CIA DIRECTOR & INSTAGRAM: In a rare public appearance, CIA Director Gina Haspel told an audience at Auburn University this week that the Agency would be launching an Instagram account soon. It’s definitely a public shift by the Agency to use more of the channels of communication that everyone else uses. CIA already has a Twitter account, with 2.58M followers. The Dead Drop can’t help but wonder whether DCIA will use the new Instagram account the way her boss uses Twitter. Now THAT would be a headline.
TURNING THE TABLES ON THE MEDIA: Members of the media were in the hot seat this week for The Hayden Center’s panel on Breaking News at the National Press Club this week. Cipher Brief CEO Suzanne Kelly, along with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, and both David Ignatius and Peter Finn from The Washington Post answered questions from former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell about the state of the media. You can watch it on C-Span here. Mike Hayden, who is recovering from a stroke suffered late last year, was there along with his wife Jeanine.
“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62
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