<p>This is one of the most amazing articles on media coverage of international events that I have ever read. It highlights the likely fabrication of the death of a Palestinian boy in 2000 which most regard as the instigating force behind the last 5 years of violence in the middle East. I remember seeing this played over and over on the networks. Yet, it was likely faked.</p>
<p>The amazing thing is that they have actual raw footage of the news agencies staging shootouts and deaths when in actuallity nothing is really happening. This is a long read, but well worth it to explain how foreign media (in this case France TV) outright fabricates stories. It is little wonder that with this type of journalistic “integrity” that the image of the US is so bad. Can there be any doubt that France TV and al Jazeera utilize similar creative flairs in their coverage of the war in Iraq? This stuff makes even Dan Rather look credible.</p>
<p>It’s a rather long read, but very eye-opening for those willing to have them opened.</p>
<p>FF–I’ll admit that I didn’t yet read your article, but we’ve already had the same situation here–the babies dumped out of incubators by the Iraqis in Kuwait fabrication which was orchestrated by an American PR firm for Kuwait prior to the first Gulf War. The Christian Science Monitor has a good summary of what happened:</p>
<p>The difference between the cases is that in incubator case the media was apparently duped. In the Palestinian boy case, it was the media who were doing the duping.</p>
<p>True, but it wasn’t just the media who was “duped”–Bush Sr. pushed the story at every opportunity; former associates of his were at the time working for the PR firm, and Congress lapped up the hoax, even when some Congressional leaders knew who the girl testifying really was and that she was lying.</p>
<p>It accomplished exactly what it was intended to, and there were plenty of accomplices.</p>
<p>Okay, that they were false is amply documented. the CS Monitor seems darn sure. That they knew? No, not sure.</p>
<p>I don’t like deception anywhere; I haven’t read but don’t doubt that what you assert is true, but my main interest has always been what my government is doing, because they represent me, and because I hold us to a higher standard.</p>
<p>Yes, but part of the measurement that many use of how well our government is doing is how well we are perceived by the outside world. It is very illustrative how French TV, an arm of the French government, distorts and twists stories. Based on the amount staging that was going on, this appears to be a common practice used by many “news” agencies.</p>
<p>what about the Jessica Lynch story? Combat heroine becomes driver who made a wrong turn and smashed up her jeep? Daring military raid on an unguarded hospital in an peaceful town?</p>
<p>Fundingfather, only the French twist the truth? Only news agencies? Tell me how the embedded reporters pulled the Lynch story off without help…</p>
<p>How many people have died as a result of the Lynch story? And, you missed the same point that SBmom did - in the case of the Palestinian boy, it was the media that was directly doing the hoax - a hoax that has resulted in many, many deaths.</p>
<p>The President this week tried to pretend things, his people put out mi-statments to the press ( I am being generous there), and have been called on it</p>
<p>NO. YOU miss the point. We expect the media to put profits above all else. After all, that’s our capitalistic system. If bending the truth, if manufacturing a story leads to $$, that’s the system working. Just look at Fox News if you don’t believe me.</p>
<p>We would like to hold our government, especially the national one, to a higher standard. Of course we can’t, and the current administration has gone beyond the spin of past administrations to outright lies and fabrications. The Lynch story is just one of the more amazing - amazing because the “heroine” is part of the group that broke the story of the lies.</p>
<p>NMD, I’ve never seen the bar on journalism held as low as that. That may be your assumption of the media, but unfortunately it is not that of the Arab world where they have streets named after the Palestinian boy and postage stamps commemorating his martyrdom. He is also used by bin Laden to summon his suicide troops against us. I’d say that is a bit more problematic than a feel good story about Jessica Lynch.</p>
<p>The assumption among many of the posters here seems to be that “America” in general, and the Bush/Reagan administrations, in specific, are the only entities whose lies have had profound and far-reaching consequences. No doubt, American politicians and government agencies have been guilty of truth-stretching, and out-and-out fabrication throughout much of our history (and not just republicans, either!). </p>
<p>But America is by NO MEANS alone in these practices. As I posted on another thread, the treacherous actions of Muslim extremists and their State sponsors receive curiously little acknowledgement here. But when others bring up the subject, the immediate response is usually an outraged chronicling of all the ways in which America is to blame for the actions of terrorist organizations and terrorist states, and understanding, nay SYMPATHY for their political plight. The reason why some people are accused of being “Anti-American” when they express these sentiments, is because they often rail as if America is the most evil entity on the planet, and the well-spring from which all other evil originates—as if all other acts of evil were merely historical footnotes by comparison.</p>
<p>It’s like someone telling you the story of the kid across town who entered a school and indiscriminately mowed down everybody in sight with an assault riffle, but your only response is indignation and rage that your OWN kid was guilty of that and worse! </p>
<p>I suspect that ff’s post was, in part, an experiment to see how quickly the discussion would turn to the shortcomings of American journalists and the current presidential administration in particular, coupled with a virtual dismissal of the reported actions of the French journalists in his linked story. Once again, as long as America can be found guilty of wrong doing, it really doesn’t matter what the rest of the world does…sigh…</p>