{"id":312,"date":"2012-03-15T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-15T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.alexanderhiggins.com\/?p=312"},"modified":"2024-04-24T13:02:55","modified_gmt":"2024-04-24T13:02:55","slug":"wag-dog-media-caught-faking-syria-news-stories-96832","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.alexanderhiggins.com\/middle-east\/wag-dog-media-caught-faking-syria-news-stories-96832\/","title":{"rendered":"Wag The Dog \u2013 Media Caught Faking Syria News Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"post-content\">\n<div class=\"all-content-above hmt_widget_link_unit_1\" id=\"hmt-widget-link-unit-1\">\n<div class=\"toplinkunit\">\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"clearFloat\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"float: right; width: 340px; \">\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"clear:both\">\n<\/div>\n<h3>Like in the movie Wag The Dog mainstream news channels have been caught carrying dubious footage from Syria to cook up drama to legitimize military intervention<\/h3>\n<p>Some mainstream news channels have been recently caught carrying dubious footage from Syria. It fuels the debate over media\u2019s role in legitimizing possible military intervention in the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u00ad\u2018Danny\u2019 is a Syrian opposition activist who reports from Homs for CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. He is attached to the opposition movement and regularly calls for military invasion of Syria. He\u2019s identified as Danny Abdul Dayem, a 22-year-old British citizen of Syrian origin.<\/p>\n<p>In a video leaked online, Danny appears to be falsifying a video broadcast for CNN. Prior to going on air, he requests colleagues to fire weapons to dramatize his Live report with Anderson Cooper. Though he denied any wrongdoings in an interview to CNN after the video went viral, his reliability as a verified news source was called into question.<\/p>\n<p>Danny is far from being a lone soldier in an increasingly dirty information war. Investigative journalist Rafik Lotf has spent months looking at the background to footage that has helped shaped global opinion on the conflict. He told RT that Al Jazeera is involved in video fabrication to discredit the Syrian regime and cites a video described by Al Jazeera as proof Syrian Govt forces had bombed an oil pipeline.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cI know this video is on the Al Jazeera server. It is clear it is not an explosion but they ignore that and keep on reporting on the way they need to see it,\u201d<\/em> he said.<\/p>\n<p><iframe frameborder=\"0\" height=\"480\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/x--Td_8JXYk\" width=\"640\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3>\u00adDark turns in Syria\u2019s blame game<\/h3>\n<p>\u00adAll Journalists admit that verifying footage on the ground in Syria is difficult, nigh on impossible.<\/p>\n<p>Most recently shocking footage emerged of some 47 bodies, including women and children found with their throats slit, bearing stab wounds and signs of rape. The opposition called for a UNSC emergency meeting on \u2018the massacre\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Assad\u2019s government, in turn, announced that \u2018terrorist gangs\u2019 killed those in the video and claimed Homs\u2019 residents recognized relatives among the dead, who had been previously kidnapped by the Syrian rebels.<\/p>\n<p>As the mutual blame game spirals downwards and civilian suffering continues, the recent resignations of key Al Jazeera journalists may serve as a clear indicator \u2013 that some mainstream Syria conflict coverage <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/rt.com\/news\/hashem-al-jazeera-resignation-523\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>is far from objective.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe frameborder=\"0\" height=\"480\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jTWY14eyMFg\" width=\"640\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Russia Today contributed to this article. View the original article <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/rt.com\/news\/syria-information-wars-west-553\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Like in the movie Wag The Dog mainstream news channels have been caught carrying dubious footage from Syria to cook up drama to legitimize military intervention Some mainstream news channels have been recently caught carrying dubious footage from Syria. It fuels the debate over media\u2019s role in legitimizing possible military intervention in the country. \u00ad\u2018Danny\u2019 &#8230; <a title=\"Wag The Dog \u2013 Media Caught Faking Syria News Stories\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.alexanderhiggins.com\/middle-east\/wag-dog-media-caught-faking-syria-news-stories-96832\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Wag The Dog \u2013 Media Caught Faking Syria News Stories\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.alexanderhiggins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.alexanderhiggins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.alexanderhiggins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.alexanderhiggins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.alexanderhiggins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.alexanderhiggins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1069,"href":"https:\/\/blog.alexanderhiggins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions\/1069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.alexanderhiggins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.alexanderhiggins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.alexanderhiggins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}