In 2011, the ABC broadcast on TV and on its website video footage claiming the Syrian government had massacred its own people. The video was not from Syria, its was from neighbouring Lebanon, the video was shot in 2008, not 2011. The ABC’s trusted source (Reuters) had even placed a caveat on the footage saying that it was unconfirmed footage.
Yet the ABC still put the fake footage to air and on its website.
When asked politely by ABC’s MediaWatch for an explanation, the head of ABC Continuous News, Gaven Morris, simply blamed their source (Reuters). This, despite the first law of reporting being to check your source. ABC reporters are told never to broadcast material without a second source (even though that, in itself, is a pretty weak test of accuracy).
So why did it happen?
The editorial position at the ABC, following the liberal narrative, says that it is Syria’s Assad government that massacres their own people even though this makes little sense. The subtext of this narrative is that Arabs are irrational and even crazy murderers, that the Arab world despite being the genesis of civilisation is somehow not civilised.
As readers may know, there are many foreign-backed-armies attacking the Syrian people and trying to divide the country into little pieces causing untold misery and destruction.
Does this relate to Israel? The difference in Palestine is stark, there is only one foreign-backed-army attacking the people, the IDF.
As readers can imagine, ABC News is no angel, it has hidden the truth about this conflict for decades.
Management at the ABC are no better than propagandists if they fall in with the rest of the liars and the silent.
Let us expose the lies, but not kid ourselves that this alone will stop the war-makers.
