Footage showing CNN’s regime change-crazed correspondent supposedly freeing a forgotten prisoner from a Syrian jail has been exposed a scandalous fraud, yet the network continues to re-air it, while defending its correspondent. “In nearly twenty years as a journalist, this was one of the most extraordinary moments I have witnessed.” That’s how veteran CNN journalist Clarissa Ward described her foray into a Syrian prison on December 12, where she promptly claimed to have rescued a forgotten inmate after three months […]
  • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    38·
    3 days ago

    I don’t know that capitalist media has ever cared about getting the story right, but it does seem like they stopped even caring about getting caught at some point in the last decade.

    like correspondents had to go on timeout for months or longer when they got caught cooking a “big” story, but now it’s just like “whoops, well things are crazy amirite? here’s a commercial for Medicare Advantage.”

    • TheLepidopterists [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      21·
      3 days ago

      I remember like 5 years ago, when USAID was trying to get what was probably a bunch of weapons into Venezuela, and said they were aid trucks (IIRC, while, I can’t recall the guy’s name, but while the operation was being run by a guy with a history of running guns to rebels under cover of delivering aid, if anyone knows who I’m talking about I’m going a little crazy trying to look him up now).

      Some anti-Maduro right wing protester threw a Molotov cocktail at a truck and a CNN reporter claimed to have personally seen Venezuelan troops start the fire.

      When the video footage of the anti-Maduro guy doing it became widespread they walked the story back but I always thought it was crazy that it wasn’t the end of their credibility.

      They didn’t just lie, they lied in a way that completely removed all plausible deniability. They were obviously, objectively caught with their pants down, lying to the public to whip up sentiment to aid in regime change. It was clearly a malicious lie and not a mistake.

      I think that’s the moment where I decided Western media wasn’t just biased, but essentially were branches of the US government.

      Incident is I think, mostly memory holed. Haven’t heard it mentioned in years.

      EDIT: it was Elliott Abrams.

    • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      14·
      3 days ago

      but it does seem like they stopped even caring

      The level of integrity is at clownish level. Even some years ago there was still a veneer of respectability. ~10 years ago Brian Williams was suspended for ~4 months for lying about his reporting in the Iraq War. I’m not saying that was a minor thing but I think Ward’s case is far worse. This was a manufactured news segment.

      CNN is in a pickle. I don’t think she, herself, manufactured that story. Why didn’t they pull the segment and give her a token punishment? My wild hunch is that she had permission from her bosses and at least a few execs surely knew of the bullshit reporting. In fact - it might be an exec’s own plan to juice ratings. Ratings are way down and the network is always greedy anyway.