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ABC news is trying to pass gun range videos as combat footage from Syria

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Re: ABC news is trying to pass gun range videos as combat footage from Syria

#41

Post by EastLondonCoder »

thanatropism wrote: post #3

There are more instances of credible or plausible media manipulation specifically regarding Syria, e.g. the story of gas attacks in Douma: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-chemical-attack-g... Edit: This, attributed to the same author, is even clearer: https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/27/the-evidence-we-were... ---- "For in the last few days, there has emerged disturbing evidence that in its final repor…

I like Robert Fisk, he is hell of a solid correspondent but on this case he is absolutely wrong.

The Douma gas attack has been investigated not only by the OPCW, but by organisations such as the UN, the Red Cross and pretty much all serious journalism from the BBC, NYTimes to The Times and Wall Street Journal. They all agree that the Syrian Governmant gassed its own people i Douma.

The consensus is overwhelming, the wiki page on the incident lists 119 sources. I obviously haven't checked all of them but most look credible to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douma_chemical_attack

Re: ABC news is trying to pass gun range videos as combat footage from Syria

#42

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

canadacorner wrote: post #11
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #2

I really hope there's an incompetence (as opposed to just not caring about doing their job right) based explanation for this otherwise it calls all of ABC's other reporting into question as well as that of every similiar media company. Edit: I'm genuinely curious why this getting down-voted?

I suspect someone sold them the altered footage and they rushed to get it on the air. Either for a financial benefit, or to specifically get them to air falsified footage. (Project Veritas?) Responsibility still lies with ABC to verify.

TV news stations will almost never pay for just anybody's footage. At the very least, they will work with locals that have some track record.

They might sometimes take youtube footage, foreign broadcasts, or material provided to them by parties to the conflict. But those tend to carry prominent labels and aren't paid for.

Re: ABC news is trying to pass gun range videos as combat footage from Syria

#43

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

ken wrote: post #33
xxxtentachyon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I can take it as an axiom that in order for a democracy to function well, the people in it need to know what's going on both domestically and abroad. Who do you suppose should go out and find and publish needed information? If your answer isn't "journalists", then what separates those people from journalists?

In this case, the complete and correct information was provided by some random people on Reddit, not "journalists". And one answer to your second question could be: money. Professionals need to generate (exactly) 60 minutes of news every night (minus time for commercials), and have it be entertaining enough to get people to watch (so they can sell more commercials). Amateurs providing random facts on the internet are…

So because "some guy on reddit" was right once, that means "some guy on reddit" is trustworthy, and the media is not?

Boy, talk about diminishing standards of critical reasoning skills.

Re: ABC news is trying to pass gun range videos as combat footage from Syria

#44

Post by catalogia »

nyczomg wrote: post #37

Why does this seem to be disappearing from the HN front page? This blatant war propaganda was broadcast to millions of people, possibly after someone at ABC doctored the video. That's a big deal by itself. And if that's not enough for this to be relevant to our interests here, we only know about this because of tech companies like reddit and twitter that give a platform to some random person who can identify this BS…

This discussion has now been flagged as well. I'm curious if anybody who's flagged this would be interested in explaining why they did so.

Re: ABC news is trying to pass gun range videos as combat footage from Syria

#45

Post by Erwin »

nyczomg wrote: post #37

Why does this seem to be disappearing from the HN front page? This blatant war propaganda was broadcast to millions of people, possibly after someone at ABC doctored the video. That's a big deal by itself. And if that's not enough for this to be relevant to our interests here, we only know about this because of tech companies like reddit and twitter that give a platform to some random person who can identify this BS…

It's not relevant to the HN guidelines and so most people will flag it: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Is it interesting that some news org is passing stock footage? Is that in any way new? Maybe if they were using "deepfakes" to generate fake news videos it would be interesting, but it's not like the Turkish attack is in any way disputed.

Is reddit a good "detective"? Well,: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-did-it-reddit

Re: ABC news is trying to pass gun range videos as combat footage from Syria

#46

Post by beerandt »

cptskippy wrote: post #29
codegeek wrote: post #13

Mainstream news media has really gone to the dogs. Doesn't matter which side of the political spectrum you are on, I highly recommend not watching mainstream media on TV and instead find indie youtube channels.

> instead find indie youtube channels. Like Infowars?

If you're watching any news source, and think it's not biased, you need to stop and figure out what their angle is, and why you're allowing them to fool you.

The easiest way to do this is usually listen to the other side.

I'll skeptically take self-admitted bias over subversive "neutral" any day.

The danger is limiting yourself only to sources of similar bias.

Re: ABC news is trying to pass gun range videos as combat footage from Syria

#47

Post by catalogia »

Erwin wrote: post #45
nyczomg wrote: post #37

Why does this seem to be disappearing from the HN front page? This blatant war propaganda was broadcast to millions of people, possibly after someone at ABC doctored the video. That's a big deal by itself. And if that's not enough for this to be relevant to our interests here, we only know about this because of tech companies like reddit and twitter that give a platform to some random person who can identify this BS…

It's not relevant to the HN guidelines and so most people will flag it: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Is it interesting that some news org is passing stock footage? Is that in any way new? Maybe if they were using "deepfakes" to generate fake news videos it would be interesting, but it's not like the Turkish attack is in any way disputed. Is reddit a good "detective"? Well,: https://knowyourmeme.co…

> "Is reddit a good "detective"?"

How is that relevant to this discussion? That reddit is correct in this particular instance isn't in question. Unless you're entertaining the notion of devious redditors hacking youtube to fabricate the original video.. Responding to this circumstance by calling into question the reputation of reddit seems like textbook FUD. There is no legitimate defensible uncertainty or doubt here, no matter reddit's reputation.

Re: ABC news is trying to pass gun range videos as combat footage from Syria

#48

Post by nyczomg »

Erwin wrote: post #45
nyczomg wrote: post #37

Why does this seem to be disappearing from the HN front page? This blatant war propaganda was broadcast to millions of people, possibly after someone at ABC doctored the video. That's a big deal by itself. And if that's not enough for this to be relevant to our interests here, we only know about this because of tech companies like reddit and twitter that give a platform to some random person who can identify this BS…

It's not relevant to the HN guidelines and so most people will flag it: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Is it interesting that some news org is passing stock footage? Is that in any way new? Maybe if they were using "deepfakes" to generate fake news videos it would be interesting, but it's not like the Turkish attack is in any way disputed. Is reddit a good "detective"? Well,: https://knowyourmeme.co…

Those guidelines are fairly subjective when it comes to something like this. They don't say "most stories about politics..." rather than "all stories about politics..." for a reason. I think you could effectively argue either that this is on-topic or off-topic...

That said, then why not err on the side of leaving this up? I like HN because there are usually insightful, level-headed discussions about a wide variety of topics. This is definitely one I'd love to read a larger take on from the HN crowd on. This isn't a status quo I'd like to see more people accept.

Re: ABC news is trying to pass gun range videos as combat footage from Syria

#49

Post by equalunique »

Erwin wrote: post #45
nyczomg wrote: post #37

Why does this seem to be disappearing from the HN front page? This blatant war propaganda was broadcast to millions of people, possibly after someone at ABC doctored the video. That's a big deal by itself. And if that's not enough for this to be relevant to our interests here, we only know about this because of tech companies like reddit and twitter that give a platform to some random person who can identify this BS…

It's not relevant to the HN guidelines and so most people will flag it: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Is it interesting that some news org is passing stock footage? Is that in any way new? Maybe if they were using "deepfakes" to generate fake news videos it would be interesting, but it's not like the Turkish attack is in any way disputed. Is reddit a good "detective"? Well,: https://knowyourmeme.co…

War propaganda, i.e., information warfare, is absolutely relevant to HN & it's readers.

Re: ABC news is trying to pass gun range videos as combat footage from Syria

#50

Post by catalogia »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #20
canadacorner wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect someone sold them the altered footage and they rushed to get it on the air. Either for a financial benefit, or to specifically get them to air falsified footage. (Project Veritas?) Responsibility still lies with ABC to verify.

It's a shitty situation, I doubt ABC knew it was footage from the US. But how do you verify that a random video clip, filmed at night, actually took place in Syria (assuming the crowds were cropped out before they saw it, otherwise its fairly obvious)

I might be treading on thin ice here, but more cultural diversity at ABC could have prevented this. The Knob Creek machine gun shoot is kind of famous in gun-enthusiast circles. With the number of machine guns being shot and the number of hollywood style gasoline explosions going off, I do think I would have recognized the source of this video if it were presented to me without context. There are many videos of this event from different years and from different spectators, but they all generally look about the same; tons of tracers and tons of gasoline fireballs.

I am not a combat veteran so the following is speculative, but I suspect the footage may look suspect to combat veterans as well. Big orange fireballs like that are from milk jugs of gasoline, not high explosives. That sort of thing is done for visual effect, not lethal effect. Certainly vehicle fuel will catch fire on battlefields, but I can't help but suspect the video would look "off" to a combat veteran.

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