Tuesday, August 15, 2006

CNN Sides With Hezbollah---Again!

TCS has a summary of the LAT Tim Rutten article on fauxtography by Al-Reuters and Al-AP. This comes just after I watched another faked series of video clips narrated by a CNN Int'l fruitcake named Wedeman who staged the return of a young boy to his destroyed native village. The fakery was apparent as shots showed the boy from inside the vehicle, and then from outside the vehicle as he ostensibly pulled up to his former house and burst out crying. The cameraman conveniently got out of the pick-up to get the shot which was staged. Subsequent shots were staged showing [his] 80-year old grandmother going through her house from room to room with a camera crew and the female voiced Ben Wedeman in plangent tones describing her "discovering" each destroyed household cubicle.

CNN News then displayed a Middle East "expert" named Karon who is a Time mag senior correspondent. No mention of the affiliation between TimeWarner and CNN---that would be journalistic ethics.

Anderson Cooper has called his CNN colleagues to task for exuberant cheer-leading for the Hezbo-terrorists. The lack of coverage in Israel, targeted with pellet-filled rockets aimed at civilians, is non-existent on CNN. The TCS article ends on a serious tone:
Can a free press survive if the public concludes that it's in the business of purveying politically motivated propaganda on behalf of civilization's enemies? And, if this kind of thing keeps up, will people be able to resist coming to such a conclusion? The press often responds to business scandals by noting that misbehavior by businessmen is likely to undermine support for free enterprise and lead to public demands for free enterprise. I fear that the same dynamic may lead to reduced support for a free press, and to demands for government regulation of reporting in wartime.

In the meantime, we have to hope that the market will correct the problem before things get that bad. Perhaps newspapers will be less willing to use photos and stories from AP and Reuters when those stories are likely to be lies, and, and I strongly suspect that readers will be less likely to trust newspapers when they run stories that are exploded as propaganda. It's not too late for the press to save itself yet. But it's getting close.

The market doesn't work for leftist ideologues, or enemies of civilization like CNN.

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