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Declassified UK
Declassified UK is a British investigative journalism and media organisation founded in 2019 by Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis. It describes itself as "the leading media organisation uncovering the UK's role in the world." Curtis is an established author on UK foreign and aid policy, and Kennard is a journalist who formerly worked at the Financial Times and wrote for numerous other newspapers.
After Declassified UK had published articles relating to the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry refused to engage or provide further comment to the news organisation. This effective blacklisting in September 2020 led the Council of Europe to issue a media freedom alert for the UK. The UK government only intervened to reverse the blacklisting after Declassified UK threatened legal action in the matter.
Declassified UK has been regulated by IMPRESS since June 2021.
Declassified UK was set up in 2019 by Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis and was at first hosted on the website of the Daily Maverick, an independent South African website, before launching a standalone website on 20 September 2021. Kennard is an investigative journalist and author who has previously written for news outlets such as The Guardian, the Financial Times, openDemocracy and The Intercept, usually focusing on Britain's role on the international stage. Curtis is a historian and journalist who has written extensively about post-Second World War period foreign policy of the British government, publishing numerous works on the subject. Declassified's chief reporter is Phil Miller, an investigative journalist, author and filmmaker whose book Keenie Meenie explores the history of Keenie Meenie Services, a British mercenary organization.
Board members at Declassified include South African former MP Andrew Feinstein and former Guardian security editor and defence correspondent Richard Norton-Taylor; its advisors include former Guardian associate foreign editor Victoria Brittain, activist and musician Lowkey, American journalist Glenn Greenwald and Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi.
Its website says: "The 'mainstream' UK media is not uncovering the reality of Britain's role in the world and the public is being largely kept in the dark. This means that governments are not being held to account for their policies. The problem is not just with the UK's right-wing, billionaire-owned media but also with its more 'liberal' outlets and the BBC, the most popular source of news for the British public. The British media are less and less mainstream – and are if anything becoming even more embedded in the establishment, regularly amplifying extremist policies that support war, human rights abusers and corporations contributing to catastrophic climate change. The government publishes key information on its policies virtually every day which is often very revealing. But only a tiny proportion of this is ever covered in the establishment media. Those journalists choose not to cover it, or else don't care. We do. However, much remains hidden. Britain's culture of secrecy is deeply embedded in Whitehall. This means that numerous government policies are hidden from the same public who should be able to hold a government to account in a democracy. These hidden policies often need to be exposed, and the secret state challenged."[excessive quote]
In August 2020, Declassified published a story about a British soldier, Ahmed Al-Batati, being investigated by the Royal Military Police for protesting UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia. British missiles, fighter jets and bombs have been used in the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen since 2015.
In November 2020, Declassified revealed that the United Kingdom had 145 overseas military bases, many more than the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had previously claimed.
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Declassified UK
Declassified UK is a British investigative journalism and media organisation founded in 2019 by Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis. It describes itself as "the leading media organisation uncovering the UK's role in the world." Curtis is an established author on UK foreign and aid policy, and Kennard is a journalist who formerly worked at the Financial Times and wrote for numerous other newspapers.
After Declassified UK had published articles relating to the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry refused to engage or provide further comment to the news organisation. This effective blacklisting in September 2020 led the Council of Europe to issue a media freedom alert for the UK. The UK government only intervened to reverse the blacklisting after Declassified UK threatened legal action in the matter.
Declassified UK has been regulated by IMPRESS since June 2021.
Declassified UK was set up in 2019 by Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis and was at first hosted on the website of the Daily Maverick, an independent South African website, before launching a standalone website on 20 September 2021. Kennard is an investigative journalist and author who has previously written for news outlets such as The Guardian, the Financial Times, openDemocracy and The Intercept, usually focusing on Britain's role on the international stage. Curtis is a historian and journalist who has written extensively about post-Second World War period foreign policy of the British government, publishing numerous works on the subject. Declassified's chief reporter is Phil Miller, an investigative journalist, author and filmmaker whose book Keenie Meenie explores the history of Keenie Meenie Services, a British mercenary organization.
Board members at Declassified include South African former MP Andrew Feinstein and former Guardian security editor and defence correspondent Richard Norton-Taylor; its advisors include former Guardian associate foreign editor Victoria Brittain, activist and musician Lowkey, American journalist Glenn Greenwald and Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi.
Its website says: "The 'mainstream' UK media is not uncovering the reality of Britain's role in the world and the public is being largely kept in the dark. This means that governments are not being held to account for their policies. The problem is not just with the UK's right-wing, billionaire-owned media but also with its more 'liberal' outlets and the BBC, the most popular source of news for the British public. The British media are less and less mainstream – and are if anything becoming even more embedded in the establishment, regularly amplifying extremist policies that support war, human rights abusers and corporations contributing to catastrophic climate change. The government publishes key information on its policies virtually every day which is often very revealing. But only a tiny proportion of this is ever covered in the establishment media. Those journalists choose not to cover it, or else don't care. We do. However, much remains hidden. Britain's culture of secrecy is deeply embedded in Whitehall. This means that numerous government policies are hidden from the same public who should be able to hold a government to account in a democracy. These hidden policies often need to be exposed, and the secret state challenged."[excessive quote]
In August 2020, Declassified published a story about a British soldier, Ahmed Al-Batati, being investigated by the Royal Military Police for protesting UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia. British missiles, fighter jets and bombs have been used in the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen since 2015.
In November 2020, Declassified revealed that the United Kingdom had 145 overseas military bases, many more than the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had previously claimed.