Tag Archives: journalism

Links – Disinformation – Daily Beast, IB Times

27 Thursday Nov 2014

Posted by in Islamic Small Wars, Journalism

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At least two major media outlets have this week reported the shocking statistic that 40 percent of of Palestinian children detained in Jerusalem have been sexually abused by Israeli police. There’s only one problem – the statistic is entirely fabricated.

http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/11/26/exposed-us-media-outlets-daily-beast-and-international-business-times-publish-false-accusation-of-israeli-police-sexually-abusing-palestinian-children/ – 11/26/2014.

In this case, IMEMC lied, as it often does. And lazy, stupid reporters like Creede Newton and Tabatha Kinder repeated the lies of an anti-Israel propaganda outlet without spending five minutes to check the facts independently.

So we have Western reporters outdoing an already suspect “rights group” in libeling Israel because they cannot do the most basic things reporters are supposed to do. One would expect that a true reporter would at the very least check out who the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club is to begin with, and look up their actual report, rather than mindlessly parrot the lies of IMEMC.

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2014/11/daily-beast-and-ibtimes-lie-in-report.html#.VHdcitLF98E – 11/26/2014.

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FTAC – “Obummah Rhymes with “Jimmuh” – A Note on the Opaque Administration

22 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by in Islamic Small Wars, Political Spychology, Politics

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“Obummuh” rhymes with “Jimmuh”, it’s true, but the Administration has been opaque as regards the distance between surface impression and authentic Administration policy. To get at the authentic takes some Washington-style research — down into the world of wonks, Jane’s and other specialized publications, and probably some grip-and-grin plus elbow bending and rubbing with the Georgetown set — only partially available online.

This took place in January: http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-iranian-citizen-caught-smuggling-f-35-plans-to-tehran/ There’s a saga behind the headline and much related that few want to cover and even fewer wish to read about.

Regarding ISIS, the best rumor I’ve heard is Iran’s VEVAK may have been able to blackmail some Saudi and Qatari private wealth into seeding ISIS, expecting in the long run to give ISIS the Great Sunni-Shiite war it wants and thereby ennoble and enlarge the Ayatollah’s image of himself and Iran. 🙂

The hypotheses get a bit mad.

I don’t like the idea that “What ISIS scours, Qatar will devour”, but that too looks like a possibility, one buttressed by an $11 billion arms sale to Qatar.

Perhaps following the principle of “least war possible”, getting the “world left behind” on to the western program may be Washington’s chief headache best owned by Washington’s chief.

Having set out to learn what one might glean about things online, I’ve learned one can learn a lot from “yesterday’s news” combined with old fashioned library-style reading that helps structure and integrate the narratives formed by news clips.

The inside-the-beltway journos involved in political spychology, however, have great advantage in being able to at least park, briefly, at Langley, hoof it down to Foggy Bottom, stop by the National Press Club, and refresh with ears alert in the Georgetown bars.  Such jealousy may be more literary than functional, but, alas, I’m somewhere else where it’s quiet and one may read quietly and without interruption, leaving outlooks right and left to climb up the branches they know before the “Wait a minute — let’s look again” sets in.

ISIS et al may represent piracy cloaked by a pretentious delusion anchored in the Islamic discourse.

Khamenei has built a $94 billion enterprise — Setad — beneath aegis of the “Islamic Devilution” and his station: does he regard himself as a thief? Whether he does or not, the Setad story is a pirate’s story and related political repression on one hand and patronage on the other only underscore it.

Putin, imho, reminds that there is the secular version of the same thing. The Colonel President Emperor (apparent) beneath the Russian Nationalist banner handily plunders the state’s wealth in production and its productive potential while the Russian economy contracts and Russians suffer along with capital flight — or the failure of new capital to arrive.

I’m not going to post a whole (my sided) conversation, but here one may feel that BackChannels has found its theme in political science.  Clearly: the despotic and kleptocratic latched together in common “malignant narcissism” are enjoying a very good ride along the Russo-Iranian crest, and God only knows, truly, how similar psychology and political psychology on the side of immense Sunni wealth and privilege may be navigating similar but perhaps different autocratic interests.

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Bozosphere Journalism – Just a Note

11 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Journalism

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To make a longer story very short by summing it as if for a cable (or txt mssg) — Idlib, Syria – destroyed by blast: Ahrar-al-Sham – “The Free Men of Syria” — described by Breitbart as “main rival to ISIS.”

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/09/11/ISIS-Opposition-Killed-Bomb – 9/11/2014

Nearly fifty senior commanders of a major coalition of Islamic ‘moderates’ opposed to ISIS in Syria have been killed by an explosion at their secret command bunker as they met to discuss strategy against the the Islamic State.

http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2014/09/mega-uh-oh-entire-isis-opposition-wiped.html – 9/11/2014.

Main rival to ISIS or main moderate opposition to ISIS?

The leader of one of the biggest Islamist rebel groups in Syria has been killed by an explosion in the north-western province of Idlib.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29135922 – 9/10/2014.

Note the date of the BBC report.

Another wrinkle: “The doctor saw bodies with frothing at the mouth and fluid coming from the eyes and noses, Abu Baraa said, adding: ‘This was a highly sophisticated attack in a location that was very secure.'”

Big concussive blast with fire or some other kind of explosion with a chemical payload?

Oh, who cares how they died, eh?

An activist collective called the Edlib News Network, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Syrian state media also reported Aboud’s death. The activist reports said the men died in a suicide bombing.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/09/ahrar-al-sham-leader-killed_n_5792942.html – 9/9/2014.

I kid about the not caring — caring is what matters and how whatever has happened has happened matters in numerous ways.  But to push on: with the count coming down to “over 40” (cited in the HuffPost piece) from 50, somehow 10 (or less) people (somewhere) have gotten to live.  Credit the AP writers with noting how the numbers are reported (in tens) and uncertain in the wake of an event.

A statement posted on Ahrar al-Sham’s official Twitter feed said the blast had hit a meeting in Idlib province in north-west Syria and confirmed Hassan Aboud, the group’s leader, among at least 12 dead.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/09/explosion-syria-islamist-insurgent-islamic-state – 9/9/2014.

The Guardian makes mention of 28 dead (citing another source, probably the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights) before dropping the count to 12.

What we know: the story broke at least two days ago; about 50 leaders of Ahrar al-Sham, an ISIS rival, had assembled in a basement to discuss the war; and there was an explosion (of some kind) leaving between 12 and 50 dead.

What we also know: the event was not a 9/11 event.

Why post it as one?

It may be making the rounds as “news” cogent to the anti-Jihad when it was news two days ago and not particularly about “moderate” forces opposed to Assad’s absolute rule.

Moreover, with Ahrar al-Sham aligned with al-Qaeda, why characterize it as part of the bands of the “Free Syrian Army” even if in the field cooperation develops and dissolves according to conditions and who else is in the field?

Ahrar al-Sham cooperates with the Free Syrian Army and other secular rebel groups, however, it does not maintain ties with the Syrian National Council.[27] Although they coordinate with other groups, they maintain their own strict and secretive leadership, receiving the majority of their funding and support from donors in Kuwait.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahrar_ash-Sham – as viewed 9/11/2014/2125-ET

Way down on the irreducible floor of the Islamic Small Wars, there is in addition to an underlying argument about integrity (with all men, not only Muslims) a similar one about mankind: does nature dictate “all against all”, which appears the zeitgeist most in play across Syria and Iraq, or is a democratic, egalitarian, systematic, and reasoning “all for all” a real possibility for most of the world?

Stay tuned, but adventure out where ye may and live beyond war: it looks like answering the simple binary posed today in Syria and Iraq will take a lot more time, possibly generations.

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Journalism – CNN – Brian Stelter Interviews Matti Friedman on Gaza War Coverage

02 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Journalism, Political Psychology

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http://youtu.be/t8Fjd3-WQeE

(9/1/2014)

Related on BackChannels: “A Comment on Anti-Semitic Reportage” – 8/26/2014.

Matti Friedman’s related article on Tablet: “An Insider’s Guide to the Most Important Story on Earth A former AP correspondent explains how and why reporters get Israel so wrong, and why it matters” — 8/26/2014.

With reference to language behavior, the Islamic Small Wars bring to observation the profound divide between the principle of loyalty at any price, starting with lying, and the principle of integrity — truth telling — at some known price, including the loss of access to power.  This arrangement works because the tyrant’s power — the power developed by the malignant narcissist — is about control based in the enforcement of fidelity to the narcissist as central to survival and the narcissist’s subsequent enjoyment thereby of limitless narcissistic supply.

Simply put: where despotism is ascendant, it is easier to live with a loyal lie than weather the consequences of telling an uncomfortable truth.

That such a form in power corrupts western institutions, i.e., as with Hamas tacit arrangements with the UNRWA that have the terrorist organizations stockpiling rockets in UNRWA schools; also as with Hamas tactics in war including the direction and inhibition of once independent journalists, appears to come about through some combination of greed (the press wants the story and is willing to settle for a constrained slice of it) and weakness (as perhaps journalists and their organizations wish to come through physically unscathed and politically in position to go out again with the same skewing constraints in place).

Such journalism may be the best practicable under a circumstance managed by Hamas, but it’s also a compromised journalism that has bought into evil,  even so, and diminished itself and made its product less trustworthy for that.

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Ukraine – A “Different Kind of War” – Reporting On a Scroll

30 Saturday Aug 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Journalism, Politics

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Scrolling news for Donetsk at ostro.org, 8/30/2014/1833 NY.

Scrolling news for Donetsk at ostro.org, 8/30/2014/1833 ET.

“The mindset of war must change,” Mr Bush said on Wednesday. “It is a different type of battlefield. It is a different type of war.” The battles, he said, “will be fought visibly sometimes, and sometimes we’ll never see what may be taking place”.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/21/afghanistan.september1113 – 9/21/2001.

Thirteen years and less than 11 months later, it is turning out that the full suite of contemporary wars are “a different type of war”.

Syria’s frustrated revolt cum civil war has turned out a battle between autocratic personalities, or a frankly whacked out dictator against equally savage Islamists, in large part, and the country and its people be damned, which they have been.

Ukraine’s revolt against Russomafia don Yanukovych played to the script but — this as infant governments often do — invited obvious nibbling by the colonel president emperor chief in Moscow, who also appears to have programmatically returned the once modern RT to old Pravda days (while also creating an FSB internal security service more populated per Russian than the old KGB), and today we’re almost back to “conventional war”, except that learning about the Severtsky Donets River, which first entailed learning about its existence, I have well out in the provinces outside of Washington, D.C., broadband, Google Maps, some kind of translator, and instant access to Russian language publications online.

This “different type of war” has created a different type of war tourism, also commentary, and reportage.

Where are we going?

More toward the despotic than democratic, I would say given that there are simply more governments internally operating along feudal rather than modern democratic lines, and these may have recognized in one another — as with the dictator Putin-Assad-Khamenei, an axis in conflict if ever there was — mutual interest in the defense of political absolutism.

Last week, in what strikes me as an echo of Putin-Medvedev, former Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan became President Erdogan in the presence of a cooperating Prime Minister Davutoglu.  Such personalities would seem other than get-along, compromise, facilitate, and cooperate kind of guys.  They’re more “or else!” in the way of malignant narcissists elsewhere and, unfortunately, everywhere.

The shades and shadows of the former Soviet Union may be living on in Russia’s assault on Ukraine.  The deception and lying on the part of the Kremlin, which denied a military presence in Ukraine up to the moment (and beyond) in which the same became implausible, and since I have read that “Novosvitlivka”, about an hour west of the Severtsky Donets River that serves as a border between Russia and Ukraine, has been flattened by tanks — every house shot at — I should hope the “implausible denial” stage has been passed and Russia’s Putin may admit plainly, but with his customary charm, to playing at war — and not just war as usual, but his own “different kind of war”.

While that different kind of war takes shape, this perhaps different kind of writer will be watching it with you . . . on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ (perhaps), the World Wide Web (where else?), and across numerous foreign publications either in English or roughly translated to it.

We’re getting close to real-time reportage too, i.e., from battlefield to me to you inside of 30 minutes.  The big guys get to do that.  We little guys still get to figure it out.

Other Reference

http://www.ostro.org/donetsk/culture/articles/221448/ – 7/28/2011: “Seversky Donets, Ukraine and Russia will clean together.”

Novosvitlivka, Luhanski Oblast, Ukraine, and Russian Border:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Novosvitlivka,+Luhans’ka+oblast,+Ukraine/@48.585913,39.690678,26314m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x411fcd791782ddab:0x49c247870b0ed2bc

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/08/29/turkey-new-prime-minister-davutoglu-announces-government/ – 8/29/2014.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/21/afghanistan.september1113 – 9/21/2001.

http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-02-27/how-team-ukrainian-journalists-rescued-documents-yanukovych-s-house – 2/27/2014.

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A Comment on Anti-Semitic Reportage

26 Tuesday Aug 2014

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Journalism

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Their example?

….in 2009 a Swedish report came out exposing some Israeli troops of selling organs of Palestinians who died in their custody.

(Around the 1:15 mark of the video.)

The reference is to a completely made up tabloid style article in an obscure Swedish paper, that even the author admitted was not based on any evidence.

http://honestreporting.com/time-magazine-accuses-idf-of-stealing-palestinian-organs/ 8/24/2014.

Time Magazine excised the truth-offending portion of its video, which continues to play at the bottom of the Honest Reporting piece cited.

How did that error in judgment occur in the first place?

It may be too soon to suggest that Prince al-Waleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Holdings investment in Time-Warner has gravitational pull down in the news room, but we may be getting to the point where the public will want to know more about how journalists write the news and with what level of balance, introspection, and integrity.

Related: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/08/25/bias-blood-libels-and-the-medias-race-to-the-bottom/ 8-25/2014.

There has been much discussion recently of Hamas attempts to intimidate reporters. Any veteran of the press corps here knows the intimidation is real, and I saw it in action myself as an editor on the AP news desk. During the 2008-2009 Gaza fighting I personally erased a key detail—that Hamas fighters were dressed as civilians and being counted as civilians in the death toll—because of a threat to our reporter in Gaza. (The policy was then, and remains, not to inform readers that the story is censored unless the censorship is Israeli. Earlier this month, the AP’s Jerusalem news editor reported and submitted a story on Hamas intimidation; the story was shunted into deep freeze by his superiors and has not been published.)

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/183033/israel-insider-guide?all=1 – 8/26/2014.

Matti Friedman’s story for Tablet has been getting around the web this morning. Breathtaking in scope, Friedman’s tell-all turns media policy in the Gaza-based Hamas-driven conflict inside-out. A recent Cif Watch article relayed here played up the highlights.

Journalism ethics professors and historians take note: You are bearing witness, with few exceptions, to some of the most abysmal overseas reporting since Hearst’s New York Journal in 1898 got us into the Spanish-American War and Walter Duranty of the New York Times was ignoring Stalin’s crimes in the 1930s. “We’re not just talking bad journalism,” says Weiss. “We’re talking about journalism that functions as a tool of a terrorist organization, Hamas: breathlessly pushing its narrative, whether cowed by its threats, sympathetic to its cause, or simply ignorant.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardbehar/2014/08/21/the-media-intifada-bad-math-ugly-truths-about-new-york-times-in-israel-hamas-war/ – 8/21/2014.

Fareed Zakaria: “Hezbollah’s view on the renovation goes like this. “We respect divine religions, including the Jewish religion. The problem is with Israel’s occupation of Arab lands … not with the Jews.” Food for thought.” (http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2010/08/22/gps.last.look.synagogue.cnn.html – 8/22/2010).

CAMERA: “Zakaria’s indirect main point may have been about the NYC mosque. But his more immediate point — that Hezbollah respects the Jews and is merely opposed to Israel’s “occupation of Arab lands” — dramatically misinformed viewers about the radical and anti-Semitic nature of the Lebanese terror group. Hezbollah has repeatedly made clear not only its opposition to Israel’s very existence, but also its contempt for Jews.” (http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=3&x_outlet=14&x_article=1912 – 8/26/2010).

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Abu Omar al-Shishani: (6:50) “Christians are welcome to khilafa.  They only pay protection money.” (Interview dated: 8/18/2014).

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Hezbollah mouthpiece or ISIS commander, it appears such Jihad Muslims must have always the upper hand, ownership of the universe, and, back on earth, the plundering and subjugation of all others.

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Despite Zakaria’s defense of Hezbollah’s alleged decency as regards freedom of religion, “contempt for Jews” would seem matched elsewhere along the same Islamist seam by contempt for Christians.  Of course, the matter of “dhimmitude” is well known in association with “Islamic Jihad” whether Shiite- or Sunni-based.  Why a western writer should wish to diminish its import and promote Hezbollah as the soul of a generous humanity begs for answers.

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting (CAMERA) has an archive of incidents involving Fareed Zakaria’s journalism.  The latest involves Zakaria asserting that Israel has interfered with the latest scheduled elections on the “West Bank”, as direct an act of misdirection through language as is possible.  The Washington Post filed a straightforward correction on the matter.  CAMERA noted that Zakaria could not bring himself to state the same plainly but preferred to send yet another arrow at Israel.

Fast blogging merely marks a note on the day’s passing news.

Beneath the pain and smoke of conflict, it takes investigation along audit lines to ferret out relationships between state-level adversaries and their activities — direct propaganda, influence on general reportage, ownership and sponsorship of academic assets — campuses, institutions, departments and their research funding — and that may be beyond both my pocketbook and purview.  Whether it’s noodling around the Internet on “Iran, Zakaria” or outlining the contours of the International Solidarity Movement, as much demands focused time on a system that moves at light speed.

All of which may be my way of complaining, “Ain’t no low hanging fruit no more”.

🙂

Whether with Time Magazine publishing in a video an updated anti-Semitic “blood libel” or Fareed Zakariah praising the love and moderation toward Jews exhibited by Hezbollah (oy vey!), I would like to know what has compelled or influenced that gaslighting happy faced lunacy.

Related Reference

Home

http://honestreporting.com/

ADL. “Iran’s Press TV: Broadcasting Anti-Semitism To English Speaking World” – 10/17/2013.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/in-front-of-cnn-hundreds-protest-anti-israel-media-bias/ – 8/8/2014.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardbehar/2014/08/21/the-media-intifada-bad-math-ugly-truths-about-new-york-times-in-israel-hamas-war/ – 8/21/2014.

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Link

26 Tuesday Aug 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Journalism

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Corruption, for example, is a pressing concern for many Palestinians under the rule of the Palestinian Authority, but when I and another reporter once suggested an article on the subject, we were informed by the bureau chief that Palestinian corruption was “not the story.” (Israeli corruption was, and we covered it at length.)

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/183033/israel-insider-guide?all=1 – 8/26/2014.

Link

25 Monday Aug 2014

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Today Our Bad Media’s gumshoes (who go by the handles @blippoblappo and @crushingbort) posted material that, even more clearly than the material in their first post, seem to show Zakaria copying entire passages of others’ work . . . .

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/08/22/fareed_zakaria_plagiarism_copying_and_pasting_in_the_post_american_world.html – 8/22/2014.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Voices/2014/0825/Why-I-love-politics-Jeffords-Perry-and-Zakaria – 8/25/2014.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2014/08/22/third-round-plagiarism-fareed-zakaria – 8/22/2014.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2014/08/22/what-dylan-byers-missed-fareed-zakaria – 8/22/2014.

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