Why Do Authoritarians Want To Control The News? With Martin Moore

In this episode of Intelligence Squared, Carl Miller interviews Martin Moore, a Senior Lecturer in Political Communications, about his new book, "Dictating Reality: The Global Battle to Control the News." Moore discusses how governments, both autocratic and democratic, are increasingly manipulating news to control political narratives and regain power. He explains the concept of "narrative dominance," where governments aim to control the agenda and facts to shape public perception. The conversation covers case studies such as Russia's sovereign reality, China's infrastructural and economic approach to controlling information, Hungary's systematic takeover of news media, and Brazil's use of social media to create parallel information ecosystems. Moore and Miller also touch on the more subtle levers of control available to democracies, such as money, access, and attacks on media legitimacy, and highlight the importance of "truth seekers" like open-source intelligence and fact-checkers in fighting back against authoritarian control of news.