Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Thanks to Solomonia for inviting me to participate as a guest at his blog. For my first post, I'd like to announce that we'll be putting up the footage available for the Muhamed al Durah case at our website -- The Second Draft -- on the fifth anniversary of the event, September 30, 2005. As those who have visited our site and looked at the material we've made available about Pallywood might guess, we're suggesting, only suggesting, that it may be faked. We also plan to put up a fair amount of material that treats how the media could have been fooled (?) by such a (transparent?) fake and take so long (five years and running) to reconsider their error.
(I note that Solomonia does not have "media" as a primary category.)
Please come and view the material yourselves, send us your thoughts, and start rethinking the way we, in the West, were informed about the "intifada" by our credulous (?) media.
The Second Draft is a welcome development and I'll be an enthusiastic and occasional contributor. (Empirical evidence, what a concept to deploy during this Orwellian, ego driven era of mass media and disinformation.) These types of individual initiatives are needed on many more fronts since the mendacious malcontents of the Left/MSM/DNC alliance represent a formidable obstacle to transparency. Too though, more centrist/conservatives need to learn to be better informed and more actively and thoughtfully involved in the social/political process. Without that push/pull involvement and commitment it's only a matter of time before we lapse into another phase of post-Tet syndrome.
It's interesting to read claims of the Arab press, who tries to prolong forged history by endlesly repeating the "Muhhamad Dura construction" of AFP. A good example of that effort is from today's Arab News online:
http://www.arabnews.com/services/print/print.asp?artid=70825&d=28&m=9&y=2005&hl=Remembering%20Muhammad%20Al-Durra
It seems that agencies in general (the same is with STA, news agency from my country Slovenia), although AFP IS a special case, have some problems with the reliability of their reports from ME area (AP also from Afghanistan) that derives from hiring native muslim reporters who could be involved in events by their kinship or religious preferences and as little Lenins not so much faithfull to the truth. On the long run such distortions affect the position of MSM, who relly on problematic agency sources. There are many signs of diminishing influence of media. One reason could be that they don't or don't want to filter their reports from ME. This is maybe the opportunity for a new agency to step into the market and claim the lost realibility.