It’s not a union vs. ownership issue. The idea is that CIA gets control by controlling central offices of the trade union & executive mgmt. They drive out competitiors in a variety of ways including undercutting them on labor cost secretly, & messing them up in other ways…if their business is not successful, then they will fold or be bought out. They try to make both happen. By controlling the union, they can create some sets of rules that have to be followed, claim legitimacy for given operating procedures, enforce contracts ,etc. Maybe there is some semi-legal nonsense buried somewhere that says newspapers are an international business vital to national security, so such and such rules have to be followed AND kept secret. Centrally controlling a union, like a student organization, AFL-CIO, etc. is a way to do help manage that.

I don’t really expect to find much in the written rules, but there may be hints. Some specifics about certifying process of publishing or complying with “all available regulations” in such and such a way. Maybe only a specified set of reporters at a time are allowed by rules to write on National Security affairs, so spook can make sure ahead of time that they are tailed everywhere and all their correspondence and writing is intercepted.

Things like that. Making it “Union rules” is a nice, bullshit leftist, deflection.

Fitting with the conspiracy theory…why did these WaPo articles make it sound to the naive reader like it is talking about some particular, obscure newspaper they don’t read, rather than a trade union that is doing business with all the newspapers???

WaPo

First WaPo months earlier

Odd, yes? As if they intentionally didn’t want the audience to understand…