New podcasts: A corporate spy confesses on Into The Dirt from Tortoise Media

A new podcast starts with the confessions of a corporate spy paid to infiltrate activist movements before encountering questions about truth and self-perception.

Podcast Art - Into The Dirt.

A new podcast starts with the confessions of a corporate spy paid to infiltrate activist movements before encountering questions about truth and self-perception.

Former television producer Rob Moore wants the world to know he’s one of the good guys.

That’s why he walked into the newsroom at Tortoise Media (makers of Sweet Bobby) and fessed up to being a misunderstood and maligned whistleblower.

But is Moore a champion for good or just a regular corporate shill with a penchant for control?

 

He’d been brought into the world of corporate intelligence gathering after a chance encounter with a former friend on a beach in Cornwall in the mid-2000s.

Moore’s old mate was now working at the New York-based private intelligence firm K2.

Moore was adrift. After being a television producer in the 1990s he ran out of ideas, the certain death of all creatives.

“I could see that sort of shrinking of perspective,” says Moore. “That shrinking of optimism … you can almostget to a stage where you can feel paralysed by indecision. I didn’t know what to do.”

So Moore takes the bait and enters the world of corporate espionage. Most private spy agencies are staffed by former military personnel, not former documentary filmmakers.

Disgraced former film mogul Harvey Weinstein hired private spies to obtain information on the women accusing him of misconduct.

Moore infiltrated an anti-asbestos group by pretending to be a documentary filmmaker and spends months trying to get closer to the movement’s leaders to gather informationfor a corporate client of K2.

The now corporate spy then has a moral revelation before flipping to become a double agent, cashing the corporation’s cheques while feeding them misinformation.

“I decided to stay on the case and write rubbish about what I was being asked to do and mislead them,” says Moore.

Or so he claims now. When Moore was exposed as a spy he was excommunicated and is now a pariah.

Host Ceri Thomas describes Moore as usually tanned with a sharp manicured beard and close-shaved haircut.

It quickly becomes apparent the podcast is not really about corporate espionage but self-delusion and the lies people tell themselves.

“The more I explored that world and Rob’s story, the clearer it became he’s not the only guide and some people don’t trust his sense of direction,” says Thomas.

Is it ever really possible to know oneself? Or to pull ego enough from self perception to obtain a clear vision of the self? How does one stumble through the world with a completely different perception of oneself to the outside world?

Immanuel Kant, this podcast is for you.

Metaphysical questions aside, Into The Dirt shines a light on a clandestine world while asking questions of the self.

The podcast does meander a bit, it’s easy to get lost and honestly at times is a bit dull as listeners tumble through a winding narrative.

The production is perfect and the taut piano music is very spy thriller. If only the rest of the podcast were the same.