BBC Producer Says Footage from 2018 "Chemical Attack" In Syria, Was Staged

[FormerSheff]

7 hours ago, melthebell said:

or so a "conspiracy site" says  

 

do we actually know who he is? does he actually exist? does what he say ring true?

 

or is it just a figment of somebodys imagination who has a "thing" about western governments?

 

if its only on one media outlet, and / or copied to a couple more of the same ilk how do we know its not fake news? the site in question has already been outed as a conspiracy site but you twisted and turned and poo pood it

Well, some time after he made the tweets, his twitter account  went private. But his tweets, as well as his Twitter info, where he says he's a Syrian BBC producer, can be seen here, on the web archive (scroll down and start reading from the fourth tweet down). 

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20190214082919/https:/twitter.com/Dalatrm

 

He also has a profile on Muck Rag, the media/journalist data base, where it also says he's a BBC producer:

 

https://muckrack.com/riam-dalati

 

And same on  imdb:

 

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10372347/

 

Does what he says ring true? It does to me, as I said before, propaganda is commonly used. lies are told to achieve some end, criminal conspiracies do happen, things are fabricated . . . . do you know about the "babies thrown from incubators"  story that got people behind the Gulf war in 1991? That turned out to be a fabricated story, which had the backing of a US publicity firm called Hill & Knowlton, then  for the next Iraq War, we had  "Weapons of mass destruction", lies . . .

 

As for Zero Hedge having already being "outed as a conspiracy site"  . ..why has it? Just because someone else has that opinion, or because NewsGuard hasn't given it their stamp of approval? 

 

I could share articles that give what I think are valid criticisms of the NewsGuard site, its founders, those who work for it, and it's motives, but the articles I'd share would be on websites that NewsGuard says you can't trust lol, so we go around in circles. . . .

 

Did you actually read the article I started the thread with? Is there something specific in it you take issue with? 

 

Edited February 16, 2019 by FormerSheff

[FormerSheff]

1 hour ago, RollingJ said:

Call me cynical (or even wrong) but the OP reminds me just a little of 'justinelle' - just not quite as verbose.

I don't know him/her, I only joined here yesterday, but I see they did post in this thread. They're the only person that hasn't bitten my head off so far!  😁

Edited February 15, 2019 by FormerSheff

[FormerSheff]

I could post at least three videos from RT,  where they cover this story, but of course, you'll probably all say that nothing RT says can be trusted!  😜 But here's a  a video from some other news reporter -  CGTN

 

If public opinion is anything to go by, the video has 29 'likes', and 0 'dislikes', so far, and the people commenting underneath the video, don't sound so surprised. 

 

 

Edited February 15, 2019 by FormerSheff

[FormerSheff]

Here's 

1 hour ago, melthebell said:

or so a "conspiracy site" says  

 

do we actually know who he is? does he actually exist? does what he say ring true?

 

or is it just a figment of somebodys imagination who has a "thing" about western governments?

 

if its only on one media outlet, and / or copied to a couple more of the same ilk how do we know its not fake news? the site in question has already been outed as a conspiracy site but you twisted and turned and poo pood it

Short interview (only 4 mins long) with Piers Morgan (only kidding!) I mean Piers Robinson, who's the Chair of Politics, Society and Political Journalism at Sheffield University. He discusses these tweets by Riam Dalati

 

Here's the audio in sound cloud, for anyone who'd like to listen 😊

 

'Western media haven’t covered Syria the way they should' 

 

https://soundcloud.com/radiosputnik/western-media-havent-covered-syria-the-way-they-should-expert

 

And for those who can't listen, here's  bit of the transcription of the audio:

 

Interviewer: What is your reaction to Mr Dalati's tweets?

 

Piers Robinson: It's obviously very interesting that somebody in his position is now declaring that it's his opinion that there was some element of manipulation or fabrication occurring in the events surrounding Douma. In some ways, of course, as you see in the recent Intercept article by [James] Harkin, the message of his idea is that there was an attack of some kind and Riam Dalati is saying that there was an attack.  But what kind of attack is unclear. So we really need to hear more from him.

 

But at the very least, if it is the case that it is established that there were staging and manipulation going on, then it really just starts to raise a whole series of further questions about staging and manipulation in the case of Douma, running all the way through to the obvious question which is whether it was some kind of a false flag event. That it was something that was carried out by opposition groups, Jaish al-Islam, in order to try to enable a military intervention, which obviously did occur six or seven days later with the bombing against Damascus. All of that is on the table now, undoubtedly.

 

And in some ways what Riam is saying does confirm what myself and many other academics, independent researchers and journalists have been saying for some time that there are serious questions about the official claims being brought forward by Western governments about what happened in Douma.

Edited February 15, 2019 by FormerSheff

[FormerSheff]

23 hours ago, Magilla said:

Zerohedge.com - Propagator of conspiracy theories and misinformation. Sympathetic to the Russian government

 

https://api.newsguardtech.com/1B10A8FE3FE38166041EF99B6BDE6C3DBB841FCEEEDFD4175C9CAF9BCEAB07ABCF99012502C3C4DCAEEB5CE0D52E57448BE7BF0BD3B1BB9A

Here are a couple of articles about 'Newsguard', from Mint Press News. They look at its founders, Advisory Board, staff,  investors, possible conflicts of interest, etc. They also give examples of where it gives 'high scores' to news agencies that have written stories or made statements that later proved to be entirely false:

 

How a NeoCon-Backed “Fact Checker” Plans to Wage War on Independent Media:

https://www.mintpressnews.com/newsguardneocon-backed-fact-checker-plans-to-wage-war-on-independent-media/253687/

 

NeoCons Test Drive Newest Weapon to Crush Indie Media, Put MintPress in Their Crosshairs:

https://www.mintpressnews.com/newsguard-neocons-test-drive-newest-weapon-to-crush-indie/253684/

 

Some of those on Newsguard's Advisory Board, are former CIA & NSA Director Michael Hayden, Tom Ridge, the first Secretary of Homeland Security under George W. Bush, and Richard Stengel, who oversaw public diplomacy in under Barack Obama, and who last month, during a Council on Foreign Relations presentation, said: 

 

"My old job at the State Department was what people used to joke as the ‘chief propagandist’ job.  I’m not against propaganda. Every country does it, and they have to do it to their own population, I don’t necessarily think it’s that awful"

 

The second of those two articles also goes into Newsguard's assessment of Mint Press News, and the list of questions they asked to 'assess their credibility.'  Here's the first question they asked:

 

How does your website generate revenue?

 

ANSWER: Mint Press News is reader supported journalism. We receive donations through our website, Paypal and Bitcoin. We hold semi-annual fundraising drives as well as bi-annual membership drives to sustain our main operation expenses.  In addition, we accrue some revenue from selling advertising. This is made clear on each page of our website. We receive no funding from any government or former government officials, from any member or former member of another media organization, such as the Wall Street Journal, or any organization involved in lobbying for or against any particular legislation, unlike NewsGuard.

 

This video also makes some good points. I like what he says about numbers (re the rating system of Newsguard)

 

"The tech world really likes this stuff, give everything a number! If you give it a number, it makes it more real. So if you get more than 60 points, you're 'real' and if you get 59 points, you're 'fake'. By creating something like a points system, it makes it feel more real. Maths is true! We can argue about climate change,  we can argue about Trump, we can argue about a lot of things, but we all know that Maths is true! So by giving something a points value system, you now attribute it to Maths, and since we know that Maths is true, we know that this is also true! If you say its done by opinion, that's bad, that's horrible, but if you give the opinion numbers, and then you say the numbers instead of the opinion, because you're saying it in Maths, it seems more legitimate" 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 16, 2019 by FormerSheff

[Magilla]

4 hours ago, FormerSheff said:

Here are a couple of articles about 'Newsguard', from Mint Press News

Oh dear you really have got it bad

 

I only used newsguard because it had a webpage I could conveniently link to that has a pretty good rundown of all the issues with Zerohedge... saves typing. Anyone can do their own research and see that in this case, regardless of your feelings for newsguard, their assessment is fair.

 

If you're not happy, why not link to another provider who're prepared to say how accurate and reliable they think Zerohedge is?

 

Same for CGTN, RadioSputnik & MintPress. As for Piers Robinson... probably the less said the better.

 

Again, the problem isn't the story itself, but your sources... all of which are so laughable they basically discredit themselves.

 

As you say though, that doesn't disprove the story, so I've no doubt it'll be appearing in articles from more reputable sources soon.

 

 

Edited February 16, 2019 by Magilla

[FormerSheff]

On 16/02/2019 at 02:56, Magilla said:

The irony, given the below.

 

Because you didn't attempt to even try to debunk anything newsguard said, instead resorting to the same whataboutery that you just condemned

 

As it happens, I did a fairly decent search re: zerohedge, newsguards assessment. doesn't seem unreasonable.

 

The founder describes it's political stance as "Russia=good. Obama=idiot. Bashar al-Assad=benevolent leader. John Kerry= dunce. Vladimir Putin=greatest leader in the history of statecraft"

 

It's not the founder of Zero Hedge that said that. It was said by  Colin Lokey, a guy who wrote for Zero hedge for less than a year. He said it after his acrimonious departure from Zero Hedge. Lokey joined Zero Hedge some time in  2015 and he left the site in April 2016.  He was the youngest of the writers. The founder of Zero Hedge - which began in 2008,  is  Daniel Ivandjiiski.  Zero Hedge wrote an article all about Lokey leaving, and it included Zero Hedges comments on that quote of Lokey.

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-bloombergs-attempt-unmask-zero-hedge

 

So much for your 'fairly decent search"  re Zero Hedge.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 17, 2019 by FormerSheff

[FormerSheff]

20 hours ago, Magilla said:

Oh dear you really have got it bad

 

I only used newsguard because it had a webpage I could conveniently link to that has a pretty good rundown of all the issues with Zerohedge... saves typing. Anyone can do their own research and see that in this case, regardless of your feelings for newsguard, their assessment is fair.

As you used Newsguard, I just wanted to look more into it. Yes, anyone can do their research, as you did, which resulted in you wrongly ascribing a quote describing Zero Hedge's political stance to the sites founder, when it wasn't the founder who said that. I explained in  my post No.27. 

Quote

 

If you're not happy, why not link to another provider who're prepared to say how accurate and reliable they think Zerohedge is?

I don't feel I need to link to some other site that endorses Zero Hedge. You're the one that seems to think that's a necessity. As I said previously, I think that rather than judging an article, video or whatever, based on which site it's on, it's better to judge it based on its content. 

Quote

 

Same for CGTN, RadioSputnik & MintPress. As for Piers Robinson... probably the less said the better.

 

Again, the problem isn't the story itself, but your sources... all of which are so laughable they basically discredit themselves.

Point out some factual error in those two articles I posted from Mint Press, or in the CGTN  video, or anything I've posted so far. To just keep dismissing everything, saying the sources are laughable, without giving any examples of what it is they're doing wrong, is lazy. 

Edited February 17, 2019 by FormerSheff

[Magilla]

15 minutes ago, FormerSheff said:

That quote ....

He said, she said, they said.... laughable. You're wasting your time.

[Car Boot]

The BBC using propaganda to support the military and economic aims of the Western capitalist powers? 

 

Quelle surprise. 

 

'Twas ever so.