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SouthFront fully shares opinion of Danny Froberg from Al Masdar News
SF comment: Despite the propaganda and biased approach of mainstream media, people in the global world themselves are able to understand where the truth, distortion and blatant falsehood lie.
Expulsion of journalists from a country due to the fact that authorities do not like the way they comment on current events is a vicious practice. Results of such actions for public we can see in today’s Ukraine.
Another example of the censorship is total control of western journalists by terrorist organizations in Aleppo that surfaced after the liberation of the city.
So, according to Independent, “the jihadis holding power in east Aleppo were able to exclude Western journalists, who would be abducted and very likely killed if they went there, and replace them as news sources with highly partisan ‘local activists’ who cannot escape being under jihadi control.”
In July, the Amnesty International activist organization published a report, according to which any genuinely independent journalists or activists are targeted. As a 24-year-old media activist, called ‘Issa’ said, speaking of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (previously known as the Al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda), “they are in control of what we can and cannot say. You either agree with their social rules and policies or you disappear.”
Danny Froberg from Al Masdar News: We have seen some unacceptable instances where international journalists have been kicked out (asked to leave) from Syria accused of “untruthful reporting”. This is while according to journalist they are not even being granted access to areas like Eastern Aleppo. This at a time when the entire world is watching what happens.
Yes, indeed a large part of the western media is very much complicit in a complete hatchet job of the Syrian Arab Army’s liberation of East Aleppo, mostly by copy & pasting tweets from very dubious and often unnamed sources and circular references to each other. This is whilst we see very compelling and detailed reporting from journalists who are actually on the ground in the affected areas.
Okay, so some journalists will continue to be less than honest in their reporting about the facts on the ground in East Aleppo, but it is a lot harder to be completely oblivious to the testimony of the Syrian people that actually have lived through the nightmare for the last four years, and this will undoubtedly seep through in the reporting.
It is also a well-known fact that it is very hard to keep a skewed narrative with hundreds of other reporters that are also reporting from the same place at the same time.
Let as many reporters as you possibly can to meet anyone they want at any time they want without interference and put a stop to the cut & paste echo chamber “journalism”.
A free press, even a hostile one, is a hallmark of democracy and ensures an honest and properly functioning government, even if that means that you will get quite uncomfortable and might have to fire a few friends sometimes.
Well written opinion.
The media/public perception issue is rather complicated, and it seems that it is getting worse. Very difficult to change the western narrative that is fabricated by Reuthers and co. However, I totally agree with the overall conclusion that kicking these “journalists” out is not the solution. This does not mean that the problem solves itself. The so-called “free press” in Syria should never get a free pass to publish propaganda as they wish. I don´t get how these terrorists have access to the internet in the first place (which server and IP dress are they using?). Anyways, it is important to establish a credible counter-narrative and at the same time track, locate and neutralize those “alternative media” sources that feed their propaganda to the so-called western journlists. By getting a grip on these elements, it could be possible to outline the huge scandal implicit to NATO´s involvemement with terrorist proxies. The laissez-faire approach won´t work in the long run, and i doubt that the issue will simply resolve itself due to the obvious absurdity of the content these actors publish.
Our current gov’t Is the source that feeds the propaganda and Lies that MSM spews. In other words, it is mainly the lamestream media that reports “Fake News” and disinformation to the public.
In my opinion they have been kicked a bit too late, they should have been kicked at the start of the Arab springs… Now that a hot war has broke in the country, the harm is already done they now should be allowed to return and report on the field situation rather than getting their information from propaganda activists that no one will hold accountable.
how is it possible, for example, that journalists of the totally biosed Vice magazine (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg5UEz_Ao0g) just enter Aleppo and shoot this report?. Even worse is the fact that millions of people (the vast majority of the western public) still buy this type of propganda. I certainly support a free press, but this “freedom” ends when specific groups try to undermine the values of the Syrian constitution and promote terrorism. So if foreign journalists are allowed to report from Syria, it would be totally fair to encourage them to respect the basic ethnical principles of journalism. On the other hand, the best weapon against misrepresentation and fake news is authentic investigative journalism. In this regard, South Front has made a good job debunking the fake news supposedly published by a little girl from Aleppo (it is, noteworthy, a serious crime against humanity to abuse small children as propaganda tools- that has nothing to do with journalism whatsoever ).
Yes but we have to remember that journalists can also be tools for their government. for instance in 2013 journalists from “Le Monde” came back from Syria with samples of poisened soil with sarin gaz that they pretended was a proof of Bachaar El Assad wrongdoing. Since that day “Assad ddi it” is not even discussed by any occidental government.