For those with a sense of humour, consulting alleged facts compiled by an agency specialising in subterfuge, subversion, deception and plain mendacity must surely have been a delightful exercise. That delightful exercise would seem to have concluded earlier this month with an announcement by the US Central Intelligence Agency that it would no longer be publishing its World Factbook. Presumably the publication did not fall within what Director John Ratcliffe sees as a core mission of the agency.
The World Factbook was initially published in classified form in 1962 as “The National Basic Intelligence Factbook” intended for officials in the military and government. In 1971, an unclassified version was released, with a print version made available to the public in 1975. In 1981, it was renamed “The World Factbook” and became a web publication in 1997. “The World Factbook,” the announcement mentions, “served the Intelligence Community and the general public as a longstanding, one-stop basic reference about countries and communities around the globe.” That any reference about countries should be strapped to a one-stop point of reference compiled by an intelligence agency already bedevils the learning exercise with precarious shallowness. But scribblers, hacks and travellers often like the curated shortcut.
The World Factbook was short on the destabilising role played by the CIA in foreign countries it sought to describe, but became something of an institution for the unadventurous, uncritical researcher. It provided a tool easily and lazily accessible on rudimentary material. The Factbook, as CIA historian Tim Weiner says with admiration, “has been for 30 years an invaluable goldmine of reliable information used by students, scholars, reporters and the general public.”
This was data on the grab, with the overview of complex hinterland best left to others. John Devine of the Boston Public Library is of the view that the database was most useful on population statistics. “We’re going to have to find things from other sources. Again, how well can we trust them? How well are we going to be able to get data on developing or even barely developing countries?” This has more than a tinge of snobbery, especially in ignoring manifold sources of information from the United Nations, let alone any number of encyclopedias and reference sets that lack the shadow of espionage, let alone the operating interests of the CIA.
American journalists also seemed to see the repository as a golden option for starting research on a story and, it would seem, rarely going beyond it. A misty-eyed Bill Chappell reflected on this for National Public Radio (NPR), recalling his days as a callow editor at CNN International: “If journalists aim to write the first draft of history, I figured, then the Factbook, culling data from Cabinet agencies and other official outlets, could be a reliable primary source.” Librarians in the employ of CNN and NPR would be able to use the database to work out “whether a country is majority Shiite and Sunni, and what kind of government it has.”
Before heading off to Afghanistan in 1988, Weiner did not hesitate to consult the World Factbook. “It’s like you wouldn’t go off on a trip as a reporter without a map, and you wouldn’t go off to a strange country without consulting the CIA World Factbook.” The document was “a compass to discover the world.”
Teachers are also moaning about the sudden cessation of access to the material provided by an intelligence agency, a troubling state of affairs suggesting flawed pedagogy. CNN gives us this curious line: “The elimination of The World Factbook has left educators and others in the information space scrambling.” In a world of seemingly borderless information and sources, such a statement is stunningly untutored.
Rather oddly, Taylor Hale, a social studies teacher based in Oklahoma City, seems to believe that the agency’s assessments are accurate because others are more likely to fudge facts. “It’s so hard to use corporate or private company resources, whether they’re talking about international data or banking or currency exchanges or whatever, because they have a vested interest to lie,” argues Hale. “I can go debunk stuff, I can go redact stuff, but I don’t want the kids exposed to the lie in the first place.” Corporations lie out of cold self-interest, but the good instructor fails to appreciate that the CIA is also paid to traffic fibs in the national interest.
The closure of the Factbook’s website, including the digital shuttering of its old entries, stranded the students of Jay Zagorsky’s business class at Boston University, reportedly battling through an exam “due at midnight the next day.” According to a report in The New York Times, Zagorsky’s “exams are regularly open-Factbook, and two questions relied upon in its famously tidy tables of economic certainty.” Is setting exams to such data sets the highpoint of prudence and practice?
Some of the Factbook’s followers are devotees of the first rank. Simon Willison, a programmer dedicated to data journalism, has made archival material available through his own efforts. (The material ceases after 2020.) He regards his labour as a tribute to cultural preservation, and actions of the bureaucrats behind the site’s removal a travesty of barbarism. “In a bizarre act of cultural vandalism they’ve not just removed the entire site (including the archives of previous versions) but they’ve also set every single page to be a 302 direct to their closure announcement.”
High time for members of the public to find other sources. (The Encyclopaedia Britannica would be a capital start.) Time to stop mourning a publication by an agency that failed to do with any accuracy what it was intended to do: assess with credible accuracy the political, military and economic health of the Soviet Union, a country that imploded under its very nose in 1991.
Keep Independent Journalism Alive – Support The AIMN
Dear Reader,
Since 2013, The Australian Independent Media Network has been a fearless voice for truth, giving public interest journalists a platform to hold power to account. From expert analysis on national and global events to uncovering issues that matter to you, we’re here because of your support.
Running an independent site isn’t cheap, and rising costs mean we need you now more than ever. Your donation – big or small – keeps our servers humming, our writers digging, and our stories free for all.
Join our community of truth-seekers. Please consider donating now via:
PayPal or credit card – just click on the Donate button below
Direct bank transfer: BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969
We’ve also set up a GoFundMe as a dedicated reserve fund to help secure the future of our site.
Your support will go directly toward covering essential costs like web hosting renewals and helping us bring new features to life. Every contribution, no matter the size, helps us keep improving and growing.
Thank you for standing with us – we truly couldn’t do this without you.
With gratitude, The AIMN Team
It was actually a very useful resource for one-stop access to population data and a host of other material. Teachers aren’t mourning the loss of the lack of political or sociological accuracy, just the loss of access to the collated data.
I agree leefe.
I’ve long admired the CIA for referring to PPP as “the REAL GDP”.
That was a slap in the face for the economic Establishment.
The CIA, that nefarious culture of hyper-American proponents, made its name for ”accurate current data” like the WMD, “Words of Mass Deception” campaign used by unscrupulous US politicians to justify the attack on Iraq to replace the CIA puppet Saddam Hussein. Funny how the ammunition coated with degraded radioactive materials poisoned the Indigenous Iraqi people, the cluster bombs blew up innocent kids, or worse, committed them to life without one or more limbs, and the rush into Baghdad to secure the Iraqi Oil Ministry buildings that were never hit by any US bombardment.
Then all the “benefits” of the American Occupation Misgovernment by civilians having no plan and no idea of how to manage outside the USA (United States of Apartheid) ….. for about twenty (20) years until fresh oil fields were required by the rapacious American multinational oil corporations.
Did you see ”the flight from Iraq”?? An evacuation that made the earlier ”fleeing from Saigon” look very well organised (NOT!!)
Now what was the role of the CIA General Green (Black??) in the 1975 Dismissal of the Whitlam LABOR government for daring to mention that Australia should be independent of control from foreign governments??
Who were the CIA agents who assisted the LIARBRAL$ election campaign in Cunningham bye=election leading to the early retirement of that MP into the political service??
The CIA has been used to de-stabilise foreign governments around the world since 1945 in 80+ countries according to John Bolton. American foreign policy is prepared to support ruthless dictators who violently crush any opposition, provided American owned multinational corporations retain (preferably sole) access to the natural resources within jurisdiction.
NEC, I agree totally.
I’m neutral on the CIA Factbook because there were limits on how much they could misrepresent.
I would put it in the same category as Wikipedia, useful, but use with caution.
Yes, old Uncle Sam. Withered and now not saying, “We need you”, but “We’re coming to get you”. With its rules-based-order of ‘Ready, fire, aim!’, it’s increasing accomplished at shooting itself in the foot whilst its other foot is wedged firmly in its gob.
Its trashing of the CIA Factbook will do it not one ounce of good. To many folk, it may have been perceived as the only redemption the CIA had left.
I guess it’s just slamming its xenophobia-door shut.