscal year 1987 statutory prohibition.

Finding INF-5.4

Primary record Nicholas Dujmovic, a CIA Directorate of Intelligence officer, wrote an article in the Agency's journal Studies in Intelligence, written after December 1997 and approved for release on 29 July 2014. It says "a ground base of already productive relations with journalists" and the Public Affairs Staff "helped prevent this story from becoming an unmitigated disaster." It credits the Post, Times and Los Angeles Times criticism of the series with "balanced reporting" and says Public Affairs made sure reporters and news directors received copies of those stories.

Finding INF-5.5

Primary record The 1973 Health, Education, and Welfare ad hoc panel judged the Public Health Service syphilis study "ethically unjustified in 1932." A panel member's separate statement quotes a 1969 CDC review committee, "in part concerned with the possibility of adverse criticism," as reassured that with good liaison with the local medical society "there would be no need to answer criticism."

Finding INF-5.6

Primary record The Church Committee's 1976 study of the FBI's COINTELPRO counted 2,370 approved actions in five domestic programs from 1956 to 1971 and described them as secret action designed to "disrupt" and "neutralize" target groups and individuals. It also quotes a 16 September 1970 FBI Philadelphia memorandum describing an effort to have New Left campus groups think "there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox."

Medicine and Public Health

Finding MED-1.3

Reported The Carnegie Foundation and the AMA agreed to keep their collaboration on the Flexner Report out of public view.

Finding MED-2.9

Primary record Event 201, a pandemic exercise co-hosted by the Gates Foundation in October 2019, recommended that governments partner with media companies so that "false messages are suppressed including though the use of technology."

Finding MED-4.7

Reported Before IARC classified glyphosate in 2015, a Monsanto plan set the goal "Orchestrate Outcry with IARC Decision." In 2016 its public relations agency compiled stakeholder lists that Bayer's outside counsel counted at 1,208 names in 14 documents, covering seven countries and EU institutions.

Finding MED-11.6

Primary record The federal tobacco judgment imposed racketeering liability in 2006; the final corrective-statement remedy received its implementation order in 2022.

Finding MED-12.7

Primary record The federal radiation inquiry documented plutonium injections into unsuspecting patients and secrecy intended to prevent embarrassment and legal liability.

Finding MED-13.3

Primary record The inquiry found that clinicians, institutions, civil servants, and politicians hid the truth through concealment, misleading statements, and failures of candor.

War and Defense

Finding DEF-2.11

Primary record SIGAR's August 2021 report on twenty years of U.S. reconstruction in Afghanistan states that "Enormous pressure to demonstrate progress to the Congress and the American and Afghan people distorted accountability systems into spin machines."

Finding DEF-6.10

Primary record The Church Committee found that until February 1976 the CIA kept covert relationships with about 50 American journalists or employees of U.S. media organizations, and that it produced, subsidized or sponsored more than a thousand books before the end of 1967.

Politics and Government

Finding POL-7.1

Primary record CIA Dispatch 1035-960, stamped 1 April 1967, told chiefs of certain stations and bases to discuss Warren Report critics with "liaison and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors)" and to "employ propaganda assets to answer and refute the attacks of the critics," with the stated aim of inhibiting such claims "in other countries."

Finding POL-7.2

Primary record The Church Committee reported that the CIA's policy of 11 February 1976 barred paid or contractual relationships with accredited news correspondents and would end fewer than half of about 50 existing relationships with American journalists and media employees. The Committee wrote that "No mechanism exists to protect the U.S. public and the Congress from fallout from black propaganda or any other propaganda."

Finding POL-7.3

Primary record At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on 17 July 1996, CIA Director John Deutch said CIA policy is not to use accredited American journalists, clergy or Peace Corps members for intelligence purposes, and that the Director or Deputy Director may waive the policy in exceptional circumstances under classified guidelines.

Finding POL-7.4

Primary record A 1995 article by Michael Warner, hosted by the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence, states that the Congress for Cultural Freedom, publisher of Encounter, "is widely considered one of the CIA's more daring and effective Cold War covert operations," that the Agency arranged a separation in 1966, and that its CIA sponsorship was exposed in 1967. Former CIA officer Thomas Braden wrote on 20 May 1967 that CIA money paid for Encounter and that "few outside the CIA knew about it."

Finding POL-7.5

Primary record On 26 February 2002 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced that Under Secretary Douglas Feith had decided to close the Office of Strategic Influence, said the office had not developed a charter, and answered "It most clearly is not" when asked whether disinformation was among its activities.

Finding POL-7.6

Primary record The Pentagon's retired military analyst outreach ran from 2002 to February 2008. The Department of Defense Inspector General reported in 2011 that it complied with relevant DOD policies, that "a preponderance of evidence indicates that one RMA stopped receiving invitations because he was a critic," and that 43 of the analysts had defense contractor affiliations.

Finding POL-7.7

Primary record GAO wrote on 21 July 2009 that "Clearly, DOD attempted to favorably influence public opinion with respect to the Administration's war policies in Iraq and Afghanistan through the RMOs," held that the program did not violate the publicity-or-propaganda prohibition, and recorded that the DOD Inspector General withdrew its first report on the program on 5 May 2009.

Finding POL-7.8

Primary record GAO found that unattributed video news releases produced for HHS and its Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (B-302710, 19 May 2004), the Office of National Drug Control Policy (B-303495, 4 January 2005) and the Department of Education (B-304228, 30 September 2005) violated the publicity-or-propaganda prohibition, and in the last two opinions called the news stories "covert propaganda."

Finding POL-7.9

Primary record GAO found on 30 September 2005 that the Education Department contracted for Armstrong Williams to comment regularly on No Child Left Behind without assuring that the Department's role was disclosed, and that the arrangement "amounted to covert propaganda." The Department told GAO it paid Ketchum $188,543.48 for the two task orders, of which $186,000 covered amounts Ketchum paid Williams's company, the Graham Williams Group.

Finding POL-7.10

Primary record GAO found on 14 December 2015 that the Environmental Protection Agency's use of the Thunderclap platform during the Waters of the United States rulemaking was covert propaganda, and that hyperlinks in an EPA blog post to pages of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Surfrider "constitute grassroots lobbying."

Finding POL-7.11

Primary record On 4 July 2023 the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana preliminarily enjoined officials of the White House, the Surgeon General's office, CDC, FBI, CISA, NIAID and the State Department, finding the plaintiffs likely to succeed on the claim that the government coerced or significantly encouraged platform moderation. The court wrote that the alleged censorship "almost exclusively targeted conservative speech" and that the issues "go beyond party lines."

Finding POL-7.12

Primary record The Fifth Circuit on 3 October 2023 agreed with the district court "but only as to some of those officials" and removed NIAID and the State Department from the injunction. On 26 June 2024 the Supreme Court held 6-3 in Murthy v. Missouri that "no plaintiff has carried that burden" and so "none has standing to seek a preliminary injunction."

Finding POL-7.13

Primary record Congress created the State Department's Global Engagement Center in section 1287 of Pub. L. 114-328 (23 December 2016) to "recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts." On 16 April 2025 Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the closure of the office, by then named R/FIMI, saying it "spent millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving." The statement cites no document or case.

Finding POL-7.14

Primary record The Homeland Security Advisory Council, which Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas tasked on 18 May 2022 to assess how DHS can address disinformation while "protecting free speech, civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy," reported on 24 August 2022 that it had recommended and the Council had accepted that there is "no need for a separate Disinformation Governance Board."

Finding POL-7.15

Primary record A letter published on 19 October 2020 by former senior intelligence officials, counted at 51 in Executive Order 14152, said the Hunter Biden emails had "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation" and said the signers "do not have evidence of Russian involvement." On 20 January 2025 the order directed revocation of the signers' security clearances and stated that they "willfully weaponized the gravitas of the Intelligence Community to manipulate the political process and undermine our democratic institutions."

Finding POL-7.16

Primary record On 8 April 2025 the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted the Associated Press a preliminary injunction against the White House's exclusion of the AP from the press pool and some limited-access events, finding the exclusion viewpoint-based after the AP kept using "Gulf of Mexico." Press accounts report that the D.C. Circuit later stayed the injunction in part.

Food and Agriculture

Finding AGR-2.10

Reported The New York Times reported in August 2015 that two universities disclosed a $1.5 million Coca-Cola donation to start the Global Energy Balance Network; the University of Colorado School of Medicine returned its $1 million gift in November 2015, and the network announced on 30 November 2015 that it was discontinuing operations.

Finding AGR-2.11

Peer-reviewed A peer-reviewed analysis of 18,036 pages of Coca-Cola emails with university researchers concluded that Coca-Cola sought to obscure its relationship with the researchers, minimize the public perception of its role and use the researchers to promote industry-friendly messaging.

Religious Institutions

No findings in this subject are tagged with this mechanism.