Cnn now insists that the footage from Gaza mentioned here is genuine:
There’s no truth to accusations by bloggers that a Palestinian camera crew staged a video showing the death of the videographer’s brother after an Israeli rocket attack, said the team’s employer.
and has re-posted it.
Ed Morrissey isn’t buying it. His evaluation of the video:
It’s not only a fake, it’s an absurd fake. It’s not even done well, and Gilbert’s dramatic headshake at the end of the supposed CPR — in which Doctor #2’s hands keep coming off the body — is only the cheesy coup de grace. Why did CNN republish this?
His evaluation of CNN’s Explanation:
Maybe Martin can explain how a missile hits a roof and kills two boys but does no more damage to the roof than what a pickaxe could do in five minutes — and how the furniture didn’t get disturbed.
The Confederate Yankee isn’t buying it either:
Premium clients can commission the writing filming, and broadcast of specific stories. Commissioned news, sold at a premium. Isn’t that another name for mercenary propaganda?
If so, I wonder who commissioned these… or if they were done pro bono.
HAMAS ALLIES PREPARE FOR RENEWED CONFLICT
ROCKET MEN OF GAZA
DYING TO SMASH ISRAEL WALL SAYS HAMAS
RESIST, SAYS HAMAS ARMED WING
Martin is trusted by Hamas on at least a professional level, and has a financial stake in the credibility of his employee’s story. Neither of these conflicts of interest were disclosed by CNN, for the rather obvious reasons it undermines their claim of the story’s credibility.
Charles Johnson not only isn’t buying it but does some the basic research that CNN might do if it decided to bother:
The company that provided this video story to CNN and several other news outlets is World News & Features, as we pointed out yesterday after CNN published their defense of the piece.
At the lower right of the World News & Features front page, we find a link to Nepras.net as the designer of the site.
A WHOIS lookup for worldnf.tv reveals that the domain is hosted by Nepras.net:
(who is info follows)
…And the primary contact and general manager for Nepras.net is none other than the “freelance photographer” who filmed that staged hospital scene, Ashraf Mashharawi.
How about that.
I’ve interviewed Ed Morrissey, for the HiWired podcast a couple of years ago. He is a very good guy. I’ve been reading Charles Johnson for almost 8 years. He has a record of exposing fake news and its a good record. Neither pretend to not have the biases they have.
Meanwhile we have CNN the network that didn’t report on the Eason Jordan scandal until he resigned. And who can forget the famous article in the New York Times The News we kept to ourselves? If you don’t remember it read Bill Hobbs rundown on it an excerpt:
By keeping its bureau open and its mouth shut, CNN sent Saddam a powerful message: do what you want, we won’t tell anyone.
What should CNN have done? Stopped hiring locals, for one. And if that wasn’t possible, CNN should have closed its Baghdad bureau and stopped putting Iraqis at risk by being there. But mostly, CNN should have told the world what is going on. CNN Iraqi staffers were tortured while CNN stayed silent. It’s ludicrous after-the-fact corporate ass-covering to suggest the speaking out would have put its Iraqi staffers in danger. They already were in danger. Reporting that to the world might well have pressured the regime to change its ways. But we’ll never know because CNN was more interested in keeping its prestigious Baghdad bureau open than in fully reporting the horrors of the regime that hosted them there.
Given that history the choice between believing Ed and Charles (and Bob who I’m not as familiar) or CNN it is no contest. In fact what evidence do we have that CNN hasn’t changed its ways. Remember it wasn’t until 2 years after Jordan’s admission that he had to resign over false statements that Barney Frank and Chris Dodd called him on.
I’d say they are full of it.
