Photo: filmski.net
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.
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