by Martin Jay, Strategic Culture:
CNN’s recent report in Damascus by Clarissa Ward deserves an award. But not a press award for its astute journalism, more of a Hollywood one for its almost comical parody. Mark Thompson, CNN’s new British CEO might be disturbed by Ward’s hilarious reportage as it not only comes across as fake, but as it transpires later, it stank of just mere amateurism. The new boss at Atlanta has his work cut out trying to bring back ratings to a network which has been a victim of its success from its former glory years. The bigger you are, the harder you fall, he might argue. What this Irishman, who calls himself a Brit, needs is a bit of the old luck associated with the emerald Isle.
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Where was the tipping point for CNN which now no longer has any credibility as a decent news outlet on the world stage, it once had in the early days? And what is at the core which has led to now millions of humble people on social media being so attuned to its news reports which are so obviously faked? When watching Ward’s piece on the prisoner – who turned out to be an ex intel officer who was banged up due to a vendetta carried out against him by a senior officer – one is left with a dilemma. Are you disappointed by the fact that you are being lied to by a media outlet which is going to such extraordinary lengths to continue Israel’s fake news strategy? Or are you vexed, perhaps as journalists, at how amateur and clumsy the last minute amdram work is, like watching out takes of a British comedy show of soldiers singing on a stage to entertain battle weary soldiers of the British empire? Some mothers really do ‘ave ‘em, he might mutter to himself after watching Ward’s report but for sure our man will have thought also of 90s TV parody mock news show The Day Today which had one actress playing Barbara Wintergreen, an American reporter working for a network called CBN – sketches which mocked American style reporting and how contrived and corrupted its final version was.
Thompson has a real problem at CNN. He is learning after one year or so in the job that trying to rebuild credibility is very hard, even in the fatuous, almost satirical world of international news. Thompson’s biggest problem is that CNN has become so bad, that it has actually become parody or satire. Barbara Wintergreen has literally returned to our screens at Ward. CNN has become a joke and is becoming a liability for its paying masters. Decades of internal corruption coupled with a bigger geopolitical agenda which includes serving Israel’s interests have led to this cancer spreading so far, so quickly.
Ward herself has a terrible reputation for her on-screen drama. But who could blame her when the amateurism and fakery has been so well established for her? There are just too many examples of CNN staging the news in the most shameful theatrical way in recent months in Gaza just to make the point. But a recent report which centred on a work roster, written in Arabic and posted on the wall of a Gaza hospital, should have been a warning to all of us who the real powers are at CNN and what the game is. Fake news on a scale which we haven’t seen before. Indeed, it may well be that Israel and its lobby are patting themselves on the back for making CNN the world leader in fake news. The report of the Gaza hospital was shocking in that even the local CNN Palestinian fixer translated the paper for the journalist Nic Robertson who chose to accept the ludicrous claims of the IDF soldier in preference to the simple axiomatic truth under his nose.
There are just too many of these examples to list. Interns are resigning and exposing them like Ana Maria Monjardino in this excellent piece which should worry Thompson. Other big media outlets are actually feasting on CNN’s dirty work and exposing it for hundreds of millions to see for themselves, like Al Jazeera’s excellent documentary Failing Gaza: Pro-Israel bias uncovered behind the lens of Western media.
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