False ‘combat video’ raises many questions, cautions for media


The following is an excerpt of a news analysis in The Hill.

I feel pretty safe in saying that most Americans can’t tell you off the top of their head who the Kurds are or what the U.S. relationship with them is — let alone how that factors into Iran, Russia, China, Turkey and Syria.

Without explaining as much, the topic of President Trump’s “abandonment” of the Kurds and how it will surely put a resurgence of the Islamic extremist terrorist group ISIS on Trump’s shoulders, has dominated news coverage for much of the past week.

Now comes word from ABC News that it has pulled down video that aired on its flagship broadcasts, which claimed to show a “slaughter” by Turkey on the Syrian border after President Trump’s announced withdrawal of U.S. troops.

ABC correspondent Ian Panell reported on Sunday that the video “obtained by ABC News, appears to show the fury of the Turkish attack on the border town of Tal Abyad two nights ago.”

The pictures show massive explosions lighting up the night sky. But it turns out ABC may have been hoodwinked, according to its own account.

A tweet issued by ABC News on Monday morning reads: “CORRECTION: We’ve taken down video that aired on ‘World News Tonight’ Sunday and ‘Good Morning America’ this morning that appeared to be from the Syrian border immediately after questions were raised about its accuracy. ABC News regrets the error.”

According to National Review, the alleged error was uncovered by social media users who compared the supposed combat footage to a YouTube video of a Kentucky military show — and it appears to be identical. (National Review credited Gizmodo with first reporting on the alleged error and publishing the videos side by side for comparison.)

ABC’s correction is the right move, of course. But I don’t think that’s the end of the story. It’s yet another in a long series of pretty serious media mistakes that never should have happened — and, arguably, would not have if appropriate journalistic standards had been deployed.

Read the rest of the article by clicking the link below:

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/465726-false-combat-video-raises-many-questions-cautions-for-media


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6 thoughts on “False ‘combat video’ raises many questions, cautions for media”

  1. It doesn’t really matter if it’s real or fake as the genie is out of the bottle. Like in a court case, it doesn’t matter if the judge tells the jury to disregard something as they’ve already heard it. And in the U.S. people have no desire to think for themselves or question anything they see or hear. They just want to be spoon fed with what they WANT to hear.

  2. This demonstrates the stupidity and duplicity of the MSM. It also demonstrates their contempt for Americans.

    What it ought to demonstrate to those who seek to infringe our rights and destroy our liberties is that the Americans they seek to enslave are reasonably well armed and just about fed up with this “wannabe tyranny.”

    If a small gun club in Kentucky can stage a show like this, just imagine the response if these twits and soibois ever do decide to “come for our guns.”

    They seem to want a civil war but they have forgotten the historical lessons about how violent and brutal a civil war can be.

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