Putin & Trump and Journalists

[Thomas Eckhardt]

>'The real reason that reporting of the Syrian conflict
> has been so inadequate is that Western news organisations have almost
> entirely outsourced their coverage to the rebel side.'

This is certainly true but does not go far enough. The "activists", 
"civilian defense workers" and "citizen journalists" who provide 
information to the Western media are not only embedded with the rebels 
but have been prepared for this job and are paid enormous sums by the 
West to perform it.

The Western mainstream media duly report everything these embedded 
citizen journalists or first responders tell them as fact. The White 
Helmets have produced hundreds of fake photographs of children "pulled 
from the rubble". Even if it isn't explicitly mentioned, through their 
publication by supposedly respectable newspapers like the NYT, the 
Guardian or Die Zeit these fake photographs have become documents of 
Russian and Syrian barbarism in the public perception. Politicians then 
quote from the newspapers and add some buzzwords: Guernica, Ruanda, 
Srebrenica. A German talkshow host even managed to mention the Holocaust...

This is war propaganda of the highest order, provided as a public 
service by an enormously sophisticated and well-oiled propaganda 
machine. It is Frank Wisner's "mighty Wurlitzer" on steroids.

http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/how-white-helmets-became-international-heroes-while-pushing-us-military

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/aleppo-fake-footage-children-five-peopele-arrested-egyptian-police-a7486541.html

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/24/middleeast/mannequin-challenge-white-helmets-syria/

http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/09/20/exclusive-aleppo-media-centre-funded-by-french-foreign-office-eu-and-us/

(Beeley is partisan, so take that last link with a grain of salt as far
as her take on the actions of the Syrian government are concerned. Her 
research on the sources of funding for the White Helmets and the Aleppo 
Media Center is solid. Please note also that, while many of the 
photographs taken by the White Helmets are certainly fakes, some are 
not. Nobody denies that many children have actually been wounded and 
killed during the bombing of East Aleppo.)








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