Spooked – The Secret Rise of Private Spies | How To Academy

Sun, 27 June 2021

6:30 pm - 7:30 pm GMT

Spooked – The Secret Rise of Private Spies

Barry Meier In Conversation With Matthew Stadlen

Exposing a renegade $2.5 billion-dollar industry that is invading our privacy, profiting from deception and manipulating the news, Pulitzer Prize winner Barry Meier takes a look inside a sinister new world.

What’s the true story behind the fabled Trump “collusion” dossier? Why do big-name law firms in London and New York with controversial clients like Harvey Weinstein clamour for the sleazy tactics of private spying firms? How do hired spies manipulate reporters eager for scoops?

Today, private spies are influencing elections, affecting the fortunes of companies and Hollywood and shaping government policies. Operatives-for-hire are also peering as never before into our personal lives, listening to our phone calls, hacking our emails and deciding what we see on social media.

In this livestream event, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Barry Meier will shine a spotlight on a clandestine business where information is currency, loyalties are for sale and double-crosses are commonplace. The story intersects with the biggest headlines of recent years – the Trump dossier, the Harvey Weinstein story and the Theranos scandal.

Don’t miss this crucial warning about the symbiotic ties between private spies and journalists and the threat posed to the news media.

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Barry Meier

Pulitzer Prize winning investigate reporter

Barry Meier is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times investigative reporter. He is the author of Pain Killer, the landmark book that first investigated the drug OxyContin and the secretive Sackler family and Missing Man, which followed the search for a former FBI agent turned CIA consultant who vanished in Iran. He has twice won the George Polk award for Investigate Reporting.

Private: Matthew Stadlen

Broadcaster, writer and regular How To Academy host.

Matthew Stadlen is a broadcaster, writer and regular How To Academy host. Previously he was an LBC presenter, wrote The Matthew Stadlen Interview for the Telegraph and presented the TV series Five Minutes With and On The Road With for the BBC. He is a birdwatcher and photographer, and his book How To See Birds is out now. Twitter: @matthewstadlen