- Dark speak easy part three - 16th March 2026
- Spending energy - 12th March 2026
- Hidden in plain sight - 12th March 2026
As our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry has written many times a free and independent media is essential for a functioning democracy, although this does not exist in many states around the world, and a new book today highlights its importance.
Bad things happen in democratic countries, but don’t think they don’t occur too in one-party states where there is no media freedom – it’s just that we don’t hear about them.
A book about the special forces in America puts this salient fact centre stage for me, with the role of journalists on the Washington Post (WP) coming to the fore.
According to the WP, the innocuously-named Studies and Observation Group (SOG) engaged in “sea raids on coastal installations, sabotaging bridges, kidnapping for intelligence purposes and carrying out propaganda warfare” across the Indo-China peninsula, including in Vietnam.
Proxy paramilitaries were given “cash on delivery”, and it has also been claimed that SOG agents were involved in provoking incidents in the Gulf of Tonkin between American and North Vietnamese forces, one of which led eventually to Vietnam being flooded with thousands of ground troops.
These facts are disturbing, but it should not be thought that appalling things have not happened in Vietnam as well. They may not have come to light because laws restrict the kind of investigative journalism i pursue -both historically and in the modern sphere.
The situation is bad today, and, in some countries like Vietnam, becoming worse.
For example two new amendments to media laws passed by Vietnam’s parliament in December (which have taken effect this month) have been roundly condemned by journalists organisations, because one dictates that media outlets should be forced to disclose their sources, while another puts further controls in place using the state secrets law.
In Vietnam all media outlets must now comply with regulations against the publication of “banned information”, and published material must be archived in the case of an investigation.
The definition of what constitutes ‘banned information’ remains undisclosed.
In a separate amendment to the Protection of State Secrets Bill, the government in this one-party state will expand a ban on discourse deemed ‘anti-state’ by increasing the number of categories of protected information.
The definition of ‘state secrets’ will now include details of leaders’ overseas programmes, state compensation, and settlements of international investment disputes.
These newly amended laws follow the Vietnamese government’s recent escalation of media suppression, including the suspension of social media platform Telegram in June by the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) on the grounds of spreading anti-government content, as well as bans on prominent foreign media, including The Economist in May.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has declared: “The Vietnamese government continues to crack down on critical voices, suppressing communications channels, forcing the disclosure of sources, and criminalising dissent.
“IFJ calls for these new amendments to be overturned and for the authorities to uphold the right of journalists to report freely and without fear as per Vietnam’s constitution”.
So it is clear the authorities don’t like nosey journalists like me.
Just ask the ordinary people affected by America’s disastrous war in Vietnam – at least what happened there came out in the media…
The memories of Phil’s astounding, decades long award-winning career in journalism (when investigations exposed huge wrong-doing, but abuse invariably followed) as he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A Good Story’. Order it now.
‘THE FORT BRAGG CARTEL: DRUG TRAFFICKING AND MURDER IN THE SPECIAL FORCES’ by Seth Harp is published by Viking.
Tomorrow – why worrying news that troubled Cardiff Airport (CA) has again lost out (this time with a new freight link-up), highlights earlier disturbing information revealed by The Eye.
