The Whole Story
My career started with Reuters and the BBC, who had me covering wars and political upheavals in Africa and the Middle East. I got to work on some of the most important stories of the day, including; the war in Iraq, ethnic cleansing in Sudan and the political and economic crises that eventually led to the Arab Spring.
After 10 years, I decided I wanted to get involved in helping fix problems rather than just telling people about them. During the Arab Spring, I worked with activists trying to build democratic governments. I also helped the government in Iraqi Kurdistan deal with ISIS propaganda when the group captured swathes of the country in 2014. These experiences gave me a really close up view of how media and communications was being manipulated by malign actors. As the word "Disinformation", came to be used to describe this new phenomenon, I was asked to write one of first reports on the methods and tactics being used.
When I moved back to the UK, I noticed that the activities I had seen abroad were starting to be used in political and financial contexts at home.
News Media
Podcast: Lies Travel Fast
This week we talk disinformation with Amil Khan, a former Reuters Middle East correspondent and documentary maker
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Foreign Policy Centre: International Affairs in the Disinformation Age
In April 2017, I was sitting in an office with Syrian rights activists watching, in real time, as the Syrian regime and Russia manipulated a second US president.
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