Reuters & AP & ITV News and their ilk- LIARS, FOOLS or BOTH?

I hope you read all the way to the bottom on this one. In a free society, the availability of accurate news is crucial. Everything you are about to read is troubling in the extreme!

Zombietime has a complete examination of the ambulance supposedly bombed by the Israeli Army-

+ Introduction

On the night of July 23, 2006, an Israeli aircraft intentionally fired missiles at and struck two Lebanese Red Cross ambulances performing rescue operations, causing huge explosions that injured everyone inside the vehicles. Or so says the global media, including Time magazine, the BBC, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and thousands of other outlets around the world. If true, the incident would have been an egregious and indefensible violation of the Geneva Convention, and would constitute a war crime committed by the state of Israel.

But there's one problem: It never happened.


Read the entire post and learn why Zombie (and others) have come to the following conclusion:


+ Conclusion: How a Hoax Became News


So, what really happened? The Lebanese and the global media insist that the ambulances were deliberately targeted by Israel, for the specific purpose of killing civilians and rescue workers -- a serious war crime.

Israel, for its part, has stated repeatedly that it never intentionally attacks rescue vehicles, but otherwise has stayed mostly silent about the incident, apparently awaiting further information.

But what would the average reasonable person conclude after reading and viewing all the evidence on this page? What do you think is the truth behind this incident?

This story, as presented in the media, seems to have more holes than the ambulance roof. Not a single aspect of it holds up under examination. But then what did occur?

Consider the following scenario:

Two ambulances that had been somehow damaged long before the July Israel-Hezbollah conflict even began were dragged out of a salvage yard, where they had been rusting for months or years. They were taken to a parking lot and smashed up even more, inside and out. Then fresh gurneys were placed inside one of them. An intentionally amateurish video was then taken of the two vehicles, in order to show the damage. That night, as planned, some Red Cross workers feigning minor injuries rushed into a hospital in Tyre, and recounted a tale of horror: their ambulances had been attacked by Israeli missiles. The media was notified.

The next day, reporters from around the world interviewed the ambulance drivers as they lay in the hospital sporting prop bandages. The one driver who spoke the best English was quoted the most in the English-speaking press. The journalists, however, were not allowed to inspect the ambulances themselves; instead, the pre-packaged video was supplied to them, freezeframes from which were used as illustrations to accompany the articles. Three patients in the same hospital were identified as also being victims of the attack, even though their injuries had actually happened elsewhere. Every single Western reporter accepted the ambulance drivers' story without question. Emboldened by the media's credulity, the drivers exaggerated the severity of the incident with each new interview, until it no longer even vaguely matched the staged evidence. The story was broadcast to the world, and accepted as fact.

A few days later, after the Western press had wandered away to find other stories, the damaged ambulances were towed and parked in front of the Red Cross office in Tyre, as a martyrdom exhibit for the sympathetic local press and residents. Few if any mainstream journalists ever attempted to verify any of the claims made by the ambulance crews, despite the seriousness of the charge.


Could it be that the entire incident is a fabrication? All signs point to "Yes."


If so, the implications are enormous, both for the outcome of the war and for the credibility of the media. Most analysts agree that Israel was pressured into a ceasefire due to international outcry over how it was conducting the battle. The media informed the public that Israel was intentionally targeting civilians; the public insisted that their governments demand that Israel stand down; international pressure was applied, and Israel caved in. And of all the incidents decried in the media -- taking out infrastructure, destroying Hezbollah-associated buildings that had not been fully evacuated, and so on -- only the ambulance incident could be held up as having no possible military purpose; all the other attacks were pointed out by Israel as being intended to degrade Hezbollah's ability to fight. Aside from a handful of stray missiles and accidents or misunderstandings for which Israel apologized, only this incident was "proof" that Israel was purposely aiming at noncombatants. So reports that an Israeli missile attack destroyed two ambulances played a role in shaping global opinion, which led to a ceasefire leaving Hezbollah intact.

But if the entire incident turns out to have been an elaborate but clumsy hoax, where does that leave the reputation of the media? Not a single reporter or editor doubted the story for a second. Or if they did, they certainly didn't inform readers of their doubts. Why did the media swallow the story hook, line and sinker? In their zeal to bash Israel, did they allow themselves, consciously or unconsciously, to be duped by Hezbollah supporters into broadcasting propaganda as news? Or is the media so eager to jump on any fresh scandal that they simply switch off their critical thinking and become absolutely credulous of any juicy tale thrown their way?

It took the blogs and non-professional independent researchers to shine the harsh light of forensic analysis on this case, in the process debunking just about every aspect of the allegations. And this was done merely with the meager scraps of evidence left over by the "professional" journalists, and by squeezing the maximum amount of information out of the subtlest of clues. But if the journalists who were right there on the scene had even the slightest interest in actually investigating the story, they had access to all sorts of information that could have blown the lid off the case. How hard would it have been to go back to the Red Cross office after a few days to inspect the ambulance carefully in person? To look at the hole in the roof, to photograph the rust up close, to search for burn marks or blood on the gurneys, to notice the driver's healthy chin? Wouldn't that have been a scandal worth reporting?

Is the media that gullible -- or does it have a political bias? Either way, its credibility has now been lost.


Don't think that this one story is an unusual occurrence. Zombie also points out that every news photograph and story you get from the major news media should be suspect. Read and see for yourself before you scoff.

The Reuters Photo Scandal


A Taxonomy of Fraud


The four types of photographic fraud perpetrated by Reuters photographers and editors are:



1. Digitally manipulating images after the photographs have been taken.



2. Photographing scenes staged by Hezbollah and presenting the images as if they were of authentic spontaneous news events.



3. Photographers themselves staging scenes or moving objects, and presenting photos of the set-ups as if they were naturally occurring.



4. Giving false or misleading captions to otherwise real photos that were taken at a different time or place.


Why are the major news media willing to be duped (or even do the duping themselves?) in this crisis situation? Have the news media in general become so saturated with left-leaning reporters so intent on supporting terrorists that they deliberately twist and even make the news to change the world's perception of the realities of the Middle East?

Why are the liberals in this country so willing to try to stop the administration from listening in on phone calls involving terrorists and yet you don't hear one peep from them about this blatant on-going fraud involving the so-called news?

Is the "faked-but-true" style of reporting that led to Dan Rather's career demise a staple of the major news media rather than an aberration? How long have these kinds of things been going on?

How can we believe anything that any of these news agencies report from Iraq, from Afghanistan, from Lebanon, from Israel...from anywhere??? Did this happen in Bosnia? In Vietnam?!!!

This is why I get so much of my news from the internet and check various sources when anything controversial pops up. The Reuters and BBCs and NBCs and APs of this world cannot be trusted to be honest or accurate anymore. I only wish I knew how long that fiction has been presented to me as fact.