James Walton

When piracy meets protest

A twisty tale about the Greenpeace activists who were imprisoned in Russia in 2013, plus an eye-opening documentary on disinformation in America

Greenpeace activist Faiza Ouhlason in On Thin Ice: Putin v Greenpeace (Credit: BBC/Curve Media/Greenpeace) 
issue 15 June 2024

Sometimes there are advantages to being ill-informed. Knowing embarrassingly little about why 30 Greenpeace activists were jailed in Russia in 2013, or the wilder assertions made by the broadcaster Alex Jones (emphatically not the woman from The One Show) meant that two documentaries this week unfolded for me like the twistiest – if not necessarily the most plausible – of thrillers.

Twenty-four per cent of Americans still doubt that the Sandy Hook massacre even happened

Then again, in my slight defence, such ignorance seemed to be what both programmes were assuming – because, unlike many documentaries, they didn’t summarise or give away...

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