Owen Jones leaves a Telegraph editor with so little credibility, the guy deletes his Twitter account

owen jones


Support us and go ad-free

Owen Jones has outed the links between the Telegraph’s defence editor and both MI6 and Middle East dictatorships. After the revelations Con Coughlin had so little credibility left, he deleted his Twitter account.

Jones began a Twitter thread about Coughlin after he attended a Saudi embassy party at the Natural History Museum in London on 11 October.

Recently, Coughlin pushed the Saudi-government line that journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who Saudi Arabia is accused of murdering, is aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood (that Saudi Arabia designates as a terrorist organisation).

MI6 and foreign dictators

Jones explains that MI6 fed Coughlin stories for years, resulting in “black propaganda” appearing on Telegraph front-pages in the late 1990s.

And he says Coughlin delivered key propaganda supporting the 2003 Iraq war. This included the Telegraph front page “TERRORIST BEHIND SEPTEMBER 11 STRIKE WAS TRAINED BY SADDAM”, which turned out to be a fabrication.

Jones expanded on Coughlin’s journalistic practices:

As well as Coughlin’s links to MI6, Jones claims the Telegraph defence editor and his wife have dubious connections to the repressive Middle East regimes Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain.

The Guardian columnist began by suggesting Coughlin’s wife may still be working for Bahrain’s autocracy:

Jones noted the lack of respect the Bahraini regime has for basic human rights. He pointed out this doesn’t seem to bother leading Conservatives:

Jones then moved on to Coughlin’s coverage of Saudi Arabia. He called the reporting “Pravda-esque”, in reference to the propaganda organ of the Soviet Union:

Credibility

It’s no doubt concerning that a major British newspaper still has Coughlin as its defence editor. Saudi Arabia has long run a murderous regime that uses ‘anti-terror’ legislation to jail human rights defenders. In 2014-15, three dissident Saudi princes went missing in one year. Meanwhile, Amnesty International reports that Bahrain routinely tortures, jails, and assaults human rights defenders and members of opposition parties.

Yet Jones says we have outright propagandists for these regimes writing columns in our mainstream media. Propagandists who seem to be perfectly okay with publishing stories from MI6, which has a history of trying to manipulate the news. The Telegraph loses credibility every day it continues to employ people like Coughlin.

Get Involved!

– Write to your local MP about British military assistance to Saudi Arabia.

– Support Campaign Against Arms Trade.

– Read more of the Canary’s coverage of Saudi Arabia and the crisis in Yemen.

– Join The Canary, so we can keep holding the powerful to account.

Featured image via Marc Lozano/ WikiCommons

Support us and go ad-free

We know everyone is suffering under the Tories - but the Canary is a vital weapon in our fight back, and we need your support

The Canary Workers’ Co-op knows life is hard. The Tories are waging a class war against us we’re all having to fight. But like trade unions and community organising, truly independent working-class media is a vital weapon in our armoury.

The Canary doesn’t have the budget of the corporate media. In fact, our income is over 1,000 times less than the Guardian’s. What we do have is a radical agenda that disrupts power and amplifies marginalised communities. But we can only do this with our readers’ support.

So please, help us continue to spread messages of resistance and hope. Even the smallest donation would mean the world to us.

Support us

Comments are closed